six.
A stray thought occurred to Finch.
I don’t want to die.
He hadn’t really thought about this before. He didn’t have a specific reason to continue living, he was of no real importance, but despite this, he wanted to live.
What would I do if I was free?
Lying in a rapidly cooling pool of his own blood, Anbu Finch had the strangest urge to cry.
Danzo-sama discouraged crying, emotional shinobi were weak and irrational. Emotions got you killed in the field. Emotions could also get you killed if Danzo thought you were annoying and killed you. But Finch knew from the creeping coldness in his limbs and the start of a tingle on his tongue he was dying. So with no one to see him, he let himself tear up a little. When was the last time I cried? It had to have been a couple of years at least. His mask lay discarded across the road-turned-battleground where he cast it away to spit a glob of blood to the side.
Finch wondered absently if the hawk bearing the target’s body scroll would make it back to Konoha before the seal on his tongue cremated him. His partner was already nothing but a lingering wisp of chakra, the only proof of her death was the smear on the rocks. Silly Mirai got caught in a wind jutsu.
In the end, Finch had only barely completed his mission parameters.
Danzo-sama had gotten wind of a missing nin from Taki and snatched up the mission before the regular anbu corps got to it. The nin had a kekkei genkai supposedly, but Finch now knew from the missing chunk of his leg and the punctured lung that it was just a clever use of chakra threads. Even if the nin couldn’t be captured alive, Danzo at least wanted the body so he could throw it to his pet snake to deconstruct the kekkei genkai.
If only the mission had been given to the anbu research division instead of Root then maybe, maybe Finch would have made it back. Danzo-sama made a mistake-
Such a treasonous thought.
He really must be dying if the seal was allowing such thoughts to form. The familiar cold and fatigue of chakra loss sinks deep into his bones, but he forces his eyes to stay open, to look at the blue sky and the tops of the trees without the genjutsu barrier of his mask.
But there's no one here to tell on me he giggles wetly. How silly. A bubble of snot and blood from his nose pops and he giggles again, wilder. His thoughts race at the sudden realization of freedom and he notes that his leg has gone completely cold.
Was I loud enough?
Would I be remembered?
Did I ever mean anything at all?
Would they retire my mask?
Was I just another statistic for Anbu mortality rates?
How lucky am I? Mirai died too quickly to have a chance to think freely, but here I am still.
If he had any energy left to speak, he would ask the lingering chakra what she would have done with her last moments. He had told her once, that he loved her. She asked what that meant and he didn’t know either. Finch didn't know why he had said that. He would live longer if he could stop giggling but Finch can feel his seal heating up and desperately wants to let everything claw its way out of his raw throat. His brittle giggles rise to a bubbling cackle that makes the birds flee their branches. His laughs are interrupted by periodic hacking coughs that shake his frame and make his punctured lung flutter uselessly in his chest.
Oh that poor girl. He heard rumors, Hisako-chan had found a good one in her castaways. Finch complained about her enough that he thought maybe he could spare her from the same fate as him. Seems he messed that up. Poor sweet child. His back arches with the pain of his laughter, his cracked nails scrabble at the red-soaked dirt beneath him. His shoulder sizzles and the taste of his own flesh turning to ash fills his senses. The harsh straight lines of Danzo’s seal make the blood in his mouth boil, his shoulder and mouth sing with piercing light.
The sage himself as his only witness, Finch laughs and dies a free man under dancing sunlight and blue skies. The resulting explosion removes any evidence of an altercation ever occurring, and a genin team is sent to repair the road a month later.
The chakra lessons have started and Ei feels a bit like hell. She has already had a leaf stuck to her forehead for 5 minutes, so she sits in the grass feeling a bit silly. Ei knows these things already, her tutor had gone beyond just academy chakra lessons and taught Ei to be a genin-level sensor.
A girl yells in victory having completed the two minutes required for the daily class grade. Some kids around Ei have got it, others are struggling. Kaho got it easily enough and sits with Ei waiting for the next step in the lesson.
Ei winces at a pang from behind, knowing that the Uchiha boy managed to set his leaf on fire again. Ryuusei is so brightly fire natured that gathering it tends to set things on fire when he’s not paying attention. He already knows how to do it, he just sets it on fire sometimes. Which looks like a small bonfire in Ei’s mind. The on-and-off flashing energy from the classmates all around her has given her a headache, which started three days ago.
She is desperately trying to ignore the Hyuuga boy, Hirahito, who is trying to silently goad her into a competition again. Yesterday she had gotten bored and started sticking blades of grass standing straight up on each of the tenketsu points in her arms, which he for some reason took as a challenge. So that lesson had ended early because the entire class had stopped to watch Ei and Hirahito stick leaves onto every outer Tenketsu point on their bodies, which Renji took as a teaching opportunity to show the class why studying the chakra network could benefit you in the long run. The competition ended when Hirahito sneezed and made the leaves on his face fall off.
Ei kind of felt like she was cheating, already having finished her chakra lessons last year. Suzuki-san still met up with Ei sometimes, because Ei was, in her words, “A delightful young lady.” Suzuki-san had snorted into her cup when Ei brought it up last week, saying that those clan kids would have years worth of extra taijutsu teachings on her when they started.
Hirahito made direct eye contact with her and slapped a leaf on the left side of his face. Somewhere behind her Ryuusei caught his third leaf on fire. Maybe Ei would just bring a book next time.
Anbu was a strange place. It was bound to happen, when you had a secret division inside of your shinobi force, everything was a combination of classified and an open book. You were your mask, but it was still only a mask. Anbu personal were encouraged to spend time without the masks in the presence of other unmasked Anbu, to form bonds with comrades who understood your situation. So while you may see a comrade’s face, their scars and deepest fears, you may be part of an unfortunate accident if you ever revealed that to anyone outside of your own squad.
Anbu was less about skills and more about the kind of person you were. A shinobi had to accept that being Anbu meant they hid a large portion of themselves away. That what you did under the mask was a mission, there was no good or bad. Most people could not survive like that, receiving a mission to eliminate an entire family branch of a radical political party was not something most people could stomach, much less rationalize into something done for the good of their wonderful village.
The delicate balance of living in a shinobi village meant you just had to accept that your neighbors killed people for a living, and you sold bentos. Anbu meant you had to accept that this mission to kill a teenaged geisha was probably not for the good of Konoha, but just something you had to do.
Anbu personal could charitably be called something like mixed nuts. There were people who were just plain insane, but they were so good at their jobs you just couldn’t fire them. Some people just wanted to hide behind a mask. Some people were legally dead. Then there were the shinobi that were completely normal, and had only joined because it paid well.
Shinobi were nosy, paranoid people. Kakashi was the poster child for paranoid. His genin ID photo was literally framed in the psych center. Kakashi noticed things. Kakashi’s involvement in the attempt to eliminate Orochimaru had uncovered some things. It wasn’t subtle at all that Councilman Shimura had his own division in Anbu. The verbal confirmation from what looked like a nine year old, (Kinoe? Tenzo? Kakashi never really got an actual name from the kid) cemented the rumor that Danzo had a separate agenda from the Hokage, and the blatant assassination attempt from councilman Shimura was glossed over by superiors and Hokage alike.
Just because Kakashi read porn in public and avoided talking to his only friend like the plague didn’t mean he was unaware of societal norms, he just didn’t care. The child he met appeared to have a vague misunderstanding of what manners were. Meeting that child made Kakashi aware of the small percentage of Anbu that were probably plants. His paranoia had understandably increased and at least one neighbor had set off a senbon trap by breathing too loudly in the general direction of his anbu quarters.
Anbu command had called him in three months ago to tell Kakashi he had been transferred to the Protection detail department for the good of mankind when he jumped and punched Crane in the face hard enough to crack their mask. He was basically told by command to put his newfound paranoia to good use by watching Konoha’s shiny new Jinchuuriki.
Another hacking cough is heard in the apartment.
Ei fondly remembers the days when she could breathe out of both nostrils. Those were so great.
Despite the coming cool season Ei is dressed in a tank top and shorts, with Naruto just in a nappy. Ei has sacrificed some of her precious reserve electricity funds to leave the fan going for three days straight but it hasn’t gotten rid of the oppressive sweaty heat.
“Naruto-chan please stop crying.” Ei mumbles exhaustedly to the tiny boy laying on his back on the rug. Naruto is red faced from screaming and feels way too warm to be normal. Ei wants to cry too, but Hisako-san says staying clearheaded is important when you calm babies.
Ei tries to take a deep calming breath, but this just makes her nose clog up worse and her head pound even worse. She sucked all her chakra in so the neighbors all around her would stop making her head hurt, but it only makes her feel even more stuffy. Her apartment feels colorless without the vibrant background, and the only sound is Naruto’s crying and her own leafy-ness.
“Crying makes your head hurt worse, silly boy.”
Ei pushes sweaty bangs out of her face and huffs in amusement when the strands stick out.
“When you feel bad you just gotta go to sleep.”
Ei has gotten sick once before, when a virus had swept through the orphanage, so she tries to recall what happened.
“Peaches?” Ei mumbles. “I think I had peaches. The canned kind.” Her eyebrows scrunch together in thought. She has a vague memory of a hand brushing her hair and cold sweet peaches being spooned into her mouth.
Naruto’s wails have quieted to a fussy mewl, so Ei slides down with her back against the couch with her head propped up on her knees. “We don’t have any peaches otouto.” Ei brushes her fingers over Naruto’s baby-soft hair and traces his whiskered cheeks.
“In the summer Naruto-chan, there's this sweet thing. It’s shaved milk-ice, and the market people sell it with mangos and peaches and strawberries and rice cake pieces and all kinds of toppings.” She tells the boy. “When summer comes back, you’ll be old enough to try cold things.”
Ei grabs a tissue from one of the boxes that she keeps on the low table by the couch. The dead silence paired with the dull colors are starting to make her feel weird so she lets her chakra back out a little to get back a bit more awareness. Turning that off helped her be less overwhelmed, but sucking all her chakra close to her core like that when she had seen all that color for most of her life was like going blind. The cool wood feels nice on her too-hot, too-cold face so she gives into the urge to smoosh her face into it. The curtains have been closed to block out the awful sunlight.
She is glad that it is a no school day, and she can just laze around with Naruto. Ei isn’t sure if Naruto got sick and then gave it to her or if she got sick and Naruto caught it, but she’s glad that he is only fussy. Naruto is a very warm baby anyway, so the fever isn’t too bad, she wouldn’t have even noticed he was sick if he wasn’t so irate. Ei is confident that she’ll sleep off her own fever and be able to go back to school, and isn’t worried about Naruto. So she blows her nose one more time and settles with Naruto beside her to nap on the couch.
Ei wakes up and immediately slams her chakra field back into her head. She relaxed while sleeping but now the barest changes in the chakra of her neighbors two floors below felt like banging pots and pans in her head. Her eyelids sting from the sleep crusties and rubbing them makes the feeling worse. The headache from earlier had returned with a passion along with the urge to cry.
Ei’s forehead prickles and so she swipes at it, moving aside the bangs plastered to her face with sweat. She really wants Hisako-san. Ei squeezes her eyes shut to make the walls stop moving.
She pats around the couch cushion beside her where she laid Naruto on his stomach the night before, he must have rolled over in his sleep during the night. Her hands find his tiny shoulders and she notes that he is breathing quickly.
Sounds come to her like she’s underwater. Steps come towards her and she barely recognizes the mossy texture of her day-time watch’s chakra. If Ei were more awake she would register this as strange, but she only mumbles a greeting. Her chakra stays pulled close.
“Ei-kun. Please open your eyes for me.”
Ei cracks her eyes open and sees white. She focuses a bit more and sees an otter mask.
“Shinobi-san?”
“That’s right Ei-kun. You pulled your chakra in, it worried us because we could not see you or Uzumaki-kun.”
“Oh.” Ei must have pulled a bit of Naruto’s chakra in with her. She blinks and pats Naruto.
The room is still spinning and her head still hurts. Ei doesn’t want to make mossy-Otter-kun worry though, so she lets her chakra seep out of her pores and settle over the apartment. The water-over-rocks is standing in her kitchen so she pulses a hello. Otter holds out a tissue for her to take, so she does.
Ei blinks again and now both shinobi are standing before her and waving their hands around. She giggles at how silly they look.
Another blink and her face is squished into a hard bare shoulder and her hair is being whipped around. A hand is cradling her head and colors zoom past her, red, Orange, rocks, blue, trees, wind on wings, and ashes floating in her mind. The night is cool against her face and Ei closes her eyes again.
When Ei wakes she is in her bedroom. Awareness comes slowly, and with it came the realization that Naruto is gone. She sits up quickly and pads lightly to the kitchen, where Hisako sits at her table.
“Good afternoon Ei-kun.” The woman nodded to her, which she returned with a dizzying bob of her head. “You must be confused.”
Ei hops up into the kitchen chair. One of two, because she only needs two chairs in her apartment. That at least answers the question of why it’s so dark outside now.
“Yes, Ma’am.” Ei took the mug of water Hisako pushed across the table toward her.
“You two were very ill yesterday. You were taken to the hospital to get fluids and a fever reducer last night, Uzukmaki-kun’s condition was a little more serious so he is staying a bit longer to make sure he is alright.”
Hisako saw the question on the tip of Ei’s tongue but waited for Ei to ask anyway.
“When will he be back?”
“As soon as he is well. You can relax, your brother is safe there.” A cursory check around Ei confirmed that Naruto’s guards were not there, which meant they were with him. It was just Hisako’s cold chakra.
Ei is still a little confused so she taps her foot against the legs of her chair since she can’t yet reach the floor. One Two Three, “How di-”
“You wait too long to respond Ei. Your sensei from the academy has notified me of this. You would do well to shorten your wait.” Hisako’s voice cuts across Ei’s question coldly.
Ei blinks wide-eyed at Hisako-san who holds their gaze evenly. Hisako was the one to tell her to wait before speaking because it was polite and Ei talked too much before.
Ei taps once more, then twice, then thr-
“I am listed as your legal guardian while you are still in the Academy, so I was notified when you were admitted to the sick ward. I’m disappointed that you didn’t think you would come to me before Uzumaki-kun’s health declined further Ei.” Her tone stayed steady as did her chakra.
Ei counts twice in her head before mumbling, “I’m sorry Ma’am.” She thought it was only a small thing, that she could handle it.
“Don’t bother being sorry Ei, ensure that this does not happen again. You are trusted to look after your brother, but if you prove unable to do so, he will be moved back to the orphanage.” Hisako commented. Normally her chakra would change a little when she spoke, everyone’s did. Hisako’s chakra had stayed perfectly still the entire time. It had been the same still since the day she asked about the watchers.
Ei didn’t know what the look in Hisako’s eyes meant so she looked down at her water mug. Her throat was dry but she couldn’t bring herself to drink.
“Your long pauses mean you get lost easily in conversations with your peers. Babies learn from their surroundings Ei, your subvocal habits will be adopted by Uzumaki-kun, so ensure that he learns the correct way to speak.” Hisako was dry in her delivery, as she rose from the chair she collected her haori from where it hung on the back of the chair.
Ei remained silent at the table while Hisako moved towards the metal apartment door.
“Look at me when I speak Ei. This is the polite thing to do.” Hisako said sternly.
Ei moved her gaze from the mug to the door where Hisako stood. Her senses distantly registered the summer rain and cicadas that announced the Aburame entering the apartment complex on the ground floor. “Yes ma’am,” She whispered after the appropriate two-second wait.
“The parent viewing is next week Ei. You haven’t gone to the last few meetings.” Hisako says not unkindly. “You may have moved into the apartments, but that doesn’t mean your chance at a family is gone Ei. You don’t have to come to the meetings, but it is something to think about.”
“You don’t have to be an orphan forever Ei.”
Hisako closes the door and Ei watches the little dot of light fade away.
Ei moved out because she wanted to protect Naruto. She started the shinobi academy for the money, so they could both live happy, comfortable lives. Ei thought that moving into the apartments meant no one would want her, because becoming a shinobi would mean that no parent would ever want to adopt her. Naruto still had a chance though, not many people liked him, but he was cute and happy and he still had a chance. Ei gripped the mug and watched her friend go up the stairs. The apartment was lonely with Naruto and his shadows.
Before Kaho and her Papa reached her door she changed out of the clothes she was sick in and into a fresh pair of soft pants and a t-shirt. She dumped the mug of water in the sink and opened the door before Senshi-san had a chance to knock.
Happy humming and brightness flooded her senses and made her smile. Kaho and her Papa looked like they had just come from the academy.
“I missed you at school today Ei-kun, so we came to check on you.” Kaho’s hood was down and a hat had taken its place over her hair. Her brown eyes twinkled behind dark square glasses, and as she held up a plastic bag a clicking noise sound came from it. “We brought some food stuffs.”
Ei let them both in and ushered them to the kitchen table. They leave their sandals by the door, lined up by Ei’s two pairs of shoes. Senshi took one bag to the sink and took three tea cups from the bag to rinse. Ei only came up to his hip when she stood beside him to ask what they were for.
“Your sensei informed us that you felt bad, so we brought the tea our family drinks when we feel sick for you. Kaho-kun said we should get matching cups if we were going to drink orange flower tea.” He answered. He motioned her away towards the table where Kaho was setting out her bag.
“When me or my kaichu feel bad, something sweet and sugary makes me feel better,” Kaho confided, “So we brought orange tea and some canned fruit for you. You never said what kind of fruit was your favorite so we got this,” Kaho sets a can down, “And some of the melon pan you like.” She upends the rest of the bag, packaged bread spilling out onto the tabletop.
Ei joins Kaho in one chair while Senshi takes the other chair. “Good afternoon Ei-kun.” Kaho whispers. Kaho’s legs are touching hers, spreading their warmth to Ei, and she taps twice on the backs of their joined hands.
“Peaches.” Ei croaked. Her voice was still scratchy from her fever yesterday. She swipes across her face with the back of her hand. Ei taps her knee twice. “My favorite is canned peaches.”
Senshi hums contentedly in the back of his throat, “Good thing we chose the right kind then Ei-kun.” He pours a sweet-smelling amber-golden liquid from a big thermos into the freshly washed cups, making sure there is a cinnamon stick in each mug. Kaho explains how the tea helps, the vitamin c helps chase away sickness, and the warm sweetness is a comfort to both the kaichu and the host.
All three take their cups at once and drink a mouthful. Ei savors the warm spicy drink, cinnamon, orange, honey, and ginger, all the goodness spreading to all her body and chasing away the last of the chills. They stay until all the tea is gone and Kaho has Ei caught up on what happened at school that day. Senshi leaves the peaches in Ei’s rumbling fridge to chill.
Ei admires the simple yet elegant clay tea cups now in her cabinet of mismatched cups.
The masked people bring Naruto back fever free and happy soon after the Aburame pair fade from Ei’s range. They climb in through the big window, the same mossy Otter and river rocks Crane that carted her off to the hospital. Otter checks her fridge and reminds her to make sure the both of them drink water in the same blank voice as before.
Crane pats the girl’s hair when she slinks past, seemingly overwhelmed by the domesticity of the action she immediately disappears from the room. Otter holds a finger up to his cheerful mask and disappears in puff as well.
“Thank you.” Ei says to the silent room.
Together wrapped up in a green froggy blanket in the bed, Ei curls around her brother and promises to keep him safe.