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edenfalling"The Guardian in Spite of Herself" is the sequel to "The Way of the Apartment Manager," which can be found in final form here on ff.net, or in beta draft with comments here on my livejournal. It also has fanart, which can be found here.
Here, after a five month delay -- for which I am very sorry -- is chapter 11, in which Naga and Kakashi actually do plot-related stuff instead of just traveling and annoying each other, Yukiko thinks her troubles may be nearly over (how wrong she is...), and Eiji has an excessively melodramatic moral crisis.
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The Guardian in Spite of Herself: Chapter 11
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There were hundreds of little idiosyncrasies in stream banks -- there always were; no two places were ever exactly identical -- but Naga wasn't great at spotting that sort of thing. Details were Tsukime's... were Kakashi's job. She only knew they hadn't already passed her old campsite because they hadn't run into Kafunnokaze's team yet.
"Nearly there," Kakashi said, pointing.
Naga tracked his finger and realized the circling birds in the distance were her ravens, not the wider-winged vultures that scavenged the plains. Idiot birds were fucking lucky Kafunnokaze kept a sharp eye out for ravens these days, or they'd be back in their own world right now, nursing burns or dying of poisoned air. She'd have to remind them what 'don't get killed' meant when they were hunting shinobi.
She covered the last half mile at a dead run, trusting Kakashi not to get killed in the minute it would take him to catch up.
"Naga!" Kafunnokaze leapt to his feet -- she had a bare second to note his two teammates around their campfire -- and caught her as she tackled him to the ground. "You're alive, you're alive, you're alive--" His voice washed over her as she clung to him, finally letting go and shaking with all the fear and guilt she'd kept bottled inside since the hospital, since she'd seen Tsukime's slack, nobody's-here face and the twisted mess of her knee, where the medic-nin had had to cut away crucial inches of cooked flesh and heat-shattered bone.
"I fucked up," Naga whispered against Kafunnokaze's neck. "Tsukime's crippled and it's my fault. I made the fire too hot -- if I hadn't been so scared, hadn't pushed the jutsu, they could've saved her knee, but I fucked up. I fucked up, and she'll never do field work again."
"It's okay," he told her. "You were cauterizing, right? Then you saved her life. Tsukime's smart; she'll understand. You got out and got your information back, so whoever got you won't catch anyone else off guard. And you're alive. The assassin put up an aversion jutsu to keep scavengers and insects away from your camp, so we'd see all the blood and Tsukime's leg, and I thought-- but you're alive." His hand pressed against the small of Naga's back, pulling her tight against him, and he kissed the top of her head.
"Yeah. I'm okay." Naga took a deep, shuddering breath, and loosened her hold on her boyfriend. "And I'm going to find Uchiha Itachi and fucking skin him alive. You in?"
"Of course." Kafunnokaze started to dust her off as they sat up. "But if we're hunting an Uchiha, I think I'll pass on the skinning; I'll just hold him down for you. You have to be careful around Uchiha."
"Whatever." Naga twitched her shoulders, suddenly remembering that Kafunnokaze's teammates were watching them. She pulled his glove from her vest pocket and held it out. "Here -- I brought it back for you."
Kafunnokaze pulled a matching glove from his own vest pocket -- he didn't wear his coat in summer, not unless he was on solo missions and could use his full arsenal of poisons -- and waved it in her face. "It's yours -- I made them for you. Didn't you check the size?" He held the glove against his hand in demonstration, showing the mismatch.
Naga flushed and grabbed the glove, tugging it over her own fingers. It fit perfectly. It would also help keep her knuckles from splitting open in fights and protect her skin from her ravens' talons; Kafunnokaze was thoughtful like that. "I was distracted," she said. "Give me some breathing space."
"Nah, I like you right next to me," Kafunnokaze said, wrapping his arm back around her. "Come have dinner and tell us all about this Uchiha Itachi."
"Yeah, listen to Kaze-kun," Hino Suisen chimed in, waving a skewer of roasted meat in friendly offering. "And tell your partner to stop hiding, because we know he's there and it'd be stupid to pretend we don't." Late afternoon sunlight flashed off the mirrors at her wrist and throat as she pointed past Naga's shoulder.
Kakashi stepped out of the tassel grass onto the stream bank, holding his hands up to show he wasn't holding a weapon or preparing a jutsu. "Fair enough. I've seen all of you fight, but I don't think we've had the pleasure of introductions. I'm Hatake Kakashi, jounin. You?"
"Hino Suisen, Makiba Kohaku, and me, Nagoyaka Kafunnokaze, all chuunin," Kafunnokaze said, standing and helping Naga to her feet. "So, tell me -- it makes sense to send a Sharingan user to fight a Sharingan user, but why not send an Uchiha? They must be pissed off that one of their clan went bad."
"All the Uchiha in Konoha are dead," Naga said, as Tsukime flashed before her mind's eye again. "Itachi killed them."
The three Grass-nin were silent for a long moment. Then, "What, all of them?" Kohaku asked, pulling off his bandana and twisting it in his hands. "How does one man kill a whole clan of Uchiha? It's hard enough to fight just one!"
"He kills them by finding a new level to their bloodline limit and taking advantage of their own arrogance," Kakashi said dryly. "Make no mistake: Uchiha Itachi is dangerous. He could easily have made jounin before this incident; now he's S-class by any definition." He raked the Grass-nin with a considering stare. "I'm not sure why you're still tracking him. He's almost certainly left your country by now, and I doubt he attacked any of your people. Have the Master and council of Hidden Grass authorized your mission?"
Suisen and Kohaku exchanged a guilty look, and Kafunnokaze squeezed Naga's hand. "Not exactly," Suisen said, "but we're on indefinite border patrol until anything bigger comes up, and we think this qualifies as something bigger. It's a bad precedent to let missing-nin move freely through our country."
"Besides, we couldn't let Kaze hunt the bastard alone," Kohaku added. "What's the point of being a team if you don't support your partners?"
Kakashi beamed at them. "Well said! I don't know how much weight the opinion of a Leaf-nin will hold in your village, but I'll certainly put in a good word for you when you have to explain yourselves to your superiors. Now." He whistled, summoning his dogs out of the long grass; the pack clustered around his feet, eyeing the Grass-nin suspiciously. "I assume you know that Itachi went northeast. We'll follow him in the morning."
"We don't take orders from you," Kafunnokaze said. "Under alliance terms, all joint Grass-Leaf missions are run in tandem by a representative from each village."
Boys. Naga kicked him in the ankle -- this wasn't time for posturing. Especially not against Kakashi, who could probably kill them all without much bother. It was lucky the silver-haired bastard wasn't in the habit of taking insults personally.
"That's true, in theory," Kakashi agreed, slouching down by the fire and grabbing a skewer from the coals. "But you know as well as I do that theory isn't practice. In the field, there's only one commander per unit. Unless you think you'll do a better job than I will..."
"Shut up and do as we're told?" Kohaku finished wryly.
"Exactly. I see we'll get along just fine."
Naga squeezed Kafunnokaze's hand to keep him from protesting.
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To Yukiko's devout (though unspoken) relief, Naruto and Sasuke's first day undercover went smoothly. Some of the merchants talked her ear off complaining about bad precedents, and Naruto drove Seichi's cover persona nearly crazy with his unending stream of questions, but those were minor details, easily handled. Yukiko smiled, nodded, murmured polite nothings, and smiled brightly at Seichi every time he asked to be relieved of babysitting duties.
She even saw Sasuke smile once, when the annoying woman from Water Country squealed like a stuck pig at the sight of a giant centipede galumphing through the trees beside the road. "They have giant squid and fish with teeth like swords down in the islands," Sasuke said when Naruto asked what was so funny. "If she's scared of a centipede, I wonder what she's like on boat trips."
After a moment, Naruto burst into raucous laughter.
On the boys' second day as civilians -- the third day out of Konoha -- the caravan reached Nagarehiya. From the south, the city didn't look like much, just another mid-sized town with traditional Fire Country walls and flaring roofs and narrow skyways, surrounded by fields and outlying clusters of farmhouses.
Inside the walls was another story. Nagarehiya stood at the tip of a long, narrow lake, where several streams rushed down from the hills and poured through a series of spectacular waterfalls. The oldest parts of the city sat on the narrow, sandy lakeshore, but generations of people had built up the hillsides, leveling terraces and building bridges over the deep gorges as they went, until they reached flat land in the upper valley and finally set up the ring wall.
"Wow," Naruto said, as they crossed their first swaying suspension bridge. "That's a long way down."
"Yeah, and you're not a ninja, Yu-kun, so be careful," Yukiko said, grabbing the back of his shirt and hauling him more firmly onto the front seat of Yoshitaka-san's wagon. "Falling off a bridge is one of the stupidest ways to die."
"Oh, I've heard of more brainless deaths, but I don't think they're suitable for young ears," Seichi said with a hint of laughter in his voice. "Maybe I'll tell you tonight, Yuki-chan... once we're alone in our room."
Naruto folded his arms scowled. "Stop teasing Yukiko-neechan, you jerk! She doesn't like you, and I don't like you either, so just go away." But he didn't reach around Yukiko to try hitting Seichi; he'd learned the hard way that Seichi had no qualms pinning him to the seat and spanking him when he got out of hand.
The caravan trundled over another two bridges and down several switchback turns in the road until they reached the guard station housing Leaf-nin on long-term contracts. The merchants waited impatiently for Kurenai to check them all in; then they split up, unpacking the communal wagons and driving the private ones off to their various destinations.
"You're swinging west after tomorrow, right?" Yukiko asked Yoshitaka-san as she slung her bag of fabric samples over her shoulder.
"Yes, but we'll have plenty of time to see each other tonight," he said. "I'm staying at the Seven Larks, down by the lakeshore. Should I reserve rooms for you?"
Yukiko exchanged a glance with Seichi -- he shrugged -- and said, "Yes, thank you, two rooms should be fine. Good luck with your sales." Yoshitaka-san nodded, waited for his son to climb onto the front seat, and flicked the reins of his mules; his wagon rumbled off down the street.
Naruto, Sasuke, and Seichi looked around, and then turned to Yukiko with varying degrees of confusion and anticipation on their faces. "Now what?" Sasuke asked.
Yukiko held up her hand, all fingers extended. "Five things. One, we buy Sakama-kun some new shirts. Two, we take Yu-kun to a hairdresser. Three, I hit the local cloth merchants and tailors to see about drumming up business for my cousin. Four, we get a good night's sleep. Five, I leave you kids with the guards tomorrow morning when the caravan moves out, and they escort you home to Konoha." She folded down one finger for each point until she had a closed fist. "I don't want to hear any complaints. You're getting off lightly already, and since I'm not going anywhere near Sakama-kun's brother, not even you two can be boneheaded enough to think following me to Tengai is a good idea."
Naruto looked mutinous and Sasuke closed in on himself, darkly, but neither opened their mouths.
"Good. Come on -- unless they've gone out of business since the spring, there's a good off-the-rack clothing store across the next bridge and a hairdresser's around the corner." Yukiko tossed the sample bag to Seichi, grabbed Naruto's hand, and walked down the street.
"You heard the lady," Seichi said, and after a moment she heard Sasuke's footsteps following them.
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Eiji spent the morning distracted by each breath of air through his window or footstep beyond his door; every noise might be the Cloud-nin coming to denounce and execute him, or Ginji coming to report the man's death. He feared both options.
"Kill him," he'd said to Ginji, but he had no idea how or when Ginji might carry out that order. He didn't want to know. He wanted to pretend the incident had never happened... except the idea of turning his back on his responsibility for a human's death felt somehow more repulsive than ordering that death in the first place.
Shortly past noon, he gave up on his pretense of paperwork and went out for lunch. Normally he'd order in, but he needed to get out of the building, needed to shake the feeling of imprisonment. His current guard -- this one a tall, gaunt woman with a gauzy veil, formerly from Hidden Grass -- strode beside him.
"Do you mind sushi, Hanran-san?" Eiji asked her as they turned a corner.
"Why?" the guard asked without turning to face him; she stared at the roofs, and then switched her attention down to a swirl of shouting children around a yatai.
"Because I plan on eating sushi, but if you'd prefer something else, I could be persuaded to change my mind," Eiji said. "The children are harmless; the school lets out for lunch at noon and I hear the school cooks aren't all that good."
Hanran hummed noncommittally. "Children can be shinobi and crowds are always dangerous. I won't eat on duty, Eiji-dono. Have your sushi, as long as you let me scout the restaurant first."
In ninja jargon, 'scout' seemed to mean 'intimidate the wait staff, rearrange the tables, glare the other customers out of the room, and terrorize the cooks while checking the kitchen for poison.' Eiji sighed. Ginji swore those were standard precautions for an assassination target, but he felt ridiculous going along with that level of paranoia. He liked to keep in touch with the town, and this security blanket cut him off from his own people.
He might as well have ordered in, for all the relaxation he'd get with guards constantly hovering in the background.
Eiji led the way down to the water, smiling at everyone he passed and doing his best to ignore Hanran's tense presence at his side. The harbor district was one of the rougher parts of Tengai, home to taverns and flophouses that catered to sailors eager to cram a month of living into a week of shore leave between voyages, but Eiji didn't mind. He'd spent his share of years living out of canvas bags and rented rooms in ports just like this, all over the continent. Besides, the best seafood restaurants were down by the docks, including his favorite sushi place, right around the corner from Rika's office.
Eiji stopped outside the door to let Hanran do a quick check of the interior -- driftwood tables and mismatched chairs, filled with people eating and talking; a long counter along the back where the owner stood, occasionally filling a glass with beer or a cup with sake; the swinging screen door to the kitchen where the cook shouted instructions to her assistant; and two pretty waitresses stopping now and then to take orders or refill a teacup. When Hanran nodded, he walked to the counter and beckoned the owner over.
"Sorry about this, Sui-san," Eiji said. "Ginji's more paranoid than usual and this" -- he waved at Hanran as she slipped into the kitchen -- "is the result. I'm just here for take-out, whatever today's special is. I'll pay double for the inconvenience."
Sui's mouth twisted sourly. "I keep telling you I don't need charity. People get used to anything after a while -- you know I even have idiots come in here and ask when you'll drop by so they can stare at all your pet ninja?" He drew a glass of beer from a barrel under the counter and handed it to Eiji. "Drink this, Eiji-san. You look like you could stand a bit of mellow. Suzume will have your usual ready a few minutes after she kicks your ninja out."
Eiji drank his beer and wished all his problems could dissolve themselves so neatly.
When would Ginji kill the Cloud-nin? And how on earth did Ginji expect to talk his way out of the investigation into the man's death? Shinobi might not mourn each other, but they tended to be very interested in anything that could threaten their own power and lives -- neither Eiji nor Ginji could afford that sort of scrutiny.
"The kitchen is clean," Hanran announced as she insinuated herself back into the main room. "You should hire a taster."
Eiji dug his fingernails into the palm of his left hand. "No. It's bad enough that I have to put up with you when I can't afford to hire equal protection for everyone in Tengai. I'm not going to barricade myself behind a fortress and ignore the risks everyone else is willing to shoulder."
Hanran shook her head, but said nothing. Sui handed him another beer, and said, "You're crazy, Eiji-san. I like your dream -- kami be my witness, those ninja need someone to keep them in check -- but you're going to get yourself killed."
"Maybe so. It's still my choice," Eiji said.
It was morally wrong to order a man's death and then cower away from the consequences. He almost wished the Cloud-nin would appear in the doorway and accuse him of turning Ginji traitor and conspiring to destroy his old hometown. He wanted some balance to his decision. He didn't want to die -- his fantasy included Hanran forcing the man out into the street, or Ginji appearing at the Cloud-nin's back and dealing swift death -- but to cold-bloodedly order the murder of a human being, to sink to the level of the people he wanted to bring down...
It took Eiji several moments to realize that a brown paper bag had appeared beside his glass and Sui was snapping his fingers to get his attention.
"I don't know what's on your mind, Eiji-san, but I'd rather you didn't play thundercloud here. Take your lunch and go fix whatever problem's heading for our town," Sui said. "Today's on the house."
"Thanks," Eiji said after a pause. "And I am sorry for the trouble, Sui-san."
"If you were really sorry, you'd make Ginji stop staring at my waitresses like he thinks they're assassins in disguise," Sui grumbled, but he smiled as he waved Eiji out the door.
As he walked back up the hill toward his office, Eiji pulled a tuna roll from the bag and did his best to concentrate on food instead of murder. You couldn't build a ship without cutting down trees, as they said; the Cloud-nin was a sacrifice for the greater good. He couldn't afford to tangle himself up in guilt, not until after the message had spread and people had seen evidence of at least one town standing up to a hidden village. Of course, it would be a battle of missing-nin against their former comrades, but the details would vanish as the tale spread, and civilians would take heart and begin to question their own subordination to shinobi and the feudal system they propped up.
Things would change. Things had to change.
He took a few minutes to drop by Mitsu-chan's nursery school and watch the children. They'd been learning the basics of calligraphy -- sheets of wobbly bone and hook strokes lay drying on a low table -- but the teacher had turned them loose after the lesson. Mitsu-chan and two other girls were chasing a boy, threatening him with dripping brushes. Their own clothes were already stained with ink, and Mitsu-chan had black smudges all over her face and arms.
Eiji slipped away before she noticed him.
"You should fire that teacher, Eiji-dono," Hanran said as they climbed the stairs to Eiji's office. "Children need to play, but games should also teach useful skills or attitudes. That didn't do either. Your daughter deserves better; her bloodline shouldn't be wasted."
"My daughter deserves to be a child, not a weapon in training," Eiji snapped. He opened his door and strode through before Hanran could stop him.
Then he froze.
Ginji sat cross-legged on his desk, holding a forehead-protector. A streak of drying blood slashed through Cloud's symbol.
"Is that--?"
"Yes," Ginji said. "Hanran, leave."
As the door clicked shut, Ginji tossed the forehead-protector to Eiji, and made a series of hand seals that pulled a thick, unnatural silence over the room. "I'll send that back with a courier tomorrow. The official story is that Hideo stumbled onto a man listed in Cloud's bingo books, tried to take him down, and fell to the missing-nin's own allies before I could reach him. I had to use lightning to get them all; there's no evidence left but ashes."
"Who did you murder?" Eiji whispered, running the singed fabric through his fingers. The metal plate seemed to stare at him in accusation.
Ginji shrugged. "Half our security forces are wanted by one village or another, even if they're low-priority kills. I waited until Hideo found one, and then I killed him while his attention was elsewhere." He shrugged. "Yes, we lost Hideo's target, but he was scum to start with, and nobody ever accused Hideo of bad aim. Let it go, Eiji. We aren't anywhere close to safe. We haven't even reached the eye of the storm. This is no time for second thoughts."
"I know," Eiji said. He twisted the cloth between his hands one last time, and then held the forehead-protector out toward Ginji. "Thank you. And I'm sorry. I shouldn't ask so much of you, not after all you've done already."
"Why not? I'm shinobi; this is what I do. Once I did it for Cloud. Now I work for you and Tetsuko. There's no point letting my skills go to waste." Ginji tucked the forehead-protector into a vest pocket and crossed to the window.
Eiji looked down at his hands, now streaked with ash. A murderer's hands, if only indirectly. A warlord's hands. "Ginji. Are we doing the right thing?"
Ginji stared out the window. "How should I know? You're the philosopher; I just kill people. But yes, I think you're doing the right thing."
"Why?"
"You don't want to know," Ginji said, without turning to face Eiji. His voice had gone cold and flat. Empty. Dead.
"Ginji..."
After nearly a minute of silence, Ginji sighed. "I learned to fight because I wanted to protect you and Tetsuko, not because I wanted to kill at someone else's word. I don't mind what Cloud did to me. They gave me the ability to fight back effectively. But I don't want Mitsuko to go through that. I don't want her to end up like me."
"What does Mitsu-chan--"
"You're not stupid; think about it," Ginji said, pinning Eiji with a hard stare. "Ever since the blood limit riots, the council's been desperate to gain an advantage over the villages that gave the 'freaks' refuge. That's why they try to kidnap or coerce people up to Thunder Country. That's why they force shinobi into arranged marriages. If they can't steal limits, they'll breed new ones. I'm a lightning elementalist; so were my parents, and two of my grandparents. The medic-nin suspect Tetsuko and Mitsuko share that affinity. It's not much trouble for me -- now and then I make a donation at the hospital and they let me be -- but for a girl..." Ginji trailed off and let Eiji's own knowledge of biology and Hidden Cloud fill in the rest.
It was one thing to arrange a marriage that would be advantageous for the family. That was only good sense. But a parent had to take the child's good into account as well, because if the marriage foundered, the family would eventually fail. Humans were tools of their clans and villages, but not only tools; humans had minds and hearts and souls as well, and nobody should ever pretend otherwise.
To push people into breeding programs, as if they were dogs or cattle to be shaped at their owners' desires...
"You're doing the right thing," Ginji repeated, resting his hand on Eiji's shoulder. "Maybe not every hidden village is like Cloud, but that's where the ninja code leads in the end. If people are nothing but tools, the world falls apart. Somebody has to step back and call an end to it." He squeezed Eiji's shoulder, once, and then vanished out the window.
The unnatural silence lingered behind him.
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End of Chapter Eleven
Back to chapter 10
Continue to chapter 12
Read the final version here on ff.net. (Trust me, you want to read the final version. The lj version is a beta draft, with all the boneheaded mistakes that implies.)
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In real life news, one of my movies came in through interlibrary loan. My evening plans are set. :-)
Now I just wish I had some popcorn...
Here, after a five month delay -- for which I am very sorry -- is chapter 11, in which Naga and Kakashi actually do plot-related stuff instead of just traveling and annoying each other, Yukiko thinks her troubles may be nearly over (how wrong she is...), and Eiji has an excessively melodramatic moral crisis.
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The Guardian in Spite of Herself: Chapter 11
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There were hundreds of little idiosyncrasies in stream banks -- there always were; no two places were ever exactly identical -- but Naga wasn't great at spotting that sort of thing. Details were Tsukime's... were Kakashi's job. She only knew they hadn't already passed her old campsite because they hadn't run into Kafunnokaze's team yet.
"Nearly there," Kakashi said, pointing.
Naga tracked his finger and realized the circling birds in the distance were her ravens, not the wider-winged vultures that scavenged the plains. Idiot birds were fucking lucky Kafunnokaze kept a sharp eye out for ravens these days, or they'd be back in their own world right now, nursing burns or dying of poisoned air. She'd have to remind them what 'don't get killed' meant when they were hunting shinobi.
She covered the last half mile at a dead run, trusting Kakashi not to get killed in the minute it would take him to catch up.
"Naga!" Kafunnokaze leapt to his feet -- she had a bare second to note his two teammates around their campfire -- and caught her as she tackled him to the ground. "You're alive, you're alive, you're alive--" His voice washed over her as she clung to him, finally letting go and shaking with all the fear and guilt she'd kept bottled inside since the hospital, since she'd seen Tsukime's slack, nobody's-here face and the twisted mess of her knee, where the medic-nin had had to cut away crucial inches of cooked flesh and heat-shattered bone.
"I fucked up," Naga whispered against Kafunnokaze's neck. "Tsukime's crippled and it's my fault. I made the fire too hot -- if I hadn't been so scared, hadn't pushed the jutsu, they could've saved her knee, but I fucked up. I fucked up, and she'll never do field work again."
"It's okay," he told her. "You were cauterizing, right? Then you saved her life. Tsukime's smart; she'll understand. You got out and got your information back, so whoever got you won't catch anyone else off guard. And you're alive. The assassin put up an aversion jutsu to keep scavengers and insects away from your camp, so we'd see all the blood and Tsukime's leg, and I thought-- but you're alive." His hand pressed against the small of Naga's back, pulling her tight against him, and he kissed the top of her head.
"Yeah. I'm okay." Naga took a deep, shuddering breath, and loosened her hold on her boyfriend. "And I'm going to find Uchiha Itachi and fucking skin him alive. You in?"
"Of course." Kafunnokaze started to dust her off as they sat up. "But if we're hunting an Uchiha, I think I'll pass on the skinning; I'll just hold him down for you. You have to be careful around Uchiha."
"Whatever." Naga twitched her shoulders, suddenly remembering that Kafunnokaze's teammates were watching them. She pulled his glove from her vest pocket and held it out. "Here -- I brought it back for you."
Kafunnokaze pulled a matching glove from his own vest pocket -- he didn't wear his coat in summer, not unless he was on solo missions and could use his full arsenal of poisons -- and waved it in her face. "It's yours -- I made them for you. Didn't you check the size?" He held the glove against his hand in demonstration, showing the mismatch.
Naga flushed and grabbed the glove, tugging it over her own fingers. It fit perfectly. It would also help keep her knuckles from splitting open in fights and protect her skin from her ravens' talons; Kafunnokaze was thoughtful like that. "I was distracted," she said. "Give me some breathing space."
"Nah, I like you right next to me," Kafunnokaze said, wrapping his arm back around her. "Come have dinner and tell us all about this Uchiha Itachi."
"Yeah, listen to Kaze-kun," Hino Suisen chimed in, waving a skewer of roasted meat in friendly offering. "And tell your partner to stop hiding, because we know he's there and it'd be stupid to pretend we don't." Late afternoon sunlight flashed off the mirrors at her wrist and throat as she pointed past Naga's shoulder.
Kakashi stepped out of the tassel grass onto the stream bank, holding his hands up to show he wasn't holding a weapon or preparing a jutsu. "Fair enough. I've seen all of you fight, but I don't think we've had the pleasure of introductions. I'm Hatake Kakashi, jounin. You?"
"Hino Suisen, Makiba Kohaku, and me, Nagoyaka Kafunnokaze, all chuunin," Kafunnokaze said, standing and helping Naga to her feet. "So, tell me -- it makes sense to send a Sharingan user to fight a Sharingan user, but why not send an Uchiha? They must be pissed off that one of their clan went bad."
"All the Uchiha in Konoha are dead," Naga said, as Tsukime flashed before her mind's eye again. "Itachi killed them."
The three Grass-nin were silent for a long moment. Then, "What, all of them?" Kohaku asked, pulling off his bandana and twisting it in his hands. "How does one man kill a whole clan of Uchiha? It's hard enough to fight just one!"
"He kills them by finding a new level to their bloodline limit and taking advantage of their own arrogance," Kakashi said dryly. "Make no mistake: Uchiha Itachi is dangerous. He could easily have made jounin before this incident; now he's S-class by any definition." He raked the Grass-nin with a considering stare. "I'm not sure why you're still tracking him. He's almost certainly left your country by now, and I doubt he attacked any of your people. Have the Master and council of Hidden Grass authorized your mission?"
Suisen and Kohaku exchanged a guilty look, and Kafunnokaze squeezed Naga's hand. "Not exactly," Suisen said, "but we're on indefinite border patrol until anything bigger comes up, and we think this qualifies as something bigger. It's a bad precedent to let missing-nin move freely through our country."
"Besides, we couldn't let Kaze hunt the bastard alone," Kohaku added. "What's the point of being a team if you don't support your partners?"
Kakashi beamed at them. "Well said! I don't know how much weight the opinion of a Leaf-nin will hold in your village, but I'll certainly put in a good word for you when you have to explain yourselves to your superiors. Now." He whistled, summoning his dogs out of the long grass; the pack clustered around his feet, eyeing the Grass-nin suspiciously. "I assume you know that Itachi went northeast. We'll follow him in the morning."
"We don't take orders from you," Kafunnokaze said. "Under alliance terms, all joint Grass-Leaf missions are run in tandem by a representative from each village."
Boys. Naga kicked him in the ankle -- this wasn't time for posturing. Especially not against Kakashi, who could probably kill them all without much bother. It was lucky the silver-haired bastard wasn't in the habit of taking insults personally.
"That's true, in theory," Kakashi agreed, slouching down by the fire and grabbing a skewer from the coals. "But you know as well as I do that theory isn't practice. In the field, there's only one commander per unit. Unless you think you'll do a better job than I will..."
"Shut up and do as we're told?" Kohaku finished wryly.
"Exactly. I see we'll get along just fine."
Naga squeezed Kafunnokaze's hand to keep him from protesting.
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To Yukiko's devout (though unspoken) relief, Naruto and Sasuke's first day undercover went smoothly. Some of the merchants talked her ear off complaining about bad precedents, and Naruto drove Seichi's cover persona nearly crazy with his unending stream of questions, but those were minor details, easily handled. Yukiko smiled, nodded, murmured polite nothings, and smiled brightly at Seichi every time he asked to be relieved of babysitting duties.
She even saw Sasuke smile once, when the annoying woman from Water Country squealed like a stuck pig at the sight of a giant centipede galumphing through the trees beside the road. "They have giant squid and fish with teeth like swords down in the islands," Sasuke said when Naruto asked what was so funny. "If she's scared of a centipede, I wonder what she's like on boat trips."
After a moment, Naruto burst into raucous laughter.
On the boys' second day as civilians -- the third day out of Konoha -- the caravan reached Nagarehiya. From the south, the city didn't look like much, just another mid-sized town with traditional Fire Country walls and flaring roofs and narrow skyways, surrounded by fields and outlying clusters of farmhouses.
Inside the walls was another story. Nagarehiya stood at the tip of a long, narrow lake, where several streams rushed down from the hills and poured through a series of spectacular waterfalls. The oldest parts of the city sat on the narrow, sandy lakeshore, but generations of people had built up the hillsides, leveling terraces and building bridges over the deep gorges as they went, until they reached flat land in the upper valley and finally set up the ring wall.
"Wow," Naruto said, as they crossed their first swaying suspension bridge. "That's a long way down."
"Yeah, and you're not a ninja, Yu-kun, so be careful," Yukiko said, grabbing the back of his shirt and hauling him more firmly onto the front seat of Yoshitaka-san's wagon. "Falling off a bridge is one of the stupidest ways to die."
"Oh, I've heard of more brainless deaths, but I don't think they're suitable for young ears," Seichi said with a hint of laughter in his voice. "Maybe I'll tell you tonight, Yuki-chan... once we're alone in our room."
Naruto folded his arms scowled. "Stop teasing Yukiko-neechan, you jerk! She doesn't like you, and I don't like you either, so just go away." But he didn't reach around Yukiko to try hitting Seichi; he'd learned the hard way that Seichi had no qualms pinning him to the seat and spanking him when he got out of hand.
The caravan trundled over another two bridges and down several switchback turns in the road until they reached the guard station housing Leaf-nin on long-term contracts. The merchants waited impatiently for Kurenai to check them all in; then they split up, unpacking the communal wagons and driving the private ones off to their various destinations.
"You're swinging west after tomorrow, right?" Yukiko asked Yoshitaka-san as she slung her bag of fabric samples over her shoulder.
"Yes, but we'll have plenty of time to see each other tonight," he said. "I'm staying at the Seven Larks, down by the lakeshore. Should I reserve rooms for you?"
Yukiko exchanged a glance with Seichi -- he shrugged -- and said, "Yes, thank you, two rooms should be fine. Good luck with your sales." Yoshitaka-san nodded, waited for his son to climb onto the front seat, and flicked the reins of his mules; his wagon rumbled off down the street.
Naruto, Sasuke, and Seichi looked around, and then turned to Yukiko with varying degrees of confusion and anticipation on their faces. "Now what?" Sasuke asked.
Yukiko held up her hand, all fingers extended. "Five things. One, we buy Sakama-kun some new shirts. Two, we take Yu-kun to a hairdresser. Three, I hit the local cloth merchants and tailors to see about drumming up business for my cousin. Four, we get a good night's sleep. Five, I leave you kids with the guards tomorrow morning when the caravan moves out, and they escort you home to Konoha." She folded down one finger for each point until she had a closed fist. "I don't want to hear any complaints. You're getting off lightly already, and since I'm not going anywhere near Sakama-kun's brother, not even you two can be boneheaded enough to think following me to Tengai is a good idea."
Naruto looked mutinous and Sasuke closed in on himself, darkly, but neither opened their mouths.
"Good. Come on -- unless they've gone out of business since the spring, there's a good off-the-rack clothing store across the next bridge and a hairdresser's around the corner." Yukiko tossed the sample bag to Seichi, grabbed Naruto's hand, and walked down the street.
"You heard the lady," Seichi said, and after a moment she heard Sasuke's footsteps following them.
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Eiji spent the morning distracted by each breath of air through his window or footstep beyond his door; every noise might be the Cloud-nin coming to denounce and execute him, or Ginji coming to report the man's death. He feared both options.
"Kill him," he'd said to Ginji, but he had no idea how or when Ginji might carry out that order. He didn't want to know. He wanted to pretend the incident had never happened... except the idea of turning his back on his responsibility for a human's death felt somehow more repulsive than ordering that death in the first place.
Shortly past noon, he gave up on his pretense of paperwork and went out for lunch. Normally he'd order in, but he needed to get out of the building, needed to shake the feeling of imprisonment. His current guard -- this one a tall, gaunt woman with a gauzy veil, formerly from Hidden Grass -- strode beside him.
"Do you mind sushi, Hanran-san?" Eiji asked her as they turned a corner.
"Why?" the guard asked without turning to face him; she stared at the roofs, and then switched her attention down to a swirl of shouting children around a yatai.
"Because I plan on eating sushi, but if you'd prefer something else, I could be persuaded to change my mind," Eiji said. "The children are harmless; the school lets out for lunch at noon and I hear the school cooks aren't all that good."
Hanran hummed noncommittally. "Children can be shinobi and crowds are always dangerous. I won't eat on duty, Eiji-dono. Have your sushi, as long as you let me scout the restaurant first."
In ninja jargon, 'scout' seemed to mean 'intimidate the wait staff, rearrange the tables, glare the other customers out of the room, and terrorize the cooks while checking the kitchen for poison.' Eiji sighed. Ginji swore those were standard precautions for an assassination target, but he felt ridiculous going along with that level of paranoia. He liked to keep in touch with the town, and this security blanket cut him off from his own people.
He might as well have ordered in, for all the relaxation he'd get with guards constantly hovering in the background.
Eiji led the way down to the water, smiling at everyone he passed and doing his best to ignore Hanran's tense presence at his side. The harbor district was one of the rougher parts of Tengai, home to taverns and flophouses that catered to sailors eager to cram a month of living into a week of shore leave between voyages, but Eiji didn't mind. He'd spent his share of years living out of canvas bags and rented rooms in ports just like this, all over the continent. Besides, the best seafood restaurants were down by the docks, including his favorite sushi place, right around the corner from Rika's office.
Eiji stopped outside the door to let Hanran do a quick check of the interior -- driftwood tables and mismatched chairs, filled with people eating and talking; a long counter along the back where the owner stood, occasionally filling a glass with beer or a cup with sake; the swinging screen door to the kitchen where the cook shouted instructions to her assistant; and two pretty waitresses stopping now and then to take orders or refill a teacup. When Hanran nodded, he walked to the counter and beckoned the owner over.
"Sorry about this, Sui-san," Eiji said. "Ginji's more paranoid than usual and this" -- he waved at Hanran as she slipped into the kitchen -- "is the result. I'm just here for take-out, whatever today's special is. I'll pay double for the inconvenience."
Sui's mouth twisted sourly. "I keep telling you I don't need charity. People get used to anything after a while -- you know I even have idiots come in here and ask when you'll drop by so they can stare at all your pet ninja?" He drew a glass of beer from a barrel under the counter and handed it to Eiji. "Drink this, Eiji-san. You look like you could stand a bit of mellow. Suzume will have your usual ready a few minutes after she kicks your ninja out."
Eiji drank his beer and wished all his problems could dissolve themselves so neatly.
When would Ginji kill the Cloud-nin? And how on earth did Ginji expect to talk his way out of the investigation into the man's death? Shinobi might not mourn each other, but they tended to be very interested in anything that could threaten their own power and lives -- neither Eiji nor Ginji could afford that sort of scrutiny.
"The kitchen is clean," Hanran announced as she insinuated herself back into the main room. "You should hire a taster."
Eiji dug his fingernails into the palm of his left hand. "No. It's bad enough that I have to put up with you when I can't afford to hire equal protection for everyone in Tengai. I'm not going to barricade myself behind a fortress and ignore the risks everyone else is willing to shoulder."
Hanran shook her head, but said nothing. Sui handed him another beer, and said, "You're crazy, Eiji-san. I like your dream -- kami be my witness, those ninja need someone to keep them in check -- but you're going to get yourself killed."
"Maybe so. It's still my choice," Eiji said.
It was morally wrong to order a man's death and then cower away from the consequences. He almost wished the Cloud-nin would appear in the doorway and accuse him of turning Ginji traitor and conspiring to destroy his old hometown. He wanted some balance to his decision. He didn't want to die -- his fantasy included Hanran forcing the man out into the street, or Ginji appearing at the Cloud-nin's back and dealing swift death -- but to cold-bloodedly order the murder of a human being, to sink to the level of the people he wanted to bring down...
It took Eiji several moments to realize that a brown paper bag had appeared beside his glass and Sui was snapping his fingers to get his attention.
"I don't know what's on your mind, Eiji-san, but I'd rather you didn't play thundercloud here. Take your lunch and go fix whatever problem's heading for our town," Sui said. "Today's on the house."
"Thanks," Eiji said after a pause. "And I am sorry for the trouble, Sui-san."
"If you were really sorry, you'd make Ginji stop staring at my waitresses like he thinks they're assassins in disguise," Sui grumbled, but he smiled as he waved Eiji out the door.
As he walked back up the hill toward his office, Eiji pulled a tuna roll from the bag and did his best to concentrate on food instead of murder. You couldn't build a ship without cutting down trees, as they said; the Cloud-nin was a sacrifice for the greater good. He couldn't afford to tangle himself up in guilt, not until after the message had spread and people had seen evidence of at least one town standing up to a hidden village. Of course, it would be a battle of missing-nin against their former comrades, but the details would vanish as the tale spread, and civilians would take heart and begin to question their own subordination to shinobi and the feudal system they propped up.
Things would change. Things had to change.
He took a few minutes to drop by Mitsu-chan's nursery school and watch the children. They'd been learning the basics of calligraphy -- sheets of wobbly bone and hook strokes lay drying on a low table -- but the teacher had turned them loose after the lesson. Mitsu-chan and two other girls were chasing a boy, threatening him with dripping brushes. Their own clothes were already stained with ink, and Mitsu-chan had black smudges all over her face and arms.
Eiji slipped away before she noticed him.
"You should fire that teacher, Eiji-dono," Hanran said as they climbed the stairs to Eiji's office. "Children need to play, but games should also teach useful skills or attitudes. That didn't do either. Your daughter deserves better; her bloodline shouldn't be wasted."
"My daughter deserves to be a child, not a weapon in training," Eiji snapped. He opened his door and strode through before Hanran could stop him.
Then he froze.
Ginji sat cross-legged on his desk, holding a forehead-protector. A streak of drying blood slashed through Cloud's symbol.
"Is that--?"
"Yes," Ginji said. "Hanran, leave."
As the door clicked shut, Ginji tossed the forehead-protector to Eiji, and made a series of hand seals that pulled a thick, unnatural silence over the room. "I'll send that back with a courier tomorrow. The official story is that Hideo stumbled onto a man listed in Cloud's bingo books, tried to take him down, and fell to the missing-nin's own allies before I could reach him. I had to use lightning to get them all; there's no evidence left but ashes."
"Who did you murder?" Eiji whispered, running the singed fabric through his fingers. The metal plate seemed to stare at him in accusation.
Ginji shrugged. "Half our security forces are wanted by one village or another, even if they're low-priority kills. I waited until Hideo found one, and then I killed him while his attention was elsewhere." He shrugged. "Yes, we lost Hideo's target, but he was scum to start with, and nobody ever accused Hideo of bad aim. Let it go, Eiji. We aren't anywhere close to safe. We haven't even reached the eye of the storm. This is no time for second thoughts."
"I know," Eiji said. He twisted the cloth between his hands one last time, and then held the forehead-protector out toward Ginji. "Thank you. And I'm sorry. I shouldn't ask so much of you, not after all you've done already."
"Why not? I'm shinobi; this is what I do. Once I did it for Cloud. Now I work for you and Tetsuko. There's no point letting my skills go to waste." Ginji tucked the forehead-protector into a vest pocket and crossed to the window.
Eiji looked down at his hands, now streaked with ash. A murderer's hands, if only indirectly. A warlord's hands. "Ginji. Are we doing the right thing?"
Ginji stared out the window. "How should I know? You're the philosopher; I just kill people. But yes, I think you're doing the right thing."
"Why?"
"You don't want to know," Ginji said, without turning to face Eiji. His voice had gone cold and flat. Empty. Dead.
"Ginji..."
After nearly a minute of silence, Ginji sighed. "I learned to fight because I wanted to protect you and Tetsuko, not because I wanted to kill at someone else's word. I don't mind what Cloud did to me. They gave me the ability to fight back effectively. But I don't want Mitsuko to go through that. I don't want her to end up like me."
"What does Mitsu-chan--"
"You're not stupid; think about it," Ginji said, pinning Eiji with a hard stare. "Ever since the blood limit riots, the council's been desperate to gain an advantage over the villages that gave the 'freaks' refuge. That's why they try to kidnap or coerce people up to Thunder Country. That's why they force shinobi into arranged marriages. If they can't steal limits, they'll breed new ones. I'm a lightning elementalist; so were my parents, and two of my grandparents. The medic-nin suspect Tetsuko and Mitsuko share that affinity. It's not much trouble for me -- now and then I make a donation at the hospital and they let me be -- but for a girl..." Ginji trailed off and let Eiji's own knowledge of biology and Hidden Cloud fill in the rest.
It was one thing to arrange a marriage that would be advantageous for the family. That was only good sense. But a parent had to take the child's good into account as well, because if the marriage foundered, the family would eventually fail. Humans were tools of their clans and villages, but not only tools; humans had minds and hearts and souls as well, and nobody should ever pretend otherwise.
To push people into breeding programs, as if they were dogs or cattle to be shaped at their owners' desires...
"You're doing the right thing," Ginji repeated, resting his hand on Eiji's shoulder. "Maybe not every hidden village is like Cloud, but that's where the ninja code leads in the end. If people are nothing but tools, the world falls apart. Somebody has to step back and call an end to it." He squeezed Eiji's shoulder, once, and then vanished out the window.
The unnatural silence lingered behind him.
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End of Chapter Eleven
Back to chapter 10
Continue to chapter 12
Read the final version here on ff.net. (Trust me, you want to read the final version. The lj version is a beta draft, with all the boneheaded mistakes that implies.)
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In real life news, one of my movies came in through interlibrary loan. My evening plans are set. :-)
Now I just wish I had some popcorn...
gaurdian
Date: 2007-10-29 05:04 am (UTC)I CANT WAIT
YOU GOT ME HOOKED W/ MANAGER
AND I NEED MORE
Re: gaurdian
Date: 2007-10-29 07:20 pm (UTC)