As Time Stands Still

The girl had a problem. Ever since she could remember, she felt the beings around her. Everyone pulsed—an alternating current of energy radiating from their very soul, surging outwards and leaving an aura behind wherever they went. It used to exhaust her, where being in large crowds left her dizzy with a mounting migraine at the onset of all the varying flavors of people. Nowadays, the war had desensitized her. An influx had come to settle in her otherwise depopulated town, and the plethora of new imprints to her sense had taken only a few grueling weeks to get used to.

The day the fighting arrived to the borders of the Land of Woods, her parents had helped her pack a go-bag. Her mother folded in a set of pajamas, and her father tucked in a pointed knife with a bandaged handle. He’d said he purchased it for her at one of the souks held at the town center. Though the bag was hers, they made her swear to never play with the weapon, that it wasn’t a toy, that it was only for emergencies, that as the oldest she had to set an example for her younger sister who was arriving soon—blah blah blah. She’d heard that same spiel over and over again. The bag sat beneath her bed now, collecting dust.

Ever the pessimist, her father insisted that the end was nigh—that very soon their village was to be ransacked by those stupid ninja and that if they didn’t take arms and join the fight, everything they knew would perish beneath the flames of a fireball or under the wave of some sort of water jutsu.

At least, that’s what she’d heard while eavesdropping on his late-night conversations with the neighborhood men, as she served them coffee and dates on a wobbly tray. She wasn’t too sure what a jutsu was, or how giant fireballs came into play, but she knew that if she asked she’d be reprimanded for listening in on adult conversations.

In the present day, she sat on the windowsill of her second-story bedroom, forehead pressed against the glass. With her eyes closed, she felt her core reach out deep into the woods on the outskirts of her town. Her father told her that when she reached out into the air—to sense, to feel, to touch—that someone somewhere might feel her presence right back. This late into the evening, with her sleep already disturbed, she didn’t particularly care.

She’d all but memorized the impression of the surrounding forestry. The only living things that roamed the nights were the bears, who against all odds seemed friendly enough. Her father referred to them as summons, and would tell her that if she ever got lost exploring, she could follow one and it would bring her right back home. Lately though, there was wasn’t much exploring to be done. All of her relatives and cousins were locked up at home just as she was, and the only way she saw anyone these days was in passing trips to the market for basics on dust-collecting shelves. To cure her boredom, she’d made a point to practice her sixth sense every evening. After all, the movement of people in the nearby houses and streets kept her up anyway. If she could feel them against her will, she might as well try to sense them as she pleased.

Content, Hana surveyed her tidy room. Her mother was always on her case about keeping things in order. The woman had a baby on the way, already plump and unsteady on her feet, and she wanted Hana to be ready for her new responsibilities as an older sister. Hana always scoffed at the prospect—in secret, of course. How would a baby make her a different person? Hana was Hana—a little girl who lived in a pretty little town off into the little Land of Woods, who just so happened to have perception beyond the bounds of the human psyche, which she sometimes used to sneak around with! Oh well, her mother was always the dramatic type.

When the baby came, Hana felt true, genuine fear for the first time. Her calligraphy tutor scared her sometimes, smacking a ruler on to the back of her hand whenever she incorrectly modeled a stroke with an ink-laden brush. The old lady down the street who cured tobacco sacred her too—with her fingers deeply calloused from the threading needle used to string the leaves together. This fear was different. With all the hospitalists and doctors outsourced near the border, her parents enlisted the help of a young midwife from the town over. She was in their house now, yelling at her mother to push from behind the closed door of her parent’s bedroom.

Her mother’s screams were ringing in her ears as Hana sat in her own room, head tucked between her knees and eyes screwed shut as tightly as they would go. Even if she couldn’t see what was happening, she could feel it. Her mother’s heart pounded harshly in her ribcage, and each breath she took was expelled out of her in a surge of energy. The creation—the baby—was an energy-sucking monstrosity that was consuming her mother’s life directly from the source. Hana could only cry silently, willing into the universe that her mother would be okay.

When the baby was finally born, all the energy in the air had settled. Serenity itself had permeated the household, and from then on Hana felt the distinct bundle of a miniature life force wherever she went.

They had to move further west. In a carriage no less.

Hana took to carrying the baby. Her mother had named her Sara, and Sara sat wrapped in a sling knotted tightly along Hana’s waist. She walked alongside the carriage her mother currently sat in, being propelled forward by her father and his sturdy horse. The carriage, packed high with all the items they could manage to fit, had gotten awfully stuffy, and Hana had convinced her mother to allow her some fresh air in the form of a stroll. That, and the sheer amount of families with their new chakra signatures walking alongside them was giving Hana a headache.

Other than the necessities, Hana was allowed to bring along a single frivolous item. Well, a collection of frivolous items. Her cassettes of music and the associated playing device had been her life line this past year. With her mounting inability to bear the weight of her sixth sense, the music somehow managed to subdue any of the discomfort that stemmed from the exhaustion she was bound to feel. Her father explained that music distracted the part of her brain that housed her chakra sensing abilities. Whatever that meant. She realized a while ago that life was easier if she didn’t dwell too much on what he said. With the promise that they would come back home soon, Hana relented to leaving all her dolls and calligraphy books behind.

When they finally arrived at their destination, Hana decided that she would hate cities for the rest of her life. There was just so much. So much activity, so much movement, so much life—it made her sicker and sicker the deeper into the fray they traveled. Hana, who had been so bored of her little town, so desperate to sense something new for once, quickly realized how the war was taking everything she had ever known and jumbling it all into a ball to be chewed on and spit out. Hana decided she hated war now, too. But as long as her and the little baby she teased and tickled—that bundle of life that was burned into her hippocampus—were okay to play another day, then she supposed everything would be alright after all.

Chapter 2: Thus Saith the Lord

Notes:

The Land of Woods is a country that borders the Land of Fire, and is the only thing that stands between it and the Land of Water (and by extension, the Hidden Mist Village). Without a shinobi village, the Third Great Shinobi War was certain to have desecrated such places, especially if they were in opportune locations

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The stuffiness of the apartment was driving Hana crazy. The slightest motion from anyone in her periphery—now a collection of distant relatives from even the furthest shore of the Land of Woods—left a sour taste in her mouth, and the lack of snacks in the cupboard was making her crabby. After her second tantrum of the day, her father dragged her to a clearing at the park nearby.

She dug her feet into the ground alongside the man as he pulled her along, knowing she was about to get an earful, or a beating, or—god forbid—both.

“Hana. Are you listening to me?”

No, she wasn’t, but she nodded yes anyway.

“This is important. Things are only going to get worse, and we need to be prepared.” He stood the girl in front of him roughly. “I know you’re tired, I know you’re overwhelmed, but you need to listen.”

Not knowing how else to respond, she nodded meekly. In truth, discussions of the war had long since lost their appeal to her curiosity. Any mention of what was happening across the way (and slowly making its way to their front door) left the young girl an anxious, spiraling mess. But not one to disappoint her father, she kept those feelings to herself.

“Your mother would kill me if she found out I was teaching you this. But, maybe it’ll help you focus on something else for a change, too. And she’ll understand eventually, but you can’t tell her now, alright?” He proceeded on, couching to Hana’s height and holding her hands in his own.

“Mmhm.” She grinned slyly, squeezing his hands, but otherwise clueless as to what he was talking about.

He piqued up, enthused by the little girl’s promise.

“First, you need to understand some things.” He spoke seriously, patting the girl’s head. “You already know what chakra is—you’ve been able to feel it your whole life.”

“It’s your’s, and everyone else’s, life force. It’s what powers all living things—allowing you and me and everyone around us to live.” He motioned around them towards the empty field. Hana knew this already, having heard this lecture from the collection of doctors her parents had taken her to years ago. They went on and on about her other sense, and how her headaches would only get better when she got used to her talents, as they called them.

Some advice that was.

“But it does more than that! It allows very special people, like you and me, to do jutsu.” Sensing the question on Hana’s tongue, he put up his hand to silence the girl before any words spilled out.

“Let me finish. A jutsu is a dangerous technique you are not to use unless I am watching, especially not around your mother, sister, or that blubbering aunt of yours.” He whispered that last part under his breath.

“It requires hand seals—specific signs made with your fingers—to channel your chakra into real life magic!”

“Magic?” She asked hesitantly, thinking her father was playing one of his silly pranks on her.

“Magic! Like being able to walk on water! Or make a copy of yourself, or even make huge balls of fire out of thin air!”

There he went on again about those stupid ninja and their silly magic. Hana was starting to think those late nights were catching up to him in even worse ways than his physical appearance alone.

“I’m not going to teach you just any jutsu though—I’m going to teach my favorite jutsu to my favorite oldest child.” He grinned cheekily. “But don’t think about that chakra stuff just yet. I just want you to focus on those hand signs I mentioned, and once we get the hang of that, then we can think about the hard stuff, alright?”

This time, Hana nodded much more enthusiastically. If her father said that magic was real, and that he was going to teach her something super special and super cool, who was she to decline the offer? With a smile so large that it split her face in two, Hana learned.

Boar.

Hands clasped, aimed down.

Dog.

A fist with a flattened palm above.

Bird.

A triangle with curled indexes.

Monkey.

Hands clasped, palms together, thumbs linked.

Ram.

Pointer and middle facing up, fingers locked.

Her father had called it the summoning jutsu, reminding her of the bears that roamed their forests back in town. He’d told her stories of how he fought alongside them, a clan of their own in a land far, far away. How they came to him in moments of need in a plume of smoke at the blink of an eye. How they taught him, and how he in turn taught them. He said that the contract between him and the bears—one born of blood—was the greatest thing he had ever done. He said that it had almost cost him his life, too, undergoing challenge after challenge to prove to those beasts that he, a man, was worthy of their partnership.

Late that night, lying awake in her makeshift bed, Hana practiced the hand signs until her fingers went numb. She fell asleep, fingers interlaced awkwardly with the chant of Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram heavy on her mind. She dreamt of animals running through the forest, and silly little magic tricks.

Early in the morning, Hana sat on the balcony across from her mother, who sipped black coffee in a fine porcelain cup with geometric patterns swirled around its rim. They both looked down at the streets that slowly emptied day by day, as people left further west and even crossed the border deeper into the mainland. After another sleepless night, Hana was dozing in and out of consciousness, head lolling to the side as she attempted to keep upright in her plastic chair.

“Hana.” Her mother called to her, ever so gently. Hana felt herself respond, but she wasn’t too certain.

“Hana!”

At that, the girl shot upright, now wide awake. Her mother laughed softly at her reaction, and reached across the low table to smooth her messy hair.

“Trouble sleeping again?”

Hana confirmed with a slight hum, nodding sheepishly in response.

“That’s alright. Why don’t we do something fun, since we’re both up?”

Hana looked to her mother curiously in the dim light of the dawn.

“I’m going to teach you something, something very special. But under no circumstances are you allowed to tell your father, okay?” Her mother began.

“He’d understand eventually, but he’d be so mad at me for showing you so soon. Ah, well. The times call for it.” She trailed off, looking to the horizon before shaking her head with a huff of her breath. She instructed the girl to tiptoe past her father, who was asleep on the couch, and retrieve a box tucked into her mother’s closet, careful not to wake the baby sleeping in her crib. It was no bigger than a jewelry case, made of the deep cedar wood that littered the landscape of their home and secured shut with a tarnished lock.

Bringing the box back to her mother’s waiting form, Hana looked on as the woman accepted the item. She placed it on the table between them, and motioned for Hana to sit back down. The woman then hovered her hand over the lock, and Hana, sensing the woman pulse something into the metal, felt her jaw drop as the box subsequently shot open.

“How did you do that!?” She blinked owlishly at the woman across from her. Her mother only smiled in response, gesturing to its contents.

“Do you remember how, back when everyone was still together at home, we used to paint each other’s hands with pretty designs made with henna?”

Instead of the typical dye, which was used to stain the skin with intricate florals and repeating patterns, the jar of paste in the box was alive. Hana could feel it like she could feel a person, and it had its own chakra signature—a weight that cemented it within space and time. Beside it was a stack of clear plastic film, intended for the formation of the applicators that would be used to handle the paste.

“This is infused henna, with that very life force you can feel all around us. The ninja call it fuinjutsu when they create infused ink to paint their kanji on scrolls or flesh, but we do it a little differently.” She paused, rolling a cone out of the plastic film with trained hands.

“See, when we use normal henna, we stain designs on our skin that last for weeks at a time. With chakra-infused henna, we can stain storage chambers onto our very bodies.” She continued, popping open the jar of the dark paste and carefully filling the plastic cone she had prepared.

“These storage chambers can even hold on to our life force, our chakra, in finite amounts for an infinite amount of time.” She looked up at Hana now, and having completed the setup of the henna cone, beckoned her daughter to place her hands face up on the low table.

“By storing our chakra into the pattern, we can do something as simple as give ourselves a little pulse of extra energy, or something as complicated as complete revival.”

As her mother painted Hana’s palms, she was tickled by the cold sensation of the paste. It sent tingles deep into her skin, making her shift uncomfortably in her seat. Unperturbed, her mother continued onwards. She carefully filled her daughter’s finger tips, save for the nails, with a pattern that made it appear as though her fingers had been dipped into the darkest of earth. Then, using a dotted outline, the girl’s mother connected the edges of a geometric rosette, right at the center of the young girl’s palm.

Within the rosette, she drew three letters.

The delicate curve of the first.

The smooth dip of the second, with its two dots sitting below.

The sharp curve of the third, with its two dots sitting above.

The calligraphic depiction of the word hayat now stared up at Hana from her palm. Life, existence—Hana wasn’t sure what her mother meant by staining her hands with such a term.

After adding a collection of ornamentations, her mother fanned her palms above her daughter’s painted ones in an effort to make them dry faster.

“When this stain fully develops, I’ll teach you how to channel your chakra to hide and reveal these seals. They’re permanent, so they won’t go anyway until you choose to change them, but for now, let’s just get through the basics before I teach you how to actually utilize them later on.”

Her mother described it as sealing, a coveted technique that bent the space-time continuum to the whims of the user. She explained how, long ago, she was sought out across the countryside for her creative talents in designing patterns for the technique. How she would create seals for a variety of usages, and sell them to support her family. She described how they could be used for the storage of money, weapons, valuables—even chunks of land and entire bodies of water. All folded into an unseen dimension by the power of a dainty design printed on to the user’s skin.

Unable to sleep again those following nights, Hana stared at that pattern that materialized and dematerialized on her palms. After the hundredth time of playing peek-a-boo with her new tattoo, Hana would exhaust herself into a restless slumber, dreaming of calligraphy ink and stained fingers all through the night.

When the men came marching through the streets for the first time, her father refused to let her near the windows. They were boarded shut, as though that would prevent Hana from knowing what was happening outside their crowded apartment, now filled to the brim with cousins and distant relatives. Her father looked older than she remembered him ever looking—with golden eyes that matched her own now sunken between deep purple bags. She knew he wasn’t sleeping, because she felt him lying awake into the late hours of the night just as she was. On the nights that she felt bold enough to take a chance, she would move from her mattress to the arm chair which her father sat, positioned by the door to the apartment, gripping one of those strange knives tightly in his fists. There she would cuddle up by his side and promptly fall asleep, ignorant to the full extent of the danger they were in.

She was holding a ripened fig in her palm, scowling as she glared at the insulting fruit.

It was supposed to have disappeared by now, supposed to have gone poof and left their realm of existence behind. Or something. Hana wasn’t exactly sure.

You have to feel it. You have to embrace the object as though it is a part of you, become one with it, and will it away . Her mother had said. How could she feel a fruit that had been plucked from a tree, lifeless in her hands? The fig had no soul, no life force pumping through its veins, and Hana felt she might as well have been holding a rock in its place.

It was tradition, her mother explained, to start with a fig as the first item sealed within your soul. The heavenly fruits brought abundance and prosperity—and just like consuming them regularly, sealing them within yourself was thought to do the same. That, and they made a tasty snack for later.

So with henna-stained hands and a wrinkle in her brow, Hana took a deep breath. She was hunched cross-legged beneath the window of their apartment, sunlight shining through the glass pane in streams of gold, its heat uncomfortable against Hana’s back. Earlier, they had been practicing meditation like usual, her and her mother, circling chakra from deep within their core, then up towards the tops of their heads, and then down the path of each limb one by one. That’s how the woman had taught Hana to materialize the seals on her palms in the first place, and even after weeks of nothing but meditation, she was still only able to draw an iota of chakra into her clutch to will the ink to the surface.

Following that accomplishment, her mother had given Hana a new grueling task to struggle with; to seal away a single fig using sheer determination and will power alone. She didn’t let the girl go about it entirely blind, though, leaving her with one hint before relinquishing any more participation in the matter.

Become one with it, and it will become one with you.

Whatever that meant. Seriously! What was with her parents and their cryptic lessons surrounding ninja arts? Hana huffed at the memory of her mother’s words, shaking her head before going back to glaring at the tedious fruit. She had tried to ‘become one’ with the object over and over, thinking of its fleshy core and leathery exterior. What did a fig feel? Was it conscious as it digested the wasp at its center? She understood the fruit well enough, but what did that have to do with being able to seal it away?

So she sat there, fruit in hand, pondering the life cycle of the fig. As her chakra danced across the surface of her palms, Hana slowly cloaked the fig in her essence, chakra seeping its way beyond the exterior shell and deep within the folds of its gooey insides.

There was a pop, and the fig was gone. Hana stared at her empty palms in awe.

She could still feel its weight, somehow, deep in the tresses of her mind like a reminder that it was still there, it still existed, it still lived, despite being gone before her eyes with a single blink.

Now, all she had to do was figure out how to get it back.

It hadn’t taken Hana long to memorize the hand seals of the summoning justu. It was a simple enough sequence, and with nothing better to do other than sit idly by a radio that drawled on and on about seized lands, advancing troops, and current death counts, Hana found the process to be quite fun. It was like playing cat’s cradle, in a way.

They meant nothing, her father explained, without the intentional flow of chakra through a person’s circuitry. So when he finally sat her down to explain how the mere symbols could lead them to the next phase of the process, Hana was once again exited by the prospect.

The hand seals, coupled with the meditation techniques she’d been learning from her mother, were a conduit to mound the chakra within the body. They directed the current of energy where it needed to be localized, before transforming it and expelling it outwards to be materialized in the physical world according to an individual’s natural inclination to the elements.

A flimsy piece of paper told Hana that her nature was towards water and earth.

That, though, wasn’t what the pair was exploring in the present day. Instead of learning to react chakra into expulsions of liquid or solid matter, her father was attempting to teach her a justu that was entirely un-elemental. It was instead a technique to bring forth a being, or even multiple, that lived in a separate reality entirely. Summons, as they were commonly referred to, were sentient creatures that lived amongst members of their own species in tribes or clans much like those of humans. They just so happened to exist in a sister realm to that of the earth, and sometimes partnered with man for common gain.

This partnership wasn’t just that—it was a blood contract that lasted the entire lifespan of the human being, which summoned creatures often outlasted for generations. And much like chakra nature, human souls held an inclination towards a particular creature that would ultimately be bound to them forever, one that reflected their greatest strengths and deepest desires.

For Hana’s father, it was his bears. He intended to have her to join in on his contract, as it would be easily passed down considering she was his eldest child. But, he had refrained from having her sign the scroll off the jump, citing it to be too soon for the little girl who was still so far from able to conduct the jutsu in the first place, or even handle the responsibility. They’d even been practicing with a sewing needle, with him showing her the least painful locations to draw blood from prior to the action.

A trickle of red. A palm slapped upon a hard floor. They repeated the motions until Hana’s hands were pulsing from the strain.

And so, when the jutsu actually commenced, and Hana opened her eyes expecting her father to be before her, only to be met with vivid green forestry—she was shocked, to say the least.

And when they sent her back, it was to the raging screams of her mother as she cursed the day she met Hana’s father, yelling things like ‘How could you be so stupid? She’s just a girl! You’ve sent my daughter to die by the hands of a summon clan we don’t even know! Bring her back to me, or so help me god I’ll’—

Her parents were quite happy to see the girl alive, save for a few scratches and bruises—even with the close-eyed tiger club making itself comfortable in her lap.

When the city fell, Hana was with her sister.

She had taken the child for a walk in her stroller, stocked with a diaper bag and a single jar of mushed apples and pears. It had been a quiet few weeks, with people slowly and uneasily returning to their daily lives. Schools were in session. Shops were importing goods once more. And, Hana had grown to appreciate the bustling city lifestyle. As their extended relatives slowly moved back to their own homes, her family instead elected to stay put for a little while longer, seeing that the towns such as their own—those closer to the Land of Water and that miserable ninja village it housed—still weren’t entirely safe.

She begged her parents to let her go out on her own, for once, and they finally relented only after she promised to feed the baby on her walk. The girl sat now, on a bench, merely a few blocks away from that stuffy apartment.

Cobblestone streets winded throughout the city, donned with tall limestone buildings and open stalls for fruit markets and cafes older than even her grandparents. This deep into it, the characteristic Cedars of God which stood tall at the edges of the border were nowhere in sight.

Aside from missing her other home, Hana was slowly getting comfortable with the ninja arts her parents were introducing her to. Why they found the jutsu they were teaching her to be so pertinent, she wasn’t sure, but the newfound understanding of chakra these abilities brought made it a little easier to appreciate her sixth sense.

Her pocket dimension even had a few figs stored within. And, whenever she felt like it, she could summon her quickly growing tiger companion—Safa, she had named him—to cuddle with. Life was, quite frankly, getting better and better. If it wasn’t for the overcast sky, Hana would consider this to be a perfect day.

She didn’t like the rain. Not only because it frizzed her already unruly hair, but because it muddled her sense too. She was standing there, contemplating the likelihood of downpour with Sara gurgling away in the stroller before her when the first siren sounded.

A harrowing wail, it was almost melodical in the way it alternated between high and low tones. Immediately, the people on the street around her jumped into motion, dragging their children into nearby stalls, shutting the window panes of rooms high above, and otherwise rushing to get inside. Hana could only do the same, twisting the baby food jar shut with a quick flick of her wrist before pushing the stroller as quickly as she could back towards their building.

She felt it before it happened. From down the road, a rumble reached her feet and traveled all the way up her spinal cord. Distantly, she recognized this feeling as an expulsion of chakra, something she’d felt last in her town so many moons ago when ninja and men on the waterfront would fight into the long hours of the night. Before she could even process this information, though, the force of the resulting explosion had flung her backwards off her feet and stolen the breath entirely from her chest.

The baby was screaming, but Hana could barely hear it over the ringing in her ears. Things were happening all around her and she wasn’t catching her bearings fast enough. She crawled over to the toppled stroller as people ran past her, feeling the pebbles which dug their way into her knees in the back of her fuzzy mind. With trembling fingers, she unclipped Sara from the seat and pulled the baby out, cradling the still crying child to her chest. She sat there on the floor, momentarily, and was only knocked back into consciousness as someone tripped over her as they ran with the crowd. The man turned back mid-run, yelling something at her, but Hana couldn’t tell what. She grabbed the diaper bag, and stood up on shaky knees.

All at once, her senses came back to her. There was screaming, and the thumps of feet as people fled from the blow, and the scent of burning rubber and fried metal in the air. Smoke, soot, and dust had begun to spread, limiting her vision as more explosions went off in the distance. It had begun to rain, too.

All she had to do was get back to her mother and father. All she had to do was walk up the steps to their apartment, ring the bell, and they’d usher her in with open arms. All she had to do was get back, and this would all go away. This is a dream. She told herself. This is a dream, and I’ll wake up soon enough.The baby was still crying in her hold. So Hana walked back, barely dodging those who were frantically running all around her, screaming about ninja and land.

She soon stood in front of the site of her apartment building. There, Hana could only stare in confusion. She was sure that she had only walked three blocks on her walk. And yet, having reversed her pathway, the building was nowhere to be found.

She was sure it was supposed to be right there.

Because, where the apartment building once stood, a carcass of architecture only remained. A steaming pile of stone and iron, cement blocks and rebar—there was no building.

Hana was so, so certain that it was supposed to be right there.

She coughed, harshly, and pulled the child in her arms closer in evasion of the downpour that was soaking their clothing. She reached, then, deep within herself and pulsed her chakra outwards in search of the solid weight of her father’s chakra and gentle lull of her mother’s, lips trembling and eyes unblinking.

Please.

At the first pass, Hana sensed no living creatures among the rubble.

Please.

At the second pass, Hana gripped her baby sister tighter, both of them soaked to the bone.

Let me find them.

Let me sense their souls and let them come to me.

Please. Please, please let me find them.

Hana kept on. Head a jumbled mess and uncertain if the wetness on her face was her own tears or the liquid that pelted from the skies above, Hana prayed.

Like black water or a sun that shines at midnight. Like fruit ripened to rot and gold that does not bend. Like knowledge from a blank book, like love in an empty heart.

Please.

Like an ocean with no salt. Like a desert that snows. Like a saint that revels in sin.

Let me find them

Please, let me find them.

It wasn’t until someone started shaking her shoulders that she was broken from her trance, shouting at her to take what she could and leave, leave as fast as she could and not look back. With only the child in her arms and the bag on her shoulder, Hana turned and ran.

Notes:

- Hana’s life starts in a remote town, and her family has to move to city living with the onset of the war
- I’ve always been obsessed with the concept of sealing jutsu, and somehow my brain just connected henna & Arabic calligraphy to it? I just think that it would be neat
- Hana’s prayers are her asking for miracles. Real gold does not bend, pure water cannot be black, etc. Her parents are dead beneath the rubble of a destroyed building, and the city she’s in is currently under siege

Chapter 3: I Don't Know Why I Bite

Notes:

- In which Hana is introduced to ninja for the first time
- TW for gore

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

If she stops, Hana believes she’ll just keel over and die. She knows no one who walks beside her, all unfamiliar signatures pinging along her periphery as they move towards a destination she only tells herself she understands. An ever-shifting wave—oscillating, propagating—endless motion in the form of crunching steps on solid ground. She can only listen to the hushed explanations of the adults around her.

To the border of the Land of Fire, towards its pearly gates. I heard they let in a group of refugees from the Land of Waterfalls. It’s our only hope.

From the curled lips of a woman dragging along her own child, a chubby ten-year-old with a toothless grin.

We’ll take a boat into Hot Spring Country—the soldiers at the last checkpoint said it was the safest bet. They’ll be able to house us, there.

From a man and his wife, huddled for warmth by a campfire made of trash and rubber.

Hana does not know where she is going. She is walking, and all she knows is that she cannot stop.

For one second, just one singular second—she swears, swears that it was only one—she considers leaving the baby behind.

~~She thinks of the story of a babe placed in a basket to float down an ancient river bend, covered by a wickered lid, raised into a prince—~~

Hana feels so guilty, she has to empty her stomach at the thought. It isn’t much—only stinging bile and saliva hacking its way up her esophagus given her dry mouth and increasingly frail limbs. But the notion shakes her, and she’ll spend the rest of her life making up for it.

With each passing day, she thinks to summon her feline companion, but she cannot explain a tiger walking amongst man.

When the crowd sleeps, she fights for a spot in the center of the mass. The nights are cold, and the girls are a lonely pair, but within the motionless flock and beneath the cover of the stars, there is compassion among strangers that the daylight doesn’t see.

Hana doesn’t know when exactly she stops feeling bad for stealing. The refugees she walks amongst are a cautious bunch, careful not to leave valuables in loose pockets or turn their backs to food and water.

Still, Hana’s desperate fingers have grown adept at taking without being spotted. It takes her long enough, with bruises still decorating her skin from the moments she would be caught—a kick to the rear, a slap across the face. But with the ability to make physical objects disappear at the ghost of a touch, no one questions what was taken if it cannot be seen.

It feels like a weird stretch whenever she takes something and hides it beyond the bounds of reality. And now, Hana has a growing collection. It starts with a bundle of fishing wire, then a safety pin found shimmering along their path, then a silver lighter hidden in the dirt. After that, it’s an abandoned backpack fashioned into the image of a comic book character she can’t quite remember the name of, then a packet of nuts, then someone’s abandoned ration bar. She grabs what she sees, and tosses what doesn’t justify its space.

She gets smarter, from there. Always watching. Always listening. She learns that hair-ties can be woven into a chord, and that water can be filtered using compacted gravel and sand. Dandelion leaves are bitter, but they’re the same greens that her mother used to sauté, and in desperation they’re perfectly edible raw. She digs them out of the ground when she can, mushing them into a paste for the greedy baby and hand feeding her chunks of the gruel. It satiates the child, and that is enough.

On rare occasions they pass through a decrepit town. Word swims between the endless faces, cautioning each other to be wary of left over traps amongst rubble and ash—to not touch anything suspicious, to not enter spaces where no one else can see you.

It’s in one of these in-between places that Hana smells death for the first time. A wretched thing, spindling sulfur up her nostrils as she tries not to gag. She can’t help but think of the bodies she left behind, unable to be felt, identified, or buried. This thought, she ignores.

What she doesn’t ignore, though, is the scattering of weapons donned with seals just like the ones her mother used to make. Against advice, she picks up as many of those as she can and stores them impossibly far away, careful not to release the reaction held within their scriptures.

She does summon a feline eventually, however.

She watches, in horrified awe one evening, as the tiger tears a man apart.

It sinks its jaw into the flesh of his shoulder, first, before pulling away—splattering gore in its wake. The man howls, eyes bulging out of his head as he falls to his knees. The beast doesn’t relent, lifting a paw to scratch at his face before knocking him back and pouncing once more.

Hana hears a crunch.

“Enough.” she whispers.

The tiger turns back towards her, a feral look in it's golden eyes as it releases the man in it's maw. It stalks over to the girl, gently butting it's head against Hana's abdomen, rubbing it's face against her.

The tiger is covered in blood and flesh, a dribble of butchered man painted along it's muzzle.

“We have to go. No one will understand if they find the body. We have to leave—now!” She whispers in a frenzy. Somehow, the baby remains asleep, even as Hana picks up her bundled form and proceeds to secure her in a body sling.

Hana summons a scroll from her pocket. Her breath moves a million miles a minute as she passes through the tent’s opening with trembling fingers, the tiger who came to her aid following her out. She drops the scroll open, and with a concentrated grimace, makes the hand sign to seal the tent away—the body still within. The action leaves her reeling with the loss of chakra, spots clouding her vision in the darkness of the night.

She had been meditating. Suddenly paranoid about an influx of people who had joined their caravan, Hana positioned their tent towards the edge of the crowd that evening, as opposed to the typical location off-center that she preferred. She blames her distracted ruminations—sense roaming through the new signatures, getting accustomed to new imprints—for not noticing the man that cut through the thin material of their tent.

The man who the tiger—who she—killed.

The man attacked her, not expecting anyone within to be awake. It was the blood that he drew from a punch to her lips that Hana used as a sacrifice to summon the feline.

Blood for blood, one soul for another.

Since then, the three had cut themselves from the thread of the crowd. They veered into the surrounding forestry instead, Hana forging an invisible path with no destination in sight once more.

She thinks she should probably figure out how to get to the village hidden in the leaves. Offhandedly at dinner one evening, her father—~~when he still lived and breathed and held weight in her mind~~—had mentioned Hana being a beneficiary to funds localized in a bank in the Land of Fire. She thinks she can probably access them. That’s if they can enter the Land of Fire in the first place.

Which would be much easier if Hana had identification. Or a map that detailed how to even get there.

It doesn’t matter, because the girl convinces herself that since she’s following a river downstream, she’ll find civilization eventually, and if that isn’t the case then she’ll at least find the ocean and orient herself to the shore.

The girl convinces herself that she isn’t lost in a forest, with a baby freshly weaned.

At least she’s with a fully-grown tiger—one that is distinctly not the summon partner that was initially granted. She figures the appearance of the unfamiliar creature is likely a result of how desperately and wildly her chakra pulled for a being from the summoning realm. They’d become acquainted, these last few weeks, with the feline teaching her how to hunt small rodents, and her assisting in fire-starting and fishing where ever she could.

It’s the animal’s warmth which keeps the girls alive throughout the night.

It, like Hana, knows of the two individuals who’ve been trailing them for miles.

She can feel them, now, closing their distance as she dips her toes into the cold liquid of the nearby stream. Not having any idea who they are, or what they want, or what she could possibly do to prevent their approaching forms, Hana stays rooted in place.

It only takes her a few moments to come to a decision.

She picks up the baby, who’s busy tugging on water chestnuts from the muck by her side. She walks the child over to the lounging tiger, which peers up at her in confusion.

“Take her.” She whispers.

“Take her, if only for now, and keep her safe until I summon you again.”

The feline argues, citing that a tiger den is no place for a human baby. At the desperate pleas spilling out of Hana’s lips, it grabs the child in its maw and disappears with a poof, the baby gurgling away the whole while.

Hana stands alone as the two individuals tear into the clearing.

She isn’t an idiot. She won’t be fighting anyone, let alone these two whose chakra swells loud and overshadows her sense entirely. If she’d left with the baby, then there’d be no one to bring them back. And if she dies here, then her sister’s own eventual death by a feral animal in a dimension far, far away would be better than anything they’d face in this war.

That’s what Hana tells herself, at least, as she turns to look at the intruders. In her sweating palm, she summons one of those strangely-shaped knives picked up on her travels, and holds it tightly in her grasp.

The two are off-putting, to put it lightly. They wear similar masks—stark white with stripes of paint in a crude imitation of cartoonish animals.

One a mouse.

One a bird.

They peer at her eerily from their stationary positions. Hana doesn’t speak, waiting for them to do something, anything. They only stare.

“A child must be tired, running through the forest alone.”

Hana doesn’t respond, caught off guard by the man’s utilization of the common language. She understands him, of course, but she’s much more familiar with her mother tongue. Regardless, she remains silent.

“Perhaps,” the man wearing the face of a mouse says, crouching to Hana’s height, “the child would like a warm meal.”

Hana swallows nervously, shaking her head no.

“Nonsense,” the man wearing the face of a bird says, taking two steps towards her, “how about a comfortable bed?”

Hana mirrors him, taking her own step back. Her knuckles are a pale around the handle of the knife in her hand.

Her declination doesn’t matter in the end, because one is suddenly behind her, hitting her in the temple with the handle of his own weapon.

And as she slumps into his grasp, she dreams of nothing.

Notes:

- For clarity’s sake, Hana spends a long, long time walking amongst a refugee caravan through the Land of Wood in search of asylum despite the raging war
- With Root having been well into motion during the main events of the series, I would assume that Danzo took the opportunity to begin developing it under the cover of the great wars seeing that Hiruzen would either be much more receptive towards it or just too distracted to care
- What better way to scout for child soldiers than between refugee children with no one to wonder where they went? I'm sure the available children in Konoha are already dying on the front lines or being kept under wraps by their clans lmao

Chapter 4: New Beginnings in a Flaming Land

Notes:

- I updated the tags somewhat, so be sure to take a look through them. The warning for implied assault applies to this chapter.
- Thank you to everyone who has commented, left kudos, and bookmarked. Happy reading <3

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

If there is hell, then it is Root.

It starts with a single meal, rice and vegetables to fill her painfully empty stomach. It’s the only meal they give her before promising that the next one must be earned—that handouts are won, not given.

She doesn’t know who these people are, all wearing the same gut-churning masks. She sees their fake faces in flashes of color every time she closes her eyes.

An owl.

A bear.

A duck.

And when training begins, it’s not katas or theory, it’s conditioning. It’s hitting boards until her knuckles split and leak. It’s sit ups until her core trembles and her gut empties. Its laps run until her vision blurs and she can no longer identify up from down. Hana doesn’t eat properly again for a long while—not until she earns it, that is. She earns another proper meal (not gruel, or a ration bar, or a few sips of water) when they tell her to fight another, soon after that, just like her.

To measure your progress. They say.

Hana is so, so hungry, that she doesn’t have a single care for the boy they force to stand before her. She doesn’t care about his dark brown hair or the curls that fall in ringlets around his face. She doesn’t care about the inch he has on her in height, or the way his knuckles are calloused by thick pads of skin. Nor does she care about the way he trembles and pleads as she hits him over and over again. Hana is hungry, and if eating means hurting, then she will hurt whoever it takes. So she hurts him, and hurts him so badly that he doesn’t get up.

There’s a sick man who watches her through it all. Sick, because he’s wrapped like a burn victim and limps with the weight of old age. His face is bandaged, and the cane he uses doesn’t clack even against the cement floor of the endless structure. One of his arms also remains tucked into his robe at all times, and even as Hana pokes and prods her sensory chakra at it, she can never quite feel its flesh or form. She wonders if he has a second arm at all.

No matter, because he merely remains an ever-present shadow that lurks at her periphery. He comes and goes through the winding corridors of the base she’s held captive in, identifiable by a chakra signature that can only be described as a howling wind in his core.

All Hana knows is that there is a shinobi system, and she is to be a part of it.

Her induction comes in the form of a brand that’s burnt on to her tongue.

The man with the bandaged face—Danzo-sama, always refer to him as Danzo-sama and never speak unless you are spoken to—comes into her locked quarters one day. He tells her of the weight of peace; what it means to maintain it, to keep it steady and secure. He tells her that secrets are to be kept, and that the price of loose lips is much too high to risk.

It’s two of those masked figures which hold her down, and one more that forces her jaw open with a metal gauge. She has to pretend that her body isn’t her own when another clamps over the muscle of her tongue with forceps, yanking at it harshly enough for her to gag.

The brand which the man stamps into her mouth feels like molten lava being poured down her throat. It burns enough to make her eyes water and toes curl, and she can feel its inky tendrils grasp hold of the nerve endings at the base of her neck. Though all he tells her is that the seal is an oath of silence, she understands that to break this vow would mean death.

It isn’t until her metaphorical collar is locked around her throat that they begin teaching her ninjutsu, which reminds Hana that ninja arts are truly magical.

The first skill she is taught is to create a false body in the form of the clone jutsu. It’s simple enough, an expulsion of natured chakra (hers being a crude mixture of earth and water) forcefully shaped into a humanoid figure, then refined externally based on desired physical features and clothing. Her first attempt at it fuels her nightmares for weeks to come. The fake self had been so uncanny, so wrong, that it made acid rise and burn at the back of her throat. The clone was wobbly on its feet, gaunt, and a sickly shade of yellow and white—not al all able to pass as the real girl. So, she tried again. And again. And again. Her repetition of the process culminated into an ability to generate a single perfect clone maintainable for a few hours, or two clones, which she could maintain for much shorter time intervals during less intense exercises.

From there, the range of jutsu she is taught expands. It not lost on Hana that she is never taught anything particularly frightening, or any bit powerful—just techniques that can only be conducive for sneaking around and making targeted attacks. The first time a trainer expects her to melt into the floor, she cringes, but somehow finds it comforting to be nestled between the sediment, if only a bit suffocating. That jutsu is paired with an air regulation technique, which is then paired with a pinhole sight technique to actually let the user see while hiding in the ground. There’s a plethora of others—namely, transformation techniques to change appearances on the fly and basic earth and water manipulations.

This phase of her training also introduces her to the torturous sensation of chakra strain. The constant use of jutsu—attempting various feats over and over until her captors deemed them adequate—regularly left Hana reeling with pain beyond simple exhaustion. Tremors, for one, were inevitable, and her fingers and toes burnt with a chill unlike any other. She often found herself weak enough to faint without warning.

Whenever she woke, though, she wouldn’t be in a doctor’s office or hospital bed. Instead, she’d wake in the same cement room with four windowless corners, save for a futon and a single scratchy sheet. The room (holding cell?) was more like a spawn location, at this point, and the paths to it stretched on endlessly in the dark, surrounded by layers of cement and sheet metal. She has trouble sending her sense past the bounds of the base, what with how thick the walls are (and how tired she feels all the time).

No room for a baby. She thinks constantly. My baby who is another world away.

The lack of daylight also makes her lose track of time. All else she knows is that they are deep beneath the earth and sleep, much like food, is gifted to those who earn it, so her circadian rhythm is almost entirely lost in the metallic structure. The inch she gains in height is her only indication that months have passed, by which her captors move into yet another phase of her training.

This one, perhaps, is only slightly better.

Because this time, it’s education.

It’s almost laughable, really, going from teeth-grating physical feats to tea ceremonies and social etiquette.

Bow this low.

Speak this loud.

Keep your posture this straight.

Most of it is repetition, which allows Hana to let her mind wander even when a switch is used to strike her palm the few times she does happen to make a mistake. But Hana already knows how to talk to people, how to bat her eyes all pretty to get what she wants yet also go unnoticed within a crowd.

What Hana can’t do, though, is figure out why they’re teaching her all this stuff in the first place.

They didn’t want her to summon tigers. They knew about them, of course—it was part of the reason why she was apparently even selected in the first place. But, they actively forbid it unless it was within predetermined mission parameters.

So, naturally, her first mission went to shit.

They called it a routine assignment, and Hana wasn’t sure if routine meant ‘we do this sort of thing literally all the time’ or ‘this is just the way things are done’, but she didn’t question it.

She was escorted to a rendezvous point outside of the base, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, she could fully feel the endless flow of chakra around her. Hana found herself hoping that she would be rewarded with many more missions to come—as long as it meant actually being let outside for once.

Her guide beyond the dark depths of the cave was one of her many trainers, the one who hid himself behind the face of a bird that she couldn’t quite place. His only identifiable feature aside from his gruff voice and imposing chakra nature was the dirty blond hair that sometimes came loose from his ponytail. That, and his codename being Jin were the only things she knew about the man. As they stood in a dusty shack, filled to the brim with locked containers and piles of unorganized scrolls, Jin handed her a thin file. Hana thumbed it open to reveal a single faded photography and a list of basic characteristics

“That’s the target.” Jin bit out, leering down at her. “Memorize his appearance. Once you set out, you won’t get another chance.”

Hana nodded numbly as she read through the file, describing a chunin-level threat (what’s a chunin?) recognizable by dim blue eyes and a lightning chakra signature. She liked sensing lighting signatures, because they practically tickled every time she nudged her own chakra against them. The target, unnamed and age not listed, looked to be a young man as he smiled brazenly for the camera. She wondered what he could’ve done to become the next target on Root’s radar.

“You’ll be on your own from here on out. The main road will take you to the rest stop where the target was last confirmed to be in appearance. You know what to do once you get there.”

Hana only blinked at him. She handed the papers back, and dusted off the front of her dress from the dirt that their run had kicked up on to it. Jin followed her out, helping her slip on her decoy backpack as she made her way through the door. She looked back at him momentarily as he shut it behind her, but she saw nothing to latch on to in his dull gaze.

The main road was close enough to the makeshift hideout that Hana had no trouble finding it in the late afternoon. She travelled along its bends, soon reaching the signage for the Goka Roadside Station—close enough to the outskirts of greater Konoha for ninja and civilians alike to have a moment’s rest prior to returning home from any sort of journey. The sun was low in the sky, cutting streams of light through the canopy of leaves as she arrived at the mission location.

She found the ruby red bench quickly enough and promptly sat at its edge, exactly as she was instructed to do.

Enter rest stop.

Find red bench, by the secluded pathway at the town edge, and sit.

Locate the lightning-chakra man.

Wait.

Hana took a deep breath, letting her chakra flutter around as she spread it slowly through the vacant streets. With the war raging on beyond the Land of Fire, ninja and civilians alike had less time (and money) to spend idly outside of their homes. No matter, though, because the target was an outlier in the sparse crowd—fire signatures were prominent here, unlike the water and earth that marked her homeland, and both lightning and wind were rarities. As it stood, Hana could feel the target’s lightning signature strolling towards her right on schedule, chakra a crackling spark.

Eventually, he sat on the bench at Hana’s side. Ruffling through her backpack, Hana took out a children’s book and pretended to read, ignoring him all the while.

And only after a moment, the man got her attention.

“What are you reading there, sweetheart?” He asked.

Hana blinked at him.

“Um…” She paused, drawing her gaze away from his face and looking around her. “A book for school.”

The target scooted closer, and the chakra in his chest sparked excitedly. “Oh! Do you go to the Konoha academy?”

“No,” Hana corrected shyly, “I go to school in Hacho.”

“Well, that’s quite the ways away. What are you doing all the way over here, then?”

Hana pursed her lips, knitting her brows together in the process. “Mommy and daddy said I shouldn’t talk to strangers.”

The target laughed at that, grinning wide once he settled down. “Well, my name is Yoshiro. If you tell me your name, we won’t be strangers anymore.”

Let the lightning-chakra man talk to you.

The man was weirdly charming, but the alarm bells in her head were ringing loud. No matter, because Hana had a task to complete. She let a small smile paint her face, and lied.

“Ai.”

“Ai! What a lovely name.”

Hana shrugged, giggling.

“How come you’re siting here all alone, Ai-chan?”

Hana shrugged again, looking pointedly away once more. His inclusion of the -chan suffix was a good sign for her mission, but it didn’t make the sour taste in her mouth any less prominent.

“Ah. Do you know where mommy and daddy are?”

Hana shook her head no.

“Well, that just won’t do! Come along, let’s get to the town center and start our search there.”

Hana had been told that her she needed to keep her voice whiny and her tone clueless, so she made sure to drive the point home. “But I’m supposed to wait in place when I’m lost!”

Yoshiro’s chakra could only be described as excited by the notion, though his face was somber at Hana’s admission.

“Look around, Ai-chan. Do you see your parents anywhere?”

“ No…” she trailed off, slumping ever so slightly.

“I promise I’ll help you find them. And we’re friends, right? So you can trust me just fine!”

Go with lightning-chakra man.

So, Hana relented, and began following the man as he led her to the end of the district, notably in the opposite direction of the miniature town’s center. She was told this would happen, and expected this to happen, so she didn’t question the obvious error aloud. After all, the innocent and lost civilian she was pretending to be wasn’t supposed to be aware of such a misstep.

“Come along, Ai-chan! We don’t want you getting lost again.” Yoshiro called out, veering left towards an alleyway. “If we cut through here, we’ll get there faster!”

Of course, Yoshiro wasn’t actually aiming to help Hana—or, Ai—find her non-existent parents.

Yoshiro had other intentions entirely.

In the middle of the gravel walkway, he suddenly stopped, and Hana had the idea to stumble into his back with her surprise. She felt, rather than saw, him tapping a finger along his chin. “Ah. Actually—I think I may have made a mistake.”

Kill lightning chakra man.

Hana knew what she had to do then.

She knew, because she could feel Jin’s presence on the rooftop of the surrounding building, obstructing his chakra in an attempt to remain hidden despite claiming that he was waiting for her back at the rendezvous point. But Hana could sense his piercing gaze and the curious lilt of his essence as he watched carefully for her next move. So, Hana summoned a kunai into her palm, and made to strike the target’s neck.

Except, Hana was about to learn exactly what a chunin was. And exactly why they had sent her specifically after Yoshiro at all.

Yoshiro, tipped off by the flush of wind against his back, quickly twisted to grab Hana’s wrist.

“Oh?” He tightened his hold, so much so that Hana thought her wrist may snap as he wrenched the kunai from her grasp. “This is new. Usually, the dumb ones don’t put up a fight.”

With a crack, he fractured the bone, and pushed Hana back hard enough that she landed roughly on the ground. Hana shuffled further away, gripping at her throbbing hand as Yoshiro glared down at her. The backpack made it too hard to gain any ground, and she felt Jin’s chakra flutter, far above.

Yoshiro clicked his teeth and sneered. “Did someone send you to me, Ai-chan?”

Hana’s breath picked up in her chest. The sky had dimmed significantly, casting shadows against Yoshiro’s face that made his blue eyes look so much darker than they were. His chakra pulsed beneath his skin, and before she could come up with a lie that he wouldn’t believe, he grabbed her ankle and pulled her harshly towards him. The motion dug stone into the back of her thighs, tearing at the threads of her dress in the process.

She was scared, and she couldn’t bring herself to move.

“Pretty little thing like you, made to kill.” He said, sinking low to crawl over top of her. “Now at least I won’t feel so bad.”

Yoshiro wrapped his fingers around her neck, nails digging into her skin. He squeezed as he straddled her hips with his knees. Hana scratched at his arms wildly, feeling blood pool under her fingernails as she gurgled, attempting to free herself from his hold and catch her breath. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t so much as scream as she kicked desperately beneath him, trapped under the lecherous man.

“Stay still!” Yoshiro spits out, saliva decorating Hana’s face. He pushed her further into the ground, using one calloused hand to hold her in place and another to tug at her collar. Seeing as he wasn’t relenting, Hana dropped her hands. The spots in her vision had multiplied, and she couldn’t fully make out the clouds in the sky anymore as she looked up, away from the face on top of her.

Hana wasn’t sure what she saw in the night sky. But there was something angry, deep in her soul, howling at her to kill, to maim, to unleash all her rage and despair upon the flesh of the man on top of her. And without realizing it, or feeling like her body was her own at all, Hana gave in.

She mustered all the chakra she could siphon from her core, summoning another kunai into her right hand. With a swing of her arm, a thunk sounded out as she forced it directly into the temple of her target. She felt as it passed the hard confines of his skull and nestled deeply into the soft matter of his brain.

Hana pulled the kunai out, then repeated the motion once more.

Then again. Then again.

Yoshiro sputtered.

Still in his position above her, the grip he had on her neck loosened. As blood pooled from his eyes and mouth, he hunched forward, twitching violently. Hana gasped, coming back to herself and squirming to break free from beneath him. As his eyes glazed over, he bowed forward completely, the solid weight of his now dead body holding Hana in place.

She shuddered, feeling herself take multiple shaky breaths as she attempted to push him off of her. After a few agonizing moments, the weight was pulled off by some force, with Hana still lying in place—covered in blood and spittle.

Hana turned, crawling away before emptying her stomach against the wall of the alleyway. She heard a poof behind her as Jin sealed the target’s body into a scroll. Distantly, she could tell that he was saying something to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to listen before she passed out in a heap of limbs, blood, and sick.

Her first mission was ultimately a success. It earned her not only another full meal, but the right to run missions alone, as well as a plain tanto blade to call her own.

Notes:

- If anyone is even reading this, do you like the title? Flaming land refers to the land of fire & Konoha, but the chapter opens by referring to Root as hell, so it‘s a double entendre :)
- We will meet the main cast in the upcoming chapters, so stay tuned!

Chapter 5: By the Pricking of my Thumb

Notes:

- This chapter is a bit longer than the others, I hope that’s okay! It’s just to finish setting the stage, and it can be considered the end of the prologue I guess? lmao
- Thank you to everyone who has bookmarked and left kudos <3 I really do appreciate it

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

CLASSIFIED MISSION REPORT: HA-1

DATE: [REDACTED]
TIMEFRAME: 1800–2007 HOURS
LOCATION: LOF-176, RPK-7, Base K-3

MISSION SUMMARY:

At 1818 HOURS, Operative HA and Operative JIN arrived at RPK-7. Operative JIN remained on station to provide security and surveillance.

At 1854 HOURS, Operative HA advanced to LOF-176.

At 1926 HOURS, Operative HA engaged the target: [REDACTED].

At 1944 HOURS, the cadaver was secured and sealed in a scroll. Operative HA then exfiltrated to RPK-7.

At 2007 HOURS, Operative HA arrived at RPK-7. Operative JIN conducted a 500-meter radius security sweep around the rendezvous site. Upon completion, both operatives exfiltrated to Base K-3 without further incident.

OUTCOME:

Mission Success

CASUALTY REPORT:

Enemy KIA: 1 assailant, target: [REDACTED]
Operative HA: Sustained minor injuries, including a distal radius fracture (right wrist)
Operative JIN: No injuries reported

END REPORT
AUTHORIZATION: [REDACTED]

Hana’s next few months were a blur, shuffling from mission to mission and identity to identity. Most of her waking moments were either spent training deep within a Root bunker (each similarly buried miles underground), or completing missions that ranged from in-and-out civilian assassinations to information-gathering (in which she was made to pretend to be a harmless school girl, or a rich merchant’s offspring, or some crude combination of the two).

It made her feel like a living corpse, free to move around in a metal coffin.

Her resting state seemed to be permanently tired and sore, both mentally and physically. Root worked her into the dirt, and though distantly she could recognize that it was an intentional ploy to strip her sense of self to its bare bones—Hana couldn’t bring herself to care. Instead, she completed the missions she was assigned, and she completed them well.

She knew that, ultimately, her unique features (her father’s olive skin and his golden irises) were being taken advantage of on the missions that required her to be mask-less. With a frail figure and eyes entirely too large for her face, Hana didn’t need to look into a mirror to know she was striking—exaggerated by a look of permanent wide-eyed innocence she’d all but mastered. Coupled with dark curls, not only did she draw attention from audiences she’d rather not interact with, but those whose eyes she did catch never saw the sharp edge of her blade coming. Otherwise, a simple transformation jutsu was employed to give off the impression of some other random forgettable child.

For those missions that did require her to wear a mask, though, they assigned her the porcelain face of a tiger. With slitted eye holes, pointed ears, and symmetrical red striping, she could almost see the beauty in being a state-assigned murderer.

Almost.

There was one particularly long mission that Hana actually did enjoy. She was slotted into the role of a servant girl for a low-ranking consort in the fire daimyo’s court, and she spent those weeks darting around the woman’s palace—all wooden tiles and velvet upholstery—ferrying gossip in sealed scrolls and handing it off to couriers hidden in the wall panels. The consort, who Hana only ever caught a few glimpses of, was a tall and jaw-droppingly gorgeous woman. Yet Lady Kiyo, for all her merits, had a problem—unable to hold a pregnancy to term, the woman was desperate for the daimyo’s approval. It was Lady Kiyo’s missteps in planning the demise of a higher ranking consort that Root was after, and Hana managed to collect enough blackmail on the woman to bury her for the rest of her life.

If Hana cared about aristocracy, she would feel bad.

She didn’t.

She was stationed in the laundering room, slotted directly beneath Lady Kiyo’s reading room. With chakra focused to the cochleas of her ears, she could hear every discussion the loose-lipped woman had on the floor above her

And every non-discussion.

Yuck.

Hana liked this mission because she didn’t have to act any which way. She could be, well, a girl. There was a collection of other miniature maids stationed on permanent laundry duty alongside her, and if Hana was friendlier to one orphan girl named Rina—giggling with the girl behind the backs of the various ladies-in-waiting—her Root handlers were far enough away to be none the wiser to her transgressions.

Rina was nice. Rina was normal. Rina had fiery red hair and eyes so deeply purple that they were almost black. Rina taught her that using her body weight to rub clothing against the wooden board of the wash tub would make her shoulders hurt less at the end of the day. And when Hana’s mission concluded (after she intercepted a letter in which Lady Kiyo detailed exactly how she felt about a recently-failed poisoning attempt against her enemy consort), Hana made sure to give Rina and extra tight hug at the eve of her departure. She knew she would miss the redhead’s ceaseless chatter and brash attitude.

She could only hope that she wouldn’t forget the girl’s face, much like she was beginning to forget that of her mother and father.

Eventually, Hana was given a mission that did leave her quite stumped.

(She didn’t think about dull blue eyes and a sickly sweet smile anymore.)

Jin—who no longer beat her bloody during their training sessions and would instead bruise her a deep purple—was once again responsible for her escort. But rather than delivering Hana to some unassuming town or feudal court, he lead her from her base quarters, through the dense forestry of the surface, all through the evening and into the early morning until they reached the gates of Konoha itself.

Hana tried really, really hard not to stare at the people past the impossibly-large wooden entryway, or the faces etched deep into the mountain that lined the distant horizon. Instead, she kept her gaze to the dirt floor, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of fire signatures throughout the village. Whereas Jin was under a transformation jutsu, pretending to be some distant relative ready to shuttle his orphaned niece into the care of another family member, Hana was her normal, non-disguised and unmasked self.

That alone was weird. Things only got weirder from there.

She didn’t know what to do other than follow along silently as Jin lead her through the streets, bustling with activity in the bright sunshine. They eventually arrived to a dingy apartment building far from any civilian quarters, marred by years of half-assed construction jobs and rickety in a way that made her dizzy as she looked up its length. The only outstanding activity she could sense nearby was within a closed-off complex, where the fire signatures within burned especially hot.

Jin left her standing alone in a vacant apartment with nothing but instructions to enroll in the Konoha academy, integrate into the young ninja population of Konoha, and await further assignments. She stood in the center of a dusty old living room, clutching battered keys in her palm, staring at a fluttering of leaves that Jin left behind upon flickering away.

Hana did not want to be a ninja.

Never mind that she already was one. Wearing a forehead protector donned with insignia not belonging to her home country was a step much too far in the wrong direction, though.

On the brighter side, her one room apartment—albeit in desperate need of a deep clean—was fully stocked with furniture as she looked around in a numb daze. It had a single small bed (sheets, but no blanket), a dresser (empty), a fridge (empty, leaking at its rear and humming an awful buzz), as well as a small kitchen set up (empty pantries surrounding a stovetop and sink). On the counter was a manila envelope, holding a meager stipend that Hana couldn’t quite figure out how long she was supposed to make last.

It was nothing like her original home, which had a wide courtyard at its center and multiple levels of ornate limestone architecture.

Hana elected to focus on small victories, though, because aside from a gaggle of neighbors beyond thin walls, Hana was finally, finally, alone. Jin was long gone, the closest apartments were vacant, and no one watched as she made the hand signs for the first jutsu she ever learned.

Hana slammed her palm flat on the floor, filling the dusty space with a plume of smoke. As it cleared, a tiger materialized before her, and with it came her sister.

“A rather long sabbatical, wouldn’t you say?” The tiger drawled. It was the older female she’d been traveling with prior to her capture, an adult named Tama. Hana owed the feline her life, certain that the girls would have perished to the elements had it not been for the tiger’s survival skills. And though a thanks was in order, Hana couldn’t see past the tears welling up in her eyes. It’s been almost a year—an entire spin about the sun, three hundred and forty seven days (yes—she’d been counting) since she’s last seen the baby she fought tooth and nail to keep alive. Sue her, some theatrics were in order.

Sensing her internal turmoil, the tiger nudged the child towards Hana. Sara teetered in her unsteady crawl, grasping for her older sister, before landing on her stomach in a thump. If Hana spent the rest of the day playing with the baby—who thankfully did remember her—rather than making concrete plans for her mission, well, no one was around who could tell her off. Tama eventually relented to pushing off making any solid plans as well (for their continued survival, not for any Root nonsense). The tiger only managed to get the bare bones of one out of Hana—one that involved more tiger participation in child rearing than any true adult would accept, with too many instances of clones jutsu mixed in.

They would make this work. Hana would make this work.

The first thing she needed was more money.

Hana spent the previous night dotting on her little sister, spending too much of her allocated funds on take-out so heavy that it made her sick to her stomach, blankets and pillows, and as much jarred baby food as she could buy from the nearest grocery shop. It happened to be in that nearby complex—a clan complex, evident though the fan crest that seemed to cover every available surface and the way every person within its walls shared the same obsidian shade of eyes. Thankfully, aside from the odd look here and there, they paid her no mind as she bought her goods.

So, seeing that she was down almost an entire allowance and in need of pretty much everything, she relented to her less civilized urges:

Stealing.

Her target was a well-dressed civilian woman, ears jeweled and wrists heavy with matching gold, strolling idly alongside a friend as they chatted about nothing of substance. The woman was not a ninja by any means, with her footsteps loud on the stone path and flowery perfume layered on so heavily that Hana could smell it from her spot hidden in the nearest alleyway. It was the leather wristlet hanging loosely on the woman’s arm that Hana was after, stuffed full and zipper barely able to contain its contents.

As the pair passed before her, Hana tore out of the alley in a mad dash. She pushed her way between the two women, falsely breathless as she yelled out an excuse me! behind her before purposefully tripping over her own feet and landing face first in the dirt.

“Goodness!” Her target shrieked. She swept towards Hana, helping her up. “Are you alright?!”

Hana sniffled, wiping at her forehead in falsified pain. “Y-yeah…”

Hana was under a transformation, and a damn good one at that. She wore the face of an even younger girl, skin porcelain and eyes a brilliant green. As tears welled up in her fake eyes, the civilian woman (and the friend awkwardly standing behind her) couldn’t help but coo at the sight.

The woman ran a gentle hand along Hana’s head. “You poor thing! What were you running that fast for?”

Hana leaned into her touch. “I’m so sorry! Mommy said to be home before lunch! She’s going to be so mad if I’m late!”

“There, there.” The woman placated with a tap to Hana’s shoulder. “You still have time! Run along now, but be extra careful!”

Hana gave the woman a teary-eyed smile, before turning and dashing off once more. The civilian women was clueless to the robbery that had just taken place, with Hana sealing her wallet away using the markings on her palm the moment the woman reached for her. It wouldn’t be until later that the woman realized her wallet was missing, and by then it would be too late—what with the wallet tossed in a far away dumpster and emptied out of all its cash already.

Regardless, Hana had too much on her mind to dwell on her growing list of sins.

Her first destination was a brightly labeled clothing store. Bypassing the woman standing in greeting at the entrance entirely, Hana walked straight up to the counter of the shop. The sign outside read Ninja Girl Essentials in a bold print, and Hana hoped that she could find what she was looking for within. After all, how would she be able to join the academy without purchasing all the necessary supplies? She skipped between rows of hanging fabrics and sample accessories on shelves, placing her new wad of cash on the counter and looking intensely at the woman standing bored behind it.

“Daddy said I could pick whatever I wanted for school.” Hana said simply, taking up a snotty accent as she enunciated each syllable.

She let her gaze stray purposefully over to the kimonos hanging on the wall behind the woman. Each of them was a delicate shade of pastel and embroidered in a variety of patterns—petal work, sequins, butterflies—anything a young kunoichi could possibly desire.

“I want the nicest dresses you have.” Hana demanded.

The woman stared at the money with a twinkle in her eye, before shooting Hana a sly grin. Almost immediately, she began placing pieces on the countertop. At the sheer amount of options, Hana was unsure if she made a mistake in waving around money so tactlessly or not. Oh, well—might as well make the most of it.

In the end, Hana walked out with bags stacked full of gauze rolls, an array of military-grade nail polish, multiple pairs of Konoha-standard sandals, tear-proof leggings, a variety of chain mail mesh undergarments, and many, many iterations of short kimono. Her favorite was in a shade of deep plum, hemmed with a ribbon along each sleeve. It was the first pretty outfit she would get to wear in a long time, and Hana hoped that it would help her fit in with the academy girls her age. She repeated the same spiel at the store’s sister location, intended for younger children, and bought Sara enough onesies that the child would sooner grow out of them than have the chance to wear them all.

Her next destination was the grocery store, to prepare what little food she knew how to cook. Thankfully, the Root-mandated fasting periods seemed to be over if they were allowing her to manage her own funds, so her belly would no longer growl into the late hours of the night. At the fresh market, she summoned a basket out of sight between stalls of fresh fruit, and gingerly picked the few vegetables she could identify before moving towards the buckets of various grains. Hana stuck with plain white rice, and forwent the spice and oil isle entirely, instead grabbing pre-made mixes and a few instant meals.

At the register line, she made note of a single shinobi chakra signature in the sea of civilians. Hana looked up to see silken black hair and endlessly dark eyes carrying a child that was practically her twin on her hip. The woman shot Hana a small smile, and Hana looked down to hide her blush from having been caught staring at the woman’s pretty face.

Her next stop was for protein, because she remembered her mother stressing that each meal must be balanced between food groups. She wasn’t exactly sure what counted as protein, but there was a fish market two streets over, and she waltzed right in regardless of her uncertainty.

“Mommy told me to get fish, enough to make some lunch and dinner with over the next few days.” She said to the man standing behind displays of stinking ice. “I just forgot what.”

She bowed her head before him, digging her foot into the ground sheepishly to drive the point home. It worked, and he weighed out multiple servings of cod and mackerel for her before wrapping the items in wax paper and waving her over to the payment station without a word. He mumbled something aggressive about tariffs and taxes under his breath as he packaged what was likely the typical choices for the women who came in here with the same goal.

Now all Hana had to do was figure out exactly how to cook all the items.

So, her next stop was the only place that could tell her just that. The Konoha General Library was located at the center of the village, and a whopping three stories tall as it loomed over Hana’s perturbed figure standing before it, having stumbled upon the building by sheer luck alone. Was she allowed to go it? How did she borrow books? Her town had been small enough that just meeting the eye of the elderly librarian was enough for the woman to jot your name down for her records.

Hana’s solace came in the form of a ninja, making his way out of the front doors with a few scrolls in his hands. He wore the standard jonin vest, paired with the shinobi slacks that most of the higher-ranking ninja who walked the streets preferred. He almost fell over her, not paying attention to her stationary form at the base of the staircase.

“Woah!” He gasped, “Kid! Watch where you’re standing!”

Hana winced, her nose having connected with his utility belt. “Sorry, shinobi-san. Sensei said to come to the library to take out some textbooks for super… um… supli-… supplementary reading, or something.” She sounded out, laying her fake stutters on thick.

“Ah, well. Have fun, then.” He began to move past her, giving her a pat on the head as he did so.

“Do you know where the books I can get are? I don’t remember which ones he said to ask for, and I forgot to write them down.” She asked, grabbing at his sleeve with a gentle tug before he could run off. She added a few clueless blinks, furrowing her brows for good measure.

“Sorry, kid. I can’t help you much there.” The ninja responded, scratching at his neck with a scroll and looking around for some sort of escape.

Hana gave him her best impression of a kicked puppy.

“Alright, alright—“ He sighed, leading her back into the building by the shoulder. “Don’t look at me like that. The archives available to students and civilians are over this way. Itooka-san is the librarian on duty today, she can help you get your name on the roster for the books you need.”

Hana spent the next hour knee deep between piles of curriculum-approved textbooks, having snagged some basic cookbooks while both the kind ninja and the librarian doted on her falsely-oblivious self. By the time she left the library, she had a scroll filled to the limit with just about every part of the academy curriculum, multiple meal-prep aids, and a thick text detailing childhood developmental markers and rearing advice. She also managed to sneak a singular book describing the feats of one Tobirama Senju, mainly because she liked the picture of the man with white hair and slashed cheeks on its cover.

She had a lot of reading to do in the evening.

Before she could get to it, though, she needed to complete the first part of her actual mission objective.

Enroll in Konoha’s Ninja Academy.

Another seemingly easy task.

As far as Hana was concerned, her education was supposed to remain within the tradition of the Land of Woods, which without a ninja system would have entailed her gaining an apprenticeship likely in calligraphic arts and sealing—much like her mother. She could have also underwent a few years of civilian schooling, payed for by her father’s mercantile business if she so pleased, and followed in his footsteps instead despite the realm of trade not really being within her interests. Ninja arts were never in the question, and she had no idea what to expect as she approached the two-story academy building nestled beneath the hokage tower.

She could tell that the building was mostly empty, since the school day was long since over, and only adult signatures remained. The system here decreed that school began in April, according to Itooka-san’s ramblings about rushed scheduling, and it being March already meant that the first semester was well underway. She had no idea what to expect as she pushed past the front doors, but Jin would have informed her of a thing relevant to her objective, so she wasn’t particularly worried.

As a matter of fact, it was frighteningly easy to sign up for the academy. Once the secretary deigned Hana with her attention, she walked her through the necessary forms (of which Hana left the guardian signature, last name, and age sections blank). From there, Hana was paired with an available teacher to administer an entrance exam—standard procedure, he explained, just to help decide what year to place her in. They operated on the basis of skill set rather than age, it seemed, though each year did have a generalized age range for its students.

The exam itself was a joke—laughably easy and borderline worrisome if the minuscule expectations were carried over to the rest of the student body. Kunai throwing at a target no more than ten paces away? Basic chakra control by means of suspending a leaf to the forehead? Simple katas and even simpler questions about math and history?

Ridiculous. Absurd. Outrageous.

By the end of the exam, Hana was furious. Students studying at the ninja academy made off with knowing the basics of the basics, and she was slaving away in cement bunkers against opponents who genuinely wanted to see her smeared across the concrete.

That simply wouldn’t do.

A problem for later, though, because now she had to go home and prepare for her first day of ninja school, of all things.

If her parents could only see her now, they’d weep.

At home, Hana made amends with the fact that she wasn’t going to become a chef overnight. The rice was in its pot after being rinsed clean, and her fish was stored away in the only half-frozen freezer. Boiling things was easy, and bland food was still food, in her eyes.

Hana was busy reading about developmental milestones in children as her sister crawled around the living room, chewing on the collar of one of her brand new onesies all the while. The small space was littered in shopping bags, items unable to be stored away properly given the existence of only one dresser. The purchase of furniture, as well as more room somehow, was just another item on her ever growing to-do list. Already she needed to figure out how to watch over Sara as she went to school (she would not be sending the child back to the summoning realm, not unless she absolutely had to), how to cook fish (why on earth did she buy fish?), how to present herself before her fellow students (what personality was she supposed to employ? Did Jin intend for her to use her own face?), how—

It hurt her head to think about.

Sara couldn’t walk, though was able to pick up items as well as drink on her own. She responded to verbal cues, yes— Hana paused—but had she heard Sara speak yet?

“Sara,” Hana called to the child, waving at her from her position on the floor. “Come!”

Sara only babbled, choosing to attempt to climb up on the bed instead.

“Sara! No!” Hana chastised, quickly rising from her stomach to stop the child from falling over, whose foot was already hitched on to the mattress ledge. As Hana grabbed at her sister’s waist, the younger girl twisted, and growled into Hana’s face.

Hana gulped, placing the girl in the center of the living room and watching as she speed off in the opposite direction.

That probably wasn’t good.

Hana thought for a moment, slumping as she realized that socialization probably also needed to be added to their planning. So, Sara spending the better part of a year of her life in a tiger den did have its consequences—even though most of the summons did speak, their mannerisms seemed to have left their mark on her little sister. Hana could only hope that scratching and biting wouldn’t materialize next. If only she could figure out a way to stop recruiting tigers to watch over the child, much like she had to earlier in the day.

Maybe she could just focus on talking to her sister more? Start narrating her actions, and get the tigers to do the same? She couldn’t exactly tell them to stop growling and grunting, though, since that wouldn’t be fair. Daily visits to the park, if only to be around actual human children, would have to suffice. How she would manage that with an entire military breathing down her neck, she wasn’t quite sure yet.

For dinner that evening, Hana spooned overcooked rice to her sister. She told her the the story of a peasant girl forced to marry a vengeful king, charming the man each evening by spinning tales of valiant warriors and detailing lengthy parables—only promising to finish them the following evening to put off an untimely demise. As Hana tucked her sister into bed beside her, she promised to do the same—a story every night, if only to help the both of them pretend that everything was okay for just a little while.

Though it was sleepless (with Hana constantly tossing and turning, startled at each shift of chakra in her periphery and praying desperately that one of her Root handlers wouldn’t come barging through the window) she was more hopeful than she’d been in a long, long time.

She would manage.

No matter what.

Notes:

- The chapter title is from a line in Shakespeare’s Macbeth (by the pricking of my thumb/ something wicked this way comes)
- Thumb picking is the classic method of drawing blood for the summoning jutsu, so i thought it would fit well
- Also, Hana tells her sister the story of 1001 nights, which is a collection of folktales that is framed as being told by Scheherazade to the sultan so that he doesn’t kill her each night he comes to her room

Chapter 6: Growing Pains

Notes:

- Thank you for the comments, kudos, and bookmarks—they really fuel me and I started editing this chapter right away. Let me know what you guys think, and I hope you all enjoy!
- Did anyone notice that the mission report in the previous chapter was technically wrong?

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Clones were her only real option.

She’d woken extra early that morning, summoning Tama to actually sit down and discuss the sheer shit show that her life had devolved into. The tiger was understanding enough, as were the members of the tiger council according to her, who realized upon month two of babysitting duty that something must have been terribly, horribly wrong for their contracted summoner to have abandoned her younger sister in their realm—especially because Hana was still alive. Her name being un-slashed on the scroll she’d signed not too long ago was evidence enough of that. They weren’t exactly happy with the circumstances, but they were at least understanding.

A summoning contract was supposed to be a partnership, an equal give-and-take of resources between the summoner and summoned, regardless of that being the human or the tigers themselves. Having been so young at the signing (and summoning jutsu only made possible by chakra stores augmented by years of involuntary sensing), the tiger council accepted Hana as a summoner by sheer intrigue alone, never having been presented with the possibility of a human partnership before.

It was the universe that decided she would make a perfect match for the felines, and them to her. They had an entire human lifetime to see just how Hana would live up to their expectations. For now, they’d support her where they could.

So, Hana and Tama decided on a few things. Namely that, yes, an adult tiger would watch over Sara in the day to day while Hana went to school—but only if Hana supplemented a clone alongside the feline to do the actual babysitting duties. The tiger’s role would be nothing more than a fail safe to reverse-summon her little sister back to their realm if and only if a Root agent discovered their dirty little secret.

Aside from that, the tigers also expected her to immediately begin training alongside her assigned partner Safa, who she hadn’t seen since the collapse of her own village. Her summons would be training her in the art of their Tiger Style—whatever that entailed. This would have to supplement any additional training Root forced upon her. They also worked out that under no circumstances was she to stay in the foundation that claimed her. Aside from deciding upon her defection though, the pair had no idea just how they would accomplish such a feat. There was the question of where she would even go, for one, and then the extent to which the seal in her mouth restricted her. Was it just spoken word about the organization that it prevented? Did it have some sort of locator feature?

Was it even removable?

She couldn’t vocalize anything she knew about the organization: nothing about the man who sealed her tongue, nothing about the mask-wearers who held her down, nothing about the claim the organization had on her—nothing, nothing, nothing.

She’d tried, of course, curiosity being one of her more dangerous character traits, but the words choked her as she tried to force them out of her throat. She’d tried to say Root, at first, and that led to a painful coughing fit—leaving her all red-faced and teary-eyed. Then, she’d tried to say ‘I’m being paraded around in private as a cold-blooded killer by a secret society of masked freaks’, but she couldn’t even get three words into that sentence before she gagged so hard that she saw stars. Somehow, saying the words ‘The roots of this tree are binding me, holding me hostage here, and they’ll follow wherever I go’ worked, and Tama was able to infer at least a little bit of what Hana meant. Hana stuck out her tongue to show the tiger just how screwed she was, and the stark black lines of the binding seal managed to drive her point home, as did the bruises that still remained across her legs and abdomen from various training sessions.

“He who bound you in such a manner cannot continue to live.” Tama had said, growling fiercely as she inspected Hana’s tongue. Hana only shrugged in response. What did she care about Danzo’s existence, as long as she managed to get away? Now more than ever she wished she paid attention to her mother’s long winded lectures on sealing, though.

(She didn’t try to write anything concerning Root down, too worried about the potential loss of her fingers that would come from that.)

Nevertheless, aside from tackling the baby-watching issue, Hana needed to collect much more information before she could move forward. So, she went to school.

It was cold out, with the distinct chill of early spring in the air. The village was quiet, with only a few civilians joining her along its dirt paths, stores and stalls only just opening and chatter barely a whisper in the cold breeze.

It’s so peaceful here.

No one seems worried, or stressed, or even bothered by the war happening beyond this country’s borders.

It’s like they aren’t even aware of the danger which exists past their gates.

Hana took a deep breath and marched onwards. She decided she didn’t particularly care how differently the people of Konoha were affected by the war effort compared to those of her home country, seeing that it hadn’t mattered in the end. That, and she was tired. Half her chakra stores had gone into making a clone to leave behind in her apartment, and she didn’t have the energy to dwell on the intricacies of varying cultural perspectives towards war.

She needed to try and fit in, after all—no use working herself up just yet. To help with that, she wore the short kimono she’d purchased the day prior, which was nothing like the flowing robes or veils donned by the women she’d grown up around. It required a belt, for one, along with a mesh undershirt and leggings. If it wasn’t for her physical appearance—wild hair and golden skin to match golden eyes—the villagers would be none the wiser to her foreign identity.

Her hair was another issue entirely; a creature with its own mind that wouldn’t lay flat no matter how many times Hana ran her fingers through it. She’d have to hunt down the creams and oils her mother used to lather onto her scalp before she even attempted to tame it. Instead, Hana left it free, waves and coils bouncing with each step she took on her walk.

As she waltzed through the yard of the academy building, Hana thought over her choices.

I could show up and show out. Some of these kids are likely formally trained, yes, but I doubt they have the… uh… experience level, I have.

I wouldn’t want to draw too much attention, though. I may only be here for my mission, but if I could get some ideas towards an escape route, it wouldn’t hurt. That, and I don’t want suspicions of espionage trailing after me. As long as I maintain a perfectly average standing, I’ll be able to get both my own, and Root’s, objectives completed.

Her musings landed her directly before the door of her assigned classroom, after passing the secretary she’d met yesterday with a small smile. The woman wasn’t a shinobi, but it was clear to Hana that almost every other adult signature in the building was—even those few that she’d identified to be hiding in the vents. She ignored them, careful not to let her eyes stray towards their hidden forms lest it reveal the extent of her sensory skills to anyone paying too much attention.

That was a lesson she learned a little too late.

She stared unblinkingly at the number etched into the wooden door before her. Feeling for activity within, Hana was met with a barrage of motion that she couldn’t be bothered to sift through at the moment. With a heavy sigh, knowing that she had no other choice than to face the crowd, she pushed it open and made a beeline for her new teacher at the front of the room.

It was a bustling scene. Kids were crowded around in groups as they both chatted idly and argued fiercely, tossing around balls of paper, some even launching projectile pencils at each other with alarming accuracy. None of them had noticed her presence yet, thankfully, and she was glad for the cover their distracted conversations gave her.

That cover, unfortunately, didn’t last.

“Class!” Shouted her new sensei, rising shakily to meet her from his desk and silencing the crowd with a clap.

“We have a new student!” He looked over at Hana’s waiting form.

“Go ahead.” The man instructed with a nod. Ito-sensei was his name—a pale, clean-shaven man with tired eyes and a slight limp in his left leg.

“My name is Hana.” She announced after a pause, a carefully neutral expression on her face as her eyes danced across the staring figures before her.

“Nice to meet you all. Please treat me well.” She finished with a tight smile.

And, holy shit, was she suddenly nervous. When was the last time she’d ever been around this many people her own age? Let alone been expected to get along with them, with some semblance of normalcy not marred by violent spars?

Not a single person smiled back at her as they eyed her warily in the auditorium-style classroom. They sat in rows on long wooden desks, cut through the middle by a staircase that led its way up and to the back of the room. With her chakra spread out, she nudged their signatures little by little, noticing the strong presence of fire throughout the group—much like the rest of the village. That, and some kids had a much larger signature than others. Clan kids, most likely, who’d been training since they could first walk and talk. Her instructions had told her to pay attention to those students in particular.

Ito-sensei directed her to find an open seat, and Hana felt her classmates’ eyes trail her as she made her way to the back of the classroom. Seeing as it was the turn of the period, the man quickly began the first subject, writing dates on the board in review of a history quiz that was taking place later in the week. Hana found a single open chair in the farthest row, sat in it, and promptly planted her head on a propped up arm with a thunk. A headache was beginning to develop behind her eyes.

This sucks.

What a stupid idea. What am I doing in a ninja classroom? And what’s with the butterflies in my stomach?

I should be with Sara, not playing at shinobi.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a finger jabbing her in the shoulder. She lifted her head up slightly, squinting at the disturbance.

“Yo.” Came the whisper of a boy, pointer finger still suspended in midair as he leaned towards her from his seat at her right. “What’s your deal? ”

“What’s my deal? ” Hana questioned with an aggressive whisper of her own. “I don’t have a deal. I literally just got here.”

“Yeah, but it’s kinda late into the cycle for that. Where’d you come from?” He questioned further. Hana studied his appearance with a raised brow. He was wearing a dark bandana, straight brown hair jutting out of its edges. A toothpick was suspended between his lips, somehow steady despite their short conversation. His chakra, Hana noted, was a gentle blaze right at his core.

Before she could explain, Ito-sensei’s voice rang out from the front of the room.

“Genma and Hana! It’s too early in the day for you two to be creating distractions for the rest of the class. Care to share what’s so important?” In response, the two culprits immediately shot out with their own ‘no, sensei’ and ‘sorry, sensei’ respectively, thoroughly chastised.

Despite this, Hana and Genma—the boy’s name was—spent the rest of the next few periods chatting it up. Where the best ramen stands were, who was crushing on who (which one was Kurenai again?) all the necessary information one would need to thrive in an elementary school. In the meantime, she refrained from taking any notes, seeing that the information jotted on the board was either basic timelines of major events, simple projectile physics, or lectures on shinobi-basics, in which Ito-sensei focused on common sense ‘shinobi rules’ as they were referred to.

A shinobi must never show their tears.

A shinobi must always follow the instructions of their commanding officer.

Obviously. Hana thought. How else would the war machine churn?

Instead, she spent most of the school day practicing her calligraphy. Her script was out of practice, not having any access to ahar paper or reed pens, but the stationary supplemented by the academy would suffice until she could get her hands on the more traditional tools which she needed for that. After all, her seal work would need to be top notch if she was to figure out how to remove the one which bound her. That, and she wasn’t concerned enough about her performance in the various courses to take notes, anyway. As long as Hana depicted herself as a perfectly normal girl, her time at the academy wouldn’t be in vain. And as far as she knew, normal girls were lax when it came to schoolwork.

Left to right, twenty eight letters and four forms each. Her wrists ached as she trudged her way through the ornate and decorative style. It may have been gaudy, but it was what she preferred. She practiced her lettering on the backs of handout sheets, only after scribbling quick and half-hearted answers to the questions on the front.

As the lunch bell rang, Hana walked out of the school building with Genma still by her side.

“So, what, they just let you waltz in without taking any of the previous classes?”

“Not exactly.” Hana waved off. “I did have to take a test, but it was pretty easy. Just some kunai throwing and standard katas, really.”

Compared to the extensive and gruesome training Root had put her through, the academy’s standards were child’s play.

“Huh.” He huffed. “And where’d you learned all that from? You’re not a clan kid.”

“My parents.” Hana lied easily. “They thought it was important for me to know how to defend myself.”

Genma nodded, before looking off into the courtyard. “They dead, then?”

Hana didn’t deign him with a response. Instead, they sat in silence beneath the shade of a wide cedar tree at the far edge of the yard. Genma didn’t need her to respond, though, reading between the lines. He punched her lightly on the bicep.

“Mine too, new girl. Don’t sweat it.”

Hana looked back at him then. He seemed sincere enough, she figured, prodding at his chakra signature to gauge his intentions.

“You’re a weird dude.” She stated simply.

“Me!” He said with fake offense. “You’re the one with the yellow eyes.” He teased.

Ignoring the jab, she hovered her palms over her lap. Now a familiar routine, her seal stains materialized before summoning her lunch, having packed it that morning while preparing Sara’s own. It was a simple sandwich, with some cucumbers on the side, made with fresh bread from the bakery across the street from her apartment—a lucky break. It was the same type of lunch her mother used to make whenever they picnicked in the surrounding forests of her town.

“How’d you do that?” Asked Genma incredulously, sitting across from her without a lunch of his own. Hana split her sandwich in two, holding it out for him to take half.

“Don’t worry about it.” She shook the sandwich in front of him. “Here. It’s good.”

He took it, and without further conversation, the two munched away as they watched the rest of the kids play tag or pretend to fight to the death with silicone kunai.

“Raido!” Cut Genma through the silence, waving over a new face. “Come meet Hana!”

“—Hanaaa.” The girl corrected for what felt like the millionth time since arriving to Konoha, stressing the second syllable instead of the first. Her Root trainers constantly mispronounced her name, but she didn’t have the balls to correct any of them yet. Both the academy secretary, and the few teachers she’d met already, also butchered its pronunciation, and she was slowly losing her patience towards the repeated need to correct people. Her name was Hana, yes, written in the eastern language with a glottal stop at its end. The name also existed in the common tongue, but it was instead pronounced quickly with two short syllables, and written with a single kanji that simply meant flower. She much preferred her name the way her parents intended it to be pronounced, with three letters arranged to mean happiness. Having to settle with the knowledge that most of Konoha’s inhabitants would forever struggle with the sounds of her home tongue was yet another blow she’d have to get used to sooner rather than later.

She used a hand to shade her eyes as the unfamiliar figure approached.

He was scarred, deeply, across his face—jagged edges of skin running from his cheek to the bridge of his nose.

“What’s up!” Raido, greeted, making his way over after breaking free from the group of kids wrestling by a swing set. He took a seat by them, then, leaning on to one of his knees as he studied Hana.

Hana nodded at him. “Hi.” She bit out, uncomfortable by the sudden attention.

“New girl, huh?” He tilted his head. “Where are you from?”

Hana met his eyes. “The Land of Woods.”

You didn’t have to be any bit politically savvy to know exactly what was happening in that part of the world, in which the weakness of a non-ninja society was being snuffed out beneath the boots of a much stronger power.

“Ah.” Raido stood after a beat, holding out a hand for Hana to take. “Wanna play ninja? It’s simple. You just can’t get caught by whoever’s turn it is to hold the kunai.”

Hana looked between the two boys as they waited for her response. Without further delay, she grabbed Raido’s hand and stood, dusting herself off before following him to the group of killers-in-training as they played pretend.

Hana thought that maybe, just maybe, becoming an actual ninja wouldn’t be too bad after all.

She all but slammed the door to the apartment behind her as she entered.

“Sara!” Hana yelled out, running to scoop the child in her arms and spinning the pair of them around in place as she did so. “I missed you so much!”

Sara giggled, kicking her legs wildly in the air.

Hana’s clone was in the barely-there kitchen, standing in wait beside a boiling pot of something and sizzling pan of something else. It seemed that her clone had been busy, what with the now spotlessly clean apartment around her all but glittering, and the scent of an unidentifiable meal wafting through the air. Hana placed her sister back down, walking over to her clone to face it.

She’d never really gotten over the uncanniness of being able to look at herself head on. Mirrors were one thing, still not a perfect representation of the self, and photos were equally as distorted. But being able to truly look at herself—every pore, every eyelash, every hair out of place—it just didn’t feel right. Knowing that it was technically herself that watched sister all day (save for Tama lounging belly up by the window), gave her the strength to bear the discomfort, though.

And, she employed clones all the time on her missions, preferring to face targets using them lest they catch on to her ill intentions prior to their demise.

(Another lesson learned too late. Dull blue eyes appeared behind her eyelids every time she closed them.)

It didn’t hurt that her clones were excellent, either. She took advantage of her impure elemental affinity, which was not quite water and not quite earth, and melded the two into an outward projection to make a fully-functional doppelgänger.

Most shinobi (proven by her nights spent sensing them) had much purer preferences towards one nature, seen in the way their chakra signatures tended to imitate that element at base level. Clan kids, like the ones in her class, seemed to have even more obvious affinities, and Hana figured that her civilian lineage likely came into play regarding her muddled chakra nature.

So, mud clones were the result of the sort of experimentation her Root missions allowed. Either way, water clones were much too finicky to be expected to last an entire day, and earth clones took more energy than Hana could to spare to stabilize.

Her father saying something about man being molded from mud rang across the back of her mind, but she couldn’t quite remember the context of that conversation, so she let the thought float away.

Her preferred hand sign for just about any expulsion of chakra was that of the tiger, which she only gravitated towards because of her personal preference for its animal namesake. She made the symbol quickly, and the clone before her dissipated into a steaming pile of muck on the floorboards. This was expected. What wasn’t expected, though, was the sudden onset of vertigo and the churning of her stomach that came with it. She had to grip the countertop just to stay upright, vision doubling and knees suddenly too weak to support her weight.

A baby being bounced on her hip.

Genma telling her about the best ramen shop near the school and his preferred order of tonkotsu broth, then Hana explaining why she didn’t eat pork.

The ringing in her ears at Sara’s cries after the baby tripped over her own chubby legs.

Tagging Raido in their game of ninja first, certain that it was only because he let her since she wasn’t trying all that hard.

Using the few, half-empty cleaning supplies under the sink to scrub the ever-loving hell out of every single surface.

Ito-sensei calling her out to answer a question about what country Degarashi Port was located, and Hana only being correct because she’d been there while on a quick mission for Root.

Hana humming her sister a lullaby to try and get the child to nap, one about promising to cook her a little dove, promising to hang her clothes on a jasmine tree, promising the little dove that—

Something was wrong. Dispelling a clone had never resulted in such a jumble of memories before.

Hana groaned, and laid down flat on the cold tile floor. She squeezed her eyes shut, doing her best to breathe in through her nose then out through her mouth and will her nausea away. It was like her brain was so overwhelmed by the sheer onset of stimuli that it was raging at her, thumping in her head and forcing a cold sweat upon her skin. Her experience with clones thus far hadn’t prepared her for this… this set back.

If each time she dispelled a day-long clone, she had to deal with the raging headache and sickness that came afterwards—well, she would be in for a world of pain.

It’s just a minor issue.

Nothing I can’t handle.

It took every ounce of strength she had to sit herself up.

Sarah was gurgling away at her side, sticky fingers (how on earth did they get so sticky!?) pulling at Hana’s hair. An acrid scent was wafting through the air, and realization slowly dawned on Hana.

“The food!” Hana yelled out. She winced as she picked Sara up off the floor, swaying only a little before shutting off the stove. She sped over to the window, propping it open and shooting a glare at the tiger who was chuckling at her misery.

Tama swiped away a tear with her paw rolling over to find her feet. “I have to head back, now. Don’t forget to summon Safa later for training.”

Hana sighed. “Will do. Thank you for your help today. I really do appreciate it.”

The feline stood to her full height, rubbing herself across Hana’s abdomen before disappearing in a cloud of smoke, which only added to the already foggy room.

Hana looked around said room in despair. The food her clone had prepared was definitely burnt, even if Hana still had no idea what it was supposed to be, which left her to forge an entirely new dinner. Thankfully, she wasn’t all that hungry anymore anyway. Sara’s hands were busy playing tug of war with her curls, and Hana pulled them away with a gentle yank.

“It’s just you and me, isn’t it?” Hana asked her sister.

The baby on her hip blew a raspberry straight into her face.

She would never admit it, but Hana had almost forgotten about Safa entirely.

After a few hours of mediation (interrupted ever so often to check on Sara, who was busy tossing around stolen alphabet blocks), her headache had finally subsided enough to summon her partner.

Safa, in all his striped glory, was a lot larger than the last time she’d seen him. They’d been paired during her initial meeting with the tiger den, with him still a newborn kitten and barely able to crack open his beady little eyes. Now, he sat before her with a curious sway of his tail, head tilting left and right as he studied her.

“You smell weird.” The tiger cub announced sagely.

Hana rolled her eyes. “When did you get so big?”

Safa had been the smallest of his litter, not even expected to survive his first few months—failure to thrive, they had called it. Hana had spent those first few months praying for him, uncertain if she would get another partner if the tiger cub perished to his fate. It was another gamble her summons had taken—first with her, then with the survival of their own offspring, promising that if he survived, he would be hers just as much as she would be his.

Seeing that the cub before her looked nothing like the weak little kitten she’d first been introduced to, her prayers must’ve helped somewhat.

They were in a field near her apartment—a public training ground that was only accessible to her due to her newfound status as an academy student. It being empty allowed her to bring her little sister along, who was off to the side chewing on some blades of grass.

Wait.

Hana ran over to her sister, tugging the child’s dirt filled fist from her mouth. “Sara! Gross!”

Sara only pouted, crawling away to continue snacking on some other shrubbery far from Hana’s line of sight.

Hana really, really needed to get her sister some friends. The childcare book she was making her way through recommended that new parents set up playdates with other children as some sort of community building effort. Unfortunately, Hana didn’t know any parents with young children. She also didn’t know how to set up a playdate. Or what exactly occurred during one.

She dragged her feet back over to her tiger partner, plopping on to the ground before him. Hana buried her face into her knees.

“Safa, do you ever get scared?” She mumbled through her fingers.

The tiger blinked at her, before moving to force his way into her lap. “All the time!”

“Well, how do you fix it?”

The tiger gave her a sharp-toothed smile. “Sparring! Sparring with my brothers always helps me feel better. C’mon, let’s fight!”

Hana ran her fingers through his soft fur, chewing on her lower lip.

“Okay.” Hana shrugged.

They spent the rest of the day like that, two kids (well, a kid and a tiger cub) grappling in the dirt of an empty field until they no longer had the strength to do so.

Safa was right, she did feel better afterwards.

Notes:

- The Naruto world speaks Japanese but they never refer to it as such because “Japan” doesn’t exist in-universe, which is why I’m calling it the “common tongue” esp bc its so widespread. I like to think that there are smaller communities that speak other languages which are slowly being lost. Arabic is the “eastern language” in question
- In regards to Hana’s name, the name “Hana” does exist in Japanese, and is pronounced very similarly to how you would say it in English. In Arabic though, her name would be pronounced more like “Hanaa”, which is why she’s mad no one’s saying her name right lol
- Nothing is without consequence, and just because Hana can make clones that last all day, it doesn’t mean that she should.

Chapter 7: Pulling the Curtain Back

Notes:

- More character introductions!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Another early morning. Another round of breathing exercises needed before she could force herself out the door.

No sign of Jin, or Root, just yet.

Her first week at the academy was coming to an end, and Hana was anxious. Where were her handlers? When was the next mission? When would they find her out, learn of not only her intentions to flee but also the child she had hidden away?

The child that they would surely take.

She couldn’t eat. She could barely sleep. And, she was sore. Not outwardly—internally, circuitry aching after yet another morning of relinquishing half her chakra stores to a clone, then another bit to summoning a tiger as well.

Most annoying of all, there was a history quiz today.

It took everything in her to hold back a groan as she trudged into class. Genma waved her towards their spot in the back—slackers, the two of them were coming to be known as, always chatting, or doodling on assignments, or napping the periods away.

Genma was funny, in a deadpan and sarcastic sort of way. Hana had to hold back a giggle every time she watched him talk his way out of detention each time he walked in late, which happened to occur multiple times over the course of her first week alone. His friend Raido was a lot more studious, always lecturing him whenever their teacher was somehow convinced into letting Genma off easy.

It was weird, how she could take a liking to someone so quickly. Perhaps it was the semblance of normalcy he brought into her life.

“Good morning, sensei.” Hana said to the man as she passed by his desk. Ito-sensei was nice enough to her, treating her about as indifferently as he did every other one of his students. In another life, she would’ve liked to suck up to him—to raise her hand for every question, to always be paying attention and never talk out of turn. In another life, she would’ve liked to be that type of student.

In this life, though, she wouldn’t be. Couldn’t be.

“Good morning, Hana—stop right there, please.”

Hana halted mid-step, turning around halfway to look back at him. She almost never spoke to him outside of official class time—only once to ask some clarifying questions about the shinobi ranking system in Konoha (since being a career genin was looking more and more appealing these days).

“You’ll be sitting where I can see you for this quiz. Right next to Obito in the middle, if you don’t mind.”

Hana held back a cringe. “Of course, sensei.”

Okay, so, maybe her and Genma tended to take turns doing assignments, and maybe that could be construed as cheating if the right parties were asked. She did have a preference for history, even if Konoha’s version of certain events was a little deadpan-inducing (like, no, the first hokage did not build the village in a week all on his own—everyone knows it took years of careful civic engineering to integrate entire populations from multiple clans amongst pre-existing trade routes and claimed territories). It just so happened that Genma preferred doing anything math-related, which Hana despised. It wasn’t her fault she was busy after school with taking care of Sara, training with the tigers, and practicing her penmanship! She just didn’t have the time to get all of her work done. There simply just wasn’t enough hours in the day (or, hell, night—given her lack of a sleep schedule).

(The only math Hana liked to do was geometry, building intricate and repeating patterns with precise angles and lines, all in an effort to create more and more complex shapes for her developing seal work.)

There was an open seat in the middle of the room, next to a boy sitting by his lonesome at an otherwise empty table. Disregarding the fact that he looked downright miserable (and that he had bright orange goggles propped on to his forehead of all fashion choices), Hana took the seat to his right. She shot Genma a forlorn glance over her shoulder.

There goes my chance at paying him back for the last homework assignment he covered for me. I’ll just have to pack a few more extra lunches over the next few days, then.

Hana paid Obito no mind as he passed over her exam sheet. She continued to ignore him as she began working on her test once their teacher gave them the go-ahead to start, and ignored him some more as she looked around the room after yet another question managed to tick her off.

Describe three factors that forced Konoha‘s participation in the Second Great Shinobi War.

Innocuous in tone, yet subtle in its implication that Konoha had no role in the onset of the war—making it seem like they had no choice but to participate. Like they had no option other than to partake in the slaughter of thousands.

History was always recounted by the victors, after all.

Once she wrote down her answer (some bullshit about neutral checkpoints being overrun by Iwagakure nin as described by Ito-sensei), Hana couldn’t help but notice that Obito’s paper was still entirely blank, and that his sour mood was still heavy enough to permeate the air around her. His pencil was held loosely in his hand, and he was staring unblinkingly at his exam paper—empty, with only a quarter of the period left to go.

Hana thought of Ito-sensei, and how he separated her from Genma because he somehow knew she was planning on helping him cheat on his exam.

Then she thought of how Ito-sensei loved to call on her to answer questions whenever she was mid-nap and too tired to listen to his previous ramblings.

So, Hana did the only right thing to do, and shifted her paper over towards Obito’s line of sight, kicking at his leg under the table to get his attention.

So much for your plan, sensei. I’ll cheat next to anyone, even the kids no one talks to.

Obito gave her a confused glance, and she pointedly looked down at her test paper so that he could get the hint.

C’mon, idiot. Help me stick it to the man!

Obito blinked at her test paper in shock. She watched Ito-sensei carefully, just to make sure his gaze didn’t stray towards the pair anytime soon, then nudged her paper even closer towards her new partner in crime.

He looked at her like she had two heads.

Hana gave him a quick nod and a shy smile. She really, really was not good at this people thing outside of missions. Give her a personality and an identity to memorize—she had it down. Interacting with people on her own, though? Out of the question.

That was enough for Obito to get a grip, then, and he quickly began scribbling his own share of answers. By the time Ito-sensei called for them to put their pencils down, Obito had managed to fill out a majority of his quiz, and Hana hoped he had the foresight to change the answers around enough so that their actions could go unnoticed.

Lunch was the same every day. Find her favorite tree, sit at its trunk, eat. Fight off Genma as he tried to steal more than his fair share of her lunch. Sic Genma on to Raido whenever he got too curious about her palm seals. Practice her calligraphy on some scrap paper until the bell for the next period rang.

Rinse. Repeat.

Today, though? Today her routine was broken.

“Hey! Whaddya do that for, earlier?” Obito asked, trailing behind Hana in the school yard as she winced past the rays of the afternoon sun.

Hana shrugged, not turning to look at him. “Just cuz. You wouldn’t have been able to finish otherwise.”

Obito finally caught up, walkingin step with her and blinking at her outright. He seemed to do that a lot. Or, maybe, he just found Hana particularly confusing.

“Oh.” He said, stumped. “Thanks!”

Hana was equally as confused. It wasn’t anything that serious—not like she’d done anything hard. She knew the answers, and it didn’t hurt her to share them. Why wouldn’t she help him?

(That, and she didn’t like the way his chakra projected his sadness. It was rubbing off on her, and she didn’t need anymore emotional turmoil in her day.)

“I’m Hana, by the way.”

Obito gave her a grin so wide, she was certain it was hurting his cheeks. “Obito Uchiha!” He announced entirely too loud, adjusting the goggles on his forehead.

They were kind of endearing.

Genma was busy taking a stroll around the yard with Raido, so Hana lead Obito over to a staircase at the back entrance of the school grounds where it was quieter. She wondered if she could squeeze a nap into their limited lunch time. Technically, the students were allowed to go wherever they wanted for their lunch (especially since there was no one outside to monitor them), but most kept to school property lest they face the wrath of their teacher if they were late for the next period.

“You didn’t study?” Hana asked.

“Ah, well…” Obito explained sheepishly, scratching at his neck. “Rin-chan was supposed to come over and help me yesterday, but she was busy after school! And, today, she’s not here either!”

At his suddenly crestfallen expression, Hana figured the lack of one Rin-chan was the source of his woes. She strained her memory to try and recall if she knew anyone in class with that name, and chastised herself for only making note of the various clan kids. She knew better than to ignore the less obvious dangers. Rin was probably a civilian girl, then, blending into the background of all the other nameless children in her memory.

Hana hummed, not knowing what to say to the boy to make him feel better. She sat with her legs out before her on one of the cement stairs, with Obito across from her perching on the rusty metal railing. As usual, her lunch materialized into her lap with a hover of her palms and a poof.

“Woah!” Obito yelled, leaning towards her in wonder and almost slipping off the railing entirely. “You know ninjutsu? I’ve been practicing this fire one that I watched one of my cousins do, but I haven’t got it down just yet.” He said excitedly.

“Really?” Hana asked, genuinely curious. She didn’t correct his mislabeling of her fuinjutsu. “I don’t know much ninjutsu, only some basic water and earth stuff. You’ll have to show me sometime.”

If Obito’s expression could get any happier, it somehow did. His eyes practically sparkled, and he gave Hana an affirmative nod as she handed over one of her leftover steamed dumplings from the night prior. He took it without question.

If he was so open to talking about his skills, it wouldn’t hurt to try and potentially learn from him. Hana could use all the help she could get in the ninjutsu department, especially because she didn’t know if her Root trainers didn’t want to teach her any more water and earth-based skills, or if they just didn’t know anymore to teach her. She’d read about a famed Water Release: Water Dragon in one of her library books, and desperately wanted to see it in action. Unfortunately, the text didn’t list the required hand signs, so she couldn’t even attempt to learn it on her own.

That was probably a good thing.

Though Hana wasn’t the chatty type, humoring Obito with only single word replies and small expressions, Obito talked enough for the both of them. Their conversation somehow segued into their favorite foods, with Obito citing his love for dango and being completely shocked that Hana had never had it before. He even promised he would take her to the best stall after school. She said she was busy today, but would definitely take him up on that offer another time. Hana even divulged her own favorite sweet—candied cherries in a thick red syrup, only produced in the coastal towns of the Land of Waves.

When she could get her hands on a jar, she promised Obito she would let him have some, too.

And though Hana mourned the loss of her nap, she didn’t quite mind. Not once during the period did her thoughts stray to her desperate need to find more time to train, or towards Root, or even her worries surrounding her little sister. Obito wasn’t exactly a welcome distraction, but one that was thrust upon her by force, and for that, she was almost grateful.

Hana couldn’t breathe.

Four minutes ago, a barrage of memories invaded her mind. Her clone had dispelled itself, and only after blinking past the blinding darkness and struggling to keep her head upright was she able to decipher the clone’s final memories.

Tama sensing a presence approach the apartment and conducting a reverse summon.

Six minutes and fourteen seconds left until she could see what went down.

She was sitting next to Obito, who was as fidgety externally as she felt internally. He, too, had his eyes trained on the clock. They’d sat together the rest of the day, and she had given him the idea to go straight to Rin’s place after school with some soup take-out to check on his missing friend. She really wanted to meet the girl, given that Obito talked about her like she was the sun in his sky.

Four more minutes of agony passed, and Hana felt a year of her life shave away for each one until the bell finally rang.

“Bye, Hana-chan!” Obito yelled out behind him as he tore out of the classroom.

Hana didn’t respond, even if the sudden addition of an honorific caught her off guard. Honorifics were weird to her, a feature of the common tongue that had taken her a long while to get used to growing up. She left school as usual, one foot in front of the other through the halls, through the front doors, and only paused once she reached the school’s outer gate.

She was having trouble thinking straight. Whether that was because of the sudden clone dispersion, or the fear turning her blood to ice, she wasn’t sure.

To the top of your head first.

She remembered her mother’s words.

Then, flush your chakra towards the tips of your fingers, bringing it back to circle in your chest before sending it to your toes. Again and again, until it becomes the most natural thing in the world. This will ground you, no matter what.

It took Hana seven tries before she could get the meditative motion right and finally taking a proper step towards her apartment. She couldn’t run there, no matter how much she wanted to, seeing as it would arouse suspicion from not only the Root agent who was currently surveying her place, but also whatever ninja saw her, and academy student, dashing across the rooftops.

Instead, she walked home, trying to be casual as she could manage while forcing her stiff limbs to loosen and breath to steady. Hana’s hands shook as she approached the house that wasn’t really hers, and it took her two whole tries to force her keys into their key hole due to the loose grip of her sweat-laden palm.

Inside her apartment, Jin was standing in wait. Mask on and armored, he looked at her expectantly.

Immediately, she shut the door behind her and kneeled.

“Report.” Came his gruff voice.

“Integration into the academy was a success. I was slotted into the fifth year cohort under Ken Ito and have been attending classes for the last week.” Hana replied, gaze planted firmly down to the floor boards and hoping her voice was as level as it sounded in her head. He never really liked it when she looked him in the eyes.

~~Where is my baby? I just got her back! Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?~~

Jin didn’t give his opinions on the matter.

“You have a sub-mission, expected time frame being this weekend. Under no circumstances are you to miss any days of the academy schedule, or there will be consequences. The mission file is there.” He nodded towards the kitchen countertop, and Hana didn’t need to look up at him to see the motion. “Understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Hana responded immediately, without having even fully processed his words yet.

~~WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE?~~

Jin flickered away.

She stayed there, bent over and unmoving, until her legs went numb. She needed to get up, needed to read through her mission objective and study its contents before heading out immediately, certain that any delay would definitely make her late for school the coming weekday.

It was a blunder, on her part, to be so startled by his sudden appearance. The whole point at having a tiger summon at home was for it to do its due diligence in keeping her sister away from Root. Tama had done a great job, sensing him minutes before he arrived, and successfully managed to hide all signs of the baby’s presence in the apartment while also sending the both of them to the summoning realm.

So why was she still so scared?

Hana shook the feeling away. The tigers would have to keep the baby for the weekend, then, or however long it took her to complete her new objective. She’d deal with their disapproval later, because now she had a mask of her own to don.

It took her well into the next morning to arrive at the Land of Ravines, then about another half day to locate the young heiress in her boarding school dormitory.

The teenage Chiriko was too busy practicing her lines to notice Hana crawling through the window. Without so much as a peep to the guard standing outside the door, Hana was able to knock the heiress unconscious and tie her limbs taught, before injecting her with the syringe of sedative picked up from Root’s K-3 base straight into the vein and shoving her body into the closet. It was too bad that the heiress preferred to be alone prior to major events.

That night, Hana was Chiriko, taking up the girl’s identity during an omiai with a young lord from the opposing edge of the country. Their partnership was supposed to be a bright hope amongst an otherwise war-torn backdrop, and a sign that despite the times, life could still go on as usual.

Root never listed reasons for their missions. As a matter of fact, aside from the bare bones of an objective, expected course of action, and sometimes a single photograph—mission files barely contained any detail at all. Hana had been on enough to be able to decipher the general purposes of them, though. Her missions tended to involve some sort of low-level political blackmail, or a hunt for a particular individual based on their chakra signature alone. Or, much like tonight, Hana was expected to be someone else entirely.

So, after stripping the young heiress of her robes and taking over her look (blonde locks, a waifish frame, pale grey eyes), Hana went to the marriage meeting in her place. Thankfully, Chiriko was well documented as being of the silent and introverted type, so Hana didn’t have to do much acting in that regard. And if Root needed her to sabotage the young couple’s betrothal, Hana wouldn’t ask any questions.

All it took was a snobby attitude, bad manners, and rude quip at the maid servant before the displeasure began radiating off the young lord in waves. And for the first time in a long time, she did actually start to feel bad—especially after she gave a particular harsh scoff to the shaky hands of the servant girl pouring them tea. By the end of the evening, Hana had guaranteed that there would be no unity between the inner and outer lords in the Land of Ravines, cementing at least some of the disconnect across their country for generations to come just with her bad attitude alone.

But Hana didn’t really get this mission, either. Up until this point, she’d assumed that though immoral and generally mean-spirited, all the missions decreed by the wider Konoha governorate were self-serving in some way. Meaning that, regardless of how nasty they made her feel, they were supposed to be for the benefit of the village and the Land of Fire.

But what benefit would there be in ensuring a maintained divide, however slight, in the Land of Ravines? Especially given that the Land of Ravines was ones of the only slivers of space standing between them and their longstanding enemies in the Hidden Stone Village.

It just didn’t make any sense.

So maybe, by the end of the evening and when the no-longer-a-couple was bidding each other farewell, Hana may have used Chiriko’s hand to squeeze the young lord’s arm. Hana may have also leaned over to whisper in his ear, saying that she (Chiriko) was sorry and that he would be doing everyone a great service if he forgave her for her misgivings that evening.

Maybe she did that. It’s not like she’d be writing it on the mission report, nor did anyone see the action. If the young lord listened to the sincerity in Chiriko’s (Hana’s) tone and actually did demand a redo—well, that was his prerogative. No fingers would be pointing at Hana for that.

Notes:

- I WISH we got to see more of Obito’s childhood. He was so cute!!
- Please let me know what you guys think! Your comments are so encouraging and very very appreciated. Do you like the dialogue between the characters?

Chapter 8: Ill Will

Notes:

As always, your interactions fuel me. Thank you all and I hope you enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

She managed to make it to school on time come morning. Exhausted after yet another sleepless night—but still, on time.

As the boys in her academy class were herded off to conduct their own unique coursework—likely just additional strength training—the girls remained in their seats, where they were joined by a woman so old and wrinkled that she seemed only days away from the grave. Twice a week, kunoichi classes were taught as a supplement to the shinobi curriculum. The first thing Hana noticed about the woman was the sharp look in her eyes, then the even sharper point of her fingernails. And though her chakra signature didn’t give it away (withered, just like her), it was clear to Hana that the woman was a skilled kunoichi at some point. The fact that she was able to make it to such an age was a testament to the strength she must have once wielded.

Her mission over the course of the last few days was another success (not that it was allowed to be anything else), and it had given Hana an idea. School systems outside of ninja villages varied heavily between the cultures of the surrounding population, and soon enough Hana would be forced to decide on how she would provide her sister with an education. The Konoha academy was out of the question—under no circumstances would she allow the child to become a ninja, let alone put herself in the spotlight in such a way. Hana also wasn’t cocky enough to think she could handle homeschooling on top of the day-to-day chores which she already forced on to her clones.

Instead, she would give her sister an education befitting an heiress.

The mission had done more than open her eyes to the disconnect between Root and the general Konoha attitude towards peace; it had also introduced her to the schooling of the upper class.

It wouldn’t be hard to forge documents that claimed Sara was the daughter of a merchant rich enough to afford the tuition of a boarding school, nor would it be hard to give the child a new identity entirely. It would be hard, though, to get her to the Land of Ravines without being found out in the first place.

(And, technically, the pair were the daughters of a rich merchant. Her father was rich, perhaps just not as much as the boarding school’s attendants. Hana figured this out once she realized that it was not normal to have had two homes—one in the city and one in the countryside. She still needed a way to get access to anything her father may have left in her name, though, but that was another problem slotted for later.)

The Land of Ravines was neutral territory, and had remained such across multiple shinobi wars, making it automatically safer than any alternative plan she could come up with in the Land of Fire. The school she’d stepped foot in momentarily was a junior college for the offspring of government-affiliated or affluent-enough citizens—guarded heavily in order to keep said offspring safe until they could be properly molded into more sleazy politicians or officials.

It would be perfect. No one would have it out for Sara if she was slotted as a non-person-of-interest (rich, but not rich enough to be targeted, and not politically aligned in any sort of way). So, unlike poor Chiriko, no ninja would be stealing her away in the middle of the night. And the more she thought it over, the more Hana liked the idea. Sara would be far away from any ninja-nonsense, far away from Root, and could learn in a relatively normal environment. Perhaps Hana could even figure out a way to arrange weekend visits? She would just have to get Sara a solid enough identity first.

Today’s lesson was on shodo, at least, and that meant Hana didn’t have to pay too much attention to the old woman’s ramblings about brush angle or stroke direction. Calligraphy of the common tongue had very similar rules to that of Hana’s own language, and aside from stylistic variations, she had no problem following along. The girl to her left, however, was clearly struggling—evident by her shaky lines as they transcribed the kanji on the chalkboard at the front of the room.

“Relax your wrist.” Hana whispered to the brunette. “Your hand is too stiff.”

The girl blinked at her in response, before stretching her fingers and trying again. This time, the resulting marks were much more acceptable.

“Thank you.” The girl whispered back. “Rin.”

“Huh?” Hana questioned dumbly.

“My name is Rin.” The girl faced her with a smile, purple stripes on either side of her face a striking contrast to her pale skin.

“Oh.” Hana blushed, embarrassment showcasing itself in the rosy tint of her cheeks. “I’m Hana.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“You always know what you’re doing in the kunoichi classes. Even if you spend most of the regular subjects asleep in the back.”

“Ah, well.” Hana placated. “I just do a lot of reading at home.”

She, obviously, didn’t explain the missions that forced her into explicit knowledge of geisha practices.

So this was Rin—the girl Obito was very obviously crushing on, given the way her absence had derailed his entire school day when Hana had last seen him. Rin had in fact been sick, with her lips still somewhat pale from any lasting ailment. Otherwise, the girl was very pretty, all doe-eyed with delicate features, but Hana had a feeling that it was more than her looks that interested Obito. He didn’t seem like the type for such surface-level emotions, anyway.

They were sharing a bottle of ink between them, both their hands stained due to having to steady it every time it wobbled with the shaky desk. They didn’t spend any more time talking, settling into the comfortable silence instead. Rin’s chakra nature was yet another flame in Hana’s periphery, but unlike the much more brilliant signatures that made up their class, it was soft —gentle and warm, like the light of a candle on an otherwise dark night.

“Hana,” Rin bumped their shoulders together, “pay attention.”

She had dozed off again, head drooping forward and consciousness leaving her momentarily. She hadn’t stopped to rest after her mission, quickly going home just to change and then make her way straight to the academy. Maybe Root wouldn’t find out about any lateness or absence—but on the off-chance they did, she was not about to encourage another surprise visit from Jin. She just hoped her lack of sleep wouldn’t make a permanent residence under her eyes.

The rest of the period went by drowsily, with Hana jolting awake due to Rin’s nudges ever so often. It was early enough in the day that Hana knew her tiredness wouldn’t be seen as weird, thankfully. Either way, Obito’s exuberant attitude was enough to raise even the dead.

“Rin-chan!” He yelled, making a beeline for the girl as the boys were let back into class. He screeched to a halt before them, looking between the pair. “Oh! Hana-chan! I didn’t see you there!”

Obito was in much higher spirits than the last time she’d seen him, and this time, he was actually wearing his goggles as opposed to accessorizing with them. He was also somewhat out of breath, clothes wrinkled and covered in dust.

Hana couldn’t help her laugh. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Woah…” he said, leaning over the desk and inspecting their work. “You guys get to write all fancy while they make us run laps and spar! How unfair!”

“The girls have to spar too, Obito.” Rin corrected, giving him a small smile.

“Oh?” Hana asked. This was news to her. “When do we get to do that?”

She’d have to plan exactly how a spar would go down. Not only was she working through an entirely new style, courtesy of her tiger summons, but there had been variation between both the Root and what little she’d seen of the academy style as well. Where Root had been stricter, demanding sharp lines and precision, the academy merely expected students to know the motions without so much as offering corrections. It’d be hard to separate between the three in a real fight, but Hana was sure she could manage in a display match. After all, given the ninja she could still regularly feel watching from the ventilation system, it was clear that the students were also being studied themselves.

“We usually don’t start sparring as a class until later in the year, just to give everyone a chance to get settled.” Rin explained. The girls had cleared their table, and Obito joined them at the end of the desk while the teachers switched off. Ito-sensei would be returning for the next lesson on shinobi career studies.

“So there’s mixed sparring as well?” Hana questioned further. That would be annoying. A lot of her classmates were larger, as she was not only lacking in the height department but also in the weight department. Her main concern was how she would fair against some of the older boys, especially without weaponry or the ability to land truly debilitating shots. No aiming for the eyes or knees, then, and definitely nothing to the back of the head. She wondered if a sharp elbow to the liver would be frowned upon, or if using her nails like she’d been permitted to do in Root fights was acceptable.

“Don’t worry, Hana-chan! The boys usually take it easy on the girls, and sensei rarely matches mixed spars.” Obito said, giving Hana a reassuring smile and a thumbs up.

Well that was stupid. Then the girls would be at a disadvantage when forced to face larger and stronger opponents, which was practically a guarantee in their line of work. If they didn’t build a thick skin now, how would they ever? Obito had clearly mistook her curiosity for fear, but that was probably better than Hana having to vocalize her thoughts aloud.

“When it comes to that, we can be warm-up partners, if you’d like.” Rin said reassuringly, turning her smile to Hana.

There must be something wrong with me. They’re so nice, and all it’s doing is making me uncomfortable. Would I be this nice, if I was in their shoes? Could I ever be kind like this?

“I think I’d like that very much.” Hana said, returning her expression.

Lunch introduced her to an entirely new subject of study.

“Obito, just let me take a look!“ Rin argued.

Obito kept his goggles firmly in place, refusing to remove them and show the bruising that was slowly darkening around his eye. The girls hadn’t noticed it, what with the reflective lighting of the classroom, but in the afternoon sun it was clear that Obito had been hiding an injury. “Rin-chan, it’s nothing! Just don’t worry about it, okay!”

“Obito…” Rin said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I can even try to heal you up! You know I need the practice, anyway.”

They were sitting in a circle, lounging on the grass of the yard after having split their lunches amongst each other—Rin had portioned her rice and fish, Hana split her two sandwiches three ways, and Obito had provided a handful of strawberry candies for them to share.

Without giving him a chance to protest any further, Rin lifted a flat palm towards his face. Hana could sense her willing chakra to the surface, which then glowed a faint green as it sputtered outwards. Obito relented with a pout, lifting his goggles for Rin to press her hand gently against his eye. Though she was only able to maintain the action momentarily, she was successful in getting the bruise to lighten somewhat.

Hana tried to sense exactly what the motion was doing, but aside from feeling Rin’s chakra enter Obito’s system and meld directly into it, she was at a loss.

“I wasn’t able to get rid of the bruise entirely, but I did my best.” Rin nodded. “…Do you want to tell us what happened?” She asked quietly.

Obito looked away, putting his googles back down over his now soothed eyes. His chakra had collapsed in on itself, circling in his chest anxiously. He was clearly embarrassed, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that something had occurred during the boys’ private lessons.

“One time, when I was still learning the splits, I was stretching my leg up and it slipped out of my grasp because my hands were so sweaty. My fist hit my face and I gave myself an awful black eye for the next two weeks.” Hana said, cutting through the awkward silence.

Rin snorted, quickly covering it up with her hand against her mouth. “Sorry! That sounds awful, Hana, I didn’t mean to laugh.”

Hana gave her a toothy grin, giggling at the girl’s reaction. “It really was funny. It made me so mad that I forced myself to learn all kinds of splits by the time it healed.”

Hana leaned over to punch at Obito’s forearm. “It’s not even noticeable. I’m sure the other guy had a lot more coming.”

Obito’s chakra finally relaxed, posture slumping and a smile slowly breaking out across his face. “Exactly! A guy’s gotta get a scar or two to get some cred!”

The injury was soon forgotten as they delved off into different conversation topics, namely how Ito-sensei tended to go cross-eyed whenever he was yelling at the class for being too rowdy (and how funny his gradually-reddening face was in those instances). After school, out of sight from her new friends, Hana privately asked Genma who Obito had sparred with earlier in the day, slotting the assailant’s name into her memory for a later date. She tried to convince her mind that it was just pure curiosity that made her do it, but Hana knew better than to lie to herself.

Some of the better parts of her days were training with the tigers, and as tired as she was today, she refused to miss it. (She did squeeze in a power nap beforehand, though, only after making sure her sister had settled properly in their reality once more).

Hana would likely never be much of a hard-hitter physically. The tigers never said it outright, but she could see it in their disapproving looks towards her stature. Malnutrition tended to do that to a child, and it was a little too late for her to turn her lifestyle around. (She tried to explain that it was only because everyone in her class was older than her, so she looked smaller in comparison, but the eye rolls she got in response told her that they didn’t believe it.)

Instead, they focused on her flexibility. It was a stinging thing, to consistently force her limbs further and further past the bounds of her joints. But when she managed a solid and steady bridge for the first time, Hana realized that she could find joy in her training. She took to stretching rather quickly, and enjoyed it even more than the grappling sessions with her tiger partner. Those were fun, too, but she could do without the scratches Safa gifted her during them.

Maybe I could ask Rin to show me some of the basics of her medical jutsu for those?

It wouldn’t hurt to try.

That way I’d at least avoid having to pay the Root medics a visit after missions, too.

Hana would do anything to avoid the Root medics, going so far as to wrap her cuts and ice her bruises herself unless the injury absolutely required a more trained individual. She only ever relented to visiting them at the onset of a broken limb or if she had a particularly deep gash, which was rare, because her missions were almost never combat-centered. The Root medics couldn’t even really be called medics, since they seemed to be just a coalition of Root ninja that happened to be able to do iryojutsu on the side.

She was always particularly sensitive towards chakra. But, the alien sensation of a foreign signature invading her system was torturous—like oil being pulsed into water, or sludge being forced down a clogged pipe. It didn’t hurt, per se, but it was uncomfortable enough that she chose to avoid it when she could.

Regardless, Hana had a new goal: to help Rin out in the kunoichi classes, then slowly warm the girl up to the idea of teaching Hana the tricks of her trade. She’d never considered learning medical jutsu herself, but Rin being an academy student, and being capable of such a feat even minutely, had warmed her up to the idea.

“If it does not burn, you are not doing it right! Or do you need me to sit on your back, again!?” Tama yelled out, startling Hana from her line of thought.

Right—she was supposed to be stretching under the tiger’s supervision. The sun was setting on the training ground, Sara was napping in a pile of blankets by her side, and Hana was in a straddle pancake reaching forward as far as she could. They had at least another hour to go, and Hana didn’t have the time to be distracted by any more scheming.

Notes:

- I want Rin to have an actual personality outside of being nice and sweet and perfect, and I like to think that she was probably very crafty to have been able to learn medical jutsu despite being a broke orphan
- In this case, she found the most talented person she could to sit next to during the kunoichi classes so that she could learn from them (which would be Hana, evident even after only a week in school. She’s not doing a very good job at trying to be normal.)
- I’m stealing a bunch of Obito’s lines directly from the manga bc his personality is kind of hard to get a proper grasp on
- Tell me what you guys think in the comments! Seriously, reading them makes writing this even more fun

Chapter 9: Qadr

Notes:

- Thank you all for subscribing, bookmarking, commenting, leaving kudos—the works. I appreciate you all so much!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

CLASSIFIED MISSION REPORT: H-27

DATE: 07-05
TIMEFRAME: 0800–1000 HOURS
LOCATION: LOF-176, Base: home

MISSION SUMMARY:

At 0700 HOURS, Operative HA awoke in Base: home.

At 0710 HOURS, Operative HA initiated preparation of meal for target: [SARA]. Operative HA is aware of target’s preference towards: [MUSHED LEAFY GREENS] as well as plain vegetables [SQUASHES], and retrieved 1 MEDIUM BUTTERNUT SQUASH from refrigerated food rations.

At 0711 HOURS, Operative HA peeled skin off of MEDIUM BUTTERNUT SQUASH, then utilized CHEF’S KNIFE from kitchen appliance provisions to dice it into cubes.

At 0717 HOURS, Operative HA added CUBED BUTTERNUT SQUASH to STAINLESS STEEL POT from kitchen appliance provisions, containing boiling water.

At 0731 HOURS, Operative HA placed BOILED BUTTERNUT SQUASH CUBES in a bowl of ICE WATER.

At 0732 HOURS, Operative HA successfully fed target: [SARA] breakfast of FORK-MASHED BUTTERNUT SQUASH CUBES without further incident.

OUTCOME:

Mission Success

CASUALTY REPORT:

Operative HA: Sustained minor injuries, including superficial first degree burns on thumb and index finger tips (right hand).

END REPORT

Hana’s only solace was in the early hours of the morning. She’d wake up before the sun, relish in the quiet for a few fleeting moments, and then get to work.

Alone in her training ground of choice, she would cement herself in the center of an empty grass clearing and for once, be in full control of her own autonomy. Outside of the academy hours, her training was never ending—whether it was target practice, tiger spars, or even plain old penmanship. There was too much she needed to get better at before she could afford to rest.

But when Hana would close her eyes amongst the trees, she would pretend that everything was as it once was—that blood didn’t cover her hands, that exhaustion didn’t settle into her bones, and that she and her sister weren’t the sole surviving members of a family once littered with too many cousins and endless relatives to boot.

It wasn’t necessarily relaxing to be alone with her thoughts, but meditation was distraction enough. She would stretch her chakra to the farthest points it would reach before collapsing it back in repeatedly, forcing her sense wider and wider each time. Her own involuntary practice growing up, as well as her time on the road, had given her an advantageous reach already. As it stood, Hana was certain that she could track throughout half of the village, and even a little ways past that if she strained particularly hard.

When mediation became boring and sensing began to give her a headache (not that she could ever turn it off—that was something she hadn’t figured out yet), Hana would move on to her morning flows. These were continuous sequences of fluid stretches, increasing in their difficulty as she went along. Somehow, the tigers always knew when she was falling behind on her stretching, so she relented to forcing her limbs into odder and odder angles at least twice a day. They promised her that growing her flexibility was paramount to their fighting style, and she was smart enough to listen.

It was when she was deep into a contorted backbend on one of these mornings—toes to her forehead and stomach cramping—that she felt the distracting signature for the first time. It wasn’t like Jin’s, a striking mark that would phantom startle her out of her sleep. Nor was it like that of any of her friends, who had much smaller and much less distracting signatures entirely. Initially, she thought it was one of the Root trackers who constantly fluttered in and out of her peripheral sense—always checking in, always watching. This signature, though, was different. For one, it didn’t try to hide itself. It was bold, a fire that shined so bright and hot that as it flickered throughout the surrounding forestry that she fell entirely out of her stretch and landed flat on her back the first time she felt its confusing activity.

It wasn’t a shunsin—it couldn’t be. Hana had felt a plethora of shinobi body flicker before. A body flicker was predictable, to an extent, being that the motion of the ninja using it could be tracked between point A and B. A ninja localized chakra into their fast-twitch muscle fibers, such that upon release and contraction they could shoot in any which direction practically instantaneously and appear as though they had teleported between locations, not actually teleport.

A shunshin was traceable. A shunshin was manageable.

The first time she felt that strange chakra signature flicker, though, Hana genuinely believed the ninja in question had discovered how to actually, honest to Sage, not only bend space and time but truly teleport. It halted her out of her exercise entirely, and she was so enraptured by their motion as they disappeared and reappeared in mere milliseconds that she spent the rest of the morning tracking their movements instead of doing literally anything else. Or, at least, attempting to. She ended up distracted the entire rest of the school day, too caught up in her efforts to track that signature in the village as they darted around, unable to pay attention to Obito’s chatter or Rin’s casual conversation.

By lunch, she’d lost the ninja’s signature entirely.

Which would be annoying, if it wasn’t for the fact that they began to prefer the same hour of morning training, in the same training ground, on the same days that Hana did. Though the grounds were public, ninja tended to operate them on a first-come first-serve basis, and the allure of the impossibly-fast flicker user was quickly lost on her seeing as she just couldn’t concentrate with their incessant spamming of that same jutsu every. Single. Morning.

She quickly went from awed and amazed to beyond annoyed.

It was her hour of relaxation! Her only time of peace! And this wildfire of a chakra-natured pest was constantly spamming the same stupid jutsu over and over and over! She had half a mind to read them the riot act!

Oh, well. She treated it as a new exercise in discipline and focused on ignoring them rather than tracking them from then on.

While Hana disregarded most of the subject matter taught at the academy, she did focus on her own interests. When she wasn’t busy reading through one of her many library books or napping, she was instead working on a comprehensive text of her own—a fully fledged account of everything she knew about seals, and everything else that she gradually came to learn.

What did it mean to seal? To lock something so far out of reach that it was no longer tangible, let alone perceivable in reality?

Just as energy was contained in ink and paste, the kanji and haruf chosen were equally as important. "Explode" (爆, baku) when written had enough strokes to charge a reaction capable of removing a limb, and “lock” (قفل, qufl) generated a barrier so powerful with its looping cursive that it was impossible to breach even with the strongest of weapons.

It was the last subject of the day, and rather than pay attention to Ito-sensei’s lecture on kunai launch angles, Hana was seated between Obito and Rin and scribbling furiously in her notebook. Without a guiding source, her work with seals was slow moving. The library wasn’t much help in that regard, where much like with jutsu, few books so much as mentioned fuinjutsu let alone described its rules. (Yes, even the ones with restricted access. Getting past those barriers was laughably easy.)

Every seal she attempted to make was a shot in the dark, and every subsequent experiment ran the risk of imploding right into her face. Everything she’d learned thus far was contained in about a hundred leather-bound pages, shielded from prying eyes with a privacy seal painted on its inner cover (khus, private, خاص) that would muddle the words against any straying gaze.

Rule number one, and one of the only things she remembered from her mother’s teachings, was that seals could only do as their namesake decreed. They stored reactions. They contained materials. They restricted and they secured. Though outside perspectives on sealing arts found them mystical and unbound by law—that was hardly the case. A seal sealed, and that was that.

Rule number two: a seal was only as strong as the amount of chakra utilized to create it. Chakra was funneled into the ink and paste used to draw the reaction, and the greater the amount of chakra used as well as the more complex the characters to contain said chakra were—the stronger the seal would be.

(The first explosive seal she made only popped with a spark in her palm. When she funneled more chakra into the second, and released the reaction only to almost lose her eyebrows in the process, Hana didn’t feel the need to experiment any further.)

Rule number three: words held meaning, power, and actually mystical properties. The words of a seal had to explicitly describe the intended result, lest the chakra run wild with free will. Synonyms were risky, and misspellings were a fool’s errand. Both the kanji of the common tongue and the haruf of the eastern language seemed to hold equal importance, but where the seals of the common tongue necessitated uniformity across all creations—the eastern language allowed for somewhat more creativity in font.

(She liked the thuluth style of calligraphy because of its flowing, curved lines and sloped ends. Its title directly translated to one third, and it necessitated that one third of each letter slope downward with a barbed end. The style required more ink, and therefore could contain more chakra within it. That, and it was the prettiest font in Hana’s opinion. She had no preferences towards the calligraphy style of the common tongue, and would just use the basic and foundational kaisho style.)

Rule number four: symmetry and balance ruled supreme. Expelled chakra was both fickle and prone to disorder, and unless the seal creator accounted for this by forcing the chakra into a semblance of order with not only the words but also the surrounding figures, their creation would fail.

(Hana learned the hard way why words and characters alone weren’t enough. Decorative shapes, curved lines, and shaded edges weren’t just aesthetically pleasing—they were necessary. She’d tried to make a containment seal for her lunch, once, if only to no longer rely so heavily on her palm seals. But when the chakra escaped her writing and bled into her sandwich—ruining it completely—she realized that a caging shape was necessary. Six-pointed and eight-pointed stars, rosettes, various iterations of the same multi-sided polygon—the possibilities were endless.)

Rule number five: natural products were the least likely to have adverse reactions to the generated seal. Silk and ahar paper were expensive, but meant that the seal wouldn’t shrivel up with the weight of its own energy or generate otherwise unknown results. Ink blocks exported from the dwindling population of the Land of Woods were also expensive, but worth the price of the labor that went into processing the soot and oils. Chakra could be funneled into it by the individual, or it could be purchased pre-infused, but that was even more expensive still.

(She’d tried at first to make seals with basic blank paper, but they all fizzed away into ash and dust no matter how weak the intended reaction. Then she tried to make her own infused ink, but her day-to-day stores were limited enough that she preferred to just hash out the extra cost rather than do it herself.)

(The leaves of the mignonette tree were not an import in Konoha, as far as she knew, so she couldn’t try to make henna paste for experiments with skin-staining seals just yet.)

There was so, so much more she needed to figure out. How differently yin and yang chakra came into play, and when to specifically rely on either. The situations in which elemental chakra infusion was necessary. How gaps in the ink and shaky lines could be a death sentence.

How seals could be reversed.

Hana hadn’t gone into that level of detail yet, even though that was her intended goal. Thus far, her only idea surrounding seal reversal (and breakage) was to slap an applicable counter-seal on top and hope for the best. It didn’t always apply, but she had a lot more studying to do before she could get any further than that. And, she was certain that her discovery of how basic chakra containment seals could be used as a preventative measure against explosive seals (if the ninja in question had fast enough reflexes) would come in handy at some point.

(That experiment had almost cost her a finger. She swore to only use her clones for any explosive seal-related tests from that point on.)

The final bell cut off her studies. Her outline for an experiment on blood flow restriction would have to be finished another time, so she pulled the notebook under the table tap and sealed it out of sight. Rin scooched out of her seat first, making room for Hana to get out next, and Obito caught step with them as they strolled out of the classroom.

“I’m beat!” Obito announced, looping his arms around both Rin and Hana’s shoulders. “Do you guys wanna grab something sweet to eat?”

Hana hummed, remembering that she needed to pick up more groceries before she could make dinner that evening. Rin shook her head no. “Sorry, I can’t. I’m attending another teaching session at the hospital.”

The trio had built a routine over the last couple of months. In the mornings, they would meet at the school gates before making their way in together. (Or, just Rin and Hana would meet whenever Obito was late. Which was often.) At lunch, they would then split their lunches evenly, with Hana slowly getting better at making edible foods aside from plain sandwiches and Obito being coaxed into sharing more than just candy. Finally, at the end of each day, they would walk home together—sometimes dropping Rin off at the hospital on their way, or walking her to her apartment before Hana and Obito would make their way over to the Uchiha compound at the other end of the village. Hana would get home next, being that her building was right outside the compound, and she would see Obito off at the compound’s stone entryway.

Whenever Hana and Obito could rope Rin into it, they would stop along the way to grab a snack. The two of them had a sweet tooth a mile wide, which persisted even despite Rin’s lectures about a healthy diet.

“Besides! You guys should get something real to eat before you waste your appetites on candy.” Rin said. She was taking public courses at the Konoha hospital, a program implemented at the end of the last shinobi war by one of the legendary sannin, which made it possible for even civilian orphans like Rin to learn medical arts. The girl had hit the round running in that regard, even without a personal teacher.

It was rather inspiring.

“Rin-chan! We spent all day being dedicated students! We deserve a little treat, don’t ya think?”

Hana nodded along, grinning deviously. “Yeah. Like ice cream, and then a slice of cake. And then maybe also some chocolate bon bons, with a stick of dango on the side. A little treat, nothing crazy.”

Obito nodded back, genuinely considering the offer. Rin reached across Obito to lightly smack Hana on the arm. “Hana! Don’t encourage him!”

Hana had a tendency to egg Obito on more often than not, but Rin made up for it by scolding the both of them for their bad habits.

“Tell you what—we get a snack, then we head straight to training after school. Obito, you can do target practice, and I can do my usual stuff. Then when Rin’s done with her course, she can come and join us.” Hana said. Individual training was boring, and Hana loved having a training partner that wasn’t double her height or had intentions of severe bodily harm towards her person.

Or was another species entirely.

Rin gave her a close-eyed smile at that. “That’s a great idea! And if anyone gets hurt, I can use them as practice, too.”

Hana looked away, unable to handle the sheer amount of genuine positivity radiating off of her friend.

“It’s settled, then! Hana-chan, where do you want to go?” Obito asked.

She ended up picking the noodle stand closest to the school—Ichiraku’s. Genma had recommended it to her earlier in the semester, making it seem like the be-all end-all of tasty lunch, and Obito enthusiastically agreed when she brought it up. (She also didn’t want to deal with Rin’s disapproving look if she picked anything that wasn’t a proper meal, even though ramen wasn’t exactly healthy.)

They ended up scarfing down a bowl each, then Obito somehow managed to convince her that racing to the training ground was the only proper way to warm up. She, obviously, had to take the bait, and raced him there without even chakra-enhancing her limbs or taking to the rooftops. She only beat him by a little bit, but then proceeded to shove it in his face a whole lot.

“Obito! You’re taller and older! How’d you let yourself get beat by a girl?!” Hana gasped out, hands on her knees to prevent herself from toppling over into the grass.

“That’s not fair, Hana-chan! You pushed that lady in front of me and I had to help her pick her groceries up off the floor!” He panted back, splayed out on the ground without a care for the dirt that would surely collect on his tracksuit.

They stayed like that for a while, throwing jabs at one another while basking in the late afternoon light. (“Well, you’re short!” Obito said. “Yeah, and you trip over your own legs!” Hana retorted. ) Eventually, they split to do what they had intended, but they stayed close enough to chat through it all. Whenever Hana felt she could go for a training session without the tigers or having to bring her sister along, she would drag Obito with her to force him into doing some of his own. He wasn’t particularly bad at anything, but it was clear to Hana that his level of training was abysmal at best. If he was going to be a ninja, she would at least make sure that he had the basics down. She wouldn’t push him to spar with her just yet, but she would try to correct his mistakes as casually as possible.

“Idiot! You have to do more than just flick your wrist to throw a shuriken properly!” She yelled out from behind him, voice strained as she tried to maintain her handstand for as long as possible.

“I couldn’t see! The sun was in my eyes!” He responded, not even turning back to look at her.

Rin joined them as the sun began to set. Rather than continue their training as promised, the trio couldn’t help but lay out on the grass, each exhausted by the long day. Hana could feel the gentle swell of both Rin and Obito’s chakra, particularly the way it settled comfortably in their circuitry, and she was content with just basking in their signatures for the time being.

Things weren’t good, let alone safe for her and her sister in Konoha. But sometimes she could pretend, especially as she laid between the two kids that she still hesitated to call her friends, that things were looking up.

Notes:

- “Haruf” is just the term for Arabic letters, just like “kanji” refers to japanese characters
- The training ground scene is the first segment of this fic I ever wrote. Any guesses as to who Hana senses? Lmao I wonder who it could possibly be *eye roll* it only took like TWENTY THOUSAND PLUS words to introduce him : |
- The chapter title, “Qadr”, means divine decree/fate in religious terminology, but it also commonly means amount of power/ability one holds
- The fake mission report is my attempt at humor, it’s just Hana mentally organizing her life in the way she’s been forced to do thus far

Chapter 10: Baby Teeth

Notes:

In which Hana applies what's been drilled into her head.
Thank you everyone for your continued support! <3

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Her missions were getting harder, though they were still short enough that her attendance record at the academy remained spotless.

She didn’t want to believe it at first, desperately clinging on to the hope that her assignments would remain relatively straightforward. This increasing difficulty was showcasing itself in her dwindling performance in various classes, physical or otherwise. She had stopped bothering to take answers from Genma, or even Rin, for the works she didn’t have time to complete or exams she didn’t have time to study for. Ito-sensei would give her a characteristically disappointed eyebrow raise for every missing submission or failing grade, and all Hana could offer in response would be an indifferent shrug.

She couldn’t be bothered to care, especially when the only expectation Hana had to live up to was being present. As far as she was concerned, the hours she spent in class were better off being put to use resting, recuperating, or getting some of her actual work done—the work that was kept private and hidden away. It wasn’t like a bright shinobi career was in her future, anyway. (Hana would make sure of that, but she was still figuring out the details of just how she’d accomplish something akin to defection.)

“If you win, I’ll buy you a popsicle at lunch.” Genma snickered at her, elbowing Hana in her side. She shot him a half-hearted glare, sighing only because he couldn’t have known about the bruising decorating her ribs.

“Fine, but I want that big twin popsicle all to myself.”

Right, the class was supposed to be sparring. They were in the courtyard, fenced in with wooden planks too tall to see over save for the space created by the wide-open gate, currently occupied by a collection of teachers and older ninja that she didn’t recognize. Sparring was a bit of a spectacle, it seemed, and rather than conduct it in private, the student battles were a free show for any passerby—hence the audience. Hana’s name had just been called, and she was up against an Uchiha boy that she didn’t particularly like. Kato Uchiha, who stood even taller than Asuma, and was a grade-A jerk most of the time. She tended to steer clear of him, but not without harboring some one-sided malice towards the boy because she had a hunch that he was particularly fond of picking on Obito outside of school.

He’d never done anything to her directly, but Hana disliked him based on principle alone.

Unfortunately, her fun little adventure the previous night—a run-in with a masked ninja who she had to steal some classified documents from—had left her with a worrisome lack of chakra and a train of thought muddled by some serious sleep deprivation.

(The clone she kept home with Sara had dispelled mid-confrontation, courtesy of the sharp corner of her kitchen countertop. The distraction led to a thorough-enough beating that she only barely managed to grab the scroll she was after, before having to bury herself about fifteen feet below the ground until her target eventually gave up on looking for her. She even had to visit the Root medics to clear the purple and blue bruises that painted her face afterwards. The previous night had sucked, to say the least.)

Hana stalked to the center of the court, eyes trained unblinkingly on Kato’s similarly approaching form the entire time.

The tigers had provided her with an immeasurable amount of aid thus far. She’d taken to growing out her nails in an imitation of their claws, filing them to sharp points and reinforcing them with brightly colored shinobi-grade nail polish. With a properly timed slice, they’d taught her how her (currently bright pink) nails alone could cut down an opponent twice her size. Or, at least leave behind some serious indication of her presence.

Some of her baby teeth had begun falling out, too. But rather than feel shame at the sharp incisors that slowly replaced her previously normal teeth, Hana felt nothing but pride—another gift bestowed upon her by the summoning contract (or, maybe a strange defect of it). Either way, she was finding too much joy in flashing a sharp-toothed grin here and there. It threw people off—a little girl with a mouth full of knives—and the way their chakra sputtered in surprise was always very entertaining. Aside from that change, though, she stayed relatively the same short and skinny refugee that she recognized in the bathroom mirror every morning.

Unfortunately, she was missing all of the necessary set up that would usually give her an advantage in battle. For one, this wasn’t an ambush. She couldn’t sneak up behind her opponent, concealing her chakra every step of the way only to land a single finishing blow. It wasn’t like she could strike to kill either—her teachers wouldn’t exactly be too thrilled if she spilt the blood of a clan kid on their watch. And, where the larger opponents she typically faced didn’t suspect any danger from her small frame and owlish eyes, Kato likely didn’t care and would want to hurt her regardless of how weak she acted in class. He liked to show off, after all.

She was royally screwed.

The larger boy stood before her now, and with a barely concealed grimace, positioned his two fingers into their symbolic seal prior to the match. Evidently he wasn’t too thrilled at being paired with her, either, and his chakra gave that away in billowing waves of annoyance-anger-resignation-smoke.

With an apathetic blink, Hana matched his pose and signed that same seal of confrontation before quickly stepping back to find her starting position.

She didn’t particularly care that their sensei, or anyone else watching, was expecting the students to utilize the pre-approved Konoha-style taijutsu that they had been practicing. It was a bare-bones collection of techniques that focused on centerline control and stability—all components of which were otherwise incompatible with Hana’s flexibility and fluidity of movement. Thankfully, the students were given free reign once the matches actually began, and could use whatever techniques they’d been taught outside of school save for jutsu, which they would only be allowed to incorporate later in the year.

The teachers did assume that meant only the children from affluent backgrounds would use alternate techniques, though, specifically recognizable clan styles. Regardless, it also meant that Hana would be allowed to employ whatever it was that she was learning. That, and the academy standard would definitely land her flat on her ass against an opponent like Kato.

Rather than mirroring Kato’s stance, she opted for a much more familiar starting position instead. She faced right, shifting her weight to her right leg and bending it so that her thigh was parallel to the floor. Then, twisting towards her opponent, she pointed her left foot forward, bringing her clawed hands up to her temples so that they were able to protect her face. Hana rooted herself, finding balance in the way her feet dug into the ground as she took a few steadying breaths.

She didn’t bother looking at the crowd, already aware that the unfamiliar display was bound to raise some eyebrows.

At the sharp blow of the whistle, the match began.

Readying himself for his first strike, Kato planted his left foot forward. Hana felt his hips shift to account for the change in position, opting to keep her distance and decrease the likelihood of being grabbed lest he reach for her with his longer range. The last thing she wanted was to turn this into a grapple that led to her pinned to the floor beneath his weight.

Instead, Hana bounced backwards slightly, moving herself out of the line of fire with her fists kept high. A hit to the jaw would surely take her out of the count, as would any blows above the shoulder, and she would need to be extra careful to not leave herself open once she launched her own attacks.

She’d seen Kato spar with the others before, earlier in the semester when the taijutsu classes were still gender-segregated and everyone was merely running through the motions. His hits were heavy, and he left his partners reeling with the stars that decorated their vision afterwards. He would also never pull his punches.

Distantly, she could hear the chants of her classmates as she continued to step around him, weaving between his experimental few hits.

Seeming as to have gotten bored with their game of cat and mouse, Kato charged forward to make another grab for her, and she dove right to avoid his grasp. Further annoyed, Kato launched a left hook at her moving frame, which Hana ducked beneath in one fell swoop. She clicked her teeth at the sheer effort she felt him put behind that hit.

Kato was the only other Uchiha aside from Obito, and though he was a formidable opponent, he was far from the best in their class. That spot belonged to a Hyuga girl, who ranked highest on the taijutsu scale. Hana enjoyed watching the two of them fight (from a distance) to try and analyze where their academy training ended and where their clan training took over. If anything, it gave her ideas to try on her own. And though Hana would never have the unique dojustu to supplement most of those techniques like they would, that didn’t mean she couldn’t take some pointers.

Taking advantage of the opening, Hana used a level change to drop low, launching two subsequent strikes at his exposed kidneys. They had practically no effect, and he punched down at her in retaliation, forcing Hana even lower as she repositioned her arms to awkwardly meet the blow.

As Kato drew back his fists, Hana made a list of the information she’d gathered thus far.

He steps forward with his left foot ahead of any attack.

He favors his right when punching.

His punches hurt. Don’t get punched.

She rolled forward around Kato as he stumbled over her change in position. Raising herself back up to her feet, she quickly turned to find her starting stance once more. Bouncing slightly from side to side, Hana instead kept to his right, racking her brain to try and find some way to knock him down and coming up short.

Not wanting to give her a moment to breathe, Kato stepped forward with another combination.

He swung at her once more, but Hana bent back as far as her spine would allow to avoid the shot. Righting herself, she realized she had fallen into a now-apparent trap as he followed with a knee aimed for her diaphragm, and she only just managed to avoid getting the wind knocked out of her completely by stumbling backwards. This cost her, and Kato was able to land an elbow strike directly to her cheek.

Hana felt frozen in time as she considered her current situation.

Like she was gonna let some stupid oaf beat her down in front of a crowd. A dumbass, no-good, cocky little shithead who thought he was better than her because he had a fancy last name and was trained in some basic style of fighting?

Fat chance.

Despite Hana’s internal dilemma, Kato had already pushed himself into her space fully, wrapping an arm across her chest. He stepped forward, bearing Hana’s weight with his hip as he attempted to flip her to the ground using a takedown variant the class had been practicing.

Instinctively, Hana used the hold he had on her as a bar, rolling across his back with her feet in the air before landing with his arm still in hers. Only then did she drop herself, using her own dead weight to pull Kato down with her and flipping him over instead. This landed him flat on the floor, and before he could attempt to stand and face her again, Hana pounced on him, planting a knee into his stomach and cementing him in place with one hand pressed firmly against his shoulder. With her right, she held her sharp fingers against his carotid, glaring down at him as he met her gaze two-fold. She leaned in, and growled low into his ear.

“I win.”

She was met with nothing but the chirping of crickets.

“And that’s the match!” Ito-sensei cut through the silence.

She didn’t need to feel their chakra to understand that her classmates were adjusting to the new information. Her place in the world of their minds had gone up, suddenly promoted from weak, foreign, nobody to stronger, smarter, potential competition. They hadn’t expected this, rightfully so, as Kato tended to dominate his spars and Hana had no known skills to be of worthy challenge. She wasn’t supposed to be impressive—not that that display had been anything but dumb luck—given the way she tapped out of practice spars more often than not.

Her classmates whispered amongst themselves.

(The academy had a ranking system, after all, publicized for the entire village to see. It fostered competition like no other for those who cared to pay it any mind, and it wasn’t a secret that the students who ranked highest were sought after—though by who, Hana hadn’t figured out yet.)

(It was smart, to make them want to be better, want to be stronger, early on. They wouldn’t know the consequences of such feats until it was too late.)

There was some whooping coming from her small group of friends, though.

Kato shoved Hana off of him, forcing her to bounce back on her butt with a subtle oomph. He stood up and marched away, notably not partaking in the seal of reconciliation with the girl he had just sparred with. Ito-sensei didn’t comment on that, much too used to the dramatics of his students, and announced the next match’s participants off of the clipboard in his hands instead. Hana stood up, dusting off her kimono and rolling her shoulders while trying not to show any obvious discomfort on her face.

As the next two students came into the open space, she made her way over to Obito’s side, ignoring the throbbing pain radiating its way up her neck and down her arm. Her finishing move had definitely popped something out of its socket, but Hana wasn’t keen on drawing any attention to that fact, so she plopped down next to the boy instead.

“Hey, Hana,” Obito poked at her, disturbing the breathing exercises she was having trouble maintaining. “Where did you learn how to do that flippy thing?” Hana blinked up at him, straining to recall what moment of the fight he was talking about.

“Flippy thing?” She asked, tilting her head and momentarily forgetting about her shoulder-based predicament.

“Yeah, I wanna know too. You practically launched yourself over Kato entirely, even if he was leaning over a bit.” Cut in Genma.

“It was so cool! You even stuck the landing!”

Ito-sensei shot them a glare of warning as the next match began.

Rin leaned in from behind, whispering aggressively at the two otherwise thickheaded boys. “Guys, leave her alone—she’s hurt! ” She motioned towards Hana, pointing at her trembling arm and pained expression. “She needs to see the nurse!”

“I’m fine, I can go at lunch!“ Hana brushed off with a whisper of her own. She made a point to look away from the girl’s searching eyes and pay newfound attention to the match unfolding before them.

It was a quick one—the Hyuga girl paired with another orphan from a civilian background. It made Hana consider the possibility that their sensei may have had some sort of thing for humiliation. Pairing Hana up—for her first proper match no less—with a known heavy-hitter, and now targeting another civilian child?

Yeah, it was definitely a humiliation ritual.

The Hyuga made quick work of their classmate, landing successive blows at points along the boy’s chest and midsection. Hana could tell, despite her currently limited range, that each strike shut off the flow of chakra down the associated limb, restricting the target’s energy past those bounds. The civilian boy keeled over shortly after, taking up a trembling fetal position at his spot on the field.

Hana silently thanked the universe that she wasn’t paired with a Hyuga that day as she watched her classmate get carried off in a stretcher. Her headache was mounting, and the pain in her arm and neck wasn’t helping clear her mind either as she tried to stretch her now properly drained chakra reserves through the room. She had enforced her final hits, earlier, in her effort to get the match to end quicker. Now, though, she could feel nothing past the courtyard, and even then mainly just the familiar signatures standing directly by her. This was a good thing, because if Hana could feel the true extent of people watching their matches—those in the hokage tower above them and those in the trees that surrounded them—then she would be panicking over the implications of what she’d just accomplished.

Chakra sensing was weird. It was second nature to her, but she could never find the vocabulary to properly describe it. (Besides, she kept it to herself more often than not. For obvious reasons.)

The input was physical, yet it was a sensation that couldn’t be replicated with mere touch alone. Chakra signatures were unique to the person, even if they were restricted to varying combinations of only five elements. Most individuals had an outstanding elemental affiliation, like Obito and his fire, or a mixture of varying percentages between compatible affinities. From there, differentiation between individual signatures could only be described as flavoring—no one person’s signature tasted, or felt, like the other. And every once in a while, usually far away, she’d feel a signature whose element she didn’t recognize—likely a kekkai genkai, then, or some alternate form of chakra application.

Hana knew it meant that she had to have a fair bit of chakra to be able to sense at the distance she did. Chakra sensing for the average individual required molding to disperse the energy. On the other hand, that molding seemed to come so innately to her that she had to consciously do the opposite, and draw it back in to prevent herself from sensing, where its particles interacted directly with the surrounding environment in order to relay information back to Hana herself.

Otherwise, a regular shinobi’s chakra only left their body through purposeful jutsu conduction or involuntary emotional responses. And, as the amount of chakra Hana held drained, her range subsequently decreased to supplement her internal stores. She could also force her outwardly molded chakra to thin, embedding less chakra into the environment to stretch her range for example, but that would provide less detail and would run the risk of being inaccurate in its information.

Chakra in general was weird. It functioned based on an entirely unique set of laws, ordered and disordered, energy somehow both conserved and not. One day, she thought she might like to study it. Quantify it. Break it down to its single particles and understand it well enough to outline how much was needed for each jutsu and each motion.

If only she could find the time.

(Ninja villages hoarded information regarding chakra studies and justu like they hoarded mission requests and intel. What they knew about the body’s internal workings, they kept to themselves—specifically to entrusted parties like high ranking ninja families or village leadership—lest their competitors get the jump on them with the free flow of knowledge. As such, what someone in another country knew about chakra differed greatly from the average Konoha ninja, and that was if they knew anything at all. Shinobi operated on a need-to-know basis, and knowing enough to perform justu, rather than understand it, was, well, enough.)

Another match was called a few moments later. Shiranui Genma versus Inzuka Mimi. As Genma sighed, he looked down at Hana’s seated position and gave her a sly grin.

“If I win, you’re buying me dinner to celebrate.”

“Deal,” she responded, looking up at him with a roll of her eyes. (He always covered desert, and Hana was already thinking of the anmitsu she’d make him buy her with extra jelly.) Ito-sensei called Genma’s name again, this time more aggressively as his opponent had already gotten into position. Genma stalked forward without a care in the world, and took his spot across from the red-cheeked girl who had an entirely too feral look on her face.

“And spit that toothpick out of your mouth too!” Ito-sensei shouted, blowing his whistle.

Sometimes, Hana didn’t feel like telling her sister a bedtime story when she put her down to sleep at night.

For one, she was running out of stories. She’d already gone through the major fables—a whole week of which was spent detailing the tales of the seaman and his many voyages—and she was already bored of repeating her favorites, such as the one about the beggar and his lamp (which she’d already used no less than ten times) or the one about the magical stallion.

It was weighing on her that she didn’t remember all of the details, anyway. Character names were made up and plot points were jumbled regularly, but it wasn’t like Sara could catch her on her mistakes.

(The first time she couldn’t remember if the man with his forty thieves had a daughter, or if she was his slave girl, Hana stopped her story all together. She rolled over and cried herself to sleep that night, because Sara had long since fallen into her own slumber anyway and Hana didn’t even know where to begin looking for an answer. Who could she ask to confirm the details of a spoken tale, in a language they didn’t share? She knew that objectively, others who knew those same stories were still around somewhere, scattered across the country or holed up in occupied safety zones and camps. That didn’t make it hurt any less, though.)

The sisters shared the single bed, piled high with blankets and pillows and a tiger at its base always. Konoha was warm this time of year, but Hana was used to more stifling heat and needed the additional bodies regardless of how many blankets she bought with stolen fairs, so she definitely didn’t mind the company.

Her late-night reluctance wasn’t the best course of action, given that the child was clearly behind on major milestones (walking and talking being on the top of that list), but Hana (namely, her clones) spent all day talking to the child anyway, so she cut herself some slack in that regard. On those nights, Hana would try to sing songs to get her sister to go to bed instead. Try, because aside from knowing the music by heart and being able to hear it clearly in her own head, half the lyrics were lost to her and she tended to simply hum in the place of the missing words. In this way, Sara would at least have some knowledge of their mother tongue, be familiar with their more emphatic and guttural sounds, and hopefully wouldn’t stumble over them when she finally began to talk.

Hana was in bed with her arm awkwardly outstretched at her side. Rin had dragged her to the nurse’s office at lunch, forcing her to get her shoulder checked out. Now, it only itched with the lasting discomfort of a foreign chakra invading her system. And though Hana wasn’t particularly fond of the process, it gave her the opportunity to ask Rin about the girl’s own medical studies.

Rin, being the kind and unassuming girl that she was, even offered to lend Hana some of her introductory textbooks and Hana’s enthusiastic agreement was taken as a genuine interest rather than a desperate attempt to avoid any and all medical visits in the future. Perhaps dislocating her shoulder to get the jump on her opponent in an otherwise no-stakes match was worth it, after all.

Tonight, she decided to sing her sister to sleep again. The chosen song was one her mother used to prefer, one that Hana knew like the back of her hand. What it was about, though, she wasn’t exactly sure.

Oh bird who flies on the edge of the world.

If only you could tell my loved ones what’s afflicting me.

Oh bird who travels away with the color of the trees.

There’s nothing left but waiting and ennui.

I wait beneath the sun on a cold stone.

Perplexed over the distance that disables me.

She once had a cassette of this particular song, magnetic tape well worn with the amount of times she would force it to play over and over. It was unique, in the sense that unlike the many love songs she preferred it was older than even her grandparents and was a tune recognizable to anyone who so much as spoke the eastern tongue.

Most of the songs she knew in her language were love songs, actually. They were quite dramatic—ballads of passionate emotion overlaying classical compositions of the oud and qanun. Usually, she would pester her father for explanations about their heavy vocabulary and strongly veiled symbolism. She had trouble figuring out their intended meaning all the time, being that they were sung in a more standard form of the language, and would turn to the man to explain just what the singer meant by lyrics like oh moon of my eyes or oh soul of my soul.

(“But why is he referring to his lover as his eyes? That doesn’t even make any sense!” She would argue. “She’s not only his eyes, she’s his life and soul too!” Her father would laugh. He never explained any further than that.)

It didn’t really matter what the songs meant, though, as long as they helped the child to fall asleep. She missed her cassettes—if only she had the foresight to store them away with her figs and kunai.

Hana would only join in on her sister’s slumber sometimes. More often than not she would lie awake thinking of nonsensical plans that could never be brought to fruition, like how if she was the leader of a village, no child would go unfed and alone. Or how if she ruled the land, no one would have to be a ninja if they didn’t want to be.

Those wild thoughts served her no purpose other than leaving a bittersweet taste in her mouth, and like so many other things, Hana would ignore them in favor of what she could actually accomplish—like sensing the few neighbors on her floor, or tuning into her friends’ sleeping signatures in their own homes and apartments across the village.

That usually helped her fall asleep rather quickly.

Notes:

- In regards to the story telling section, I’m sticking to those described in 1001 nights. Essentially Hana is desperately trying to cling to her cultural upbringing and is doing so in terms of the arts bc that’s mostly what she remembers (music, song, literature)
- The song Hana sings to her sister is called. “Ya Tayr”, you can find lyrics/translation here: X.
- Hana’s Tiger Style is going to be a combination of kung fu, which has a tiger style subcategory, and Brazilian capoeira which is so cool and fluid/flexible. The show does a great job at combining martial arts styles though it tends to focus heavily on wing chun so I thought it might be cool to branch out a little. I hope the sparing scene wasn’t too hard to follow!

Chapter 11: In Good Company

Notes:

- I meant to get this chapter out sooner, but it definitely fought me. Thank you everyone for all the comments and kudos especially on the last chapter—I love reading your thoughts and they’re not only very encouraging but also very helpful!!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Do me next!”

“No, I was here first! Hana, do me! Pretty please!”

There was a crowd of girls around her, each holding a different makeup product at the ready—a blush of red ochre, equally bright lip rouge, a dark pencil, white face powder—the works. In her hands, though, Hana held a brass kohl pot.

Kohl wasn’t one of the items written on the chalkboard. Their kunoichi class instructor presented the girls with what was essentially a beautification checklist, describing products that they were required to know how to apply in a manner that was at least somewhat complementary with their features by the end of the period. She’d demonstrated the entire process for them just once, in which white and red creams creased into the wrinkles of her face, but somehow still managed to make it look good.

A beautiful face could be as advantageous as the sharpest of swords when wielded by the right hands, she’d explained. (Or, be enough of a distraction to allow a kunoichi to stab her enemies with one.)

So there the girls sat—pretty little kunoichi all dolled up and ready to be scored.

(Something about it was wrong. Hana’s mother once told her that only grown up girls who wanted people to look at them the wrong way wore makeup. The woman may have been known for her dramatic ramblings, but leering eyes were scored into Hana’s mind, and she knew the itchy feeling of being looked at the wrong way like the back of her hand. And since when was makeup taught in school, anyway? The academy was so strange sometimes.)

Unfortunately, bleached powder, clashing red cheeks, and cherry red lips looked horrible on her—she didn’t need to so much as apply the products to know that. She had her own makeup, thank you very much, picked up off of otherwise empty import shelves in the market district where honey from Iwagakure and iron appliances from Kumogakure were supposed to be. Those were instead replaced by a sign that read ‘Support the War Effort by Supporting Local Businesses!’

Hana was crafty with her appearance whenever she needed to be. Not all missions were compatible with a transformation jutsu, which Jin had once taken the time to explain (though it was less of an explanation, and more of a statement that was expected to stick the minute it left his lips). Regardless, jutsu meant that chakra needed to be expelled, and a maintained transformation jutsu (like for a days-long mission) meant that chakra was not only being consistently wasted but was also at a greater risk of being found out by any ninja in the vicinity. Therefore, it was easier for any kunoichi in question to simply change her outward appearance as drastically as she could without employing a henge.

Hana took many liberties whenever it came to this, particularly by snagging colorful kunoichi-targeting magazines off of unattended stands for inspiration whenever she needed to. One way was by smoothing her hair between a metal clamp that required heating over an open flame, which would be used to remove her curls until her next hair wash. This she did sparingly because she didn’t like the way it sometimes singed her ends, and she preferred to keep her hair long no matter how disadvantageous it was. The last person who had cut her hair had been her mother, with sharp scissors over a mosaic bathroom sink, and she intended to keep it that way.

Smoothing her hair already made her look older, but Hana would take this a step further with makeup of mauves and plums that actually complemented her olive skin, unlike the shades utilized by the entertainers which the kunoichi-in-training were supposed to be emulating today.

Using kohl, though, was her favorite method of changing her appearance. Thick dark hair meant her lashes and eyebrows were also such, and though her eyes were already bright, exaggerating this by darkening their surroundings even more made them practically glow. Men and women alike wore kohl, though it was more popular in the nomadic tribes that traversed the deserts of Suna as a protective measure against the sun’s relentless glare. Otherwise, it was worn only on special occasions, usually on holidays that followed the lunar calendar and celebrations that spanned until dawn. The variety prepared in the Land of Woods was typically only found in apothecaries, made from the soot of a charred cedar tree and its sap, and seemed to have made it’s way to Konoha by means of the last few caravans that passed through the village before the war halted a majority of trade.

Now she just had to explain to her classmates that she technically wasn’t following the rules by using her own makeup, and that they’d all get in trouble for straying from the task at hand.

Well, maybe if they were all out of line, then it wouldn’t be obvious that Hana was being purposefully disobedient.

“Um…” Hana said with a grimace as she looked around, unsure of who to start with.

Where’d all these girls come from?

“It’s hard to do on someone else. Watch me, then I’ll pass it around for you guys to copy.”

Never mind that it wasn’t sanitary. She could always steal some more, and the charcoal powder was antibacterial, anyway.

Hana began to demonstrate, first by lifting the brass bottle for the crowd of girls to ooo and aah at.

“You take the metal applicator and make sure you coat it properly in the powder—but you have to dust off the excess.”

“Then, you look up, and put it on your bottom lash line before closing your eyelid on it. Just run the metal back and forth with your eye closed,” Hana said, dragging the applicator across, “and flick it out on the edge. It looks like it hurts, but I promise it doesn’t.”

The girls didn’t seem convinced, but that was okay. Hana was in a good enough mood to guide their hands and blot away any excess kohl that had fallen on to their cheeks. Her high spirits were a credit to her sister, who had finally said her first words that morning. And not only had she said what was almost an entire sentence—she had said Hana’s name first.

“Hanaa,” Sara babbled from her seat on the counter top. Hana froze, twisting her head to stare at the little girl. “Bedi ba’ad.” Sara pouted, making grabby hands at her older sister. “Ba’ad!”

Is she trying to say she wants more?

It was over breakfast, in which Hana was feeding her little sister an attempt at a homemade applesauce before she had to leave for school for the day. Pride swelled in her chest at the reminder that Sara’s first words were her name, and it was a heartening reward for all her efforts regarding the child thus far.

Someone tugged on Hana’s sleeve. “Your turn!” The girl who had suddenly slid into the seat beside her said. When she glanced up, Hana was met with piercing ruby eyes and hair almost as wild as her own.

“I don’t know, Kurenai…” Hana said uncertainly, “I don’t really like how that color looks on me.”

Kurenai was holding a pot of red lip rouge, waving it excitedly in her hands. “Let me do it for you! I’ll make it look pretty, I promise! You already did my eyes, anyway.”

At her pout, Hana relented, letting Kurenai paint her lips red. Though rather than apply a solid layer, Kurenai blotted the product on gently, eyebrows furrowed in concentration and lower lip caught between her teeth. After a few moments, Kurenai leaned back with a bright smile.

“All done!”

Hana blinked, taking the compact mirror that Kurenai handed over. Looking at her reflection, she was surprised to see that It actually did look quite nice. Kurenai had applied it softly, coloring Hana’s lips ever so slightly and blending it in with her natural pigment.

“Thanks.” Hana said, unsure of how else to respond.

They never knew what to expect with the kunoichi classes. One day it would be a field trip to the nearest park for flower picking and arrangement making, then the next class would be a study of formal wear in various settings, and then the class after that would be some sort of singing or dancing or combination of the two. She found it all to be rather pointless—everyone had their strengths, and a kunoichi shouldn’t be expected to be able to perform in the arts if she only had a single class session to fall back on from when she was a child.

(The girls who excelled in any one class in particular received a sticker that said ‘You Go Ninja Girl!’ on it in an iridescent sparkle, as well as a calculating look from the old matron who taught the course. Hana didn’t like that look. It was the same look she’d seen in Danzo-sama’s eyes the few times she accidentally caught his gaze, or in the eyes of the ninja who sat in on various lessons, trying too hard not to be noticed despite the way they wrote incessantly on their clipboards. After she won one of those stickers for being able to hold a tune, she made sure that she never did anything particularly special in the kunoichi classes again.)

Random makeup products, like the kohl, weren’t the only things Hana had stored away for easy access. She’d been experimenting with her palm seals, just like she’d been experimenting with seals in general, and had a thoroughly vetted collection that spanned all the most likely items she’d ever need in practically any scenario.

Both left and right palms gave her access to the same stores, regardless of which palm had originally been responsible for sealing the item in question away. The space within which the items were contained was shared, and when she willed an object to materialize she had to mentally search through her inventory to bring it forward.

It wasn’t like she could forget what was stored away, either. For one, she was cautious not to seal away items on a whim, as to not overwhelm herself or her chakra. Additionally, she could still feel what was contained—in a distant and dream-like sort of way, like a closet in the back of her mind to be sifted through ever so often.

As it stood now, Hana held fifty kunai on her person at all times. Overkill, but reassuring in case she was ever caught in a situation that prevented an easy restock. There was the recent addition of a medical kit, one that was assembled based on the information described in chapter one of ‘A Kunoichi’s Guide to All Things Medical: Everything a Girl Needs on the Go!’ which Rin had lent her. It detailed what was specifically a civilian medical kit, one that contained bandages, antiseptic wipes, a simple antibiotic ointment, sterile gauze pads, and a bottle of saline.

Aside from that, she also had a rather excessive amount of miscellaneous items.

A change of clothes. A change of sandals. Baby clothes, baby shoes, shelf-stable baby food. Too many meters of silk sealing paper and too many brushes with frayed tips. Two pots of chakra-infused ink. A leather-bound book of her seal studies that would soon need to become two, perhaps even three books once she stopped writing in the margins. A dozen ration bars, packets of trail mix, a water canteen with its purification apparatus and a fire starter made of flint and steel.

A tiger mask striped red and white.

Her relatively unused tanto.

Anything she could need for a mission at the drop of a hat.

Anything she would need if she ever managed to run.

(A girl walked through a forest with blistered feet, sweat and grime caked on to her skin. The baby on her back stopped crying about an hour ago, but none of the shrubs they’d passed in the last day had any edible berries and Hana didn’t want to take her chances with fruit she didn’t recognize. She knew, objectively, that she wasn’t that girl anymore. But when Hana would wake up in the middle of the night, she would have to climb to the roof of her apartment building and look around at the vacant streets of Konoha just to make sure she wasn’t still miles deep between the trees with danger waiting for her at every border.)

(The only thing that managed to calm her breathing on those nights was the knowledge that if she was ever caught in such a situation again, she’d be prepared.)

It wasn’t the action of sealing and materializing in and of itself that was difficult, but rather the effort needed to store so many items away. The denser an object, the greater the amount of chakra was needed to contain and keep it contained. As such, objects that had greater mass or less volume were proportionally more difficult to store, seeing that her chakra needed to be embedded into the object in order to infiltrate its internal make up before the action could take place.

Whenever she finally managed to create stable enough explosive seals, she’d be incorporating those into her collection as well. For now, she stuck with the few she could purchase from the shinobi store supply.

Hana and Kurenai were too busy chatting away to notice that the gaze of the instructor had suddenly landed on them, or notice the way that the instructor’s expression quickly shifted into something furious. Their distraction was in the form of a very intense discussion about the pitfalls of frizzy hair, and how Kurenai found Hana’s nails cool rather than creepy—with their sharp points and all.

“Girls! Just what on earth do you think you’re doing? I distinctly remember telling you all to focus on applying an even coating of the oshiroi—not make yourselves look like eastern dancers in a smoke lounge! ”

“Can I walk with you the rest of the way?” Hana asked.

They were in front of her apartment building, standing at the main entrance with Obito just about to tear off into the neighboring Uchiha complex like he did everytime they walked home. He had done an awful job at hiding a bruise on his temple all day, constantly fidgeting with the strap of his goggles to make sure it covered the mark.

Her question made him nervous, and he shifted his weight from leg to leg.

“Um… ” he began, “Why?”

Hana bit her cheek. “I’m not trying to pry,” she explained, “It’s just that, well—“ She paused for a moment, struggling to find the words.

“It’sjustthatI’mprettygoodatsensingotherpeople’schakrasignaturesandIknowyou’rehavingsometroublewithyourcousinsandmaybeIcanhelpyouavoidthem!” She forced out in a single breath. “I mean—I know it’s none of my business, and that you don’t wanna talk about it! But that’s totally okay and I really don’t mind helping!”

Hana’s chakra sense was getting better, actually. Something about her daily meditation, morning and night, was gradually allowing her to track things with more detail than before. This of course had nothing to do with the flicker-user who constantly bothered her, nor anything to do with the fact that she may or may not have been stalking their signature out of sheer annoyance, nor anything to do her recent realization that the ninja in question wasn’t actually teleporting—just moving incredibly fast. So fast, in fact, that she couldn’t even track them properly at first.

That hadn’t been a punch to the gut at all. It was a relief, though, that she eventually managed to hone in on their motion just enough to sense how quickly they truly were darting around.

She gave herself a mental pat on the back for that.

Obito huffed, crossing his arms as a slight blush spread across his cheeks. “Did Rin put you up to this?”

Hana shook her head no. “I’m just not an idiot. Every time we walk home, you’re perfectly fine, but somehow you always come to school the next day with a fresh bruise! I promise that I’m not going to get involved, but having me around can’t hurt.”

Obito didn’t meet her gaze, but slumped forward after some consideration. “Fine. You can walk home with me, but don’t think I need your help handling them! I’m an Uchiha! I can do that all on my own!”

Hana tried very hard not to roll her eyes, and didn’t comment on the fact that Obito had said them as opposed to admitting that he was being targeted by any one individual in particular. Not good, and definitely not fair.

“I know.”

She matched stride with him as he led her through his clan gates. It was much more traditionally styled than the rest of the village, and she couldn’t help but stare at the passing wooden houses with hipped rooftops and wide porches. She’d been into the complex before of course, for groceries and random items, but never deep enough to actually take in its residential area. Even the streets were different, paved with stone unlike the packed dirt roads that made up the rest of Konoha, and the walkways clacked beneath their sandals as they strolled side by side.

The architectural diversity was one of the many unique features of the village, and a true indicator of the sheer variety of people which occupied it. The Uchiha district just so happened to be one of the farther ones, not quite on the outskirts but definitely furthest from the academy and subsequent village center. Her path to school every morning allowed her to peak into other complexes, though the only ones that truly stood out to her were that of the Hyuga (with their upturned eaves and pagodas), and the Aburame (with their multi-tiered towers and soft-green roof paneling).

Home had been nothing like this—divided and sanctioned off—and though a plethora of cultural identities and the bad blood between them existed in the Land of Woods, it was an architectural monolith. All of the houses and buildings were constructed from the white limestone excavated from the more mountainous northern region, then paired with red tiling and ornately glazed windows. The only thing that separated the towns was plots of cedar forestry of which every resident was intimately familiar.

The pair chatted idly about how Ito-sensei’s voice drolled on and on throughout each lesson, how the Hyuuga girl in their class was the world’s most egotistical jerk, and how Obito would be having shrimp-flavored instant noodles for dinner.

Hana cut him off when she linked an arm through his, veering them into a nearby alleyway. The street at their rear had suddenly become occupied by a pair of two around their age, and if their agitated and flaring chakra signatures were any indication, then she was certain that these were the kids responsible for Obito’s injuries.

“Wha—“

She shushed Obito as she forced him to duck head-first behind a trash can, before pushing him against the wall and squeezing into the open space. Together, they peeked over the stinking pile of trash in silence, with Hana still hanging on to Obito’s sleeve in case he got any stupid ideas.

“I swear I saw him come down this street!” A boy cursed, walking tall past the opening of the alley. “That bastard, does he really think he can get the jump on me?”

She heard Obito gulp beside her.

So that was the culprit. One of them, at least. Hana studied his face, pale skin and dark hair like the rest of his clan, but taller than Obito for sure. Older, probably having graduated in the last year given the fresh forehead protector around his neck.

The boy’s friend, the one that was much shorter and much rounder, huffed by his side. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’s still around here somewhere!”

Bullies, for sure. Maybe they’d like to try their hand at someone who can properly fight back?

As they continued down the street, Hana looked over to Obito. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“The tall one will never get a girlfriend with that lisp of his.” Hana whispered. The insult made Obito fight back a smile, and she nudged him with her shoulder. “C’mon, they’re gone now, let’s make a run for it!”

She grabbed Obito’s wrist, racing out of the alleyway before he could so much as protest. No, she probably shouldn’t have known where he lived, but she’d sensed his position often enough across various evenings that she was able to lead him in the general direction as he stumbled behind her, cackling loudly all the while. Eventually, they slowed down as they caught their breaths, only to start running again once Obito unlocked the main entrance to his building and began tearing his way up the stairs, yelling ‘race you to the top!’ over his shoulder.

Obito’s apartment was arranged similarly to Hana’s, with the major differences being that instead of a bed, he had an unmade futon right at the center, and that there was a large cork board propped up against the window above his desk absolutely covered in photographs. As Hana slipped her sandals off at the entrance, she took in the rest of the space. It was small, just as small as hers was, and had that same moldy smell that older construction tended to have seeping out of its walls. The yellowing wallpaper was peeling and cracked in various locations, and the fridge against the far end was buzzing something awful.

“Sorry for the mess!” Obito announced sheepishly, scratching at the back of his neck as he led her inside. “You can sit at my desk! Umm... I’ll grab us something to drink!”

“It’s not messy.” Hana said, making her way over to the cork board. She wasn’t lying, either. Except for a few books stacked in a pile by his shelf and a sock dangling out of one of his drawers, Obito’s apartment was surprisingly clean—save for the layer of dust that was collecting on most surfaces. “You should see my place most days. I didn’t know you liked taking photos?”

Now that Hana had a clearer view of what was pinned up on the board, it seemed that Obito had some sort of penchant for photography. There was a picture of a ladybug on the leaf of a flower, a picture of the clouds on a particularly sunny day, and a picture of a couple holding who had to be a newborn Obito, with his face scrunched up and mid-cry. There was a picture of Rin smiling for the camera on a swing set, and a picture of Rin lying in the grass—hair full of leaves and mud on her chin—and a picture of Rin laughing in class.

Or, maybe, he just had a penchant for taking photos of Rin.

One of the photos was a front facing shot of the pair, definitely from when they were younger. They were sitting on a bench with the academy building in clear view behind them as they grinned with a few missing teeth between them for the camera.

“I like this one.” Hana said, pointing to the image as Obito placed a glass of juice in front of her. “It’s the cutest.”

Obito gave her a brilliant smile in return, ears tinged red. “That one’s my favorite, too!”

She didn’t really know what she expected when it came to Obito’s living situation, but she was surprised for some reason. Gossip she caught in class (and only sometimes participated in) gave her the impression that children who belonged to a clan were much better off than everyone else. The Uchiha name in particular seemed to hold additional weight, and girls her age were always saying things like ‘did you see that super cute boy in the other class, he has to be an Uchiha!’ or ‘that girl from our year is so smart, did you see her dress? Of course she’s an Uchiha, her parents must be rich!’

Never about Obito, though. Which was weird in and of itself, and then made even weirder by the fact that other Uchiha kids didn’t seem to like him much either. Hana chalked it up to the fact that Obito was an orphan, and was relatively untrained compared to the rest of his counterparts who must have had at least one parent in their household and managed to tote around talent in spades. Those same counterparts seemed to take personal offense towards Obito’s lack of skill, though for whatever reason, Hana wasn’t sure.

She thought momentarily about helping him more with his training, before kicking that thought so far out of her mind it practically gave her whiplash. Hana knew what it meant to be strong as a shinobi—hard missions, and an even harder time getting home after each one. She would not be the reason Obito got put in that position, not if she could help it. Pointers here and there were more than enough, she figured, as long as he asked for them. Otherwise, she refused to allow that guilt to take root in her consciousness.

“Actually!” Obito announced suddenly, diving towards his cabinet. “Wait right there!”

Hana watched bemused as he dug around in the compartment, tossing random articles of clothing behind him while clearly looking for something.

“Found it!” He shouted, pulling a camera out and waving it around, then looking thrilled as he marched back towards Hana. He lifted the camera, toying with a knob at its top as he pointed it towards her.

“Say nii!”

Hana couldn’t help but laugh. “Why?”

“You’re my second-ever guest, so I have to commemorate this! Now say nii, Hana-chan!”

Who was she to tell him no?

Hana gave him the best smile she could muster, and tried not to tear up at the flash of light that assaulted her vision immediately afterwards.

Notes:

- hope you guys enjoyed! I’m very excited for the next chapter for character introduction reasons RAHHH
- The kunoichi class session focused on makeup was intended to depict a sort of grooming in the shinobi system that specifically targets young girls for more “grown up” missions. Also, it helped me introduce Kurenai! Love her she’s so cool
- “Bedi ba’ad” means “I want more”, and “ba’ad” just means “more” in the Levantine dialect of Arabic
- I know we see little of Obito’s childhood, and its more of a fanon idea that he didn’t get along with his clan members, but I always felt things made a lot sense that way bc otherwise his dependence on Rin wouldn’t make much sense either
- There’s some filler flashbacks that have obito living with his grandmother for a while but I’m choosing to ignore those oops

Chapter 12: My Heart is My Guide

Notes:

Thank you guys for the love!! <3 <3 I hope everyone enjoys, please feel free to leave any thoughts or ideas in the comments. I apologize in advance for the long endnote LOL

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

This, she couldn’t ignore.

Hana chewed her lip as she reached for her toes, slowly inching further and further between her legs as she folded herself in half.

It was warmer than usual today, dew heavy on the grass and sun just barely peeking past the horizon to paint the early morning sky in shades of lavender and blue. The chakra signature she’d gotten accustomed to was in its usual location on the training ground—deep in the trees nearby and jutsu-spamming as usual—but something was wrong. The ninja’s motion was erratic, sputtering through half-attempted flickers and uncoordinated movements, nothing like their usually methodical approach. She noticed this earlier, but chose to ignore them as she did practically every other morning.

Whoever they were, Hana had recently realized that the individual simply was moving impossibly fast, not teleporting as she had previously assumed. Their variation of the body flicker technique just so happened to be at speeds otherwise unheard of by a majority of the ninja population.

Nothing weird about that at all.

Hana was supposed to be using her morning hours for training, not stalking random shinobi—no matter how bothersome they were. The only thing that assuaged her guilt surrounding the distraction was that the stranger was technically helping her with her training, whether they knew it or not.

What better way to hone an ability than to be presented with a challenge?

She liked being challenged.

Hana’s chakra sense was trustworthy—the most trustworthy of her senses and the one that she reached for most readily in her times of need. But, she also recognized that her ability was limited by her own understanding of chakra-based information. And, whenever she didn’t know what the input she received meant, she tended to fill in the blanks using her imagination—like when she took guesses about unfamiliar natures, or estimated age and ability without verification.

As such, when she deciphered emotions and general attitude, it was not only an invasion of privacy but more of a whim at best. She couldn’t truly know how a person’s chakra reflected their emotions, or how that manifested within them—not unless she asked a few clarifying questions. And obviously, she couldn’t go around asking people things like ‘Hi, your earth-natured chakra feels a bit like a mudslide right now, with hints of an earthquake. Are you by any chance angry, or experiencing indigestion?’.

That was what meditation was for—honing her sense, widening her range, and sifting through the details of the natural world in order to gain a better understanding of it all.

Pulse in, pulse out, breathe.

But, she did know this stranger—kind of. She knew their patterns. Knew when they arrived to train and when they flickered away for the day. She knew that they preferred fire-based ninjutsu, of which she could sense massive expulsions often, and that their chakra base-level was the equivalent of a jonin’s, if not greater. So, she could say with some level of certainty that that pesky chakra signature was having a very, very bad morning. All of this culminated in them slamming directly into something hard enough to stop their shunsin in its tracks, before they landed equally as roughly and remained lying in their spot.

For the better part of the last ten minutes.

Yikes.

She couldn’t help it—she had to check on them, if only for a moment before she had to head to the academy for the day. Something in the back of her mind needled her about curiosity and cats, but she ignored the more level-headed aspect of her personality and marched steadily forward through the forestry instead, careful not to trip over any of the roots protruding in the dirt.

She would only take a peak, just to see if they were okay, and then head right back to where she left off.

(Or, maybe if she found the individual to be agreeable enough, she might try her hand at asking them a few questions, such as: How are you moving that quickly without puking your guts out?’ or ‘Can you please relax your incredibly distracting chakra?’ or Seriously, how on EARTH are you moving that fast?’)

But when Hana broke through the gap in the trees, only to find a boy her own age with his feet propped up on the base of a trunk and an arm slung lazily over his eyes, she found herself at a loss for words. He was wearing a forehead protector—or the little she could see of one from her position a few paces away—so she was at least right about him being a fully-fledged shinobi. It was just that kids around her age never had chakra signatures that grand even if they were officially ninja, let alone trained so diligently, or were able to conduct jutsu so strong that it distracted her from half a training field away.

She chalked it up to another one of Konoha’s weird quirks.

“Um… are you okay?” She asked aloud, slowly making her way over to the boy once she got over her initial shock.

She stopped beside him, bending down slightly to gauge his level of consciousness while tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. It was getting longer, and her curls now spiraled much further past her shoulders than she was used to. Hana figured she should begin braiding it out of her face, but any attempt to do so ended up a tangled mess anyway so she tended to leave it wild and loose more often than not.

At the lack of any response from the boy, Hana kneeled down further to gently shake his shoulder.

Please don’t be knocked out. I don’t feel like carrying anyone to the hospital right now.

“Yo.” She prompted again.

The boy shot up, startled at the contact. Hana shuffled back, suddenly aware of how sneaking up on a ninja probably wasn’t the safest way to go about her morning.

“Sorry!” She corrected, hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to surprise you! Just wanted to make sure you were alive!”

The first thing she noticed about the boy was his hair, of all things—silky black waves in a mop atop his head. Then, his eyes—dense lashes surrounding irises so dark she couldn’t even make out his pupils. This, coupled with pale skin and an entirely blue-black outfit clued her into his status.

Uchiha.

He squinted, leaning back and blinking at her in quick succession as though trying to figure out if she was really there or not before speaking.

“Oh! That’s alright, I’m okay!”

He winced ever so slightly—the sound of his own voice seeming to exacerbate whatever injury he had given himself.

Never mind. Too nice. No way he’s an Uchiha.

“Are you sure?” Hana said skeptically, looking over to the tree at their side. The branches were high up enough that she had to crane her neck to find them. “Did you fall? Must’ve been nasty, what with the way you were laid out.”

He shot her a lopsided grin, dusting off the front of his shirt. “You should see the other guy.”

His attempt at humor didn’t land, and Hana furrowed her brows at him.

“Take it from me, concussions suck. I can walk you over to the hospital, if you want? Just to be sure?”

He shook his head no. “Nah, I’m good, really! I was just taking a breather.”

Hana studied him, tilting her head from left to right, unblinkingly in that way she did sometimes when looking through a person rather than at them. His chakra gave nothing away, though, still just impossibly hot and impossibly large.

This close, it made her feel rather warm.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” She asked cheekily, showing him a peace sign.

“I don’t think that’s how concussions work.” He huffed with a laugh.

“Fine, then. What’s your name?”

“Shisui.” He stuck his hand out for her to shake. Without a thought, Hana took it in her own.

“Hana.”

“Hanaa.” Shisui attempted.

“That’s pretty good, actually.” She nodded approvingly. The effort to try and pronounce her name correctly, let alone even notice the unique pronunciation, was much appreciated. “If you can tell me today’s date, I’ll let you off the hook.”

“It’s the twenty-fifth of the month.” He answered with a roll of his eyes. Shisui stood, helping her up in the process, and then stepped back to stretch his legs. He’d tried to convince her, but she knew what overly-sore muscles looked liked, and either he had over-trained or he did actually injure himself. Regardless, she wasn’t going to push a confession when he seemed like he would adamantly deny both cases. “What are you doing on an Uchiha training ground, anyway? You’re not a ninja.”

“Not yet.” Hana corrected. “I’ve got about two years to go at the academy. And Uchiha training ground?” She asked, looking around. “I thought this one was public? There aren’t any signs over at the gate saying otherwise. This one’s closest to my place, anyway.”

He crossed one arm over his chest, stretching his shoulder, before repeating the same motion on the other side. “You’re technically right. No one really uses it other than us, though.”

Hana made note of the dry laugh that accompanied that statement.

So he is an Uchiha. I wonder if Obito knows this cousin of his. This one doesn’t seem like a total ass, though—not like the others.

Shisui led her out of the trees, with Hana following along as she studied the embroidered patch on the back of his shirt.

It was a fan, red and white, meant to cool the skin or encourage a flame. The same icon that Obito wore patched on to his tracksuit jacket, and that lined the streets to his apartment building.

(She’d never paid much attention to the emblems that symbolized the various clans of Konoha before, not caring for gaudy displays of strength or character. Most were literal, anyway, like how the Inzuka utilized twin triangular slits that mirrored the lines which they painted on to each cheek, or how the Aburame just used a nondescript insectoid shape. This symbol, she realized suddenly, was different.)

(This symbol held weight.)

Hana found herself thrown entirely off-kilter. First, she’d been expecting an adult rather than a young boy. And, not only was Shisui nice, but he was chatty, too. Hana learned that he had graduated from the academy a year prior, and was already running missions with a team of his own despite the two of them being the same age. That meant they were in the same boat in her eyes, even if Hana couldn’t divulge that information.

Shisui went so far as to give her a recap of one of the first missions he completed with his team, in which they had to chase an unruly, scratch-happy cat across the entire village, and it had Hana fighting to hold back her laughter.

“But why would you guys keep trying to grab the cat if it kept latching onto your faces and scratching?”

“We had a point to prove! Besides, sensei bet us that we couldn’t capture it by lunch, and we did! We just had to take our lunch in the hospital, bandaged up and all.”

She couldn’t help the incredulous giggle that slipped out.

“Actually, shouldn’t you be heading to the academy right about now, since you’re a student?” He asked as she fell into step beside him. His gaze landed on the horizon, shielding his eyes as he studied the position of the sun. It gave her the chance to study the blade strapped to his back, a short tanto much like the one provided to her by Root. She didn’t prefer it, but it was standard practice for the foundation, and it wasn’t like she was allowed to express her displeasure at having to use weapon. It was a small protest that she used it exceedingly little. However, the hilt of his, unlike her own, was worn with age—clearly used often.

“Sorry I made a point to check on the kid who fell out of a tree.” She shot back, rolling her eyes.

“I didn’t fall out of a tree, I was just resting!”

“…After you fell out of that tree.”

“It was in the way!”

Hana deadpanned.

“C’mon, I’ll walk you the rest of the way.” Shisui chuckled, ignoring her unconvinced expression as he fought back a smile. “How’d you find me, anyway?”

Hana shrugged. “I was meditating in the field over here.” She motioned across the clearing around them. “And I could feel that you were zooming around for a bit, then you just stopped, so I wanted to make sure you didn’t die or something.”

By the time she’d finished with her lackluster explanation, a nervous pit had developed in her stomach. Sensory types were rare, and aside from Obito—who she was certain didn’t even understand the implications of such an ability—she had yet to willingly share that information with anyone.

It brought attention to her, once. It made her a target. And though Hana hadn’t said anything outright indicative of her chakra sensing abilities, she still held a bated breath as she waited for Shisui’s reaction.

“That’s pretty cool. What does my chakra feel like?”

Hana blinked at him.

Perhaps the weight of Root on her shoulders had given her too much to worry about. Regardless, she appreciated Shisui’s cavalier attitude about the subject.

“Hmm… ” She thought aloud, tapping a finger to her chin and looking off into the distance. The pair finally made their way out to the main road towards the academy building, and began passing through the freshly opened market stalls and the stores being readied for the day.

“I can tell that you’re fire-natured, and that you have a whole lot of chakra. It’s hot, almost, kind of like when you get too close to a flame and it starts to burn a little.”

“What about him?” He asked, pointing to a man stacking apples on a fruit stand.

“Civilian. Weakly earth.”

Shisui pointed to a woman in a casual kimono, holding a canvas bag filled with books in one arm and balancing a pile of scrolls in the other. “And her?”

“She’s a ninja, just off-duty. Her chakra nature is definitely wind. Also—“ she raised her eyebrow at him “—you don’t even know if I’m right. I could totally be lying straight to your face right now.”

“Are you?”

Hana gave him a sharp toothed grin. “No.”

It quickly became clear to Hana that this boy was one of the strangest individuals she’d met in Konoha thus far—weirder than the kid in her year who wore a bright green jumpsuit (with orange leg warmers off all things—what was with this place and the color orange?!), weirder than any of the mask-wearing freaks that she was stuck training with under Root, and certainly weirder than even herself with her sense and her seals. It wasn’t anything immediately identifiable, and her alarm bells only began to ring once the academy came into view and the pair was due to part. Shisui’s strangeness manifested in his charm, a stark contrast to the way the chakra within him raged with a complexity of emotion she didn’t quite know how to sift through.

It was definitely something to look into.

Unfortunately, they arrived at the front gates of the academy entirely too soon for that. Shisui waved her off, not before Hana made him promise to at least get checked out for what was certainly a head injury of some sort. He did, but immediately afterwards also did that flickering jutsu again and disappeared from her sight (and sense) entirely. Hana stood, staring at the empty space he once occupied, and huffed under her breath before spinning on her heel and marching into school.

Seriously? How is he doing it that fast?!

She managed to just make the morning bell.

Her eyes were crossing as she read the paragraph before her for what felt like the hundredth-time.

Formed by a complex arrangement of intrinsic and extrinsic musculature, it’s an organ principally involved in digestion, taste, speech, and breathing. The extrinsic muscles attach it to the mandible, hyoid bone, soft palate, pharynx, and styloid process—all of which are divided into two parts by the sulcus terminalis that separates the anterior two thirds from the posterior one third in the form of a V-shaped groove.

Blood supply comes from the lingual artery primarily—

Perhaps Hana was getting ahead of herself. But, lulled by the dull droll of Ito-sensei throughout the classroom, Hana couldn’t help but keep herself awake by reading about the things she actually wanted to know. And aside from knowledge of basic anatomy that she would need to memorize before ever attempting to sift through layers of skin and muscle when healing minor injuries, that also happened to include a breakdown of the tongue.

The anatomy textbook was just one of the never-ending materials which Rin had insisted that Hana read through. Her enthusiasm about Hana’s interest in the medical arts was appreciated, but Hana still allowed herself to complain about it in her head.

“Read up!” Rin had said. “Ask me any questions you have, and if I can’t help you, I’ll ask one of the volunteers at the hospital for you!”

Leaning over with the weight of the books piled high in her arms, Hana could only offer a grimace in response.

She groaned—internally, of course.

Hana had already gone through the texts on field basics detailing civilian-grade first aid by describing wound packing, tourniquet variations, administration of medication, and basic life support—which she practiced on both Safa and Tama, who seesawed between being willing participants and unwilling victims of her medical training. That textbook was the one she appreciated the most, and she had already built her civilian kit around it using Rin’s guidance.

Once Hana had done that, she began working her way through the denser texts—basic biology, anatomy, physiology—the works. If she jumped around to areas she found particularly interesting like the eyes (how on earth do I get them to stop straining when I’m reading late at night?) or the tongue (stupid bastard put a seal in my mouth and now I taste ink every time I swallow— I’ll show him), there was no one around to reprimand her for getting ahead of herself.

Hana squinted as she hunched over the desk, trying for the third time to read a sentence about muscle innervation in the mouth while Rin diligently took notes about the actual class content beside her. On her opposite side, Obito was doing the same, though his notes were closer to chicken scratch than any studiable material.

“Hana!” Ito-sensei called from the front of the room, as though he had a sixth sense specifically tuned to recognize whenever she wasn’t paying attention. “Why don’t you give it a shot?”

She startled, blinking at him blearily. “Give what a shot?”

“A mission report.” He bit out. A few muffled laughs broke out across the room at the confusion.

Hana scowled, annoyed by the call-out. “Type?” She asked curtly.

“Uh...” Ito-sensei paused, looking over his shoulder at the chalkboard covered in messy scribbles.

“Like, end-of-mission, role-transferal initiation, reinforcement request—“

“I know what you meant, Hana—“ Ito-sensei said, shooting her a scathing look. “Why don’t you try your hand at a verbal end-of-mission report? You can make up the names as you go, and I’ll help you with the things you miss or are unsure about.”

Hana’s eyes scanned over the contents written on the chalkboard, which described a courier mission to deliver intel to a far away military base gone wrong. The details listed a bandit encounter during the return journey, and said bandits were confronted then easily apprehended.

Hana sighed. “Team… Umm…” She squinted at the messy handwriting, but then just decided to guess.

“Team seven departed from Konoha holdings at 0700 hours, utilizing the main road towards the Land of Tea. The intel scroll was successfully transferred to the jonin leader overseeing Encampment K-17 on the second morning of the journey without incident. At approximately 1730 hours on the return trip, during which the team was navigating the narrow mountain pass of Hosoi Ridge, four masked assailants ambushed the squad, later identified as rouge bandits. All hostiles were successfully restrained then surrendered to border patrol forces at Land of Fire Checkpoint K-42 for questioning and transfer. Mission status remained successful. Recommendations for the future include further investigation into the bandit group’s employer given the prior knowledge of team seven’s route and potential threat to future courier missions.”

There was a pause. A few faces from rows ahead even turned to look back at her.

“That was… quite good, actually. Nice job, Hana.” Ito-sensei cleared his throat. “Right! So that’s what’s expected from—“

Hana drained him out, glad to be done with her singular instance of daily participation, and shut the book in her lap closed with a subtle thunk. She was slowly establishing an average position for herself in the class rankings, though it was more so because of her inability to control when Root missions took her out of the count as opposed to any self-imposed system.

Regardless, her system allowed her to maintain a performance that kept her slightly above the dead center ranking, give or take a few slots. She let herself excel in taijutsu, mainly because she needed the practice and thoroughly enjoyed sparring—but only between the other kunoichi-in-training for now. She still made sure to lose to any boys from high-ranking clans after her stint with Kato, but it was getting harder to keep herself in check. She made perfect scores in history once she figured out that the academy skewed every historical event ever in Konoha’s favor, and once she realized that she would get full points every time she mentioned the prowess of the first hokage or the legacy of the second hokage on exams. She would also pick and choose random skills that she would perform successfully, based only on how she happened to feel that day, but otherwise intentionally toed the line with flunking and passing in all of the remaining subjects.

Hana was painting herself to be a perfectly average ninja, with only a few slightly-above-average skills, making sure that on paper she would never be depicted as anything outstandingly special.

Rather than listening to Ito-sensei’s bullshit critiques (she knew how to give a mission report, thank you very much), Hana rested her eyes instead. There was an idea she had been toying with, one that would help keep her mind at ease during any potential Root missions. Though she didn’t particularly like attending the Konoha academy, it did ensure that at least a third of her day was occupied in a manner that would prevent her participation in the foundation’s activities. But, as the first break of the year was due to start soon, Hana had an inkling that she wouldn’t be enjoying the time-off like every other student.

The clones she kept at home daily wouldn’t be able to last through any longer missions, and she needed a more permanent solution as opposed to just shipping her sister off to a tiger den no matter how convenient it was.

Her list of current problems was rather numerous.

For one, she didn’t have enough chakra to make clones that could last days, nor could she even attempt to create such clones prior to a mission unless she felt like arranging her own suicide by lack-of-chakra.

The clones that she did manage to generate were weak, too, and though capable of following the simple tasks she left them with rather diligently (watch sister, feed sister, bathe sister, read to sister, play with sister—), any minor accident or injury always caused them to disperse, which wasn’t ideal because Hana wouldn’t be around to remake the clone. Plus, she preferred to avoid the raging headache that came with the memory barrage post-clone dispersion, especially if it were to occur while out in the field.

Clones could be supplemented though, something she’d discovered on a random evening when she’d walked all the way home only to realize that she’d left one of her grocery bags behind. She’d popped into her apartment momentarily, and sensing that the clone was dangerously low on chakra, merely funneled more chakra into its body with the hope of keeping it together just long enough to make a quick trip back to the grocery store. This led her to the realization that she could recharge her clones as needed.

That had been a particularly exciting discovery. If clones could be fed chakra from the person who created them, that also meant that clones could be fed chakra from a seal, too.

Not that it was a one and done type of deal. First, she had to make a chakra storage seal—one that was compatible with her affinity and maintained the integrity of the energy source. Then, she had to figure out a way to get the chakra expelled from the seal into the clone, enough to properly supplement the clone but not to overwhelm it and dispel it. She also had to make sure that the chakra was received entirely and none was lost to the surroundings. Hana figured she could base such a seal on the workings of explosive tags and their timed-release feature, but she would have to ensure that the energy was expelled gently rather than in one singular motion.

Her clones were also incredibly incapable physically. They couldn’t mold chakra—not without chakra circuitry, given that they were only made of mud—and were therefore unable to conduct any jutsu. They also couldn’t sense anything, because they they had no chakra stores to disperse through the environment. Other than babysitting, or acting as a momentary distraction during a fight, they were relatively useless.

But a seal that could store and then later slowly release chakra into the clones would make her life just a little easier. Most importantly, it meant that she could store chakra over time to give to a clone, as opposed to having to give up large sums of it on the spot, which would allow her to regulate the loss of her own chakra stores much better.

That meant no more constant exhaustion.

That meant she could hold off on dispelling the clone, and could deal with the mental strain of it being dispelled whenever she wanted—like when she could actually sit down and meditate through the influx of memories as opposed to being bombarded out of the blue.

Hana summoned her sealing notebook and began scribbling frantically.

She was comfortable enough at utilizing basic storage seals, such as the standard variety that required kanji like 封 (fūnyū, encapsulation) to hold everyday items. Hana wouldn’t be able to use a general storage seal as a basis, though, not if she wanted to contain chakra itself as opposed to a physical object. The issue was that all seals contained chakra within their ink and formula, and she needed a seal to store chakra alone as opposed to one with an alternative purpose. Therefore, it’d be easier to make a seal starting from scratch as opposed to using a premade design that needed to be tweaked.

Hana needed a word, first, one to build her seal around, then to use for testing and experimentation later on.

It didn’t take her long to decide.

Soul.

(Ruuh).

(روح).

Three separate characters, each long and winding enough to contain varying amounts of chakra when written with infused ink, but compact enough to fit easily within a geometric polygon, like a decagram or octagram with ornate borders to help contain the sheer amount of energy Hana would need to store.

(There was no direct equivalent for the word chakra in the eastern tongue. It wasn’t for lack of understanding towards the energy source, but rather a different approach to the concept of chakra entirely. Chakra was the essence of life, and without it, all the living creatures ceased to be. As such, the word soul was used for all references to it, even if the common tongue differentiated between a body’s soul and the chakra it contained.)

(Hana still had trouble compartmentalizing her clones in her mind. They weren’t her, technically, but they enforced her will and acted in her stead. So, Hana would do her best to give them an additional semblance of herself, of her chakra, of her soul.)

Rin peered over her shoulder, humming in confusion. “What are you writing, Hana?”

“Just doodling.” She brushed off, nose tucked deep between the ink-laden pages, now covered in calligraphic variations of a single three-letter word.

“Don’t you want to note down the stuff that sensei is explaining about mission reports instead?” Rin asked with a giggle, referring to how Ito-sensei’s lecture had segued into things like the transfer of intel based on rank and clearance-based violations of mission reporting.

Hana huffed, mumbling something under her breath about ‘stupid, tedious mission reports, always making my knees hurt’ before she quickly corrected herself with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “Nope.”

“Well, I have some time after school. How about we head over to training ground nine and I can show you how to use the diagnostic palm technique we’re being taught at the hospital? And then you can show me that water-walking jutsu you mentioned last week?”

That caught Hana’s attention. She nodded enthusiastically as Rin gave her a small, if somewhat exasperated, smile.

Rin leaned forwards, catching Obito’s attention with a wave. “Obito, what about you? Do you want to come learn water-walking with me after school?”

Obito shot up, matching Hana’s enthusiastic nod. “Definitely!” He responded, entirely too loud for a classroom that was otherwise supposed to be silent, and entirely too enthusiastically for someone who hadn’t shown any interest in the jutsu prior.

They were sitting in the back thanks to Hana’s insistence, so the disturbance went relatively unnoticed (except for by the kid sitting in front of them, who turned to shush Obito rather aggressively).

(Of course, Hana matched that with a glare of her own.)

She decided that her tedious seal experiments would just have to wait for another day—Hana needed to learn more jutsu now.

It took a grand total of about eleven minutes and forty two seconds for both Obito and Rin to end up soaked to the bone.

Training ground nine was their chosen location for the day, both for its small lake and for the dummies strewn about its grass field. Though the dummies were intended to be used by younger ninja to practice targeting vital organs on, they doubled as the ideal tool for practicing the diagnostic palm technique once stuffed with a few pitted and non-pitted fruits between the cotton of their insides.

The point of the exercise was to use the technique to figure out how many pitted and non-pitted fruits a dummy held, Rin explained, by channeling your chakra into it and identifying the fruit type by sensation alone. Her dummy contained a total of three fruits, randomized for her by Rin and picked up along the trio’s way—but for the life of her, Hana couldn’t identify a single one as she funneled her chakra beyond the bounds of the cotton.

Iryojutsu specifically required the yang release signature, funneled into damaged or afflicted tissue with tedious control to accelerate the body’s natural healing processes beyond the bounds of time. Prior to any such healing technique, though, a medical ninja had to become comfortable with a subset of chakra sensing that involved sensing physical matter within the body, which is what the diagnostic technique entailed.

Hana had made the mistake of thinking that the diagnostic jutsu would come easy to her, just like chakra sensing did. She figured her chakra control was fine if it was never commented on in training, and that the technique would simply require slightly finer control than what she already did on a daily basis. The universe had decided that that wouldn’t be the case, and she was more than annoyed at her limited results. She was having trouble preventing herself from accidentally sealing the dummy as opposed to sensing the fruits inside, and kept accidentally overwhelming the dummy with her chakra when doing so.

And by attempt number twenty seven, she was fuming.

It made a pettier part of her feel better that her friends didn’t seem to be faring much better off in their own training. Neither Obito nor Rin could swim (something that would definitely have to be rectified soon, but since the village was so far from any shore in the Land of Fire, it did make sense), so Hana recommended that they use the shallow portion of the lake to practice funneling chakra to their feet—barefoot of course—and attempt to stand atop the water’s surface. She gave them both a demonstration of how it was done, and explained that chakra channeled to the soles helped steady the body by cementing the particles of water in place, rather than allowing them to maintain their constant motion. But, that only seemed to confuse Obito more and made Rin ask a bazillion questions about particle science that Hana didn’t have all the answers for.

(Yes, like ice. No, it won’t actually turn the water under your feet into ice. Yes, chakra can influence the rigidity of a substance but water is the easiest to work with because it already has a strong surface tension. Yes, it is harder when the water is moving. Yes, this rigid surface can hold your weight as long as the chakra output is stable. No, I have no idea if it works similarly with blood or juice. No, don’t try to use elemental chakra for this because if either of you accidentally apply a lightning nature without realizing it, you might electrocute every living creature in our vicinity and I feel like that would be hard to explain to the patrols and I really don’t want to have to do that.)

Regardless, that had somehow turned into Rin and Obito splash-attacking each other in an effort to see who could get the other more wet. Not good for the body, what with the sun readily sinking in the sky and the cool air of the evening picking up, but definitely good for the soul.

A squeal from Rin broke Hana's already tumultuous concentration.

Plop.

Squelch.

She looked up to watch the pair as they made their way over to her, teeth clattering and trying but failing miserably to hide their shivers.

“The water isn’t even ankle-deep.” Hana admonished, rising from her kneeled position and shaking the ache out of each leg. “How are both of you so wet?”

Rin sneezed, sniffling and having the sense to look apologetic. Obito, on the other hand, decided that the concept of water-walking (a skill otherwise integral to the entire shinobi dogma) was beneath him.

“Hana-chan! It’s not our f-fault you’re a bad teacher!”

“I-I think I got it down, actually.” Rin added.

“Try again, then, Obito.” Hana shot back.

“But Hana-chan, there’s definitely s-s-something wrong with the lake!”

“Nope. I checked. It’s literally just normal water.” She bit out.

“Hanaaaaaa—“ Obito groaned.

Hana scoffed. “Don’t you want to be a ninja? Stop making a fuss and learn the things ninja need to know!” She stomped over her dummy, grabbing Obito’s sleeve and dragging him back over to the lakeshore. He went willingly, but he grumbled something under his breath about ‘bossy girls’ and ‘pointy nails’ that she pretended she didn’t catch. Rin found it all very amusing, but she too was busy wringing the water out of her hair and clothes to help.

“Foot out!” Hana demanded as she stepped on to the water’s surface, jerking Obito along with her. He quieted, and stuck his right foot out according to Hana’s instruction, keeping his left on land.

Hana glared at his outstretched leg like it was the most insulting object in the universe.

“Now close your eyes, reach for your chakra, and channel it down to your leg!”

Obito, obediently, did as he was told. Or, he at least attempted to, screwing his eyes shut and looking rather constipated as the chakra in his core stuttered and swirled disorderly.

Hana grabbed his ankle instead. She channeled chakra to her palm, just enough for Obito to feel the cool sensation of her water nature and have a more recognizable destination to concentrate on. “Okay, now keep your eyes closed and just try to channel your chakra towards where you can feel mine.”

Obito hopped in spot, trying to keep his balance as Hana maintained hold of his ankle. He coughed to cover a giggle, eye shooting open as he tried to swat Hana’s hand away. “That tickles!”

Hana tightened her grip, steadying him. “Focus!” She yelled back, fighting a grin of her own from splitting across her face at the very silly position they were in. Obito listened, eyes closing much more serenely than before.

She couldn’t sense the specific motion of his chakra, not like how someone with a dojutsu or chakra-based kekkei genkai could visualize exactly how chakra moved through a person’s coils. What Hana could sense, though, was the localization of the greatest mass of chakra in his chest—which currently felt very similar to a toasty fireplace—as a portion of it slugged steadily downwards and then stopped somewhere in his gut, radiating in a thinner aura outwards toward each extremity.

Moving chakra within the body could only be described as tedious, akin to herding a litter of excited kittens or sweeping up a puddle of water on an otherwise flat surface. Strict focus was required to contain the energy lest its spread back out to its natural resting spots, and even finer control was needed to channel large sums past the tenketsu points along the way. And, it wasn’t like chakra coils were empty, either—chakra channeled towards any particular direction needed to move with the pre-existing chakra in that area. For anyone new to chakra-based practices, it was better practice to utilize that which was stored in the body’s highly concentrated core as opposed to using peripheral chakra stores, because that could do unintended damage to the limbs (especially the fingers and toes) if the amount of chakra channeled out was accidentally overshot. In that case, those peripheral limbs were left drained of a greater amount of chakra than the body could recuperate quickly enough.

Other exercises were commonly taught before water-walking as precursor techniques, like ones which involved sticking tree leaves or lightweight sheets of cotton paper to the skin, but Hana preferred (and rather enjoyed) jumping into the deep end when it came to skills. Therefore, the only method of teaching she knew how to employ was the same. Thankfully, her familiarity with chakra and chakra-based exercises meant that she had a few tricks under her belt to make things a little easier.

With her free hand, Hana tapped a finger to Obito’s knee, channeling a bit of chakra to the surface. Rin had finally made her way over to the pair, but was content to watch as Hana attempted to teach Obito with nothing more than a serene smile on her face.

“You can try moving your chakra step-by-step, like concentrating a sum of it to your knee first using my chakra as a guide.” Hana said. Obito strained, but the tip seemed to be helping somewhat because ever-so-slightly his chakra trudged further down, until a bit of it localized beneath Hana’s fingertip. She gave him an approving nod that Obito didn’t catch.

Rin made to cheer, but Hana brought her finger to her lips and shook her head no rather desperately to prevent the boy in her grip from losing his concentration. Instead, Hana channeled chakra into the hand she had gripping his ankle once more.

“Okay, now try to get chakra to the bottom of your foot.”

When Obito finally, finally managed to get his chakra all the way down, Hana quickly forced his leg on to the water’s surface.

And when the limb wouldn’t break through, no matter how much Hana pushed, both her and Rin cheered. It made Obito insist that he was destined to become a legendary ninja and the star of the Uchiha clan, regardless of the fact that Hana was still holding his foot for him.

Of course, all Obito had to do now was get the same result using his other leg—which was fine, because both girls would be there to see it through.

Notes:

- The chapter title is a reference to a classic Egyptian Arabic love song called “Ana Elbi Dalili”, which features lyrics like “my love is here even before I’ve seen him” and “I see him with my imagination”. You can find the song and translation here: X
- In regards to everyone’s ages, Shisui MUST have graduated sometime during the last few years of the war bc he was said to do war-time courier missions. So, him being a genin around the same time as Obito/Rin is guaranteed bc Obito/Rin are of the last few academy cohorts to graduate before the war ends “shortly after” the Kannabi bridge mission
- basically Shisui would’ve had to have graduated early enough to account for going from D-ranks to C/B-rank courier missions during the war, and enough so to get his mangekyo during that time period as well
- bc Shisui is younger than Obito/Rin, I’m explaining this by having Shisui be one of the few students who graduated the academy early, though not as early as the record-holder, Kakashi
- Hana was slotted into a class where a majority of kids were 1-2 years older than her. Shisui is the same age despite having graduated early. Had either of them been normal students, they would’ve been in the same class together :) I hope that’s not too confusing. If it is than ignore this LMAO

Chapter 13: It Takes a Village

Notes:

- Sorry about the longer wait than usual, I hope you guys enjoy!! This one is also fluffy, though it’s definitely a “calm before the storm” type of chapter LOL
- to my irls who have found this fic… heyyyy

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It was about time that Hana invited her friends over—or a friend, at least. She’d already weaseled her way into an inspection of Obito’s living situation, and after finding out that Rin lived in a shared dormitory for orphaned and clanless academy children (with only a cramped four-by-four space to call her own) she didn’t feel the need to scheme her way into any more intrusions.

(No wonder Rin spent a majority of her day out, either at school, running around with Obito, or busying herself with the free classes at the hospital. Having willing roommates was hard enough, and Hana couldn’t imagine how annoying it would be to constantly have your space invaded by a bunch of kids who didn’t particularly want to be there, either.)

Regardless, the gesture was owed.

Her single room apartment barely had the space to accommodate her sister and herself, let alone a tiger or two, and adding an additional person into that mix was a recipe for disaster. She also—like usual—didn’t know what to even do about her sister, in the sense that confirming the child’s existence to another person was a risk Hana was still deciding if she was willing to take. And, maintaining such a secret would only get harder given that Sara was slowly learning how to talk (though still couldn’t differentiate between her s’s and l’s rather adorably) and could already stand unsteadily for a few moments unsupported, meaning that walking (and running) was surely soon to follow.

But as far as Hana was concerned, Root picked the wrong girl to steal away from the forests of a strange land.

She was nothing if not a problem-solver.

Root reveled in its secrecy, that much was clear. Not once had she seen the true faces of those that walked alongside her through those dark hallways, nor had she ever had the opportunity to interact with the other children trapped in their own quarters, save for the few higher-ranking individuals responsible for Hana’s own training. Even those relationships were kept strictly professional, and she had already participated in entirely too many training sessions without so much as knowing her sparring partner’s name.

(She thought of those other children sometimes. Truly, luck must have been on her side to be assigned missions that allowed for some semblance of normalcy—fake lives lived above ground and amongst regular people—no matter how fickle of a situation it was. Hana often wondered if the other children who were still locked away would ever come to know anything other than cement walls and achingly cold hallways buried beneath the ground.)

(Hana also caught herself wondering if she could ever do anything about it.)

But what had made Root select her in the first place? It wasn’t skill, that was for certain. Every bit of it that she had, they had drilled into her themselves. Potential, perhaps?

Or was it the fact that she was a blank slate?

It didn’t take her long to realize that that was the case. She was a refugee, after all, from a place that was slowly being wiped right off the map—a collection of coastal towns embedded between forestry, slowly being mutilated into nothing but rubble and ash. No parents, no living relatives as far as she knew—not even a family name that held any weight among the village’s residents.

Untraceable. Invisible. Practically non-existent prior to her registration in the Konoha academy.

(Not even the men and women she once walked amongst would remember her. She would never forget how their gazes would slip right over her, just another emaciated frame in a crowd of living dead.)

Hana would not make it easy for Root to force her little sister towards the same fate. She would give the child permanence in the world, and make sure people went looking for her if anything were to happen. She had already gone through the trouble of staying up late into various mornings to track Root’s surveillance habits, and it was reassuring to learn that unless a mission needed to be done or an intelligence file needed to be delivered, Hana was otherwise left to her own devices. Maintaining watch over her sister with a clone and a tiger had been enough thus far, and her only real problem regarding the matter was watching out for those surprise visits at the eve of a new mission, though that was being handled by both her and Tama’s chakra sensing abilities.

The other—bigger—issue of course, was leverage. Root could use Sara as a bargaining chip, one that would forever ensure Hana’s servitude to the state, or they could go so far as to threaten the baby’s life for that very same reason. Though technically, Sara already was being levered against her, even if Root wasn’t aware of the fact. Her existence was the only reason that Hana hadn’t cut her losses and run straight for the hills, because though Hana could potentially stomach a life on the run, she wouldn’t put a baby who had no say in the matter through the same thing.

(And, it wasn’t like she could guarantee Sara’s safety while evading a black-ops force with no moral code against maiming, desecrating, or eviscerating children as far as she could tell.)

(Then again, she could barely guarantee Sara’s safety within the walls of Konoha.)

So, Sara’s discovery—at least among Hana’s peers—was a moot point that she was willing to toe the line with. She ultimately decided that Sara could be introduced to others to an extent, because Hana would be keeping her with one foot in the summoning realm at all times, and only introduce her as her sister to select individuals. All she really had to do after that was create a tangible identity for the child, one that could be traced by a paper-trail tucked away between the shelves of whatever room in the hokage tower contained the identifying information of the village’s known residents.

Before she could work through the more complicated steps of her plan, though, she needed to establish her sister’s footing in the village.

She knew just who to start with.

Hana trusted Obito, though and through. He was earnest, kind to a fault without even realizing it, and genuine in a way she’d never known anyone to be before. He wore his heart on his sleeve and couldn’t hide his emotions for the life of him, regardless of whether or not Hana could read people with her chakra sense alone. So, as he stood in her entryway and scanned his eyes across the mess that was her apartment, she tried not to laugh at the dumbfounded expression painted across his face.

“Hana.” He announced simply. “There’s a tiger on your bed.”

Hana grinned, delighted at his reaction. “Her name is Tama. She only eats people she doesn’t like.”

Tama rolled her eyes, bounding off the bed in a single leap and stalking over to Obito, leveling him with a curious stare. “Ignore her. We do not eat people. Though if we did,” and here Tama shot Hana a look that said ‘behave’, “Hana would be the first to go. It is nice to meet you, boy. Hana speaks very highly of you.” Tama finished, tail swaying left and right as she took a seat in front of him.

“Hana,” Obito said, not taking his eyes off the tiger but leaning back in a barely-concealed attempt at putting distance between them. “You have a tiger in your apartment. And it talks.”

Right. Summoning creatures weren’t common even in ninja villages, let alone ones capable of holding a conversation, or capable of making thinly veiled insults.

It was Hana’s turn to roll her eyes. She definitely remembered summoning contracts being brought up in class, though more as a side-note in an effort to prevent students from attempting the jutsu unsupervised. It was probably on one of those mornings where Obito was too busy carting around the groceries of some random old lady instead of arriving to school at a decent hour.

“She’s one of the summons I work with.” Hana explained, grabbing Obito by the forearm and dragging him a few steps over to her miniature kitchen space. He craned his neck to continue staring at Tama outright, though the tiger didn’t seem to mind, licking at her paw and ignoring him otherwise. Sara was laying on the floor of the kitchen—belly-down—assaulting the tile with a fisted grip of markers as she drew colorful squiggles and shapes that were all-too-similar to the seal work Hana spent hours of her day studying.

“And this,” Hana said, crouching to pick Sara up, “Is my sister, Sara. Say hi to Obito, Sara!”

Sara gave Obito her best impression of a smile, though it was more of a baring of teeth than anything resembling a normal human expression. She waved the paint markers in his face, giggling.

Obito tore his gaze away from the feline to instead reach over and pinch Sara’s cheek, laughing at how the child squirmed away. “I didn’t know you had a sister, Hana. That’s so neat!”

“Yeah, she’s really sweet. Here—hold her for a second while I clean this up.”

Hana didn’t give him the chance to decline. She placed Sara in his arms, helping him adjust their positioning. Try as she did, though, Obito just ended up holding Sara awkwardly under the armpits. “Uhh… like this?” He asked.

“Yes.” Hana nodded, fighting back a laugh as Sara kicked her feet in the air. “Perfect.”

She left him like that for a few minutes, grabbing a wet rag to wipe up Sara’s artistic escapades as Obito tried to get Sara to learn his name. Sara seemed only capable of babbling hi and bibi, before Obito had to dodge a paint marker to the face while still maintaining his hold on her.

“So, about the tiger…” Obito trailed off, weaving his head between Sara’s attempts to instead tangle her fingers into his hair.

“Tama.” Hana corrected as she continued scrubbing the floor.

“Right, about Tama. She just… lives with you?”

“No—she lives in her dimension, obviously. Though recently I learned it’s not a dimension so much as an island colony that’s super far away, but whatever. I have a summoning contract with her species, so I can bring them to me as needed and vice versa.”

Obito’s mouth fell open, and his momentary distraction meant that Sara managed to clasp her fist around a tuft of his hair to tug on. “You have other tigers?!”

“I don’t have other tigers, I work with other tigers—lots of ‘em. Tama isn’t my main partner, though.” She responded, rising to pry open Sara’s fisted grip on Obito’s hair with a gentle scolding before her sister could give the poor boy a bald spot. She nudged Obito along, finally fixing his carrying method as she slowly guided him out of the apartment, cutting off his line of questioning entirely. Where was this level of curiosity during class, when there was a teacher present for the very purpose of answering such things?

“C’mon, we don’t want to be late to meet Rin. Bye Tama!” Hana called out over her shoulder as she shut the door behind her. She didn’t feel like explaining the circumstances of her life that landed her in such a predicament, so he could stay curious for all that she cared. Besides—he had a role to play right now, whether he knew it or not, and too much chatter would get in the way of that.

Operation ‘Embed Sara Into the Minds of the General Konoha Populace’ was a go. There was a list of locations that Hana was planning on visiting alongside her friends, the ones that were frequented mostly by civilians and were otherwise reliable, though she’d never go as far as to claim that they were entirely trustworthy. Nevertheless, with Obito already warming up to her little sister, it was too late to back out now.

Hana: one, Root—well, they still had a whole lot on her, but she could still celebrate her meager successes whenever they came up.

Rin stopped in her tracks, blinking owlishly at the sight before her. “Obito…”

She cleared her throat. “Obito. Where did you get a baby?!”

Obito was too busy arguing with Sara in baby babble to respond. In his place, Hana gave Rin a perfectly innocent, if slightly too sharp, smile. “There was this guy, and he had on this long coat, and he then he opened it like woosh and was all like—“

Rin’s increasingly worried expression was enough to get Hana to shut up and devolve into giggles.

They had caught Rin right as she was leaving the hospital, still in the cream uniform and cap that medical trainees were expected to wear. From the outside, the hospital didn’t seem busy—and for that Hana was certain there was some sort of barrier sealing at play—but it was undoubtedly filled with recovering ninja recently back from whatever deployment the Konoha governorate had shipped them off to. It wouldn’t be as busy as the overrun medical encampments near the front lines, nor the secluded border patrol stations that were too short-staffed to be properly functional, but the amount of trainees that exited the front doors alongside Rin told Hana that it was crowded regardless.

Hana cut the purple-cheeked girl some slack after what was an undoubtedly long day.

“She’s my sister, Sara.” Hana explained for the second time. “Wanna hold her?” Hana asked—a picture of perfect innocence, with no ulterior motive involving any attempt at outmaneuvering blackmail schemes evident whatsoever.

Rin approached them carefully, still seemingly unconvinced by Hana’s claim. But after a few moments of watching Obito and Sara fully converse in gibberish, a brilliant smile broke out across her face.

“Definitely.”

The hand-off went much more smoothly than Hana had anticipated.

With that, they were off, first stopping by Rin’s place (less of a home, and more of a paint-faded concrete building that was too drab to be considered anything other than a prison) so that she could get changed. From there, Hana hauled her friends along as she did her ‘chores’ for the day, watching silently as they took turns holding her baby sister and tried not to argue over whose turn it was to do so.

Their first stop was obviously for desert. Hana’s treat, of course.

“This is my sister. Her name is Sara.” Hana announced to the cashier at the shaved-ice shop, presenting the child before her like a prize-winning chicken as Sara drooled a mess of spittle onto her onesie.

“That’s nice, dear.” Came the smocked woman’s bored reply, after she had just sat through ten minutes of the group of children enthusiastically discussing if it was a better idea to each get their own serving of the treat, or compile a bunch of flavors into one ginormous cup to share.

(They ended up sharing—strawberry, honey, and melon flavored shaved-ice piled high and topped with a collection of berries. They made a mess, but they at least wiped the table down after themselves when they were done.)

Then, the library, where Hana dragged Obito and Rin inside under the guise of needing to return some books and renew a few dozen more.

“Hello, Itooka-san!” Hana greeted the librarian with an excited wave as they entered. Itooka-san was the best. She never commented on how some books that Hana was otherwise not allowed to have access to went missing in a pattern that aligned with almost all of her visits. She also never minded when Hana was overdue on returns, or ‘forgot’ to pay the fines for those same overdue returns either.

Hana pointed over her shoulder at Obito, who had stolen Sara back from Rin after they left the dessert shop. “That’s my sister, Sara. Isn’t she the cutest little baby you’ve ever seen?”

The librarian cooed, motioning for some of her coworkers to come join the group. “More like two of the cutest little girls I’ve ever seen! How are you, Hana-chan? Are these your friends from the academy?” Soon, Hana was surrounded by a gaggle of librarians and their assistants, who then proceeded to spend the better part of the hour pinching her little sister’s cheeks, playing with the baby’s hair, and doting on both Obito and Rin in spite of their red faces and bashful smiles.

Sara was indeed a cute baby, so Hana couldn’t fault them for that. Her hair was much like Hana’s, all curly and wild, but was instead a dirty blonde as it sat in a short cloud atop the baby’s head. Sara’s eye color was nothing like hers, though, and was instead more of an amber compared to Hana’s brighter hue, but they did share the same dense lash line and almond slant. Also, Sara’s skin was fairer than Hana’s deeper olive.

They looked like sisters—if you squinted and titled your head far left.

(It was better that the resemblance wasn’t immediate. No one who saw the baby in a crowd or from far away would recognize her as Hana’s sister right off the bat, not unless they knew otherwise.)

The group’s next destination was the grocery store, then the butcher shop for scraps, then the many clothing boutiques that Hana frequented much too often. (At one, Hana caught Rin eyeing a roll of decorative gauze. She pocketed it for her without a second thought, handing it to her outside with a smile that left no room for questions.) She dragged Obito and Rin along from store to store, making up chores and errands as she went, introducing her little sister to every adult that Hana felt was nice enough along their path—but never holding the baby herself or otherwise interacting with her sister in anyway that would paint them as family to a passerby. Only once everyone began to get tired of walking around, and Sara began to get nap-cranky, did Hana finally allow the group to make their way over to the training ground as planned.

With the semester’s last exam having been the day prior, the academy would be on break for the remainder of the summer, picking up again right at the change in seasons for what was surely a new array of tedious material and headache-inducing elementary school dynamics. That gave her a few weeks nothing but Root, and uncertain as to what they had planned for her break, Hana was going to do everything in her power to ensure that all her ducks were in a row.

Well, tigers. And singular sister.

Evidently, she’d gotten ahead of herself when it came to any sort of medical jutsu, and needed to scale back her goal posts before she could get anywhere near the healing abilities she intended to have.

Mainly, this meant that she was forced to re-employ the most basic of chakra exercises to get her control up to par with the level that the diagnostic technique required. As opposed to willing chakra to the surface of her palms in order to materialize her palm seals, she needed a level of control that allowed her to bypass any automatic utilization of her palms seals—because though Hana’s saving grace recently was those very seals, for the first time, they were actually standing in her way.

Her inability to employ the initial step of medical jutsu was less due to her own failings with chakra, and more of a fault of how her palm seals seemed to work. The first, more gentle swell of chakra to her palms revealed the pattern stained on to her skin, while any greater amount activated the sealing properties depending on the amount of chakra channeled. When correctly estimated, this would allow her to entrap both large and small objects alike.

Basically, she was spending hours hunched over, staring at her hands while wafting chakra up and down her arms, and cursing a collection of foreign explicatives every time she failed to prevent her palms seals from activating.

Which was practically every. single. time.

She couldn’t—wouldn’t—modify her palm seals, even if she somehow acquired the materials to do so. Not only did she have absolutely no idea how they worked based on everything she’d learned thus far (the word choice made no sense to her, neither did the design choice in general), but she refused to toy with what was clearly an already perfected formula.

(Three characters wrapped in a multi-tiered rosette border—the stark lines of which transformed into protruding petals—surrounded by fingertips dipped into that same shade of rusty-bronze, with perimeters too ornate to be anything entirely practical. There was also the icon of a cyclamen bloom wrapped around the inside of her index finger, which Hana had no idea what to think about. Her mother had painted the design bit by bit, and it was the only physical reminder of the woman that Hana had left. Even if it served her to do so, Hana knew she would never be able to bring herself to change the seal.)

That didn’t stop Rin from trying to do everything in her power to get Hana on board, though.

She’d taken Hana’s interest in iryojustu and ran with it. What started as an endless supply of textbooks (that Hana had no idea how Rin could possibly be sourcing, what with the meager allowance they were all given) had transformed into many joint study-sessions spent testing each other on theory and anatomy, practicing chakra control exercises, and pretending that they weren’t simply using studying as a excuse to enjoy each other’s company.

And though Hana’s faux interest was initialy a ploy to learn a skill that would serve her as an unwilling ninja, it had evolved into something Hana couldn’t quite name. The only way she could describe how it felt to have another person in her life that could (almost) be called not only a friend, but a sister—particularly an older sister—was that it was weird, especially given that Hana was supposed to be playing that role for somebody else already. All Hana knew and could admit to was that if Rin so much as disliked someone (which would never happen, because the girl didn’t have so much as a single mean bone in her body) Hana was certain she would sink her teeth into them and wouldn’t let go unless pried off, lock-jawed and all.

Unfortunately, her appreciation of Rin’s help in the matter wore off rather quickly once Hana learned just how much of a hard-ass the girl could be when it came to anything academic.

“Why don’t we practice naming the muscles of the extremities while we do this stretch? That way, we can work out our minds and our brains too!”

Hana and Obito exchanged incredulous glances over their shoulders, which Rin’s closed-eye smile didn’t seem to catch.

They were each a varying amount of extension into a basic fingers-to-toes stretch: Hana bent backwards with her palms flat on the floor, Rin bent forwards with her fingertips grazing the grass, and Obito looking like he was simply hunched over rather lamely. Group training today would entail a combination of stretching, stamina conditioning, and then whatever other exercises the trio could safely get away with while keeping an eye on the baby who kept crawling between their legs.

“I think I would rather deal with ten whole scoldings from Ito-sensei, actually.” Hana deadpanned, rising up and reaching her hands above her. She kicked at Obito’s shin so that he could follow along before he passed out from the blood pooling at his head.

“I second that.” Obito mumbled as he rose, though only under his breath since he was much less likely to outright disagree with Rin.

It still made Hana snort.

All things considered, Hana had done exactly as she had set out to do: introducing her little sister to a sizable number of people of varying backgrounds—negating her anonymity—and solidifying at least a few bonds between the baby and members of society who weren’t striped felines. So as she lifted her leg into a needle—which Obito mirrored with a knee bent at his waist—she decided she would at least try to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

“Trapezius?” Hana offered with a guess.

“Deltoid!” Added Rin, finally joining them right-side-up

Obito groaned as the two girls looked at him expectantly.

Despite what Hana viewed as a job-well-done, she still didn’t have much in terms of time.

Sara had evidently had a good day being carted around by Obito and Rin, and now lay snoozing peacefully on the same blanket the group had occupied for a late lunch before Obito and Rin had to leave for the day.

Weird how Hana missed them already.

Really, she should have known how to deal with the constant feeling of impending doom that came with every waking moment by now, but every once in a while the anxieties of her life became so overwhelming, so constricting and limiting, that she had no choice but to stare off into the distance, remind herself to breath, and try to hide the tremble in her hands from anyone within viewing distance.

Nothing was currently wrong, per se—the pair of sisters were in the field of wild dandelions that made up the center of the gated training ground, alone and otherwise safe at the moment. But, there was no school tomorrow, no pre-arranged meetings, and no time slots that would otherwise occupy Hana and keep Root away. And because of that, Hana was scared.

She should have been used to things by now. She couldn’t remember exactly when her time with Root began, but her best guess told her that after her first few months of training, she was coming up to only about a year total of service, which was accompanied by a number of missions she couldn’t accurately recall because so many were spent completely disassociated. Regardless, she believed that it was enough time for her to have gotten accustomed to things already, and that there was no reason for fear to still cause a tightening in her chest or a fluttering in her stomach.

Unfortunately, her body and mind weren’t always compliant no matter how diligently she trained.

So Hana swallowed, physically shook all the awful thoughts and dread right out of her head, and made a clone.

Four hand signs.

Two chakra natures.

And as easy as breathing, she generated a mirror image before her in a plume of dust and smoke.

She still refused to talk to her mud clones. The act of summoning them after she came to a decision meant that speaking to them was both wasted breath and pointless conversation, especially since the clone already knew what to do and how to do it because she already knew what to do and how to do it. Instead, Hana looked down, refusing to meet its (~~her~~) eyes, and busied herself with double and triple checking the paper seal in her hands.

She hadn’t had enough time to do as many experiments with her new chakra storage seals as she had liked. As is stood now, she had only managed to get the seal to hold a small amount of chakra stably—with its three characters tucked into a symmetrical, eight-pointed border star—but the chakra release mechanism she had employed was spotty at best, and tended to sputter out energy like it was air trapped in the pipe of a faucet rather than a proper conduit.

The clone before her tugged the collar of its shirt down obediently, allowing Hana to place the seal directly on to its sternum. Once that was done it rose, moving to the edge of the clearing to begin jogging laps so that it could waste the chakra of its initial formation before the effects of the seal could take place. Hana watched with half-lidded eyes, far past bored of having witnessed the same experiment so many times already. She busied herself once more, this time by starting her notes on the current trial.

The Konoha-standard shade of dark blue sandals looks ugly with my outfit. Colors clash. Check to see if they come in red.

There really wasn’t anything new to report on this part. Only once Hana sensed that the chakra in the clone’s form was down to its last dredges did she whistle it over so she could more closely monitor the next phase. It made its way back to her slowly, stopping in front of Hana at the ready. The lack of chakra in the mud body had stimulated the seal on the clone’s chest to begin releasing energy from its ink, a function of the trigger feature that Hana was still working out.

Seals were most often activated by a quick pulse of the wielder’s chakra, though that was only common with offensive seals such as those that released traps or were explosive in nature. Also, that wouldn’t work for her clones, because the whole point was that they needed to be self-sustaining. Unique seal triggers could be incorporated based on the wielder’s intended outcome, which for Hana had to work like a lock: chakra needed to be channeled into and stored within the seal, then unlocked by some change in the environment for subsequent release, such as a shift in pressure due to the nearby clone’s diminishing stores.

That led her down an entirely new rabbit hole on the types of seal activation methods. Thus far, she’d recognized two categories: released by self, which was done by channeling chakra with a simple hand sign, versus released by an external trigger. But, the catalogue of options that came with external triggers was far too numerous for her to have a complete understanding of them all. Instead, she just stole the trigger function off of a standard explosive tag variant, which was activated by the presence of living chakra signatures in the surrounding space. They did so using a character for existence (sonzai, 存在), though because that was the opposite of Hana’s goal scenario (she needed the lack of a neighboring chakra signature to activate the seal), she simply amended this with an addition of the characters for lack of (no ketsujo, の欠如). Given that the seal was specific to her chakra, it thankfully only picked up on the clone’s level and didn’t seem to face any accidental activation due to a shift in any nearby signatures.

The ability to combine languages within a single seal was obvious in hindsight, since standard Konoha seals used a mixture of the common script and characters from ancient languages that were no longer spoken in modern times, but for some reason it never clicked in her head until now.

That just meant she had to start working on her calligraphy of the common tongue, too. And perhaps look into some ancient language groups.

As the actual meat of the experiment began, Hana gave her clone a once-over and continued taking a (now much more serious) log of her findings: that her clones steadily lost chakra the longer they existed, that rigorous physical activity exacerbated this loss whenever it didn’t outright cause the clone to dispel, and that channeling about three to one earth-natured chakra to water-natured chakra continued to be an ideal ratio for the formation of the mud clone’s body.

But before she could finish detailing more of her very important findings, like how the clone had ‘no physical, emotional, or otherwise identifiable responses to rigorous physical activity aside from chakra depletion’, or ‘check hair to make sure it doesn’t actually look like that from the back’—and so much as even begin focusing her sense on analyzing the success of the new seal—the chakra at the clones chest sputtered, and the clone suddenly erupted into a cacophony of smoke and mud. It woke the baby, who began crying like she was the one personally offended by the whole ordeal.

Hana waved away the dust that collected around her, and after wiping off the fresh splattering of mud on her cheeks, she picked up her little sister and began bouncing her on her hip.

Later, at the top of her notebook page, Hana wrote Chakra Storage & Release Seal Experiment; Attempt #37: Failure.

Notes:

- this chapter’s title is another double entendre. “It takes a village to raise a child” is the saying it’s based on, which applies bc Hana is employing the help of the tigers and her clones to raise her sister. Now, she is also using greater Konoha to work towards ensuring the baby’s safety. On the other hand, it also takes a (complicit) village to perpetrate cycles of violence and the military industrial complex, which all the characters are a victim of
- I hope this chapter doesn’t come across as being too crack-y. Hana is taking advantage of Root’s leniency with her surveillance to establish sara as someone who can’t easily be “disappeared”. As far as any passerby was concerned, she was more likely to belong to either Obito or Rin because they were the only ones holding her, unless someone was listening in. Obviously this will have consequence bc there are so many things she didn’t consider, LOL, just not immediate ones
- Hana doesn’t understand her palm seals fully yet. I, on the other hand, have too many documents of henna designs and made-up seal work to be normal about this anymore. Maybe one day I’ll post them on my tumblr and link them here if anyone is interested

Chapter 14: Penance

Notes:

I made an itty bitty edit to chapter 7, where I changed the location of Hana’s briefly mentioned mission at the end from the “Land of Rice Paddies” to the “Land of Ravines” (a made-up name for the unnamed country in canon that is supposed to hold the Hidden Grass). Sorry for any confusion!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Three months ago, Hana was tasked with a relatively simple mission. It was a simple mission, with a simple objective, and despite the amount of stress she felt about the whole ordeal—that which had her panicking so hard it was almost embarrassing to remember—it was indeed a simple mission.

Travel to the Land of Ravines.

Impersonate a young woman for a single evening—a mere few hours—and ruin one of her many, many marriage proposals.

Ensure that the heiress had enough drugs in her system as to have no memory of the events, which was to be blamed on some overly-potent beverages, and no memory of being shoved into a closet with her hands and feet bound.

Ensure that the heiress would have no idea that she missed the ruined matchmaking event entirely, even though that event would have otherwise established a secured family network extending between the northwestern and southeastern borders of Ravine country, and helped stabilize its position between the two major combative powers at each front.

Simple, simple, simple.

(One week after Hana’s ‘misstep’, the Hanako Family Estate received a messenger pigeon in which Lord Gao personally asked for a redo of the evening. Chiriko’s father, Lord Hanako himself, was so overjoyed—and so relieved that there was still an opportunity for him to gain access to the trade routes previously blocked by the Gao Family leading into the Land of Earth—that he himself hosted the second meeting within that same week, despite it not being entirely proper. Then, before word so much as got out about the haphazardly arranged second omiai, the couple was betrothed and set to be married in just a month’s time.)

(Ultimately, despite its initial success, Hana’s mission was revised as a post-completion failure—a failure that was entirely her own doing—and she had no choice but to make amends.)

“Again. Explain where the tags will be planted.”

She tried to refrain from clearing her throat, but her dry mouth and cracked lips betrayed her, making her voice come out in nothing more than a croak.

“At the valley overhang, underneath which—“

“Speak up! Explain the route you will take to get there.”

Hana made sure that the next breath she took before speaking was steady. “I’ll alternate between the main road from base K-29 and the plots of forestry leading up to the checkpoint—.”

“What next, after detonation? Step by step, go!”

Here, she stalled, blinking as though she could force her brain to work through the action alone. After detonation? Detonation was the point. What was it she said earlier? Make contact? Confirm? Gather evidence? She’d gone over the steps so many times already that the words were sounding less and less real each time Jin made her start over.

“Confirm kill. Leave the premises… no, first scout for survivors, or witnesses, then—“

“Absolutely not. From the top, again!”

There was a buzzing in her ears, and pins and needles pricking beneath the skin of her thighs. She’d already been kneeling for the better part of the day, the cold cement numbing her legs and the chill wind which swept through the corridors piercing past the long sleeves of the standard Root uniform—a skintight top with shinobi slacks that dragged across the floor unless secured at the hem with gauze. No armor, though, because there weren’t any chest, arm, or shin plates in her size, and there was no point in wasting metal making any when she was bound to grow out of them.

And as long as Jin didn’t notice the way her legs were shaking with the strain to maintain the position, then he wouldn’t hit her for it.

That morning, she found herself startled awake at his presence on her windowsill, with only a moment to will Sara away thanks to Tama’s half-asleep diligence. She was escorted back to the base in stifling silence, and though uninformed on the matter until they arrived, she didn’t need her sense to know that she was in trouble.

There was no way for anyone to know what Hana’s exact error had been on that mission to the Land of Ravines. Not only had Root long since allowed her to run missions on her own, but it was also less of a singular error, and more of a crass disregard for the entire mission objective. It was the fact that the marriage was still happening—expeditiously at that—which made it clear that she had done something wrong.

Thankfully no one seemed to care about the specifics, so long as she righted her wrongdoings. All she had to bear was the punishment for a failed mission, which was a first for her, in the form of the tortuous repetition of her new mission’s objective and its expected course of action.

At least these days she was able to eat to her heart’s content when left alone, so they wouldn’t be restricting her meal intake for it.

And though Hana’s gaze was boring a hole into the floor as opposed to the eyeholes of Jin’s ceramic mask—which she’d come to realize was supposed to be molded specifically into the image of a boar, and that the protruding bit was supposed to be a snout and not a beak—he did eventually let her go on her way. He also supplied her with enough explosive tags to level a small fleet, and thorough instructions on how they were meant to be placed and then subsequently activated.

If she didn’t know any better, Hana would’ve thought that Jin was actually trying to help her succeed this time around. Just in his own twisted, mentally agonizing sort of way.

Regardless, she was not looking forward to the next few days.

It wasn’t particularly hard to find your way around in Fire Country, not if you were used to traveling by tree top and able to differentiate between the tree species that marked each district—spruce and fir conifers up north, oak and hickory further south, and more and more cedar the closer you got to the gates of Konoha.

It did get boring after a while, though, hopping along from branch to branch even if Hana was pretending to play khashkhasha. Just without any other players. Or a pebble to throw. Or a grid of colored chalk to hop between. Also, the fact that the game usually didn’t require chakra be channeled to the feet to ensure that a person didn’t slip and fall to their death, and actually stuck to where they landed, made it a little hard to play pretend.

She had company, at least, in the form of an ever-growing tiger cub who now reached her thighs when prancing around normally, but could balance on his hind legs to graze the top of her head with his claws if he so pleased.

(That was no longer fun to deal with during their spars.)

Safa, thankfully, was a great conversationalist whenever Hana’s imagination lapsed.

“Then, Tama was all like ‘woosh’ and ‘pow’, and then she swiped her paws super duper fast, and then she grabbed the horns of the pig with her teeth and went ‘wa-pow’ and then boom! Dinner was served!”

She liked when Safa detailed the happenings of the tiger summons’ lives, especially because she rarely got to enjoy the contract for what it was supposed to be as opposed to what she served to gain from it. And now that the tigers surely weren’t too happy with her over yet another fumble regarding her little sister’s care, she appreciated it even more so.

Hana’s new version of clones—the ones that she officially dubbed ‘charge-backed mud clones’ in reference to the chakra storage seal they were supposed to be reliant on—weren’t finalized, and therefore Sara had to spend yet another weekend growling and biting amongst predatory felines instead of with Hana, where she could do normal baby things like throw diced fruit at the wall or babble the eastern alphabet badly.

“Has she let you participate in any of the hunts yet?” Hana asked as the pair made their way down from the tree tops. Step by step between spiraling branches first, before sliding down a particularly thick trunk the rest of the way to the ground.

They were nearing the northwestern border of Fire, following the trail mapped out on a wrinkly old scroll. It detailed a route that would require about a day’s worth of travel, taking into account the randomized shifts in direction to throw off any potential trails. And, Sara being tucked away in the summoning realm meant that Hana’s reserves were left relatively untouched, so she could take the proper precaution of creating a clone to circle back ever so often and erase any lasting indication of the pair’s presence—such as a strand of hair twisted around a branch, or any remaining wafts of Hana’s scentless shampoo in the air.

The pair were under enough of a time crunch that they didn’t have the chance to take any breaks, especially not if they wanted to avoid the many—hopefully friendly—groups that whizzed around at the edge of Hana’s sensing range. But given that the sun was slowly setting in the sky (and that both Hana and Safa were beginning to pant with exertion), it was time to set up camp.

“Nooo,” Safa groaned, sprawling out across the forest floor and dirtying his striped fur. Said stripes were becoming darker by the day, a sharp contrast against the rest of his bright orange and white coloring. “She still says I’m not ready! But I know that I ammm!”

Normally, tigers weren’t pack animals in the natural world, though summoned creatures rarely ever followed the natural order of the animal kingdom anyway. Tama was a high-ranking member of the tiger den—particularly because she dedicated her life to hunting for the collective, making her rather popular amongst her fellow felines. The den was separated into familial groups, connected by a family line the head of which Hana had yet to meet. The tigers hunted in isolation, tended to live in isolation, and even raised their cubs in isolation—but they maintained strict bonds that bid them to share not only prey, but skills through the collective education of any cubs that came of age.

The survival of the unit as a whole demanded it.

Tama had taken the initiative to train both Hana and Safa, given that they were bound by the stipulations of the summoning contract. As such, Tama was principally responsible for teaching them all the skills a tiger was to learn. Namely, feline dynamics, tracking, camouflage, and most importantly, hunting and stalking prey.

“Tama always says that the most important skill a tiger can have is patience, so you should just try and enjoy the experience for now. Besides, before you know it you’ll be expected to hunt all on your own and you won’t have her to turn to for help anymore.”

“I’ll have you.” Safa corrected.

He was too busy casually grooming his paws to see the shocked look that crossed Hana’s face, or the way she furrowed her brows and ducked her chin to her chest. It wasn’t hard for her to admit her shame at the fact that she had been quite a shitty partner thus far. She always seemed to call on him, and rarely ever had the opportunity to return the favor.

She swore to herself that she would make up for it somehow.

“Yeah. You will.”

Shelter was an easy enough endeavor, one that felt more routine than anything Root had ever taught her how to manage. Never high the trees, because in Fire Country that was so obvious and exposed it was stupid; never in open terrain either, because without a large enough team or an active patrol, that was just inviting an attack from too many sides; and never upwind, because scent carried and there were too many animalistically-inclined shinobi to take such an unnecessary risk.

No fires, no noise, and absolutely no obvious or attention-grabbing jutsu, either.

So, Hana took advantage of her short stature and the tree-decorated landscape to prop up a tarp between two smaller trees, suspending one edge between them and staking the other edge to the ground. This gave her a windbreak, a rain shelter, and a means of easy camouflage all in one, so long as she gathered enough shrubbery to hide the tarp’s artificial shine.

She also planted a barrier seal at the base of the shabby hut for good measure, one that was simple enough to make and used the words ruuh makhfi (hidden soul, روح مخفي) to smother the pair’s chakra signatures into the surrounding environment. Once she managed that, she summoned her bed roll and ducked under the tarp to begin meditating for the evening.

Safa took that as a sign to cuddle up next to her, promising not to drool all over her like he always inevitably did whenever they slept at each other’s side. And though it was supposed to be his turn on first watch, Hana found herself kept up by the familiar sting of insomnia behind her eyes, the type of sting that fought how tired her body felt due to the endless churning of her thoughts. So, she let the tiger get his rest, even if only to take advantage of his body heat in the cool air of the forest’s dusk.

There wasn’t much she could do about her restlessness, not unless she wanted to invite the attention of practically every ninja in their vicinity by attempting yet another trial of her clone experiments. She toyed with the idea of stretching her sensing range too, but she didn’t want to risk stumbling upon another sensor anymore than necessary. How she had yet to run into another sensor was beyond her, though she cursed herself for the jinx that was that thought. Instead, she settled for digging her fingers into Safa’s soft fur and treating him like the stuffed animal he always denied being.

It wasn’t until she bored herself half to death with the repetitive motion did she start thinking about the things she tried to keep locked away whenever she was on a mission.

Tonight seemed to be a combination of floating memories and very pertinent reminders, like how she needed to find an excuse to teach Obito and Rin how to swim, superceeded with the memory of Wood country’s salty shores on summer afternoons. Or, how she needed to figure out the most unsuspicious way of storing her collection of bills swiped from loose pockets and jewelry slipped off of unassuming wrists—all taken in an effort to keep a stocked fridge not for herself, but for a baby that Hana was certain would grow up feral unless she made some major changes, and fast.

It was getting harder to find both the time and energy to dedicate to her sister’s (albeit rudimentary) education. What taught a child to walk? To talk? What allowed a child to grow healthy, and strong, and smart and brave and wonderful like they were capable of being?

She found it difficult to quantify just how successful she was already. Obviously, the amount of time the baby spent with the tigers was detrimental to her development, though Hana was already working on amending that with her slow-developing clone experiments.

There was just everything else that would remain an issue.

Like passing along a culture, a language, and a way of life-love-existence that Hana was no longer privy to.

She summoned a notebook along with a pen, and began to write within it furiously—not in the common tongue, but instead in her own.

Our father sold dyes made nowhere else in the world.

He would take me to the coast, littered with basket wielder’s who collected the snails that made the prettiest shade of purple, and fields of rose madder covered in yellow blooms that made my favorite shade of red.

They don’t wear those colors in Konoha.

Our mother ~~makes~~ made sickly sweet desserts flavored with rose and orange blossom water, milk and cream pastries piled high and sprinkled with pistachio dust and almond hearts, ones that I would sneak bites of late at night. She only ever made them on the summer nights when the townsfolk would hang lanterns that crisscrossed down the streets, during holidays decreed by the moon.

~~My favorite is called ‘lady arms’—~~

~~My favorite was called ‘eastern nights’ and it tasted like—~~

Hana drew a big fat slash across the page, digging her pen deep enough to scratch through to the other side and cause a tear right at its center.

She decided that randomized tidbits of memories now cloudy wouldn’t do anyone any good. On the next page, she began anew.

Our father is was the one who liked listening to cassettes as much as I do, though it was our mother who sang most of the time, humming under her breath day and night. I never used to look at the titles or the words etched into each cassette I had because I used to just listen away and not think about anything else, which was so so stupid of me and I should have known better than to just listen and not—

Hana scribbled messily across that paragraph, managing to just barely restrain herself from causing another tear. She tried again on the following page.

Sara,

The following is a collection of stories that our father used to tell, ones that his mother said to him and that his grandfather told to her. When you finally figure out how to read, you might enjoy having these around.

Safa’s kitten snore jolted her in surprise, and she took a moment to adjust his position before carrying on.

There once was a king of a far away land, in a dynasty that ruled even before the Sage, who was betrayed in faith by his wife and—

That wasn’t how it went, was it? There were definitely more details that were supposed to pepper the opening lines, or more context that made the story so compelling. If only she could remember how exactly her father used to tell it.

Once upon a time and long, long ago, before the Sage spread his teachings of ninshu and before man knew the sensation of chakra thrumming in their chests, there lived a king who ruled over the land that spread from the rising sun of the east to the setting sun of the west. Daughterless and sonless, he loved his wife so dearly that it filled his otherwise empty castle.

His land was prosperous and grand, and all was well until his dear wife betrayed him.

She didn’t remember how.

Time and time again, listening to the same story told over and over and over until she herself let it slip through one ear and out the other, and Hana had the audacity to forget just how the betrayal that began every story she knew had occurred.

She became frustrated despite the attempts to reel herself back in, shutting the notebook with a harsh thunk, then dropping her forehead against it with another thump before resealing her items without so much as finishing her thought.

It wasn’t proper practice to cry on a mission, not that she did much of that anymore anyway.

No matter. Once this mission was over, she could toil over fables and tales until the next one swept her away.

Notes:

- The reference map I stick to for all the real and made-up places in this fic: X. Ravines (made up) would be the pale green bit between Earth and Fire. Woods is the pale beige bit at the bottom right edge between Fire and Water.
- "khashkhasha" is traditional middle eastern hopscotch
- Hana references 2 dyes prevalent in ancient MENA. 1: madder’s red, extracted from the common madder plant. 2: “Tyrian Purple”, which originated in Tyre, Lebanon during the pheonecia era and is extracted mediterranean sea snails.
- “eastern nights”, is a reference to an actual desert called “Layali Lubnan” whose name means “Lebanese nights’”. “Lady arms” is the direct translation of a desert called “znud al-sit”
- Hana attempting to journal her memories was inspired by a comment left by Ghibli08 on ch.10, who wondered why Hana doesn’t just write stuff down as well as figured she would be desperate to maintain her culture in such a manner + become frustrated when she couldn’t remember specifics. I thought it was wonderfully angsty and very accurate to her situation/character so I just had to incorporate it! Thank you to them!!

Chapter 15: Pop Goes the Weasel

Notes:

gore warning

Chapter Text

It was said that the Land of Snow had mountains so vast, disturbing the landscape with even a singular incorrectly planted step could cause waves of ice capable of smothering everything in their path.

Hana focused on this thought, imagining white flakes peppering the ground and hills of marshmallow fluff, rather than focusing on the explosive paper she was shoving into the side of an unstable cliff.

She looked for faults and cracks, first, suspended along the vertical edge of the overpass by her feet alone as her eyes danced across the layers of striped sediment. (Practicing water-walking with Obito and Rin had given her an advantage here, as a fall from such a height would be a guaranteed trip to the other side of existence). Within these faults and cracks, she stuffed her flattened explosive tags—carefully, because she knew how volatile tags could be when they weren’t made by her own practiced script or from her own tediously prepared ink—because her own, she could actually trust.

Only after the initial round of trap placement did she really begin to struggle. Further shattering the aged overhang wouldn’t be enough to ensure that it fully collapsed. But, the process of nudging and knocking her fist along the cliffside to identify more targetable sections of rock had her sweating with something other than exertion.

Fun. She pretended. It’s fun to plant paper that will not only turn my fingers into strips of burnt leather, but turn me into nothing more than a splatter of mush on the ground below. It’s fun to do this on a mountain side that will cover me up like an avalanche in the Land of Snow.

I want to make a snow angel. She decided to think instead. I want to make a snow angel and I want to make myself cross-eyed as snow flakes melt on my stuck-out tongue.

I wonder when it starts to snow in Konoha.

The last step required her to retrace her path with a bottle of chakra-infused ink clutched in one hand and a calligraphy brush gripped in the other, connecting the hidden tags that emitted the barest of signatures with a bated breath and a strip of ink far too thin for the naked eye to catch. It also required that she do everything in her power to avoid stepping on any of those previously placed tags, or the trail steadily connecting them at the tip of her brush.

Don’t channel chakra! Don’t step on the tags! She chanted in her head.

Think of snow angels and snowflakes falling from the sky. I wonder if Sara would like the snow? I need to buy her a winter coat.

Snow angels are so pretty and fun to make.

Don’t channel chakra other than the littlest bit to your feet! Don’t step on the tags!

I need to buy Sara a winter coat and matching mittens.

Don’t channel chakra!

Don’t step on the tags!

In the end, Hana used almost all of the explosive tags given to her, saving only a handful to keep in storage. She committed the character at their center to memory, noting it in her sealing notebook both for good measure and for as much of a ‘screw you, Jin’ as she could manage in her current predicament. So long as they didn’t explode within her internal stores, she intended to take advantage of even the shoddiest of work.

Really, the hardest part was the waiting.

Underneath the summer sun and hunched between towering rock formations, all Hana had to do was sit, wait, and try not to drive herself insane by doing just that. Her current method of passing the time involved watching a trail of ants make their way into a mound of dirt, swirling loopty-loops along their inclined path.

She was far enough northwest that the forestry had dispersed into sparse shrubbery. The hills and canyons that made up the landscape of Ravine Country dried out the more temperate air of Fire, creating an oppressive heat that weighed down on her limbs. Both the nape of her neck and the small of her back were damp, and no matter how many times she lifted her shirt to fan under it or to slip off her leather sandals to air out her toes, the heat didn’t relent.

Placed at the weakest points of the overhang—particularly where larger chunks of rock were connected to the greater cliff in slimmer portions—the explosive tags were ready for detonation. A sharp pulse of chakra would set off the charge and crush every living creature on the pathway below with a few tons of stone, and so long as Hana got the hell out of range, then she’d be fine.

So she waited. And waited. And waited. Only once Hana had braided then re-braided her hair, as well as re-filed her nails and stretched herself sore, did she finally pick up on a jumble of chakra signatures breaking free from a nearby foot-route and making their way over the rickety bridge leading into the mountain range at her feet.

Hana shot up at the ready, craning her head towards the group. Two individual, albeit weak, signatures were in close quarters, particularly apart from two equally weak signatures positioned directly in front of the group. What stood out to her, though, was the presence of a much more prominent, much more worrisome signature on point.

Earth-natured. Trained, but not particularly strong. Shinobi identity is possible but not guaranteed. Not weak enough to ignore.

Hana twisted her lips in displeasure beneath her mask.

She was on her own for this portion of the mission. It wasn’t that Safa didn’t want to participate—he did, desperately so—but Hana refused to involve him in anything that even suggested a direct confrontation was possible. A travel partner was one thing, as was a second nose or another pair of eyes, but were any injury to befall him Hana would likely toss herself into a flaming hearth for even allowing it to occur. She had bid him goodbye after much arguing over the whole ordeal as they packed up camp, before Hana made the rest of the journey alone.

(And, he didn’t need to watch what she was about to do, either.)

The presence of the trained signature wasn’t exactly a setback, but it was entirely unanticipated; the intelligence surrounding the mission claimed that the heiress would be traveling with anywhere from one to three ladies-in-waiting, a carriage driver, and, only potentially, an additional servant.

The file said nothing about a guard.

Hana muffled her chakra signature as best as she could, reeling it back into her chest as opposed to keeping it dispersed outwards. She wouldn’t be able to utilize any jutsu unless absolutely necessary, lest the guard traveling with the group recognize her presence and make her mission much harder than it was supposed to be.

She had no choice but to use the rest of her explosive tag provisions, then, to try and to target the additional person first along the dirt path. That way she could at least ensure a direct hit on them prior to activation of the actual trap.

Hana knew she would find use for her tanto eventually. Just not as a shovel.

It was so easy, it was almost funny.

Five total signatures made up the miniature caravan if the horse was counted. Once the group was close enough, in which the singular guard on point began approaching the tags Hana had dug into the ground, she skipped backwards as she pressed her fingers into a tiger sign and began collecting chakra at her core.

(There was only a singular guard, Hana realized, because what danger could ever afflict a noble lady in a country as safe as Fire? Everyone knew the war front was where no one important could get hurt, in those in-between countries whose civilians had no choice but to brave the violence of stronger powers.)

(Why a noble lady from another country entirely was staying in the Land of Fire was not a question that crossed Hana’s mind. All she cared about was why she had to deal with a guard right now. Later, she would wonder why the girl was being targeted in such a convoluted manner as to be smothered under stone with a earth-natured guard on point. Of course, she wouldn’t realize the set up for what it was until it was already too late.)

But Hana skidded to a stop, almost tripping over her own feet in the process. She was caught off guard by a memory that she had no business considering with so little time left to act.

Suddenly, Hana began thinking about how pretty Chiriko’s hair had been in those few hours way back when she was pretending to be her.

Long blonde waves pooled delicately past the girl’s shoulders—and she was a girl, wasn’t she? No older than fifteen, maybe sixteen? Not yet a woman, not quite. A civilian in a well-endowed family, doing her due diligence and wedding according to her station. Did she really want this marriage? Had she had any say in the arrangement of the initial meeting, or the second meeting, or the entirety of the engagement at all?

The group had come close enough now that Hana could her the click clack of the horse’s hooves echoing up to her ears from below, as well as the squeaking wheels of the carriage and a guffaw from the carriage driver at what must have been a joke from the guard’s lips.

And when she channeled chakra to her ears, like she was taught how to do by both Tama and Jin alike, she could hear the idle conversation of the pair of girls in the carriage too—something along the lines of Oh, it’s not too long now! Aren’t you excited, Lady Chiriko? and Oh, I’m so nervous, but I can hardly wait!

Hana’s breath began picking up involuntarily. It wouldn’t be too long before she needed to activate her trap, minutes passing in seconds as she tried desperately to calm herself down.

She’s a nice young girl, isn’t she? Just like me?

Aren’t I a nice young girl too?

Really, the entire dogma of shinobi practice warned against distractions during missions, chitter-chatter and thinking-too-hard alike. Unfortunately, Hana had yet to begin truly seeing herself as a ninja, so she had trouble applying those rules to herself.

She’s a nice young girl, and I’m going to kill her. Chiriko is a lady who’s body will be found beneath the rubble, rotting away for at least a whole day before anyone so much as gives her a proper burial, and I’ll be the one who put her there.

I’ll be the one who put them all there.

It’ll stink when they dig her up, just like the way it used to stink when we walked through Wood country and nobody stayed around long enough to bury those rotting bodies, either.

It was getting to the point where the lack of a properly taken breath was making her lightheaded. Her fingers, clutched around each other and as stiff as a board, were white in her grip. And as she squeezed her eyes shut in her effort to clear the unwanted memories from her head, the carriage had already found itself right at the base of the overpass—and exactly where it needed to be.

I have a baby at home.

I have a baby at home, and I have to get back to her.

Hana made a quick pulse of her chakra, fingers molding energy outwards in waves of water and earth. The scene before her exploded into a deafening cacophony of pressure and noise. Three pop pop pops resounded first, then a shrill shriek, followed immediately by the floor beneath her feet shifting off of its axis. And though Hana was supposed to have moved farther away to ensure her own safety, she still managed to just barely avoid the rubble launching itself in her direction with a few agonizingly tight bends and bounces—a rock dodged here, the root of a tree ducked beneath there, a particularly large pebble breaking through her guard and managing to embed a small gash directly into her brow.

But before she knew it, the settling of the dust had awarded her with nothing but silence. What had begun as a collection of living chakra signatures painted against the backdrop of the environment had withered into a stifling emptiness. Now standing atop a significantly shorter, flatter cliffside, Hana waited until her skin stopped vibrating and her knees stopped knocking together before she sent one more pulse of her chakra out around her for a final relay of information.

Thankfully, as far as Hana’s chakra was concerned, she was the only living creature left in her periphery.

There was only one thing she still needed to do before she could leave the site of her sins.

Hana first needed to acquire proof.

She’d lost Jin’s trust in her abilities as a result of her previous failure, little as it was, and was given an additional addendum to an already unfortunate mission as a result. Though rather than proof of life, Hana needed to bring back some evidence of her success in killing the heiress. Up until now, she hadn’t really thought this part of the mission through.

That was a problem for when she finally reached the destroyed carriage.

The earth release technique—dubbed Subterranean Voyage, which she found cool in most other contexts—was made easier by Hana’s innate ability to channel both elemental water and earth chakra. As such, she could move freely—albeit, very, very slowly—through the collapsed rock by churning her surroundings into viscous mud, then practically swimming beneath the ground.

Sight was an issue, only because there was nothing living left to feel as a guide, so her arms were spread before her to prod her way through little by little. Breathing was an issue too, and though Hana could hold her breath for a few minutes at a time she still needed to employ a secondary technique after sealing away her mask. Water-based techniques wouldn’t work against the higher density of mud, so she modified the Water Release: Air Bubble Justu to form a shield around her mouth for additional, yet limited and risky, air.

Once Hana finally slipped her way into the ground, she kicked her legs behind her in little flutters, searching aimlessly until her palms eventually found hard paneling that she wasn’t able to manipulate. Hana pressed herself against what she assumed was the remains of the half crushed, half shattered carriage, praying that the rock hadn’t crushed it beyond a possibility of entry.

Crouched in an awkward position between the boulder slanted above her and the carriage now at her feet, as well as amongst the mud steadily seeping into her clothing, she had to waste a few steadying breaths before pushing onwards. She pulled her tanto off of her waist, nudging it against the wood until it pierced through soft cloth and allowed her to shimmy her way within the small gap pulled apart by her fingers.

She tried not to look too hard at the scene that greeted her as her eyes adjusted to the low light of the space—a gap of a mere few feet left untouched by the rock crushing it on either side.

The mission. She reminded herself. Think of the mission.

Chiriko’s hand wouldn’t do. By nightfall, the receiving party would become aware of the missing heiress, who would then contact the nearest traveling checkpoints to see if Chiriko had passed through, who would then send out a search party for her as the communication cascaded across the pre-planned route. And by tomorrow morning, after searching along the pathway between the last checkpoint she crossed and that which she didn’t, Chiriko’s body and those of the rest of the convoy would be discovered under the rubble of the collapsed passageway, and then finally be excavated for a proper burial.

A cleanly sliced, missing hand would be too suspicious. That, and it wasn’t at all possible—though Hana had her tanto in her clutch, she didn’t think she had the space, or the arm strength, to saw through bone.

She wouldn’t be able to stomach it, either.

(She would have to get a little more creative if she wanted to bring back a trophy for her job well done.)

Hana was distracted, though, because despite swallowing back the saliva pooling in her mouth, and trying desperately not to use up the rest of her air allowance, she was still met with an image that had caught her completely off guard.

Chirko’s hair wasn’t blonde anymore.

Skull partially caved-in, blood seeping into the leather seats, and face contorted into a final expression of numb agony—Chiriko’s hair was now a sickly mixture of pink and yellow. Her newly strawberry lemonade strands clashed something awful against the bright yellow blooms glistening on the remaining walls of the structure, and the dark droplets dripping from the torn ceiling.

It wreaked in the carriage—not in the way that the dead wreak when left too long to rot, nor in the way that garbage or bile had a eye-watering bite—but in the way that iron smelled so sharp and nauseating that it took everything in Hana to prevent herself from gagging.

With trembling fingers, Hana reached forwards to brush strands of pink-blonde hair off the girl’s remaining face. Her fingers came back sticky and damp.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, so low that only the dead could hear her. “It’s all my fault. Don’t forgive me. I’m sorry.”

Looking into empty eyes—or, eye, given that only one was still in its socket and the other was suspended in a wretched jelly of more reds and pinks—Hana wasn’t graced with a response. Only an empty, light-less gaze stared back at her.

That free eye, though, would be ideal for her task.

“I’m so sorry.” She said, reaching trembling fingers into mush once more. “Please don’t be mad at me. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault I’m sorry I had no choice I’m sorry I have to get back to my baby.”

Another pulse of chakra sent the one eye far away, tugged off of its nerves with a simple pinch to its base. A pale grey pupil condemned her from its position at the other end, but Hana was already squirming her way back up to the surface without so much as giving it a justification for her actions. She broke free with a gasp, hacking the lingering scents out of her throat.

And though no breath remained in Chiriko’s chest to ask Hana why, or how could she, or how dare she, or if it was worth it at all, Hana could feel the questions on the dead girl’s tongue regardless. She could feel all of their questions—those of the maid and the carriage driver and the guard who lay in pieces all in their shallow, rocky graves. Those whose bodies Hana couldn’t even bring herself to bear witness to.

She stumbled forward, finding her feet beneath her somehow despite the numbness that eroded nerves. Her ears were still ringing a high-pitched squeal of warning, and her stomach was no longer happy to keep down the ration bars that had made up her dinner the night prior or her breakfast that morning.

Snow angels. She thought.

I’m going to visit the Land of Snow and make snow angels.

Hana stepped forward with light feet, careful not to leave behind any footprints.

I need to watch my steps so that I don’t cause an avalanche.

Snow angels are so pretty and fun to make.

Chapter 16: Meeting the End of Yourself

Notes:

Tfw you take unwillingly acquired abilities and abuse the hell out of them. This chapter is hopefully more hopeful than the last two. I’m laughing evilly btw

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Mission success, with a bright green leaf icon stamped at the bottom of her report to prove it. Now she could go home, rest, recuperate—

Forget.

The only physical evidence laid in whatever filing cabinet had the unfortunate fate of storing all of Hana’s paperwork—if it was even kept at all, and not instead burnt to a crisp—and in the mind of whatever agent was responsible for sealing those away.

She half expected them to hose her down for the amount of filth that she carried back to the base with her—eyes crusty, hair caked with blood and mud, nails hiding gore in their undersides—but other than a momentary stillness from Jin once she revealed the murky eye in her palm, she was left her to her own devices. The asshole didn’t even take it, so Hana simply sealed it right back to the pocket it was once in. She doubted they would even note its retrieval in the post-mission paperwork, let alone highlight the expectation to bring back something in the original file.

What a waste.

They should’ve hosed her down like they did in those first few days of training, in their effort to remove the grime that sleeping outside for months on end had left in layers on her skin. That would’ve at least allowed Hana the time to think her next actions through a little more thoroughly.

But Hana’s feet seemed to walk ahead of her, with a mind of their own, taking her in a direction that she only vaguely recognized. Dismissal meant she was expected to return to her post above ground, exiting from one of the many winding cave systems into the forest plots of the village above. Her pathway disregarded this destination, and instead landed her in front of a thick metal door behind which existed a singular chakra signature; one that was small, one that was new, and one that was usable.

So many hallways—it was no wonder that she got lost. At least, that’s what she would’ve told any Root operative if they happened to stumble upon her as she stared down the unmarked room before her—and they wouldn’t, because Hana was better than to allow such a slip-up to occur. She knocked twice, the sound echoing around her in a harsh thrum, and didn’t enter until she heard the muffled shift of thin linens within.

Root trainers never knocked. Let alone locked the quarters that held their trainees.

Why lock up something that would never even consider attempting to leave?

Once she pushed her way inside, Hana found herself staring at wide eyes and a thin frame, the owner of which stood rapt at the foot of a fraying cot. No surprise was painted on the strange little girl’s face—obvious expressions of emotion having likely long been trained (~~beat~~) out of her—but Hana felt the familiar swell of anxiety within the girl’s chest regardless.

Eyes to the floor, the girl didn’t so much as acknowledge Hana as she shut the door behind her.

“What’s your name?” Hana asked aloud.

She kept her distance, unsure of just how volatile the girl’s reaction would be to her intrusion. She knew what it was like to be trapped in the cement rooms of the underground bases—days blurred into months, the cold became entirely too familiar, and the sense of self muddled into nothing but a desire to please, a desire to sleep, and a desire to eat.

Dutifully, the other girl gave no response. She maintained her stiff posture, arms at her sides, and yet was barely able to keep the stutter in her breath contained. That was fine. Hana hadn’t expected much in that regard.

“Whatever it is,” she continued, “make sure you don’t forget it.”

Instead of wasting anymore time on the incredibly one-sided conversation, Hana brought her palm into plain view. Just to be cautious, she turned her gaze around the room, unfocusing her vision to track the distances of the nearest signatures and ensure that no one was close enough to pick up on her subtle release.

The little girl visibly tensed at the motion, but Hana kept her posture relaxed and unassuming, waving her other hand in placation. Though, given that she was maskless for now, it probably had more to do with how dirty she was than her ability to charm strangers.

“I’m going to summon something for you to eat. Don’t leave anything behind—especially not crumbs or stains on your fingers—because we don’t want anyone thinking you stole rations without permission. Don’t eat too quickly, either, because you’ll just puke it all up and they’ll make you clean it yourself with nothing but a wet rag and a bucket.”

She kept the ‘I would know’ to herself.

The little girl narrowed her eyes in suspicion at that, though she didn’t so much as shift otherwise.

Hana took that as a sign to carry on. In her palm, a single ration bar materialized with a poof, packaging new and shiny and oh-so-tempting. She opened it with a quick tear, placing it on the floor before her in one fell swoop and promptly spinning on her heel to push her way back out of the room. Hana said nothing to the little girl as she left, though she waited outside momentarily to feel as the girl relaxed, then made a mad dash for the offering left for her on the floor.

It wasn’t anything, really—just a protein-packed conglomeration of artificial nutrients, all pounded into a stale block of flavorless gruel. But what Hana would’ve given for just one extra bite of something to fill her aching stomach back when she wasn’t controlling her meals.

Both the unspeakable things she did and those she would’ve done were all far too shameful to name.

But Hana wasn’t dumb. One instance—one singular display of kindness—wouldn’t be enough to build rapport with even a trained animal, let alone a child caged like one. Yet like hunger, she knew the ache of desperation, and she knew that there was only one way to guarantee that the alliances she forged were worth the trouble.

With patience.

Leaning with her back against a brick wall, the sticky remains of a cherry-flavored lollipop coating both her fingers and her lips, Hana thought for a moment that maybe, just maybe, she might be taking things too far.

She adjusted the goggles covering her eyes after a scoff, one that none of the few darkly-clad civilians walking down the street before her caught.

She told herself that she wasn’t looking for a fight, and that was at least somewhat true because a fight when transformed into someone taller—with significantly different features than hers—was a recipe for disaster, especially with how tired she was feeling.

That was why she was wearing the goggles, an extra pair that she happened to seal away for Obito after he left them behind at school one day, which she had intended to return before forgetting that she had them entirely. With them, any slip-up of the jutsu she was employing could at least be partially obstructed.

Besides, all she was looking for was a discussion. Just a simple exchange of words to help her understand why a genin, and his equally as annoying teammate, took to using their spare time to bother a dear friend of hers.

She wasn’t looking for a fight.

She wasn’t.

(As far as Hana was concerned, there was no reason why a relative, no matter how distant, should ever be given the opportunity to bully a younger, less-experienced cousin. They should at least get the opportunity to beat on somebody equally, if not more, capable. And if Hana took that as an opportunity to learn more about her own friend, especially about the things that she couldn’t—and wouldn’t—ask, then she believed it was well within her right to do so.)

“Hey, bastard! What’s got you looking so smug?”

Hana adjusted the goggles one more time. Seriously, she had no idea how Obito tolerated the itch of the rubber pressing into his face constantly. She looked to the grating voice slowly, giving the boy a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She knew that the teeth in her mouth appeared straight and pearly-white, but she could still feel the way that her canines pressed against the inside of her lips, despite the false image that she was projecting.

She’d been waiting for the pair of boys to walk down this street for at least the last half hour, and now that they had finally caught sight of her, she was angsty to get started.

“Who’s asking?” Hana spit out. Her voice wasn’t her own, either. Usually, it was a squeaky pitch with a slight rasp that betrayed her self image, irritating her to no end. Instead, it bubbled out of her throat in a tone that was noticeably more boyish, and she even added a crack towards the end for good measure.

There was a beat as the boy who had first spoken processed her obvious antagonism. That, or the expression on her face was uncanny enough against typically kind and soft features that he was unsettled.

Good.

It didn’t last, because the second of the pair, the shorter one, managed to knock some sense back into his friend.

“Don’t let that Senju mutt talk to you like that, Yoru! Wipe that smirk off of his face!” The shorter boy sneered, elbowing his friend in the side.

Hana wanted to school her own shock from bleeding into her reaction, but his words were unexpected enough that she all but gaped at him.

Yoru, whose name Hana was just learning, seemed to take that as an opportunity to march right up to Hana and grab her by the bright orange collar around her neck, lifting her up to her toes in the process.

“That’s right, bastard. Don’t ever think you can speak to me like that. You’re nothing but trash! Dirt under my shoe!”

Oh. So that’s what he meant by ‘Senju mutt’ then. Some sort of familial dispute? A bloodline disparity? Whatever it was, with the way Yoru was choking her, it didn’t really matter to Hana. She imagined Obito in this situation, and despite the fact that she was wearing his face, and that she had brought this upon herself, it made her unbearably, overwhelmingly angry.

Hana, obviously, kneed Yoru in the diaphragm for that. As he wheezed, bowing forward with the blow and loosening his grip on her collar, she threw a punch that hit him square in the lip. He stumbled backwards with the force of it, landing on his tailbone with a bounce and dropping her in the process. His hands shot up to catch the blood that began dribbling down his chin, and now it was his turn to blink up at Hana (Obito) in shock.

She paid him no mind, stepping over his sprawled out legs to address the other boy—the one who had called her those choice words with his entire chest—who was blinking at her in a way that made her want to hit him, too. She didn’t even know what a Senju was, let alone care; the venom he had put into his words was more than enough to help her understand the implication of being called such a thing.

(Senju, Senju, Senju. Where had she heard that name before? In the creation myth of the village—that was it. Two clans bound together after a century of war, each playing an integral role in forging forward a new era of the shinobi system.)

(Harmony, partnership, togetherness—none of that was evident in either boy’s tone.)

It at least cleared up a few questions for her, rather quickly at that. There would be no need for talking things through, then, which she had at least intended to do. It wasn’t her fault that they had started it. She just so happened to be transformed into her friend, in a prime location to be noticed and subsequently confronted.

Not her fault at all.

“Shut it, tubby.” Hana hissed, and she knew that it stung because the shorter boy not only bristled, but the chakra in his chest wound inwards as well.

She poked a finger at his sternum, hard, before reaching up to grab the bottom half of his face with fingers too clawed to be natural—almost giving her away. She let this part of the transformation jutsu slip just a little, pressing her nails into his cheeks, so much so that if Hana put a little more pressure into them then she was sure that she could draw blood.

“No one was talking to you. The next time you say those words, I’m cutting out your tongue and feed it to you, got it!? ”

She bled more of her chakra into the atmosphere then, in the way that she knew could make skin bristle with the cold and foreign sensation.

He nodded in response, eyes wide and pupils somehow blown even against their pitch black backdrop. She let him go with a harsh shove after a few more beats spent staring at him unblinkingly, and he promptly high-tailed it out of the street after finding his feet.

Which was fine, because his absence gave Hana the opportunity to turn around and address Yoru again. She looked at him over her shoulder, and relished in the way that he was using his sleeve to try and clean up the leakage of his split lip, still trying to get his wheezing under control.

(She thought for a moment about how mean she was being. Her words would have definitely gotten major disapproval from both of her parents, had they been alive to reprimand her for them. This thought, she immediately tossed out of her mind. They weren’t around—not like the living people that she cared about were—and for that she felt justified in her actions.)

“You could tattle...” Hana began, trailing off as she took slow steps towards him, her hands in her fake pockets without a care in the world. She was being dramatic, far too extravagant for the scenario, but Hana was having fun —and she hadn’t had fun in a long enough time that she was thoroughly enjoying the moment.

“But who would believe you? I’m a ‘Senju mutt’, right? I’m not even a ninja. Aren’t you a genin? How could I possibly land a hit on you, a full-blooded Uchiha?”

Hana giggled as she leaned over him, casting a shadow against his face made stark by the lanterns which lined the street taking light in a slow cascade.

“I wonder what your parents would do if they found out—or your aunts and uncles, or your cousins, or your friends...”

She was talking out of her ass, saying things that she didn’t fully understand based on only assumption and imagination. It was a shot in the dark—one with little to no evidence to back it up. She didn’t know if the boy even had living parents, let alone ones that pressured him to perform well amongst his peers, or ones that held the same bias towards children with variable lineage.

But Yoru stayed silent, and his chakra stuttered regardless.

Jackpot.

There was no reason for Yoru to stay down. By all means, he should have stood up and faced her properly by now, maybe taken up a fighting stance by putting his fists to his temples, and tried to land a few of his own hits. Ones that were fully deserved, at this point. But it was obvious that the uncharted territory in their–Obito and his—relationship had scared him. Obito had never fought back before, had he?

She didn’t mind doing so for him.

She didn’t mind at all.

She feinted another punch at the boy beneath her, and outright laughed again when Yoru flinched, finally looking down at the floor instead of at her. And even if it was more of her own laugh that resounded from her chest than any proper imitation of Obito’s, Yoru didn’t say anything about it.

“Wuss. There’s no point in fighting you. Next time, then. The next time I see you, or you so much as look at me wrong, I’ll beat you up for real.” Hana promised with another grin, ruffling Yoru’s hair in a way that wasn’t at all friendly because she even pulled on it a little to try and shake some sense into him that way.

She stepped back after that, looking around to make sure that her hidden identity was still in the clear. The vacant street was enough evidence that she’d gotten away with her transformation thus far, and Hana took that as a sign to take her leave. She left Yoru where he was, still wheezing and still dabbing at his lip, too busy trying to forget the sense of fear permeating through his chakra circuitry as she departed the Uchiha compound.

Hana let her transformation jutsu fade in slow waves, ducking behind an electric pole to refamiliarize herself with a shorter stature and significantly longer hair. She ignored the posters pinned on the solid wood, especially the one that showcased a demon with Earth Country insignia on his forehead, carrying away a woman in a flame-patterned kimono, with the Konoha monument in the background and the words ‘ENLIST! Destroy this savage beast!’ printed in orange around them.

She wiped her damp knuckles on her thigh, smearing a bit of blood across her pants in the process, before carrying on down the village’s main road.

Her next stop still wasn’t home. Nor was it the hokage tower, which she had assumed would be the place to start when looking into official village paperwork, citizenship, and identification.

(There just wasn’t enough room for that—there was simply no way that the files of thousands of Konoha citizens could be squeezed into the five stories that already held the mission input and output offices, the meeting rooms for the various war councils, and all the other administrative nonsense that the hokage had direct contact with.)

(Not that she would even consider touching that place yet. Too much risk for a yet unknown reward. She would be looking in other places, for now—ones that she at least knew wouldn’t be littered with too many shinobi trying too hard to not be seen.)

Hana had been combing the streets of the village for hours, circling more blocked-off complexes that wouldn’t be nearly as easy to access as that of the Uchiha, cutting through tight alleyways, and weaving through vacant fields of gated greenery. Slowly, as though on nothing more than a simple summer stroll, she found what she was looking for.

It was located just a few properties past that of the academy—one of many identical one-story buildings that were so unassuming, they had Hana doubting her own thought process. Each had a pointed roof, with windows shined just enough to showcase the trench-coat donning employees having coffee and chatting the evening away.

And try as she did to send her chakra within, or below, or even above any of those buildings—it was blocked every step of the way. The only other places that Hana couldn’t access with her chakra were either buried deep within various clan complexes, out of reach by sheer distance alone, or were the Root bases that she could only sense through when she was within them.

Weird how the lack of something could be just as indicative of its presence.

Hana sat in silent wait between two towering apartment buildings on the opposite side of the road, electrical wiring and laundry lines criss-crossing so far above that they almost completely obstructed her view of the sky. She stared unabashedly at one of those sealed-off buildings, one chosen at random, and studied the way that the single visible floor seemed to spread multiple stories both beneath and above ground if her inability to sense in those areas was any proof.

She wondered if she would have any trouble entering.

Regardless, her eyes were trained on the two khaki-vested guards who greeted and waved-off all those that passed them by.

(There must have been a reason why there was no other entry or exit point that she could identify, or why this building in particular required that a pair of guards be stationed outside.The only way to figure that out was to try and get in herself.)

(Her eyes were brown now instead of their earlier shade of black or her natural shade of gold. Her hair was pigtailed and auburn, and her outfit was a false image stolen directly off another little girl that she saw playing on a swing set along her way here—a ruffled skirt with an equally obstructive top, nothing at all like a ninja who cared about any restriction to their movement would wear. The transformation jutsu was becoming the easiest thing in the world.)

The first individual she caught sight of as they left the building was a chatty brunette with choppy layers and a large, shaggy hound trailing behind her, who had a boisterous personality to match the red stripes on each cheek clear to Hana even from her distance away. Almost immediately, Hana chalked her off as somebody who wouldn’t be a good candidate for her intended purpose, not unless she suddenly found the time to build a profile on the brunette’s conversational tendencies, or she suddenly found the skills to emulate a growling canine.

(That was a little too far out of her comfort zone. She could probably handle pretending to be a small cat, or an even smaller rodent, but she didn’t think she had it in herself to pretend to be a dog, of all things.)

After that, a straight haired teenager with trembling hands was the next to make his way out, spending five whole minutes asking one of the guards about his wife and kids, and then asking the other about a recent bout of sickness that had landed him in the hospital for two weeks. That shinobi was much too kind to imitate as well.

It wasn’t until a stone-faced woman stepped out—clad in a skirt, mesh compression top, and a trench coat that grazed the floor as it trailed down the sides of her legs—that Hana finally found the perfect contender. The woman entirely ignored both guards, brushing off their well-wishes as she stomped her way down the front steps towards the main road.

Hana began trailing her immediately, studying the fabrics the woman chose to wear (her coat was leather, cracked at the bottom hem, and her sandals were scuffed at the heel and the toe), the way that her hair reflected the light (it laid flat in a shade of coal, but reflected blue against the street lights), and the subtle colors that made the signs of age on her face (tan freckling brought upon by a youth likely spent in the sun). She noted the way that the woman tied her forehead protector around her thigh, the way that she kept her mouth in a barely-contained sneer, and the way that she wore brass rings on both thumbs.

It didn’t take long before Hana had catalogued the major takeaways of the woman’s physical identity, because no jutsu was required to understand the details that made a person their own unique self. All Hana had to ensure was that she wasn’t caught stalking the subject of her newest self-assigned objective.

She ducked into an alleyway at the woman’s back after having seen more than enough to conduct a transformation. Another poof and some mud-induced tweaking later, she had successfully stolen the woman’s face, low bun, and outfit almost too tight to be completely work appropriate, as well as all the other little details that she caught during her short survey. A glance into a puddle collecting at the base of a trash bin told Hana that she’d done a good enough job to pass.

She marched her new body back the way it first came, stomping up the steps to the barrier-blocked building just as the woman had done a few minutes prior. Hana kept the stranger’s face stoic, emulating the same thinly-pressed lips and ignoring the guards as they greeted her once more, asking if she left something behind. She shoved her way back into the building without so much as a glance in either of their directions.

Hana didn’t look at anyone once inside, either, and didn’t take a single second to scan the scene before her. She weaved between even more trench coat-wearers, marching ahead like she knew exactly where she was going and exactly where she had come from, following the perfectly placed signage towards a woman’s restroom that was tucked away at the end of a dimly lit hallway an under a single flickering light.

After all, who would fault an employee for going back to work, just after they’d left, and taking a bathroom break that surely couldn’t wait until they got home?

No one watching too keenly would raise any alarm at that.

Hana picked the stall tucked in the furthest corner of the restroom. She locked its creaking door behind her, clicking her tongue at the gap between the latch and its securing plank. There was some sort of graffiti painted along the plaster, mainly just bored doodles of the leaf insignia coupled with a few clan symbols, and she huffed out a breath at a badly drawn cartoon of a ninja holding a sign that read ‘ Please help! Need money for more kunai and booze! But mostly booze!’.

She pressed down the toilet’s lid and sat at its top, summoning another one of her own chakra containment seals and pressing it directly on to the tiled wall at her left, before promptly releasing her transformation.

Hana had been right about the existence of multiple stories, hidden from prying eyes and prying chakra like hers. Now that she was inside the building, she could feel a startling amount of signatures stretching at least four stories above and another four below, each with a distinct air of stress and exhaustion nestled between their bones.

It was a shame, and perhaps a blunder on the part of the Konoha governance, that whatever jutsu or seal was employed for the barrier surrounding this structure and the others just like it, was in the exact same category as that which was used for the various Root bases. This, of course, was the opposite of a problem for her, because she would be taking this information and slotting it in her ‘I know too much about how this place works’ folder, under her ‘they have shit-all fuinjutsu knowledge, and everything they do have is either outdated or regularly re-used’ category.

So Hana channeled her chakra, earth and water flushing together into mud and muck in her chest, and drew it slowly down her arms. This was familiar in a way that almost hurt, and she needed to blink a few startling images out of her mind before she quickly buried that emotion to focus on the task at hand.

She pressed her palms up flat against the ceramic tile, melting through in inches as nothing more than a ghost of her surroundings. She took a moment to adjust to the density of the cement once she had finally submerged the entirety of her body, expelling more of her limited stores to help with her movement amongst the rock. The process was made easier by the fact that she had a destination in mind this time around, one that cut her directly upwards into the previously hidden floor above.

It only took a minute of waiting, still buried between floors, for the hall to be cleared of shinobi before Hana could break free from the stone and gulp down some much needed air. Her breech point landed her directly in front of a room mirrored down both ends. Each door looked the exact same, and each was similarly sealed off to ensure no undue entry.

But Hana wasn’t after whatever was within all of these locked-up rooms. No, she was after the means that had locked them up in the first place—because Konoha was predictable, and if this building shared the same barrier method as so many others, then whatever seal work was utilized for these rooms was sure to be duplicated as well, and that information would be priceless if she was to continue exploring the village’s more secretive nooks and crannies.

And that was all that she was doing. Exploring.

(She was wasting time idling around for some lucky break, something that would dig her out of the hole that she had landed herself in. No more. She needed details, information, something that would give her a bit of leverage. She’d stolen files before. She’d sneaked into places that she had no business being in. She’d worn the faces of people both real and fake. There was no harm and no foul if she applied that on a slightly broader scale—especially not if she was only interested in the seal work that the village was wielding to protect its assets.)

(For now.)

There was a neutral chakra signature pulsating around her, one free of any elemental affinities and being expelled directly from each of the blocked-off doors. It tickled her skin as she channeled a smidge of her own chakra to her fingertip, taping it against one such door to reveal a seal etched into the wooden paneling. She took note of the shape, leaning close to investigate the character as she summoned a notebook and pen to trace down its form.

Lock (kagi, 鍵).

How juvenile.

What a shame to have to rely on such outdated technology, and so much of it at that.

Not that it was a simple seal—its line work alone was complicated, with seventeen strokes surrounded by a plethora of enforcing frames being indication enough of that. It just wasn’t particularly creative enough for Hana’s tastes. There was only so much that a seal whose primary kanji identified the object it was imitating could do.

Hana traveled up and down the hall, confirming the repetition of the same seal pressed against the entryway of every room. She was in the floor again before anyone could get so much as get a peak of her shadow as it flickered around her, and back to sit on the same toilet seat to take up the sour face of the strange woman once more.

She peeled the seal that she had left behind off of the wall, before stomping out of the restroom in the exact same way that she had entered. Hana ignored the guards’ well wishes just as she had watched the woman do not too long ago as she left, and made sure to wear that same sneer as she marched her way down the street.

Now, Hana at least had some idea of the restrictions she’d be facing if she ever wanted to investigate any more of Konoha’s private locations. And though there was no telling what exactly it was that she would face, at least the next time that Hana entered this particular collection of buildings, she would be prepared.

Notes:

- I have about 4-7 more chapters left before I want to implement a bit of a time skip, depending on how I end up splitting the scenes. Anyone have anything they wanna see before we enter the genin era? I’d love to hear your thoughts!!
- I wanted to help justify why obito was able to handle supplementing almost half his body mass with donated Hashirama cells. I don’t care if chakra makes that possible. What about evidence-based science?! What about TISSUE COMPATIBILITY!!!
- Therefore I implied that he had a Senju relative, sort of playing into the whole “black sheep” thing that I felt canon didn’t do a good job at fully justifying. this is definitely just a headcanon of mine and is not at all based in any actual canon lol
- the poster is based on an irl ww1 propaganda poster that used the phrase “Destroy this mad brute! Enlist!”

Chapter 17: The Cat and the Crow

Notes:

This chapter is a bit more experimental for me so I’m not sure if you guys will like it, but I hope u all enjoy regardless. Back to regularly scheduled programming next chapter, and thank you for all the love <3 your interactions fuel me to update this every time

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Streams of murky brown and burgundy red trailed down her legs and pooled at her feet, gurgling around the drain. The bathroom of the apartment was tight, and more of a stall rather than any sort of actual room, but clean water was clean water so Hana couldn’t complain.

Besides, she was too distracted by the chanting of her name at the doorway to wallow over the water being lukewarm, and not steaming hot like she preferred. Stupid pipes, she should’ve kicked them a few times before stepping under the shower head.

" Nana! Na-na-na…Hana! Hana!”

Sara was singing a song she made up herself, waving her fists around in her highchair—one recently nabbed from the neighboring apartment building’s trash heap, fixed together with an entire roll of repair tape to reattach its broken leg. She was making a mess of her mushed bananas, though her mess was contained to the bathroom’s doorway. Hana had placed her there to be kept an eye on while she got herself clean.

Slowly, soapy suds turned the streams of color into shades of tan and pink, before clearing into white as Hana scrubbed herself raw twice over. She didn’t stop until it stung just like hot water would’ve.

“Hana! Ha-na-na-na!"

Hana stepped out of the shower dripping wet, wringing her hair and not bothering to run a brush through it before she slipped into her clothing. Rather than the much too prim-and-proper outfit that she typically wore when the academy was in session, she chose a loose top with plain pants to match.

And though the shirt was the wrong shade of purple, it brought her comfort regardless.

She made a face at her sister, one with her tongue stuck out all silly and her fingers waving near her ears, before she moved up onto the stool propped up at the base of the sink. She faced the mirror, leaning forwards to wipe the bit of condensation that managed to collect on the glass pane, accidentally creating cloudy streaks that would need to be shined off later.

The face she was met with was flat and hollow, so she rubbed at her cheeks roughly in an attempt to bring a flush of color back into her skin. Hana then raised her brows up as high as they would go, wrinkling her forehead in the process, before scowling as hard as her anatomy would allow. The pink, still healing gash in her brow pulled painfully in protest. She hadn’t gone to the medics to get it sealed up properly. Nor had she learned nearly enough iryojutsu to attempt healing it herself. Instead, she let it close on its own.

It served as her first reminder.

It was also an indication of her failures with medical jutsu in general. The combination of her over-familiarity with sensory chakra, the presence of her palm seals, and the lack of time to do any sort of practice with all the other projects she had on her plate all made it so she had no choice but to sideline her medicinal studies for the time being.

She relented to this failure, and instead figured she could fall back on to the civilian knowledge she had garnered thus far. Or, she could always bother Rin for help healing any injuries that she couldn’t handle on her own. And if Rin ever asked about her more severe wounds, Hana decided she would manage with some excuse like ‘I fell down the stairs’, or even ‘I fell down a really, really long flight of stairs’ and leave it at that.

Still glaring at her reflection, Hana gave herself a few harsh taps against the sides of her face, first smiling wide, then smiling softly, then pouting something awful. After a few more minutes spent practicing her expressions in the mirror, she managed to make herself feel a little more human.

“My name is Hana.” She said aloud.

“I am from the Land of Woods. My sister’s name is Sara, and she is one and a little bit years old. My friends are Obito, Rin, and sometimes also Genma, though I think he only hangs around me for the free food and gossip. But that’s okay with me.”

Hana nodded to herself, stepping down from the stool and facing her sister.

“Ready?” She asked.

She ducked beneath the splatter of fruit-mush that almost hit her square in the face.

All things considered, being reverse-summoned was rather fun, in the same way that she remembered jumping off of her father’s shoulders into the chilly ocean water of Wood’s shores was fun. It usually involved her stomach doing a few flips, then Hana closing her eyes at the last second to avoid the inevitable bout of dizziness that came afterwards. Otherwise, it was too quick of a process to make any bigger of a deal out of.

And it wouldn’t have been a big deal, if it wasn’t for the fact that she was in for a scolding the likes of which only Ito-sensei was capable of dishing out.

(Albeit the last time he had scolded her, it was entirely deserved. She wouldn’t stop kicking the seat of the kid in front of her during their lesson on team-dynamics and seniority-based leadership. It was mainly because the boy had a stupidly big head and definitely had nothing to do with that fact that he had shoulder-checked her on their way into class that morning, mumbling something under his breath about stupid foreigners who take up too much space. )

(What was she? Chopped liver? Regardless of how justified she felt her actions were, Ito-sensei had pulled her aside before she could dash home and given her such an earful about being a brat that she almost felt sorry about the whole thing.)

(Almost. An apology from that shithead would have made her much more inclined to reciprocate, but whatever.)

Today’s scolding would definitely be worse, because it wasn’t coming from Ito-sensei. Nor was it coming from Tama, who usually just gave Hana a disappointed glower and a chuff whenever she made too-snarky of a comment, or joked too casually about the times where Jin beat her over the palms with a switch. Like that one time when she deliberately ignored his instructions to only have a single ration bar after training, and instead scarfed down three when he wasn’t looking. She ended up puking her breakfast, lunch, and dinner out after he caught her for that.

This scolding was instead about to come from a collective of tigers, likely pissed off at her lackluster performance as their contracted summoner over these last few years. Not that she wasn’t trying to be better—she was, it was just that better currently meant implicating the tigers in missions she didn’t really want any witnesses to. Or, forcing their participation in even more babysitting. And as much as she loved her baby sister, she knew that dealing with a baby against your will wasn’t exactly an ideal way to utilize a summoning contract.

The first time she’d materialized in the humid forestry of Kasanejima, it was to a bleary-eyed kitten at her feet, abandoned amongst the mangroves and mud. From what she remembered, the air was thick enough that her clothes had immediately begun sticking to her, and her hair quickly went from being slicked into neat pigtails to frizzing at every edge.

This time was no different. Though rather than a single weak tiger cub to greet her upon her arrival, Hana was met with a council of three tigers, each positioned on their own stone podium. The podiums were situated at the base of a towering mountainside, half hidden by clouds of fog and crawling with greenery, and before a crowd of equally as angsty felines.

She placed her sister at her side, allowing the baby to roam free before bowing so deeply that her forehead pressed flat against the damp soil.

There was no need to say anything, because as her ward, Tama spoke for her here.

“Elders!” Tama announced, addressing the council after giving Hana a quick once-over. “I present the human summoner at your request. Will you allow the meat child to argue her case, or shall I continue to speak in her stead?”

A scoff resounded from the tiger situated on the podium farthest right.

“Why you still speak for the meat child is beyond me! Let the creature bear its dull teeth at us, so that you may save your breath.”

“Always so combative, Yaoke.” Came the crackling voice of the tiger at the left-most podium, whose whiskers dangled far past his seat. “For what purpose? The meat child is ours just as much as we are its. Let the universe run its course, and let this pointless meeting end sooner rather than later!”

Sara had gone from climbing up and over Hana’s back to plopping herself beside her sister. She studied Hana’s position, proper and stiff, and attempted to imitate it. Try as she did, though, it came across as more of a downward-facing dog stretch than any sort of proper bow.

Perhaps the baby’s attempt at propriety would endear her to the tigers this time around.

“How wise of you, Yuugure!” Bit back the first elder—the one that Hana knew wasn’t particularly fond of her presence amongst his kind. Hana figured that he was glaring at his fellow council member, but given that she currently had a face full of dirt, she couldn’t confirm that thought.

She stayed silent, not bothering to chime in to say that she had never intended for things to have gone so far. She instead focused her sense on Sara, and the way that each passing day allowed more and more chakra to settle in the child’s chest. This was easy, because her familiarity with her sister’s chakra was almost as strong as her familiarity with her own, but she still had to willfully ignore the input of all the surrounding chakra signatures. Thankfully, animal signatures felt entirely different from human ones, which further differed from that of summoned creatures, so it wasn’t particularly hard.

“Tell me,” Elder Yaoke continued, addressing not only his fellow council members but also the crowd of tigers at Hana’s back. “Do you propose that we allow the meat child to discard its offspring on our island whenever it so pleases? Or, perhaps in your eyes, we should allow the meat child to continue its bound servitude towards a cause we are yet to even understand!”

Elder Yuugure rolled his eyes, swiping a paw against his whiskers. “This, as far as we already know, is not the meat child’s doing. Its bindings are just as much our problem as they are its!”

A growl escaped from a few of the tigers at her back. This time, Elder Yaoke spoke directly to them.

“I had warned the council that this was never going to work! The meat child does not even have stripes, let alone claws or teeth nearly sharp enough to compare to even our weakest cubs! How will it hunt for the den? How will it pay back its debts?”

“Nonsense!” Elder Yuugure cut in. “A meat child is capable of hunting using the tools of man at its disposal. This child has the potential to be a great ally not only to us, but also to our withering isle as it grows—unlike its brothers and sisters past the boundaries of our domain.“

“Yes indeed! This meat child will grow in the image of man, who pillage the world with their wars. The moment this child appeared amongst us, it was an omen! You will all see this soon enough, mark my words.”

“Do not forget the teachings of the Sage, Yaoke. The universe balances all. This child did not choose us herself, but it was the scales that tipped it into our favor. What will become of its partnership with our kind is not for us to decide! All will be revealed in due time.”

“Your words are noble, Yuugure, yet naive despite your age. Yes, it is our duty to do what is right by the teachings of the Sage—no matter what those circumstances that the universe bestows upon us are!‘

“And what is right and true by those very teachings is to not fault this child for her current situation. Her stripes need simply be earned, and her claws and teeth can be sharpened!” Tama intercepted. “And please, Elders, do not diminish the child’s capabilities with chakra—which endeared even you, Elder Yaoke, in that first fated meeting.”

Hana appreciated Tama more than ever in that moment. Practically everyday was marred by the same feelings of helplessness, and someone being of the opinion that Hana was capable of more helped tremendously—even if that someone was four-legged, and preferred to sleep a majority of the day away. Safa had been left behind in the apartment to bring them back in an hour’s time, so Tama was her only present ally, anyway.

This situation wasn’t exactly new, either. Since her initial entry into the general Konoha populace, Hana had been expected to check in with the members of the tiger council at minimum monthly and at maximum whenever she had a new breakthrough in her studies, or found herself in a particularly deep ditch again.

Her first of such meetings had been the most charged, more so than even this one, because figuring out how to relay her predicament with Root was a lesson in patience—one that involved not only charades, but also a whole lot of writhing in pain afterwards as she tested the extent of the tongue seal’s influence. Ultimately, explaining her induction into the foundation through vague euphemisms about woodland creatures had served her well, specifically when she didn’t think too hard about any direct examples of her missions, or of her training sessions with Jin.

Since then, the tigers hadn’t questioned the ink in her mouth.

(Except for Elder Yaoke, who seemed to take joy in pointing out her faults.)

“Meat child!” Called the tiger at the center podium, Elder Tasogare, whose fur was the most faded orange of the bunch. Elders Yuugure and Yaoke had been arguing back and forth over top of him, and his sudden involvement startled everyone in the vicinity. He was also the elder Hana knew for his more outlandish opinions, so she braced herself for whatever words were about to come out of his maw.

“Lift your toes before us!”

Huh? Hana stalled.

Right. Fingers and toes were interchangeable to quadrupeds. Hana lifted her hands before her, head still bowed, and spread her fingers wide apart in the process. Her nails were painted a startling shade of blue this time around, but she’d long since gotten bored of tamer polish colors.

“Recall the meat child’s opposable thumbs! That alone is invaluable, alongside the scratches it provides as well as the paw massages it readily delivers. I second the bid to maintain the partnership, under the training of Tama and with that of Tama’s other ward.”

Murmurs broke out all around, coupled with the pacing of frustrated cats. Tama visibly relaxed with that statement, moving over to sit by Sara instead of standing guard in front of the pair of sisters. Elder Tasogare was right—Hana had promised a plethora of grooms and pets to her summons, particularly in ways they couldn’t themselves accomplish. She knew that she at least delivered in that regard, no matter where else she fell flat.

“You are a mindless old fool.” Elder Yaoke growled out. He shifted to address Tama, still refusing to acknowledge Hana. “And what of the babe?”

Tama nudged Hana to rise, and she moved to sit in seiza by the tiger. She mumbled a quick thanks under her breath, which Tama grunted at. “We are managing. The second child is no issue to neither I, nor Safa.”

“See? You are nothing more than a close-minded cat.” Said Elder Yuugure, huffing under his breath at the admission. The tigers glared at each other from their opposing podiums, though it otherwise appeared that their argument had come to an end.

Before the meeting was officially adjourned, however, Elder Yaoke finally called to Hana.

“Meat child! How do you propose to manage raising your offspring and subsequently continuing to conduct your mandatory—“ and here he shot her a particularly scathing look, which Hana tried not to visibly wince at “—training with appropriate diligence? Especially as your attention is pulled elsewhere!”

Hana rose to her feet, bowing low one more time before speaking.

“Thank you for your consideration, Elder Yaoke. Please allow me to demonstrate my progress in cloning so far.”

After a stiff nod from Elder Yaoke, she stepped back to generate a mud clone in the available space.

It was nerve-wracking, to put it lightly, for her jutsu to be on display before so many pairs of eyes that almost exactly matched her own. But, the fact that she could generate mud clones while dead-asleep, blind, and likely also finger-bound at this point meant it went without a hitch. The oohing and aahing that resulted was a definite boost to her confidence as well. Aside from the act of summoning, and their own chakra-enhanced techniques, the tigers were incapable of conducting jutsu. They often asked Hana to make a show of her abilities as a means of entertainment, but she didn’t know anything remotely impressive enough to keep them occupied for long.

Thankfully, she wasn’t done just yet. In her palm, she brought forth an example of the seal she was working on for her mud clones—specifically the most updated version—and displayed it first before the elders, then before the crowd.

“You are all already aware that my goal is to generate a clone, much like the one before you, that can readily act in my stead without fear of dispersion.” Hana moved to the side of her clone, jabbing it in the arm with a pointed finger. In response, it collapsed in a splatter of earth.

“My clones are currently weak and unsteady, incapable of surviving even the most basic of physical stimuli like all other elemental varieties. This,” she emphasized, motioning to the seal in her hands once more, “is my solution to that. So far, the chakra storage mechanism is finalized.”

To prove her statement, Hana channeled chakra into the seal. It flared in response until the energy settled delicately between the ink and paper. She waved it around once more to further depict the seal’s stability, and despite her rough-handling, crinkling, and creasing of it, the seal didn’t burst.

“As you can see, the chakra holds steady no matter what I do to it. I am currently working on a feature to properly deliver the additional chakra to my clones, so that they can remain present for longer periods of time and have their energy supplemented against undue dispersion.”

She was in fact making headway in the clone department. Now, her charge-backed clones were a lot less likely to dispel once fed energy, ever since she began working on a slow-release feature for the chakra. The issue was obvious in hindsight; the chakra couldn’t be properly absorbed by the mud body when it wasn’t given a conduit to travel along, unlike when she fed the clones chakra by hand and was able to guide it into the clone in slow, careful increments.

All she had to do now was properly design that conduit, which would only require about a few hundred more experiments and some more late-night fits spent yanking her hair out of her head while glaring at her notes.

Hana nodded to herself at the completion of her demonstration. There was no question in her mind as to whether or not she could successfully create a charge-backed mud clone—it was simply a matter of when, and a matter of it needing to be done sooner rather than later. There was more than enough chakra-infused ink in the world for Hana to work through the current problem she was facing with the seal. And if she needed more, she could always just steal some from the nearest scroll shop, or from the supply readily available in Ito-sensei’s desk.

(Did he ever wonder where his ink went? She often caught herself giggling at the thought of him looking around frantically for each lost—stolen—jar.)

Serves him right. I’ll show you a brat! How do you like spending your shitty paychecks on infused ink!

And though an air of approval was making its way across the crowd, Elder Yaoke merely scoffed at Hana’s display. “Lackluster! All we have been presented with is more empty promises.”

Elder Tasogare didn’t seem to share that sentiment, because he began licking at his paws idly as he lounged in his seat. “How lovely! Again, meat child! Show us your clone performance once more.”

Elder Yuugure sighed heavily, and Hana found comfort in the fact that she wasn’t the only one exhausted by the remaining tiger’s endless negativity. “Nonsense, Yaoke. This is evident progress! What a nice performance, meat child. Let us adjo—“

“I refused to conclude this meeting, we have yet to so much as discuss the—“

“The bindings on its tongue are much too risky to attempt a modification of, we have already—“

“And if we are wrong? What of the danger such a seal presents to our isle? How do we know—“

“It is a seal like any other, much like our stripes! No seal is an impossibility to crack, and the child has clear talent for—“

“Talent!? I see a penchant for mooching, I do not see any—“

Right to left, right to left—heads shot from side to side as the crowd followed along with the heated exchange. Everyone, of course, save for Sara—who was currently playing some version of baby tag with Tama’s tail. And save for Elder Tasogare, who was likely incredibly used to the scathing tone that his fellow council members preferred to take with each other.

Though before Elders Yaoke and Yuugure had the opportunity to escalate their argument into something more physical—which was bound to happen, given that both of their tails were lashing around, and both of their fur was looking rather frayed—the sudden shaking of the ground startled everyone into silence.

Shaking was an understatement. There was a grumble resounding so thoroughly in the air that the sky began to rain with the condensation being shaken off of the tree canopy. Hana dove for her sister, wrapping the child in her arms as she shot a confused look at Tama. And though she was panicking internally, no one else seemed particularly bothered by the way that the axis of the island took to some rigorous realignment.

What an odd bunch. Hana calmed her breathing, wondering what it could possibly mean about herself that she had been paired with the tigers of this isolated land mass, out of all the chakra-enhanced creatures across the globe.

“Now look at what you have done!” Called Elder Yaoke as the grumbling slowly subsided and the ringing in Hana’s ears died down. Sara, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered, and hadn’t even sniffled at the loud noise. “You have woken Granny! ”

“What wonderful news! Oh, how I have missed Granny.” Elder Tasogare sighed wistfully.

Elder Yuugure scoffed. “I did not wake Granny. You woke Granny—with your incessant yelling and your even worse attitude! Besides! It is about time that the meat child met our esteemed grandmother.”

“Under no circumstances were we to ever wake Granny! She needs her rest, and she gets cranky when woken from her naps! We’ve already decided on this, so don’t go backtracking in an entirely separate court!” Elder Yaoke shot back.

“This is the perfect circumstance!” Elder Yuugure said with a roll of his eyes. “Come, meat child, let us introduce you to our Granny Hinode, and perhaps you can do your little parlor trick for her as well! You have yet to meet her, correct? Granny was asleep even during the initial contract signing, yes?”

“Fine! Wake Granny!” Elder Yaoke audibly humphed before Hana could respond. “If she mistakes you for a boar and eats you, then it is your funeral!”

Hana’s first thought was: that’s a big tiger.

Hana’s second thought was: that’s a big. fucking. tiger.

In fact, Granny Hinode was so large that Hana had to crane her neck up as far as it would go to catch a glimpse of the tiger’s lengthy whiskers. What little Hana could see of the tiger’s cloudy eyes was obstructed by tufts of white fur wisping from her brow, and what little Hana could make of the tiger’s teeth was instead replaced by a half-gummy smile as Granny purred at the group entering her cave—a purr that made it difficult for Hana to keep upright.

This was Granny Hinode, the matriarch of the tiger den that Hana had yet to meet. What she had expected was a warrior—a fierce protector of the island isolated deep in the forest with only thoughts of battle and glory in her in her feline brain. Tama had implied that and more, and her warnings to be kind and courteous to Granny as the group approached the incredibly large feline gave Hana the impression that that was still the case. What she hadn’t been expecting was a grandmother, in every sense of the word, with joints that cracked at every shift of her legs and ears that didn’t hear no matter how loudly Tama attempted to introduce Hana to her.

“Hana! The child’s name is Hana!” Tama called out, voice echoing against the damp stone overhead.

“Saba? Is the meat child’s name Saba? Who named the poor thing after fish, and after mackerel of all things!? Ooh, I must have a word with them at once!” Granny Hinode croaked out. Her voice was gravely and hoarse, loud enough that Hana had to take a few steps back unless she wanted to learn exactly what a burst eardrum felt like.

“No, Granny Hinode, its—“

“Come! Little fish! Take some candy from Granny.”

In her outstretched hands, Hana received a collection of wrapped hard candy so large that she had to immediately begin sealing them away lest she lose any. Each was wrapped in shiny, multi-colored paper, though they were so faded with age that the flavors (or any potential expiry date) was unidentifiable. Where Granny Hinode had acquired the sweets, Hana had no idea, but she wasn’t about to refuse the gift when a single one of Granny Hinode’s claws was equal to the entirety of Hana’s meager height.

“Eat, little fish! You are much too small to be considered a tiger just yet!”

Hana was sure that Obito would appreciate the candy, even if she herself didn’t want to risk tasting it.

Probably.

“Granny Hinode, it is a pleasure to see you awake and well! We are honored to be in your presence, as our island’s most esteemed—”

“What?” Granny Hinode said, looking in the entirely wrong direction instead at Elder Yaoke. “Who said that?! And just where is my armor!? I have a meeting with that insufferable lion, and I must show him why I am the true royalty of the jungle once and for all!”

“Granny, no, the lion tribe is no longer our enemy—“

“And who are you?!” Granny Hinode rambled on, lowering her head to find Hana standing with wide eyes and an uncomfortable smile on her face. Hana didn’t say anything, but she could hear Elder Tasogare cackling somewhere in the background as she continued to store away the rest of the hard candy.

She left Kasanejima with no more clarity on her standing amongst the tigers than when she arrived. But given that Granny Hinode hadn’t made a snack out of her, she considered it a win.

The next chance to breathe that she had, Hana was in the same training ground which she ended up in every morning. Except rather than it be right before school, the sun was setting, and rather than she be training or stretching or meditating, Hana was doing her best to teach her sister how to walk—like she hadn’t just spent the last few days running across half the country, only to bring back a singular eyeball in her clutch, then proceed to risk her life on a few ill-planned ‘adventures’ which she was still reeling with the stress of having successfully completed.

Totally normal. Totally cool. Pulse in. Pulse out. Breathe. Repeat. Pulse in. Pulse out. Breathe. Repeat. Empty clearing at the edge of an empty forest. Sara finding her footing. Wildlife amiss, but no human signatures otherwise.

Her meeting with the tigers had gone better than she had expected, and she was thankfully no more likely to lose her summoning contract than when she started. It had only taken the promise of finding more time to train somehow, more time to dedicate to her sister somehow, and more time to look into the seal in her mouth somehow for Elder Yaoke to be content with the proceedings.

(But even Hana wasn’t convinced, so she couldn’t imagine how the tiger felt.)

And aside from the bird off to the edge of the clearing perched high in the trees—watching her with a level of sentience no true animal should have—the girls were left alone for now.

Not a falcon, like the messenger birds often spotted soaring across the skies of Konoha to deliver requests, reports, or other pertinent messages. Nor a pigeon, utilized mostly by the civilians for their ease of training and affordability.

At first, Hana thought it was a raven, because from her distance away it appeared to be large, black, and eerie enough that it reminded her of a poem that she picked up on her last trip to the library. The one that made her steer clear of black birds for an embarrassingly long time afterwards.

(She’d given up on using the library for anything conducive, and started digging through the sections on fiction, religion, and politics—though that was usually a hit or miss for her tastes.)

But the way that bird was looking at her?

It was too understanding. Too smart.

A few more glances out of the corner of her eye told her it was definitely a crow, given its sleeker silhouette. Definitely a summoned creature, too, given that the chakra signature it emitted was entirely too hot and too large to be attributed to the negligible stores of the average bird.

She racked her brain to try and figure out who she knew that worked with crow summons. Maybe one of her Root handlers? Though she was certain she would’ve remembered if Jin launched a crow out of his sleeve at some point during their earlier missions together. That, and his mask was a caricature of an entirely different animal. Going off her own assigned ceramic, it would be a break in Root’s pattern for that to be the case.

Once Hana decided that she had had enough of her own spiraling contemplations, she marched herself and her sister towards the bird. Sara was suspended on the tops of Hana’s feet, barely able to find her balance on her cubby legs. Though with Hana hunched over to keep the baby steady, they managed to make their way over, albeit incredibly slowly. Hana stopped the pair of them in front of the tree that it was occupying, eyeing it directly so that it knew she had spotted its watchful gaze.

She let Sara assault the dandelions at their feet as she outstretched her arm, pointing her finger before her to be used as a perch and looking up at the bird expectantly in the process. It chittered at her from its high position, then paused for a moment before landing on her finger in a single spiraling dive.

Hana wasn’t sure of what to make of the all-too-sentient creature, but her suspicions were immediately assuaged once it made a downright adorable display of inspecting her, instead of the other way around. It curiously tilted its head to peek at Hana from each side, analyzing her face with quick blinks of its beady black eyes.

“Hello there, birdie.” Hana cooed, amazed at the iridescence of its feathers up close—an oil sheen of purples and greens reflecting in the low light of the sky. She wanted so badly to pet it, or to run her fingers through its shiny (clearly meticulously maintained) feathers, but she was able to restrain herself.

“Would you like a snack?” Hana asked instead. In her free palm, she summoned a handful of trail mix from her emergency stores, lifting it up slowly in front of the bird.

The crow squawked, hopefully in delight, before it began pecking at the seeds and nuts carefully enough that it avoided pinching Hana’s skin, just like it was somehow avoiding scratching her finger with its talons.

“I knew you were a summon.” She whispered in delight.

The implication of being partnered with crows—stubborn to a fault, smart enough to be a challenge, and clever enough to consistently test boundaries—made for an equally as interesting summoner. It would have to be someone patient, or at least dedicated enough to handle such big personalities, considering that crows both came in a flock and definitely challenged the authority of their summoner at every turn. The individual would have to be equally as coy, and equally as curious, too.

She knew that there was always the possibility that the summoner was merely a signatory to the contract, rather than a true match, but that wasn’t nearly as interesting for Hana to spend time pondering about. And to give the birds their credit, she was certain that they wouldn’t accept a summoner who didn’t completely fit their standards, much like her tigers (despite whatever issues they currently had with her).

“Who’s your partner, pretty birdie?” Hana asked the crow.

It ignored her, understandably so. After a few more pecks and pricks through the offering (with Hana trying very hard not to disturb it with her giggling), it squawked right into her face before fluttering its wings and taking flight.

Hana watched with shaded eyes as it took to the sky and disappeared deep into the trees. She wondered if the creature got what it was looking for, or if it at least flew off with a full stomach, as she lost sight of it between the branches and leaves of the forest plot. She didn’t have a chance to consider the creature any further, though, because her eyes trailed down to find her baby sister gumming a fistful of greenery, leading to a panicked gasp on her part.

“Sara! Why do you keep eating grass! Spit that out right now! Spit it out into my hand! Ewww, Sara!! ”

Dear Sara,

Today you cried because I wouldn’t let you eat a bunch of weeds while I was feeding a bird.

In honor of that, this is the story of the cat and the crow.

Two creatures once lived in brotherhood—one a cat, the other a crow. They sat, one day, at the base of a tree—

Notes:

- ‘Kasanejima’ should mean ‘Island of Layered Ridges’ as a reference to the tiger stripe pattern
- elder yaoke (meaning ‘dawn’): the pessimist who doesn’t like Hana or mankind much. Right podium.
- elder yuugure (meaning ‘dusk’): the optimist who’s all for seeing the good in humanity. Left podium.
- elder tasogare (meaning ‘twilight’): the wild card. Center podium.
- granny hinode (meaning ‘sunshine’): senile and large
- tigers sleep 18-20 hrs a day so for an extra extra large tiger I figured it wouldn’t outlandish for Granny Hinode to sleep for years at a time. Prev I mentioned that Hana had yet to meet the matriarch of the tiger den, and this is the reason why
- i love the idea of analyzing personality traits according to a character’s naturally assigned summon. When i think crows, I think clever/curious/social. When i think tigers, I think territorial/intense/emotional
- The cat and the crow is another story originating from 1001 nights

Chapter 18: Only Iron Can Bend Iron

Notes:

- Hope u guys enjoy! Ty for all the comments, I love love love reading them

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Hana woke up with a gasp in her throat and a half-forgotten night terror on her mind. Almost immediately, flashing images of strawberry blonde hair were replaced by amber eyes too close to be comfortable. She swallowed to alleviate the dryness in her mouth, licking her lips as she kicked off the sheets sticking uncomfortably to her skin.

It was the babbling in her ear that startled her calm.

“Good morning,” Hana mumbled, voice cracking in the process, “did I wake you up? Sorry.” She reached over to tuck a blonde curl behind her sister’s ear, who had her chubby hands already dug into Hana’s own bed head.

Sara giggled, smiling wide like Hana had said the funniest thing in the world—though her smile was still more of a glower, so Hana had no choice but to answer with a laugh of her own.

“Like this, watch me.” Hana said, giving her sister the best demonstration of a proper smile that she could manage as she rose. It felt strained, and the motion pulled at her chest, but she figured that any example was better than the tiger-like expression which the baby always preferred.

Her sister responded two-fold, going so far as to add an actual growl that bubbled up from her throat and further wrinkled the slope of her nose. Hana used her thumb to smooth the expression, gently pinching Sara’s cheeks afterwards.

“Smile. Don’t growl. Like this: niiii.” Hana tried again, guiding her sister’s cheeks into position for a proper—non-aggressive and non-threatening—look.

It didn’t work very well, because no matter what Hana tried, the baby returned to growling.

After a sigh and a kiss pressed to Sara’s forehead, the girls were off to brush their teeth, with Sara wrapped under Hana’s arm and Hana trying her best to balance the two of them on the stepping stool without toppling over.

(Sara had an array of four teeth already, two on the top and two on the bottom, though they were notably sharper than Hana’s had been at that age. Regardless, if Hana wanted her sister’s teeth to be in as good condition as her own, then the baby would just have to deal with the minty froth that Hana forced into her mouth every morning.)

There was a lot to be done, so the pair were up early. The likelihood that Hana would be expected to complete a couple more missions prior to the start of the academy’s fall semester was much higher than she liked. There was no time to waste, then, not if she wanted her charge-backed clones ready beforehand, her seal work up to par, and her taijutsu skills prepared to handle whatever cruel and unusual punishment Ito-sensei was planning on bestowing upon her for her misgivings in class.

(She couldn’t bring herself to keep up her falsely average performance when sparing, not when every instinct in her body would suddenly come alight to tell her that maiming was the only option against an opponent, no matter if it was a friendly spar or not. The rest of the subjects, however, felt Hana’s wrath. Nap-wrath, to be specific.)

Without it needing to be said, her sister’s safety was both the obvious priority and thoroughly intertwined with the objectives she had already given herself. It was not only dependent on Hana’s ability to integrate the child as an official (paperwork-backed and numerically identifiable) inhabitant of the village, but also Hana’s ability to actually keep an eye on her sister outside of any tiger participation in childrearing.

In the mornings, though, when Hana was actually herself and not some pseudo-personality made of mud, the sisters had a routine to follow—one that centered heavily around the baby and her preferences.

The baby liked her greens and liked her vegetables even more, so some cubed or chopstick-puréed variety of whatever fresh produce was available at the food market became her breakfast, lunch, and dinner—wartime price-hiking be damned. The baby had a vendetta against night-time showers, so Hana made sure to get her sister clean in the mornings as well, usually in the sink and with more suds than actual soap.

And bubbles. Lots and lots of bubbles.

The baby hated being burped. The baby hated being changed even more. The baby liked being talked to, liked being sung to even more than that, and liked being kept in a sling at Hana’s chest most of all, though it was slowly becoming harder and harder to carry Sara as she grew.

And when Hana inevitably had to leave for the day, after stalling for as long as humanly possible, Tama always sent her off with a larger list of instructions than she could possibly remember. Today, that happened to be: train hard, be back before dark, no more stealing or I will nip you, and if I find out you are being mean to strangers for fun again, I will bite you for real, young lady!

Hana left before Tama could catch the roll of her eyes.

It took fifteen minutes-worth of jumping-jacks for the seal to finally come close to activating.

Hana watched her clone with more patience than she usually spared for them, focusing on the bounce of its curls while wondering if that was how her hair usually obstructed her vision during movement. How her hair had yet to get in the way of any training or missions was a marvel, though she suspected that it had more to do with how little she relied on her vision, and less to do with the extent of her skills.

Cutting her hair was obviously not an option, so she would just have to get more adept at braiding if any issues arose.

She was standing directly in front of the mud body, glaring at the piece of paper stuck to its sternum as though she could force the seal to work properly with just her eyes alone. Her notebook was out, pen suspended at the ready to jot down what was hopefully about to be the first success of many failed attempts—twenty three failed attempts just in the last few hours, to be specific.

In hindsight, it was obvious that the issue with her seal didn’t lie in the containment mechanism of the chakra—all seals had the generalized purpose of containing something (whether that was a physical object or energy itself), and finding the characters for this seal had come easy.

Nor was the issue in the release function, given that the moment the clone was close to dispersion, the seal always activated as it was supposed to. The chakra sought to stabilize its levels across the available space and readily crossed the barrier between mud and paper to do so. This was true even without the addition of the ‘no ketsujo’ characters, because the direct connection between two mediums containing the same signature made the process automatic. Regardless, she was still grateful for the discovery that she could combine languages within a singular seal, so she didn’t consider that avenue to be a total waste of time.

Instead, the problem laid in the way the chakra was being projected into the clone—without a guide, it simply followed its naturally disordered path and acted in such a manner as to overwhelm the mud body it was otherwise supposed to enter gently and, well, orderly.

Basically, she needed to draw the chakra a pathway for it to follow, one that didn’t allow the energy to expel as wildly as it so evidently preferred.

A simple straight line didn’t seem to do the trick, because that caused the chakra to travel too quickly and made it rather aggressive upon its entry.

A waved pattern also hadn’t worked, because the chakra bled from the edges of each crest and trough of any of those attempts, leading to too much chakra loss for the necessary level of efficiency. So, the present experiment entailed an attempt with an entirely new pattern: one that took up enough surface area as to force the chakra to slow down, as well as included additional barrier markings at each corner of the seal (and around the conduit itself) to ensure that the energy was conserved.

What had started as a three-character word surrounded by a simple barrier pattern had evolved tremendously. Those same three characters were still contained at the seal’s center, though it now included more barriers markings than she had ever incorporated into a seal before. This made sense, considering that she had never needed to so thoroughly control the output of a seal prior to this set of experiments—most objects stayed sealed fairly easily, and were released without anything more than a huff, because all she needed to do was relinquish the control of her chakra upon them.

When chakra itself was released, however, it refused to behave so simply.

She at least had a good feeling about this attempt.

Her eyes were burning in that way they did when she was running on too little sleep and too much sugar, given that the last thing she’d put into her mouth was a stomach-upsetting amount of hard candy (she had to get rid of what Granny Hinode had forced on to her somehow), and her sleep the night prior involved more tossing and turning than actual rest.

Therefore, when she finally pressed her pen to paper, and began noting that the seal had yet to dispel while being fed chakra more carefully than ever before (please please please work)—blinking away her double vision in the process—she was ultimately caught off guard by the presence that suddenly shunshined its way to her side.

Hana didn’t shriek, like every nerve ending in her body was telling her to do, but she did fall flat on her rear as she practically jumped out of her own skin.

Something had gone wrong with her clone in that exact moment, because her surroundings were at once filled with a loud pop, a whole lot of smoke, and too much mud for even her tastes. She had missed whatever error had just occurred in favor of making a fool of herself, and she blinked up at the boy who materialized in a combination of shock, embarrassment, and confused edge.

Shisui pursed his lips, covered up his laugh with a cough into his fist, and helped her up.

“I’m not sure what just happened, but good morning!” He said, sadistic delight all but bleeding into his tone.

Hana dusted herself off after finding her footing, wincing at the dejected puddle of mud. She gingerly picked up the now-wet seal, wiping it between her fingers and straightening it out as best as she could.

“My experiment.” She whined, pocketing the seal into her palms before finding the forgotten notebook and pen, which had been launched off somewhere to the side, to do the same. She looked at Shisui finally, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Oh ha ha, scare the girl with the sensitive chakra sense—very funny.”

“Sorry!” He said, though his grin gave off the impression that he wasn’t particularly remorseful at all. “It’s a habit. What were you working on, anyway?”

Hana considered him for a moment.

His chakra was bright and clear, a brilliant sensation of stinging heat, nothing like it had been the first time they had met. And, really, she should have been a bit angrier about the whole ordeal, given that her anticipation over finalizing her chakra-backed mud clones was all but boiling over, but it must have been the tired ache in her bones that was preventing her from being too upset.

She looked up at the sky, sighing at the sun’s position. It was much lower than she would’ve liked to see. “Nothing really. Just some sparring drills.” She lied.

Shisui stretched his hands above his head, cracking his back in the process. “Isn’t the academy on break right now? I know they shortened those because of the war, but wouldn’t you rather be sleeping in?”

She groaned internally. If only.

“Doesn’t hurt to stay ahead of the curve, I guess. My teacher keeps pairing me with stronger kids when we spar, anyway, and it’s becoming too much of a pain to ignore. Besides! You’re here, aren’t you?”

Shisui ignored the accusatory glare she sent him for his intrusion. “I take it you aren’t a fan of taijutsu?”

Hana blinked at the assumption. When had she implied that? She just wasn’t fond of how her academy instructors thought she hadn’t noticed the way they were slowly increasing the difficulty of her sparring partners, ever since her stint with Kato.

She just needed to start accounting for the fact that eventually, she would end up in a match with that unfortunate Hyuga girl with her sharp striking technique and pompous attitude. Said pale-eyed girl—who wore gauze wrapped across her forehead for some reason—was the only thing left standing between Hana and the number one spot of their year in taijutsu, even if Hana was painstakingly average in the majority of the remaining subjects.

How she would prepare for a match with an individual who readily caused their opponents to keel over in pain at the barest of touches, she wasn’t sure, but she could at least brace herself for the embarrassment that was sure to come from losing that fight.

“I don’t think I feel any particular way about it.” Hana shrugged. The sooner the boy lost interest in the conversation, the sooner she could get back to her experiment. If that meant that Hana had to continue delivering half-assed, uninterested responses to his questions, then she would do just that.

“Oh, so you’re the lazy type?”

Don’t take the bait.

“I’m not lazy. You’re the one who hogs the training ground by snoozing under trees!”

Shoot. I took the bait.

Shisui laughed, amused and affronted all at once. “I told you, I was just resting my eyes!”

“Resting your—“ Hana scoffed, crossing her arms. “Shouldn’t you be on a mission somewhere?” She shot back instead, ignoring the urge to argue that her interpretation of their first meeting was definitely the correct one, and not at all bothered by the jab that she was lazy, of all things.

Lazy? Of all the insults—lazy! I’ll show you lazy! Wait ‘till I figure out these clones!

Just gotta fix the chakra release issue, and make sure that the seal can properly hold the amount of chakra I need it to store, and make sure that the seal can actually attach to the clone for an extended period of time, and make sure that….

Shisui chuckled, letting the obvious attempt to send him away slide. “My team earned a day off, actually, so I was planning on getting some training in too.”

“Tough luck, then,” Hana said with a tight and not at all friendly smile, “because I claimed this spot first.”

He pouted at her outright, completely shameless in his utilization of some surprisingly well done puppy-dog eyes.

Hana huffed, twisting away from him. He didn’t relent, not even as Hana kept her gaze pointed firmly to the sky and busied herself with the clouds sweeping their way along.

He took to poking her in the ribs instead, and even as she attempted to smack his hands away, she didn’t manage to land a single hit. She was also trying and failing miserably to maintain an expression that showed she meant business, but Hana had to grit her teeth through a smile when Shisui managed to prod her where she was particularly ticklish.

To save her dignity, she chose to think that she had any say in the matter once she finally relented.

“Fine, fine! I have to work through some stretches, anyway, so I won’t be taking up too much space. Just don’t do any of those firey jutsu near me and I guess you can stay.”

“Firey?…“ Shisui quirked a brow at her before regaining his bearings. “Right. Sensor.”

He interlaced his fingers behind his head, strolling away as casually as ever.

“Got it! No ‘firey jutsu’, stay on my side of the field, and don’t bother you when you’re busy glaring at a clone for some weird reason! I think I can manage.”

Hana summoned a kunai in her palm and threw it at his feet. Shisui jumped back, shoving the lost kunai into his pouch with a laugh once it embedded halfway into the grass before him.

The pair took to opposite ends of the training yard, as promised, with Shisui on the side with the wooden posts and Hana on the emptier side closer to the forestry.

She did have some stretching to do—that part wasn’t a lie, especially because her level of flexibility was hard-fought. So, she began low on the floor, starting simple with individual reaches to her toes, before pressing her abdomen flat to the ground between her legs. From there, she did more reaches with her arms and multiple variable bends at her hips and knees.

Once warmed up, she moved on to contortions of greater intensity—splits with her back bent to reach her ankle, poses names after creatures like scorpions, cranes, and fireflies—all ones that Tama had taught her early on in her training.

Then, she stood back up to work through the more difficult motions, the ones that Obito and Rin had the most issues imitating, which they attributed to Hana having a lack of bones, spine, or any sort of internal organs whatsoever. She often found herself arguing that if they just kept up with her routine, they too could become as flexible as she was. But perhaps to an onlooker, bending so far back that your head nestled between your calves could be seen as off-putting and unattainable.

(What she didn’t tell them was that she used to complain just as much when she first started.)

Hana enjoyed stretching, particularly in the way that it doubled as sensory practice. Because despite balancing on her hands to suspend her legs in opposite directions, or seeing how long she could hold a needle stretch, or trying to keep her toes pointed while she held a plank with her forearms alone, Hana could simultaneously use the time to broaden her range and work on analyzing the many signatures in her periphery.

Usually, it wasn’t difficult to concentrate. But try as she did to ignore Shisui, his chakra was too much of a distraction not to latch on to. And that meant that despite attempting to give him his privacy, Hana had intimate knowledge of whatever training Shisui was currently doing.

He had started with shuriken throwing, increasing his distance from the wooden posts until he had to have been delusional to think that he could launch the throwing knives from such a distance accurately. But the subsequent thunks on the wood that resounded across the field told her that he had in fact been successful in his barrage, so Hana chastised herself for her own doubt.

Then, he began working on his speed. This was where her annoyance truly began, because his mad-dashes between the wooden posts interjected with tanto katas, even more shuriken throwing, and an array of wires which she had no idea how he was accurately handling all felt like a swarm of bees attacking her sense. There was no point in attempting to work on her range any longer, because the distraction that was typically far enough away to willfully ignore was now too up-close and personal for that.

Instead, she finished her stretching and decided there would be no point in putting off her clone experiments any further. Though Shisui had proven to be a rather attentive onlooker, he seemed harmless enough, and she figured that she could always downplay her elemental clones as no more than basic academy homework. She had a job to do, after all, and no overly-curious, heat-filled nuisance at her back was about to stop her from completing it.

(Thankfully, Shisui didn’t seem to want to practice any fire-based ninjutsu, so she had nothing to worry about when it came to her seals, her clothes, or—god forbid—her hair).

She did glance over every once in a while, just to be certain, in between bouts of rifling through her growing collection of notebooks. This of course had nothing to do with Hana trying to see if she could catch a glimpse of whatever hand signs he was using for that body flicker technique of his, nor anything to do with the fact that he was a definite show-off.

(So she let herself watch him, just for a little bit.)

At this point, Hana was unsure of what more modifications she could possibly make to her seal design. She had tried spiraling loops, reinforcing both the barriers and the borders, imitating standard storage seals and explosive tags alike—the works. So as she placed not one, but two of her seals where the hearts of her newly generated twin-clones should have been, watching carefully as they began various exercises to waste the chakra of their original creation, she could barely contain her anticipation.

And when the first clone was rejuvenated by the slow feed of chakra into its core—after being left sedentary due to its depleted levels—followed soon after by the second, she had no choice but to stare in genuine shock at the success.

And stare.

And stare.

A quick ‘bye, Shisui!’ trailed behind her as she sped home to show off to Tama, two clones in tow, without so much as waiting for the boy’s response. And that evening, in between bites of celebratory strawberry shortcake, the top of her notebook page featured the words Chakra Storage & Release Seal Experiment: Attempt #116: Success! alongside too many smiley faces and flowers doodled at the edge of the paper to be appropriate.

(Of course, she still had to test the amount of chakra that the seals could hold, which in and of itself would take weeks of channeling, as well as the potential differences in activity between a normally generated clone versus that of a chakra-supplemented clone—but it was a relief to know that after so much time put into her experiment, things were finally looking up.)

Maybe the nuisance in the training ground had been a good luck charm. Nevertheless, Hana slept soundly that night.

Notes:

- Chapter title based on an Arabic proverb, “La y’fell al-hadid il’la al-hadid”, which translates more directly to “nothing breaks iron other than iron”, meant to imply that it takes a strong, equally matched opponent to overcome a force
- I’m writing a slow burn that’s not even centered around the relationship until much later and yet I vibrate in anticipation of every shisui appearance like I didn’t willing write the story this way LMAO

Chapter 19: Wash This Blood Clean

Notes:

wrote most of this chapter while on the clock. Love yall, kudos and comments are very much appreciated, and I hope u guys like :)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

CLASSIFIED MISSION REPORT: HA-36

DATE: [REDACTED]
TIMEFRAME: [REDACTED]
LOCATION: LOF-176, LOR-17, LOR-18, LOR-19, RPK-29, BASE K-4

MISSION SUMMARY:

At 0305 HOURS, Operative HA departed Base K-4 and advanced towards RPK-29.

At 0837 HOURS, Operative HA arrived RPK-29 to retrieve PRE-PREPARED SEALED SCROLL containing EARTH-MADE [REDACTED] EQUIPMENT, EARTH-MADE RATION SUPPLIES, and EARTH-MADE [REDACTED] EQUIPMENT.

At 0900 HOURS, Operative HA advanced to LOR-17.

At 1745 HOURS, Operative HA arrived at LOR-17. Operative HA unloaded EARTH-MADE [REDACTED] EQUIPMENT within LOR-17 and proceeded to the next placement point.

At 1823 HOURS, Operative HA arrived at LOR-18. Operative HA unloaded EARTH-MADE RATIONS upon LOR-18 and proceeded to the next placement point.

At 1905 HOURS, Operative HA arrived at LOR-19. Operative HA unloaded EARTH-MADE [REDACTED] equipment to LOR-19 and proceeded to exfiltrate to Base K-4 without further incident.

All placement points underwent [REDACTED].

OUTCOME:

Mission Success

CASUALTY REPORT:

Operative HA: Minimal chakra depletion. No other injuries reported.

END REPORT
AUTHORIZATION: [REDACTED]

The counter for the kagi seal (or more accurately, the lock-key seal) took about a singular jar of ink to figure out—both in terms of how it worked, and how it could subsequently be bypassed.

The process was so easy, in fact, that Hana was stumped by the mere implication of the seal’s pitifully simple existence.

The rooms that she’d found the seals protecting must not have been all that important. Because otherwise, how a village could run on such basic sealing infrastructure was beyond her.

The only possible justification she could find was either that, or that there must have been a severe lack of fuinjutsu users to go around. Jonin tended to specialize prior to gaining the full title, giving them the tokubetsu rank according to their most outstanding skill, and she made a note to look into the most common specialty routes just to try and figure out if there were any fuinjutsu specialists at all.

If there weren’t any on record, that told Hana a few things. Most importantly, that she would spend the rest of her (hopefully short) ninja career self-teaching. If there were any, then the fact that a seven-year-old powered by juice boxes and candy on a few sleepless nights could figure out how to get past their designs was a scathing review of their capabilities.

(And if Hana was the only true fuinjutsu specialist around, then the art form was severely at risk, because her preferred route of application was to use fuinjutsu to get in as much trouble as humanly possible.)

Yet despite the risk of being caught, she still went on with her plan.

Recreating the kagi seal was step one, simply by redrawing the pattern she’d copied down on to the correct medium and sparing a few tries to get the stroke order correct. Having Safa channel his chakra into it, to lock it with his signature, was step two.

Attempting to counter the lock mechanism by forcefully jamming her unmodified chakra into the ink, and subsequently frying the seal into oblivion, was step three. Realizing that she couldn’t do that with the actual doorways—because it would leave evidence of her unwarranted entry—was step four.

(She made the mistake of placing the first kagi seal she was able to replicate on to her dresser drawer, because she didn’t have enough space to actually practice locking up a room and didn’t want to risk locking herself out of her own apartment. Upon attempting step three with it, she accidentally scorched the already aging wood—the tell-tale sign of a fuinjutsu error. The scorch marks were still there, because she kept putting off buffing them out.)

Step five was realizing that she could mimic an alternative chakra signature in the same manner that a person mimicked the ridges of a physical key when picking a lock. This she did by molding different levels of yin and yang chakra into the vacant space of the seal, until it recognized a known identity and cracked open.

That way, instead of relying on a precise alignment of pins to allow a cylinder to rotate like within an actual lock, she just had to feel for the accurate alignment of chakra within the seal’s ink.

It was a tremendous help that she could readily sense the difference between yin and yang chakra types. Yin, the spiritual energy, felt bright and airy. Yang, on the other hand, felt heavy and dense, and was every bit the physical energy that its namesake decreed.

They existed not as their own individual natures, but instead in a ratio within each individual, unchanging and permanent. Each soul had a singular capacity for how much spiritual energy versus physical energy it could maintain. The elemental affinities of the human body, however, were dependent on this proportion of yin and yang. Water natured individuals, for example, tended to have more yin than yang, whereas the opposing nature of fire required the opposite proportion.

It wasn’t standardized, though, and chakra natures occurred within ranges of the necessary yin-yang proportion. This she knew based on an analysis of the sheer amount of fire natured individuals in Konoha, who all were fire—just in different ways.

As such, individuals like Hana who could be slotted into two neighboring signatures just so happened to have yin-yang proportions right on the cusp of either affinity.

The academy had actually helped her here, because if the teachers had gotten one thing right, it was stressing why it was so difficult to mold chakra into jutsu that was opposite that of your nature—you had to go against the standard levels of yin and yang in your spirit, and isolate the correct proportions in order to generate the intended element as the output.

It was apparently as easy as swimming against a rip current. But, Hana barely knew any water and earth justu—let alone fire and lightning—so she couldn’t exactly confirm the comparison.

Chakra studies gave her a headache. However, chakra studies were also very, very useful, especially if you intended to painstakingly manipulate your own to help you break into a government building or two.

Step six was repeating the act of creating, then breaking, the lock-key seal about a hundred more times—each keyed with the signature of any tiger willing to spend a few minutes of their day to help Hana with her little experiment. She didn’t stop making and breaking the sample seals until she perfected the motion, and until she was absolutely sick of molding chakra in the process.

In fact, explaining why she needed a way to break into various document rooms was the hardest part. Safa was obviously on board, because any remotely dangerous activity received an enthusiastic ‘yes’ from him, if only to grant him the possibility of being called upon to participate. But Tama was a little harder to convince. She had outright refused to assist in any manner until Hana promised that she was using her skills for good.

(They just had slightly different definitions of what good entailed.)

That final okay was what landed her back within the tower hidden in plain sight, once again keeping herself suspended between the first and second floor while waiting patiently for the hallway to clear.

It was the same sour-faced woman’s visage that she’d chosen to wear to get in this time around, right after a change of guards who hadn’t seen the woman stomp her in way into the building earlier in the shift like Hana had. It was also that same earth jutsu, that same smothering seal, and that same sense of things being much easier than they had any right to be.

It was amazing to witness just what could be accomplished with enough of an air of confidence surrounding your person. That, or things were easy for a reason.

(There had to have been an explanation as to why ninja were constantly stationed around the academy classroom, watching the students with unblinking eyes. The single-minded purpose of scouting must have been a difficult one, because potential was immeasurable when you needed to differentiate between children who could kill at the drop of a hat, children who could sniff out those to be killed, and children who could both.)

Regardless, she wondered if the seals she would find would be any harder to crack than the ones she practiced at home, and whether or not she would have enough time to work through each one.

Hana could admit to the fact that she likely wouldn’t be able to get them all open, because her practice had come with the bias of a pre-disposed familiarity with the signatures being used to lock each seal. She would be happy as long as she was able to crack a few of them, enough so to at least orient herself to the purpose of the building—because she still didn’t know what exactly this hidden structure was for. Provided that the rooms she did manage to break into helped guide her towards whatever department housed the identity documents of Konoha citizens, then she would consider this self-imposed mission a job-well-done.

In fact, she had been spurred into action by her last Root assignment, which was about as easy as it was awful. The task had been nothing more than a job of loading and unloading. Except, what she was unloading was incriminating evidence that implicated an entire country in a crime which she couldn’t fully rationalize—a country that was already at war.

Hana figured this out once she took a peak inside the weapon’s crates she was told to transport to a few of the deserted military bases along the Land of Ravine’s southeastern border, only to find a collection of kunai with hooked edges. Upon closer inspection, she found boulder patterns engraved into each knife’s base, too.

Konoha-standard kunai would have had a spiral in that exact location, not rocks stamped into the metal.

There were also medicinal supplies, uniforms, and rations—all emboldened with the same foreign manufacturing labels, and in the wrong textures and the wrong cuts to be intended for Konoha ninja.

Other than that, she also had the job of making those bases look as though they were actively being used. That required making a few clones with differing shoe sizes, so that they could step around in the dust of the floors, as well as tossing around some empty canteens, spraying saltwater into the air, and shoving ration-wrappers into otherwise empty drawers.

She wasn’t exactly sure who could possibly reap the benefits of such an act, but the last time she tried to disregard a mission’s objective, she ended up digging through the dirt to rob body parts off of a freshly-dead corpse. So, she did as she was told and left it at that.

(Still, her own weapon stores now included a singular earth-made kunai, hooked edge and all, only because it looked really cool.)

The hallway went from four pairs of footsteps to three, then to none, which was her sign to finally pop out of her hiding spot with a wet squelch. She patted down the mud left behind with a few stomps of her sandals before speeding over to the first door that her eyes landed upon.

There was no pattern of movement that she could identify in the surrounding chakra signatures, so there was no telling just how much time she’d have at each door before she needed to hide again. She quickly channeled chakra to her fingertips, forcing the seal painted on the wood to materialize with a gentle tap.

Thankfully, it was that same kagi seal that surfaced, so there were no surprises there.

She preferred channeling a bit of yin chakra, first, because it was easiest for her to call upon and gave her a baseline to work with. When the seal sputtered, flashing a subtle glow of blue-green before withering out, she began adding yang chakra to the mix in increasing increments by calling upon her earth nature as steadily as she could.

Eventually, with some strain and a thoroughly furrowed brow, the seal began to pulse. The doorway slackened, and a subtle wind began to waft from the margins as the pressure of the barrier released. Hana pressed her shoulder to the wood, shoving her way inside before the fire-nature making its way around the corner caught her in the act of trespassing.

It was all boring, and it was all bullshit.

The first room had sparsely lined shelves whose documents detailed property rights in a decrepit district of one of Konoha’s northern-most neighborhoods.

The room after that was filled with jargon about zoning and border extension proposals coupled with he-said she-said letter transcripts for a collection of inheritance pleas made to the daimyo and to the hokage, over a plot of land with embarrassingly little square footage.

On that same floor, she also found building blueprints, housing district divisions, and clan allocations to various privatized training grounds.

Clearly, she was in the wrong spot. Thankfully, most of the rooms in this location required the same general mixture of yin and yang as the first room she’d tried, so that told her that whoever’s signature she was imitating was enough of a big shot in the housing and property department that they had access to all the document rooms on this floor.

Her next guess was to try her hand at the floor above, so another set of dragon-bird-ox hand signs were employed to melt her into the cement wall, and then let her shimmy her way further up. She could have just as easily done the same to get to one of the basement levels, where gravity would have made the journey a little less taxing, but she didn’t want to risk cutting through the busier main floor nor was she nearly as comfortable with being underground for any reason that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

Hana surfaced by an empty water cooler, greedily gulping down air in the process. The problem of breathing was one of the main drawbacks to the Subterranean Voyage jutsu, though it was low enough on her priority list that she just pushed through the chest aches and lightheadedness whenever the issue arose.

This floor, at least, was brighter than the second. The yellow-tinged lamps were instead replaced by a flickering fluorescent white. The hallways of the third floor were also notably decorated with various sun-bleached posters—strange for a building that didn’t have any windows in its upper levels. One in particular caught her eye, advertising a movie that she was sure had to have been screened in one of those amphitheaters of the daimyo’s court at least two great wars ago, because it touted new technicolor technology and a fresh-faced actress that she was sure was long dead.

There was also the itch.

Right at the nape of her neck, a hair-raising tickle that shot tingles down both of her arms, prickling goosebumps along her skin despite the fact that she was still half submerged in the floor and rather comfortable in her own mud.

And though a genjutsu couldn’t always be identified by visual cues alone, the foreign chakra invading her personal bubble and inking through her own pulsating sense was enough of a tell.

A genjustu.

An obvious one at that.

Great. She somehow managed to find herself in the middle of some sort of trap, one that was multi-layered with fuinjutsu barriers and genjutsu puzzles at every corner.

Unfortunately for whoever had set the stage, she wasn’t interested in playing along. So, she took a few more deep breaths before re-submerging herself to kick her way up to the next floor above.

No point in playing a game for a prize that she could even identify.

A bug.

A bug.

Hana didn’t make a sound, but her face contorted into something akin to witnessing an earth-shattering horror. She inhaled sharply, holding her breath and swallowing down the screech that was threatening to deafen both her ears and the ears of everyone on the floors above and below.

She told herself that bugs, especially hard-shelled creepy-crawlies like the one currently crawling up her pants leg, were a perfectly natural part of the environment. Of course a dusty document room would be filled with them, especially if you were flat under the metal racks and rolling around the rarely-cleaned tile floors.

Which she was, because the man who stumbled his way in to the room she was hunkered down in, after a curse of ‘stupid fuckin’ door’ while she was trying to decipher what on earth a penal code was and what it had to do with the military police, had forced her into hiding.

Despite the fact that she definitely was supposed to be keeping quiet, her breath still picked up. Hana waited impatiently, pursing her lips as the creature tickled its way along her hip bone, where she could reach down slightly finally and flick it away.

The six-legged insect skidded across the floor, landing directly in front of the sandals of the man who was coming dangerously close to her hide-out shelf. In fact, any closer, and he would surely spot the reflection of her eyes between the metal racks.

She kept her eyes on the bug rather than his approaching form, because it was much better than considering just how she would justify her current position if she was caught. It kicked its legs desperately before rolling over to crawl up and over the platform of his sandals and skittering across his toes.

“What the—“ the man stepped back, inhaling sharply as he hopped from foot to foot. “Shit! Fuck! Gross!”

The insect seemed happy where it was, and it wasn’t until he bent down to swipe at it that it sped away, thankfully not in Hana’s direction. The man stepped back, huffed, and promptly spun on his heel to force his way back out of the room.

“I hate this building, and I hate this job! Fuck! Fuck this place!”

He slammed the door behind him.

Hana wanted to snicker, but she managed to quell the urge.

(She spent a few more hours phasing between floors and forcing her way into more dusty rooms. In the end, the rooms she could manage to break into left her severely depleted of chakra and bleary-eyed, because even the simplest of jutsu could catch up to a person when employed too many times in a row.)

(She did eventually find what she was looking for: a file, one showcasing a recently deceased baby girl born in Konoha’s military hospital, having passed suddenly in her sleep only a few months later. She took the file with her, sealing away the last remaining evidence of citizen 4314429 in her palms.)

(The file had a picture, one of a red-faced and dark haired baby that looked nothing like Sara. Still, it would do just fine.)

Guilt was an uncomfortable thing.

It tasted sour, mostly, and upset her stomach in a way that made her grit her teeth. That, or she would have to vigorously shake her head back and forth to try and get thoughts of falsified faces and even faker voices out of her mind physically.

Yet no matter the method she tried, her guilt didn’t cease.

Her actions in the Uchiha compound were eating away at her, though she was having trouble differentiating between the guilt of wearing her friend’s face and acting in his name, versus the other things she did while also wearing a mask.

It didn’t help that she found herself in the Uchiha compound again, walking swiftly forwards while heavily weighed down by the sensation of being watched, and the feeling that at any moment now someone was going to accuse her of the very things that she did, in fact, do.

Though rather than the odd looks that she used to get when she first befriended Obito (which were often due to the fact that she would race him down the stone-paved streets and only narrowly dodge the clan members) or when she first waltzed her way into the compound for some much needed odds and ends (without even asking for permission), she couldn’t pinpoint anybody who actually seemed bothered by her presence.

Still, she rushed the rest of the way before she could psyche herself out.

Hana was even lucky enough to catch someone exiting the main door of Obito’s apartment building, slipping in behind the old lady and her hunched back who held the door open for Hana with a gummy smile. Because of that, she didn’t need to throw rocks at the boy’s window to be let in.

She made her way up quickly, taking two steps at a time, and knocked thrice on his door without a second thought. She hadn’t seen Obito since their last training session alongside Rin, and she didn’t want to risk meeting him at school only to have her words lodged in her throat at the mere sight of him.

And aside from hoping to rip the bandage off by catching him on her own time, she also had a request to make.

Or two.

He opened the door in a flurry of motion, caught off guard by her sudden intrusion against a typical lack of visitors. Other than the ones Hana already knew of, like appointments scheduled by his landlord to check in on the state of the place, or visits to drop-off food arranged by his many distant relatives, she didn’t think Obito saw anyone other than Rin and her on a regular enough basis to prevent his surprise.

He was in his sleep clothes, rumpled after what was likely a day spent lazing around at home. His hair was tussled too, sticking up in even messier spikes than it usually did. And he smiled at her, bright and unreserved and not at all like the way she practiced in the mirror when she was pretending to be him.

“Oh! Hey, Hana-chan! Where have you been?”

She spared a few moments to just look at him, and thought hard about what she wanted to say.

“Can I have a hug?” She asked instead of responding with any sort of normal greeting, quick and nervous . It was unplanned, tumbling from her lips and making her wince at how pathetic she sounded even to her own ears.

Obito tilted his head to the side, furrowing his brows. “Huh?”

Hana swallowed.

“Can I… um…Can I have a… hug?” She repeated again, somehow quieter the second time around. She was gripping her wrist behind her back, digging clawed fingers into the soft skin of her pulse point.

“You’re so weird, Hana. You’re the weirdest girl I know.” Obito laughed, though his tone told her that he was being genuine and not at all like he was making fun of her, because he was as warm as ever when he reached his arms around her shoulders to wrap her up in a bear hug that lifted her heels off of the ground.

Warm and safe. Weird. He somehow smelled like grass, sunshine, and a soft breeze all in one—which was refreshing considering that Hana had been having trouble getting the smell of iron out of her nostrils these last few days.

“You only know two girls.” She grumbled into his shoulder, patting his back awkwardly once she managed to wiggle her arms around his waist. “So I’m choosing not to take offense to that.“

“I know girls!” He argued back once he put her down. “Lots!”

Hana wasn’t convinced, because she had more than enough evidence to support the contrary. “Uh huh. Sure you do.”

“Hanaaaa.” He groaned. “Don’t tell me you came over just to make fun of me!”

His actions didn’t match his words though, because he pulled her inside despite his exasperation at her sarcasm.

“Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to grab some dango, my treat, but if you want me to leave…” She trailed off, twisting away so he wouldn’t see the sly smile splitting across her face.

“No!” He shot out, grabbing at her forearms to force her back around before she could take even a single step towards the door. “Go ahead! Make fun of me all you want! Let’s go get dango right now!”

“We can stop by my place after too, if you want to hang out with my sister for a bit.” She added after a nod, rocked back and forth on her heels and shoving her hands into her pockets. “And do you think you could also bring your camera? It’s pretty neat.”

Obito would have agreed to come along no matter what Hana said, she knew, but seeing it play out was still a bit jarring. He rushed around, tossing his shirt over his back before switching into something much less wrinkled. Then, he darted back towards her, tripping into his sandals before remembering to grab a pair of goggles from his desk.

He dragged Hana along as he locked the door behind him, which she was glad that she didn’t have to remind him to do, and pulled her the rest of the way out of the apartment building as he rambled on and on about the new kinako dango at the stall by the entryway of the Uchiha compound.

She wasn’t paying enough attention to chime in. She was instead thinking about how on earth she was lucky enough to meet someone like Obito.

What had she done to earn his confidence, his trust? Had she done anything that warranted his friendship, as he’d earned hers with his honesty and his earnest kindness?

She was supposed to be making friends. She was supposed to be integrating fully into the academy. It had been easy, because all Hana had to do was pretend that she really was a student, and that she really did want to be a ninja. The academy didn’t make that particularly difficult.

And when it came to Obito, all she had to do to earn his friendship was simply pay him just a little bit of mind.

(It took only that first afternoon of ceaseless chatter for Hana to come to the conclusion that she’d do anything for the boy, goggles and all.)

(And in all actuality, deep down, she knew that the fact that she’d already done that, by going out of her way to risk her position and eliminate targets targeting him , was what was really weighing on her. Particularly because she still wholeheartedly believed that her actions were in the right. That was what was so frightening.)

“So! First and most importantly, you have to load the film.”

Hana nodded along.

“And the battery is built into the film cartridge, so you don’t have to worry about any of that, either!”

She nodded again, leaning over Obito’s shoulder to get a better view of the camera in his hands. It was old, with the inscriptions faded and all but rubbed off, but he held it with a sort of reverence that made her afraid to even look at it too hard.

“Then, you open the film door by pulling this switch here.” He pointed at the camera’s side, pressing a ledge and popping a front-facing slot open.

Hana ooohed dramatically.

“And you load it in with the dark side facing up…”

Hana ahhhed for effect, watching carefully as he slipped the cartridge into its slot with a subtle click, making Obito roll his eyes as he nudged her in the stomach with his elbow.

“So, how do you wanna do this?” He asked, after fiddling with the camera some more for Hana’s viewing pleasure.

They both looked over at Sara, who was in the middle of her favorite pastime of chewing on her own fists.

“Let’s see…” Hana thought aloud, scooping the baby in her arms and managing to carefully balance her into a standing position.

“I guess I could just hold her up for a few seconds, and then you could try and get her attention, and snap the picture then?”

Obito nodded resolutely. “Got it!”

He brought the camera up to his eye, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration.

“Okay, Hana-chan. Just duck a little ‘cause I can still see the top of your head.”

Hana did as she was told, lying flat on her stomach while holding the baby up by her waist.

She thought she heard Obito snort, but she couldn’t really tell because she currently had a face full of wooden planks. Sara squirmed in her hold, starting to get fussy at being kept in place for so long.

“And then I guess I’ll just…” Obito began making some odd noises above her, some ‘mmmm’ sounds that told her he was probably sticking his tongue out, then some ‘eurgghh’ sounds that implied he was making some funny faces.

It was working, because the baby was giggling, and her attention was no longer on Hana’s hands.

Click!

“Got it! She was looking right at me, so it should look great!’

Hana let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding as she moved to sit up. “Thanks. I’m sure it’ll look fine.”

“Uh huh! I’ve never really tried taking portraits, but it’s fun to practice, and that way I can—“

Hana had tuned him out, because she was frozen in place as she watched her sister make a genuine attempt to keep her balance. She had kept her hands hovered around the baby’s waist, just to catch her if she fell, though Hana had an inkling that that wouldn’t be the case.

Obito had already shoved the photograph under his shirt, and was now rambling about film development, so he didn’t notice the baby taking a singular wobbly step in his direction. Nor did he notice the second and third wobbles that came afterwards, and was none the wiser to Sara’s first steps, up until the moment Sara’s chubby arms grasped for the boy.

He froze then, too, before opening his arms wide so that the baby could make the rest of the journey towards him, where he scooped her up into a hug until the realization dawned on him as well.

“Hey Hana?”

It took her an embarrassingly long time to respond. “Yeah?”

“Does your sister know how to walk?”

Hana shook her head no. No, the baby still didn’t know how to walk, no matter how many times Hana had tried to demonstrate, or teach her exercises straight from useless parenting guides, or watch her instead of asking the tigers to do so in her place.

Obito furrowed his brow, blinking back and forth between the pair of sisters. “Does that mean that she just figured it out?”

“Uh huh.” Hana nodded, still processing the information herself.

She didn’t even ask as she summoned a sleep cot, one that was new and only recently acquired, setting it up for him as they continued arguing over which dango flavor was better.

Hana insisted that it was obviously strawberry, which was the sweetest of the bunch. But, Obito argued that without the green tea dango, the multi-colored stick wouldn’t have a proper balance of flavor.

She wondered why he couldn’t apply such analytical reasoning to things like chakra theory in class, but it wasn’t like passion could be falsified, so she shrugged it off.

They slept like that, with Hana leaning over the edge of her bed to continue their chatter, keeping it going until the early hours of the morning when blue light began forcing its way through her curtains, and the dark-feathered bird who demanded her attention every morning began squawking at her windowsill.

Obito was snoring, only recently having dozed off, and she was definitely planning on teasing him for it later.

(She told herself that the fact she missed him and felt bad about what she had done was the only reason why she invited him over. But Obito had both a camera and a body. A camera capable of photographing her sister for an identification document. A body which could very well prevent some unwanted night-time visitors. Her reasoning was simply layered.)

(Her overarching mission objective had said to develop bonds. Friendships invited sleepovers, and said sleepovers could just so happen to prevent Root from shipping her off in the dead of the night. If friendships offered more, she didn’t think she was doing anything wrong by taking advantage of that.)

(She really had to stop finding loopholes in her mission objectives.)

Notes:

- Title from Macbeth: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.”
- ‘kagi’, can mean both ‘lock’ and ‘key’ in Japanese, so my idea was that the seals on the document rooms act as both the lock upon the door and the channel for the ‘key’ (chakra signature) that can unlock them
- Canon treated yin and yang as chakra natures in addition to the basic elements. I feel like that falls flat when you consider how medicinal chakra works. If yang were its own nature, then medics needing fine control is undermined at least somewhat
- Instead, my headcanon as to how yin/yang work with the elemental natures is that everyone has some natural levels of both yin/yang, and their chakra nature manifests as a result of whatever that proportion is. You can then isolate them from your chakra nature with proper control to be applied

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M4KKIN_88 on Chapter 1 Tue 01 Apr 2025 04:34AM UTC

This is amazing!! Please continue with your writing. I have been searching for Shisui Uchina fics for so long.

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 1 Tue 01 Apr 2025 06:01PM UTC
  
  OMG same!! I love Shisui, and I spent so long looking for fics of him that I really liked until I finally sat down and wrote one myself 😋 don’t worry, there’s more to come!! Thank you for your comment 💗💗
  
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Junyahui on Chapter 1 Mon 07 Apr 2025 12:09AM UTC

This is so good!! Lollll this fic is becoming a reason for me to return to the Naruto fandom.
Thank you for sharing!

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 1 Mon 07 Apr 2025 02:30AM UTC
  
  I’m so glad you’re enjoying it, thank you so much 💗💗 I just recently got back into Naruto as well and the urge to write a fanfic completely overcame me lol
  
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M4KKIN_88 on Chapter 1 Mon 16 Jun 2025 01:35AM UTC

Amazing !!! Please more ❤️❤️

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 1 Sun 22 Jun 2025 08:14PM UTC
  
  👍🏻❤️❤️
  
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Vamps4Vamps on Chapter 2 Sun 08 Jun 2025 05:49PM UTC

This is beautiful. I'm in love with the way you write and how you describe war in all its sadness! Ah!

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IAintTrynaDoxxMyself on Chapter 2 Tue 29 Jul 2025 01:04PM UTC

I really like this! Shame her parents are dead but I get it for plot purposes. Good thing she went on her walk.

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Tsuki (Guest) on Chapter 3 Sat 22 Feb 2025 06:29PM UTC

Enjoying this so far, interesting to see other cultures applied in to the universe. Keep up the hard work!!

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 3 Sat 22 Feb 2025 06:35PM UTC
  
  Thanks for ur comment <3 I'm glad u like it
  
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Tazzman on Chapter 4 Thu 17 Apr 2025 12:39AM UTC

im loving this!! i hope she gets her sister back :(

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NightlyRowenTree on Chapter 4 Thu 04 Sep 2025 11:33AM UTC

Why didnt she just go with the baby and the summon to there land???? Like the baby and tiger

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 4 Thu 04 Sep 2025 07:33PM UTC
  
  lol that’s a great point. Mostly it’s for plot purposes bc I wanted her to stay involved with ninja somehow, but within story I would say that’s she’s just scared of getting caught using jutsu by other Root agents or scared of being hunted down for leaving afterwards
  
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Justkelsey on Chapter 5 Tue 25 Mar 2025 05:51PM UTC

Love this story! I love how you used tigers as a summon and the way you write flows so well, very interested in seeing where this goes, please update soon!

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 5 Wed 26 Mar 2025 03:44PM UTC
  
  I’m so glad you’re enjoying the story!! I love the concept of summons, and I love tigers, so I just had to include them! I will be doing my best to update weekly🫡 💗 thank you for your comment 💗
  
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rewindhoney on Chapter 5 Wed 26 Mar 2025 12:11AM UTC

I love the sisters so much 😭
If they separate them I gonna cry for a whole week

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 5 Wed 26 Mar 2025 03:49PM UTC
  
  I’m so happy you like the sisters!! I was worried that it would be too many OCs off the jump, so this is very reassuring 💗💗
  
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2. 1. rewindhoney on Chapter 5 Wed 26 Mar 2025 04:36PM UTC
    
    They're my Sheilas now 🥹
    
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Wersdondo on Chapter 5 Wed 26 Mar 2025 09:36AM UTC

Really enjoying the story so far, not usually the nicest fan of root stories since they usually just take on place under konoha for 90% of the story but I'm liking that's she's having to enter in to the wider ninja population.

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 5 Wed 26 Mar 2025 03:56PM UTC
  
  I’m so glad you like my approach to Root!! I’ve always felt that it would make sense for the organization to have at least a few members hidden in plain sight, especially considering how much political power Danzo’s had. Thank you so much for your comment 💗💗
  
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Sunn__y on Chapter 5 Wed 26 Mar 2025 10:23AM UTC

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 5 Wed 26 Mar 2025 03:53PM UTC
  
  😋😋💜💜💜
  
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Gojo’s Left Ball (Guest) on Chapter 6 Sat 29 Mar 2025 08:42PM UTC

The name thing is very interesting bc I definitely was also mispronouncing it in my head

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 6 Sat 29 Mar 2025 11:17PM UTC
  
  I waited to describe her name on purpose lol!! 💗 thank you for reading and leaving a comment. Also, your name is killing me
  
  Last Edited Sat 29 Mar 2025 11:52PM UTC
  
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Sunn__y on Chapter 6 Sun 30 Mar 2025 06:27AM UTC

　へへ
ఇ =◝‿◜=ఇ

Last Edited Sun 30 Mar 2025 06:29AM UTC

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 6 Sun 30 Mar 2025 08:02PM UTC
  
  💗💗💗
  
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Banchou on Chapter 6 Sun 20 Jul 2025 03:25PM UTC

Just wanted to say that I love the way you narrate your story

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 6 Sun 20 Jul 2025 11:58PM UTC
  
  Thank you so much!! That’s so kind of you to say 💗💗
  
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Plushiery on Chapter 6 Mon 25 Aug 2025 02:43PM UTC

Author why are u 8 why are u ball and why are u baby

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 6 Thu 28 Aug 2025 01:45PM UTC
  
  When I made my account, I was listening to the song “8-ball” by pop smoke, and I just picked “eighballbaby” randomly as a result because “eightball” on its own was taken lol 😋
  
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Ameterasu53 on Chapter 7 Tue 01 Apr 2025 08:30PM UTC

love it.

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 7 Tue 01 Apr 2025 10:10PM UTC
  
  Thank you 😭💗
  
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Ghibli08 on Chapter 7 Tue 01 Apr 2025 11:15PM UTC

I love this

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1. eightballbaby on Chapter 7 Wed 02 Apr 2025 12:50AM UTC
  
  Thank you 💗💗 I’m glad you enjoyed!!
  
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