Time Goes Too Fast
Kakashi had heard of war games before. They weren’t an exactly foreign concept, per say, but they certainly hadn’t caught on in Konoha. Between the Sandaime, who had always pushed as hard as he could for the maintenance of peace, Minato, who had come out of a war wanting nothing more than to never see a child fight one again, and Tsunade, another war veteran with no desire to encourage it, the practice was one used only in ANBU, and only a few times as a training exercise.
Chae-Seon and Suigetsu, however, had enraptured his team with their war game. The rules had been explained after the first round had failed miserably, barely a challenge for Suigetsu and Chae-Seon. Since then, the game had been an everyday occurrence.
The rules were fairly simple. They constituted one team, a pair up, and Kakashi’s team would have to either capture one, or land what could be considered a potential kill-shot on them. Any attack was fair, but if it could genuinely kill then it had to be cancelled before actual impact, unless it was effectively blocked or cancelled out. Suigetsu made noises about this just being for ‘soft little Konoha pansies’, making it so Chae-Seon had to assure Naruto and Sasuke that there was no way they considered them soft. Kakashi didn’t buy it for a second.
At the end of it, the group was collectively exhausted. Chae-Seon and Suigetsu were leaning against a post while the other three were laying in the grass.
“How are you not dying?” Karin was an interesting character. When she had first joined the team, she had been hesitant and unsettled. Settling into Konoha had been difficult, it appeared.
Meeting her cousin changed a lot of that, and now she was more than comfortable with her team.
Suigetsu scoffed. “We’ve got a literal demon on our team back home. He’s ruthless.”
“Aw, come on. Dae-Suk isn’t that bad.” The shit-eating grin on Chae-Seon’s face told Kakashi she was being deliberately coy.
“I’m not talking Dae-Suk, and you know it.
“Haku literally stuck me in the ass with a senbon once in training and pretended he had no idea why you and Dae-Suk were laughing. And that’s just the fuckin’ tip of the iceberg with him. I’m telling you, he has this whole innocent act going and he’s not. That. Innocent.”
Kakashi, for one, hadn’t thought about Haku in several years, rather preoccupied with keeping his team alive. Now, though, he had to wonder how the young man had adjusted to being back in the country he had run from.
“That’s enough about your kinky sex life, Jong-Min.” Where Riko’s sense of humor had been wit and snark, and Ren’s had been biting and cold, Chae-Seon’s was very much a teasing brand of sass.
“Wait, Ri-chan, you work with Haku?”
“Yeah.” Chae-Seon shrugged. “He’s nice enough off the training field, but he’s a fucking taskmaster.
“He was in charge of a mission I was on once… I’m not allowed to do infiltration with him ever again.”
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because my missions go to shit, and Haku was so concerned I was going to die he accidentally froze our target, exposing us and killing him before we could drag him back to T&I. We missed out on what could have been a trove of good intel.”
“Is that one declassified yet?” Suigetsu looked a bit concerned, prompting Kakashi to begin worrying. Chae-Seon could be executed if she had accidentally revealed information to foreigners.
“I don’t know. Probably. Most of my non-solo, specialized missions were.”
Suigetsu shrugged. “True. And that one’s pretty well-known. Since Mei likes you anyway, if you fucked up she’ll probably just do a retroactive declassification.”
“True.” Chae-Seon shrugged, being inappropriately nonchalant about possibly having revealed classified information.
Kakashi was so proud. Worried, but proud.
It had taken three days for Ino to find out the female Kiri shinobi in town was actually Riko, and she was going to kill Shikamaru as soon as she saw him.
First, however, she had to find her friend. They had split apart a bit after the Academy, and then she had disappeared. No way was Ino letting her get away that easy. She wanted a spar with the girl, and she wanted it as soon as she could get it. She had been taking her training seriously the last two years, and Riko had always been so strong.
She was going to match her one day, she just needed to know how far she had to go yet.
“You’re taking me to your sister!”
“Ino!”
Asuma-sensei sighed from the side. “Shikamaru, you could have saved yourself all this pain. Just show her where Riko is, please?”
“Yeah!” Ino smirked. “Sensei said you had to!”
“He did not!” Shikamaru scowled. “Fine. But only so you stop pestering me.”
He wouldn’t want anyone to know he lost his cool. Which is exactly why she was going to tell Kiba and Naruto as soon as she saw them – they were the loudest shinobi in the village, after all.
Jae-Un glared the Konoha man down.
“You said you would teach me Japanese.”
The man faltered. “What? Could you repeat that?”
“You saaaid you would teach me Japanese.”
He perked up. “Oh! Whenever you want to um… um… read… no… work! Whenever you want to work on it, let me know.”
“How about right now?”
She didn’t give him time to answer – or for Jeong-Hwa to protest as she pushed her newest teacher to the board and chucked him a piece of chalk.
“Why are all your friends so boring?” Suigetsu leaned his head against a tree, groaning. Her brother’s team had decided to drag them away from Team 7 in the middle of the afternoon, the walk going towards the merchant district of Konoha. “What is wrong with this place? Is it all the sunshine? Is it how dry it is?”
“Chill, Oppa. It’s not a big deal.”
Shikamaru shifted. “Why do you call him that?”
Chae-Seon and Suigetsu paused. “Huh?”
“Why do you call him ‘oppa’?”
Ino raised a brow, “What’s it mean?”
“It’s just a term for friends.”
“No it’s not!” Shikamaru didn’t get angry, not when they were kids, and not now. Whatever was going on, Ino wasn’t sure how to handle it.
“It is!” Chae-Seon was suddenly tense, and Ino felt extremely uncomfortable. This was a family fight, this was a private fight.
“How can you say that? You literally call him your older brother!”
Ino’s eyes widened. Chouji had stopped eating. Something like this was so far from appropriate for the public. Why were they having this fight in front of people?
“It doesn’t just mean ‘older brother’, though!” Chae-Seon was tense. “It’s just a term of endearment for an older male friend.
“You haven’t been living in Kiri. You barely know Korean, you don’t know the culture.”
“Bullshit!”
“Spending time in the refugee quarter doesn’t count, and you know it! Besides, those people are civies! You think they’d know shit about shinobi culture in Kiri?
“Shikamaru, you’re my brother. I love you. But Suigetsu is my brother-in-arms. He’s taken blows for me, he’s dragged me out of the fight, and he’s thrown me in the medics’ tent when I was too exhausted to move. Through the most fucked up experiences of my life, he was there.”
Shikamaru was pale. Ino had never seen him ruffled, never seen him let on that something bothered him. And now he was pale, he was looking at Chae-Seon like something was clicking into place, something he had known but hadn’t understood.
Ino could see it. He was a man who made a habit of knowing whatever he could so he could strategize. He always knew what was at stake, how to work around an obstacle.
But this was something he hadn’t really understood, and for the first time he couldn’t know everything about the situation without understanding.
“He was there.” Shikamaru repeated Chae-Seon’s last words. “He was there, and he protected you. He had your back. He was your comrade.”
Something passed between the siblings. Suigetsu was scrunching his nose at the two.
“I swear, Deongsaeng, if you get all emotional and shit I’m grinding your ass in the dust and laughing at your pain.”
Suddenly she and Suigetsu were fighting, shoving and shouting and laughing through it all.
Ino glanced at Shikamaru, relaxing finally as she saw the look on his face. The smirk was small, and he was still shaken, but it was there. Shikamaru could see his error, he had adjusted as needed. And now he was enjoying having his sister in-village for the first time in two years.
“Hey! Shark-face! Don’t think that just ‘cause I’m from Konoha I’m any weaker!” Ino stood up and ran in to fight alongside Riko. After all, teamwork was one of the things Konoha was most known for.
Haku forgot what quiet was like. Between Chae-Seon’s explosive luck and Jong-Min’s explosive personality there was very little space for quiet. Add that to the backdrop of a war, and quiet had ceased to exist in Haku’s world.
And now it had returned. It was peaceful, still, serene like the times he would go to gather herbs for himself or Zabuza, or times when he was awake on watch.
He hated it. It was too still, too peaceful. There should be sound crashing somewhere. There should be sound. It wasn’t just the absence of Chae-Seon and Jong-Min, it was the stillness. It was so pervasive, and as much as Haku loved that the country was finally at peace, he hated being trapped in the stillness. He didn’t realize how mobile his world had been until it was still.
The genin helped. They were all energy and excitability they didn’t know how to channel. They worked their issues with the world out with steady progress, working themselves into the ground one day and then using the exhaustion the next day to their advantage.
They were all reflections of the adults around them, as much as they were their own individuals. He didn’t like to think about it, but it was true. They were, as himself, his team, and their associates were, traumatized by the war. Haku saw people in colors, and the war had crept into their souls, and it had stained them. They were red with shed blood, gray with tears and mourning, and a burning white-blue fire of anger.
The green of naivete and the yellow of youthful joy had run out of them as they soaked themselves in the swamps.
These girls were no exception, but it was sadder to see. The youngest among them was ten, the oldest a mere twelve, and they had been thrust into a life the rest of them had willingly chosen.
War had no color as far as Haku could tell. He had learned that people bore their colors in their tattoos, their clothing, and their language, but war had none of those. It just had blood, and mud, and ripped clothing.
It had his childhood and his adolescence, and it marred all of his friends. And the worst of it was that now he had the peace he wanted, but he felt himself still in that void of no color that he had grown in. Peace was no different, but it required different skills.
“Seonsaengnim, you’re thinking too hard again.”
Mi-Na had taken to him quickly. She was quiet and reveled in the silence he used to teach her with. He had her practice meditations to improve her chakra control, he had her research history and science and math on her own time, giving him papers about that afternoon’s topic as she went. He almost didn’t want Chae-Seon to come back and take this from him, as though he couldn’t ask her to let him keep working with her genin.
“Ah. Let me see yesterday’s research again, then.”
She passed him the papers. She had a limited supply, and paper, while coming into the country in higher quantities, was still expensive for a genin. Haku would have to get her some more one day.
Her handwriting was cramped into the narrowest margins she could safely use. The research was thorough, and much of the writing was abbreviated as much as possible. Mi-Na was particular, but she was ruthlessly efficient. Of the three genin, he knew she would be the one snapped up for research or T&I the fastest.
He had talked one night, late at night, with Chae-Seon. It was more uncommon in Kiri than in other places not to specialize in something. The force was so small, and the country itself so scattered that it was impractical to not have entire wings of specialization. Chae-Seon was hardly the only Infiltration and Assassination specialist, and Haku was nowhere near the only poisons and medicine specialist.
These three were, like all genin taught during the war, groomed for a specialty. Ji-Su would likely be one of their diplomats or guards. She had the temperament of the heiress she had been born to play, and it would match well with the more formal cultures around Kirigakure. Mi-Na, they knew, would likely end up in Torture and Interrogation or in Research and Development. Either of those departments would jump for a girl as bright and efficient as she was.
Haku hadn’t voiced it, but he had a sinking feeling it would be the former. Her complete devotion to a task until its completion made her well-suited to their needs. He had even heard some of the members talking about the genin teams that were forming around Kiri and which ones they thought would be best for their work. There was no way to be sure, but from what he had heard, she was one of their top picks.
It was Jae-Un that was most at risk. She was a brawler, like Suigetsu, but she had the kind of mental acuity that would likely get her drafted into the next Seven Swordsmen group under the best scenario. Under the worst scenario, though, she could be thrown into the Frontmen, a group of frontline fighters that had a depressingly high soldier turnover and death rate.
He doubted Chae-Seon would let that happen, but there was still the concern. If someone requested her and the Mizukage approved it, there was no way for her, even as their teachers, to force it back. There was no fighting the decision once it was made, and for good reason. Teachers were protective of their students, and they tried to get the best positions for them. Too much of that could weaken Kiri, though, and everyone knew there had to be at least a few front line fighters.
Haku would do what he could to keep her out of the Frontmen. He knew Chae-Seon and Soo-Jung would too.
It was just a matter of luck after that. Something Chae-Seon wasn’t exactly known for.
Shikaku noticed the tension between his kids almost immediately. Even if he and Chae-Seon didn’t speak much upon entering Konoha, he had picked up a few tells that she hadn’t eliminated. Subtle shifts of her weight or twitches of her muscles that had been honed down into something barely noticeable, something many would ignore in battle.
“Alright, sit down.”
Yoshino nodded, thanking him as she finished dinner.
Shikamaru followed his order, Riko leaned against a wall, gesturing for Suigetsu to sit outside.
“I said sit down, Riko.”
“Chae-Seon.” She followed the order, but didn’t seem to notice the correction she had made.
“Chae-Seon, then.” Shikaku looked between the two. “What’s wrong?”
Something in Chae-Seon relaxed where she sat while Shikamaru seemed slightly uncomfortable. “He’s got a stick up his ass, that’s what.”
“I do not!”
Shikaku gestured for Shikamaru to be quiet. “And why do you say this?”
“Because he gets mad about a nickname. Who does that? You’re a shinobi, you shouldn’t be worried about what nicknames my comrades and I give each other.”
“But you literally called him ‘older brother’.”
Shikaku could see where this was going. “Is that what ‘oppa’ means?”
Chae-Seon rolled her eyes. “Not you too! That’s one meaning. It has other meanings too!”
Shikaku shook his head. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing.” Shikaku looked to Shikamaru. “Do you know why I’m so close with Inoichi and Chouza?”
“Because you guys were a Genin team.”
Shikaku shook his head. “Not entirely.
“Genin teams aren’t supposed to get along. You’re supposed to learn to get along with people you don’t necessarily like and how to work with them, because diplomacy is a necessary skill for a shinobi. No one will ever say it, but that’s why we typically put two academically successful genin with the dead last, why we put the lazier with the driven, and why we put the more high-maintenance with the more low-maintenance. If you can get along with people you don’t necessarily like – if you can make friends with those people, even – you have an invaluable skill that can’t be taught in the Academy.
“Chae-Seon, you have a Genin team, correct?”
Chae-Seon nodded.
“And are they all compatible personalities?”
She shrugged. “Not really. If they were here I imagine they wouldn’t have spoken much. It’s the war that got them to work together so well.”
Shikaku nodded. “And that’s what happened with my team, why we became successful. The war hit shortly after we graduated, and we were soldiers. We couldn’t squabble on the battlefield – it would have gotten all three of us killed.”
“Shikamaru, I never want you to see war. I didn’t want Riko to see war. It’s terrible.
“But she has seen war, and that brings teams together, it’s a shared trauma. It’s not uncommon to consider the people you serve with as close as family. Those bonds don’t just go away, and it takes a lot to break them once they’re formed.”
“So you’re saying that she’s basically adopted that asshole?”
Chae-Seon laughed. “Nah. He adopted me. But yeah, you’re stuck with him.”
Shikaku shook his head. He could see it in his son’s eyes, his point had gotten across. There was a clearer understanding of the situation.
“Ugh. He better be good at Shogi, then.”
“Nope. He sucks worse than a dead man.”
“What?”
“You know, really bad?”
Shikaku glanced at her. “But how does that phrase even make sense?”
Chae-Seon waved her hand in the air, not gratifying a response. “It’s just a phrase, don’t overthink it.”
“I knew it. He’s made you dumber.” Shikamaru sighed. “Why do you always befriend troublesome people?”
“Life is more interesting that way.”
The groans that followed Chae-Seon as she left were slightly more positive. His son would have to process it, but Shikamaru was at least a bit less tense than he had been when they started.