Chapter 10
Saeko is up with a kunai in hand as soon as she feels the signature approach them. She's between Neji and the person without thinking, ready to protect him.
"easy, you're not in danger" the person in front her is calm "We're at camp and we fended off the attackers" she blinks a few times and looks around, the ground was still a mess of craters, mud, blood and others fluids but the bodies have been removed "You're back with me ?" she turns to look at the owner of the voice
"Jiro-san ?" he nods
"how are you feeling ?" the man crouches down, looking her deep in the eyes
"I'm... not sure" she admits, finally putting her kunai back in her pouch "It was really different from the fights we've had before" her eyes glaze over as she speaks "I still feel how hundreds of our comrades vanished in an instant... The screams of foes and allies alike... Their bodies..."
"it's over" Jiro speaks firmly "The first big scale attack is always the worst. You weren't ready for it and it's okay, you simply need a bit of time to come to term with it"
Saeko blinks away the tears in her eyes "I..."
"it's alright to cry, nobody will fault you. War is a scary thing and for children it's even worse. Cry as much as you want now so next time you'll be ready"
"I don't wan't to cry" she bits her lips
"then don't" he shrugs "Only you can decide how to handle your trauma. Just a bit of advice, don't bottle it all up. Sooner or later, you won't be able to and the aftermath won't be pretty"
"thanks" she sniffles but no tears escape her eyes "Why did you wake me up ?"
the older man eyes her before nodding, seemingly satisfied "Right, the Commander asked for you. From what I understood, we have 3 sensors left and it's your turn to take over. The one currently on duty is ready to drop dead from exhaustion and the other sensor is still unconscious so until we get reinforcement, you'll have to spent most of your time when not asleep on look out"
"that's... not a good number." Saeko licks her lips "From eight to three but only two in working condition" she mutters, already thinking about how hard it's going to be. She looses herself in her thoughts for a moment, already reaching out with her chakra. As soon as she does, she snaps her neck towards a man leveling the ground. Her eyes narrow.
the action has her comrade straigthening up "what's the matter ?"
"who's that ?"
he looks at the man for a moment "I'm not sure, looks like a Sangawa with the purple eyes"
"I don't recognize his chakra" she grabs a kunai
that seems to alarm Jiro "are you sure ?"
"affirmative" she nods "I may not be able to put a name on every signature I've sensed in the month I've been here but I know every single one. That one I don't know and we haven't had any team change since last week. Also, the um flavour? consistency? is wrong. Too damp to be one of ours"
"very well, I'll take care of it"
"Mitaki-san, you can go sleep now" Saeko walks up to the sensor leaning against a tree
Mitaki opens his eyes and gets up with a relieved sigh "thank fuck ! I'm exhausted"
"I'll ask someone to wake you in 12 hours so you can rest a bit" she offers
"you sure you can do it for that long ?" Mitaji asks, concern lacing his words
"if I can't, I'll let someone know"
"alright, good luck" he ruffles her hair before leaving
Sitting against the tree with her eyes closed, she sighs and opens her senses. Firstly, she checks the camp, she checks if someone chakra signature doesn't match with what she knows then when she doesn't find anything, not even the intruder she exposed to Jiro, she looks outward. Nothing but insects and the more courageous animals appears on her radar. 25 kilometers away, there's a civilian village but no shinobis are hiding there. She senses a group travelling 35 kilometers west, mostly civilians with a few animals and a team of... Waterfall ninjas? They seems to avoid approaching the area where they exploded the Rock-nin, good to know they aren't stupid enough to go poking their noses in other villages businesses.
Time passes while she checks their surroundings. Nothing of interest happened beside a few Konohas ninjas crossing the border, a summon flew in her range a few hours ago who simply went east and a hawk delivered a letter to the camp. Neji woke up not long after her and he was asked to help clean the camp.
She's not completely sure how long she stays there with her eyes closed when Neji walks up to her, she tilts her head without opening her eyes.
"you should eat something and drink some water" he plops down next to her
she opens her eyes, half her attention still on her task "mmh ?"
"here" he gives her a ration bar and drops his canteen on her lap "You've been sensing non-stop for five hours, eat and drink or you'll collapse"
"thanks" she opens the bar and munches on it
"anything to report ?" he asks when she's done with the bar
she gulps down some water "not really, I think Iwa will wait a few days before attacking again. We did anihilate their shinobis and it must be a serious torn in their plans." she stands up to stretch her limbs "They probably didn't think we'd be prepared to fight them or maybe they expected us to be too tired and without enough people to push them back a second time"
"true, we wouldn't have been if it wasn't for you. I'm sure we'd have lost the outpost without your insane sensing"
"maybe" she shrugs "What can you tell me about our shinobis ? Who's still alive and which Division was hit the hardest beside the Sensor Unit ?"
Neji takes out his weapons and his sharpening kit, he picks up a kunai and runs the blade on the stone "we lost all members of Team 9 beside Iroko-san, 3/4 of the medics are dead, half of the Intel and Command Unit is gone or injured, most of our supplies are gone food and weapons alike and we lost a good chunk of our front line shinobis"
"that's not good, I hope reinforcement arrives soon because we won't be able to keep the outpost if Iwa or Kumo launch a surprise attack" she sighs
She sits back against the tree and goes back to sensing.
It takes 3 more days for reinforcement to arrive. Saeko is on sensing duty when she feel them arrive, it's a group of 135 people, less than what they were in the begining but it's still more than what they have now.
She jumps down from her perch on a branch to alert the Commander, she quickly reassures her comrades that they aren't under attack and keeps walking. She pokes her head in the tent.
she's noticed by a Mitokado with bags under her eyes "Sensor Nara, what have you sensed to come here ? Is it Iwa ?" the others in the tent raise their head at that
"no, I simply wanted to alert the Commander of the good news" she smiles "Reinforcement are on their way"
As if they were magic words, all of their shoulders sag in relief and some let out cheers. Even the Commander lets out a sigh of relief "that's good" he cracks his neck "We're all exhausted and they're probably bringing supplies with them"
"how far away are they now ?" another Yamanaka asks
"and how many are they ?" the Mitokado who noticed her adds
she checks "About 10 kilometers and the Hokage sent 135 people. 52 are older Genins if the strength of their pathways is to be believed, 63 are Chûnins and 20 are Jonins"
"thank you Sensor Nara, you can go back." she nods at the Commander's order and leaves
A few hours later, Saeko is replaced by a new sensor from reinforcement. She quickly fills him on the few disturbances she felt then she leaves.
Neji is sitting around a fire with some of their comrades so without much thought, she plops down next to him and rests her head on his shoulder. She listens to the others talk and dozes off without meaning to. She jerks awake some time later when someone sits next to her. The Nara smiles sheepishly and gives her a bowl of rice, fish and vegetable. She takes it with a thanks and starts to eat the food.
She introduces herself between bites and soon, she's talking with Uchiha Shisui. He's friendly and seems to have a smile stuck on his face which is weird as most of the Uchihas she met were scowling or had a poker face so strong they barely showed emotions.
"ne Shisui-san ?"
"mmh ? What is it Saeko-chan ?"
"you wouldn't happen to know the date ? I lost track of it with our irregular schedule"
Shisui blinks, probably a bit surprised "ah, yes, your a sensor" he nods like it's the most normal thing "Today's the the second of April"
"uh"
"what ?"
"I'm six years old" she says with a hum
"congratulation on reaching my age" Neji smiles at her
"today's your birthday ?!" he asks loudly, drawing the attention of their comrades
"no, it was March 28"
"wait" a comrade who introduced himself as Kagetore Rikuto joins the discussion "Wasn't that when Iwa attacked ?"
"chibi, you have the worst luck" Shisui grimaces "To be attacked on your birthday is rather unlucky"
"until you told me the date I wasn't aware of the date" she deadpans "I couldn't care less about it, my birthday is nothing special so what if we fought on that day ? It's a day like any other beside knowing I turned a year older" she shrugs
"how could you say that ? A birthday isn't like any other day !" Shisui gasps dramaticaly
"whatever you say"
Shisui then proceeds to tell her all the things that makes a birthday special, in great detail with stories about his, Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke's birthdays. She listends absentmindedly as she sharpens her weapons, nodding and awing at all the right places. It takes an hour for him to shut up about it. She did snort and laugh at some of the weirdest stories but she's not the only one as most of their comrades listenning did as well.
"say, why are you a Nara ?" Shisui looks her up and down "You don't look like one"
"I've been adopted. Who do you think I look like ?" she asks in return, curious to know what he thinks
"I'd say Hatake Kakashi was your father if I didn't know better"
"yeah kid" Shiranui Genma adds, talking around the senbon in his mouth "You look a lot like Kakashi when he was a kid, you wouldn't happen to be from the Hatake clan ?"
she nods "I am or at least my great-granfather was"
"really ? How come you're not a Hatake then ?" Genma leans forwards
"you never told me that" Neji frowns
"eh, it's not that important" she shrugs at Neji "And to answer you, Shiranui-san-"
"Genma kid"
"Genma-san" she repeats with an eye-roll "My great-grandfather married an Uzumaki and of their three kids, only my grandmother took more after the Uzumakis than the Hatakes so she was registered as Uzumaki Akane and not Hatake Akane. Later she fell in love with a civilian and took his last name. They had two kids but none of them inherited the Uzumakis chakra reserves or hair, my father has pink hair but nothing more so they were named after their civilian father" she twirls a lock of hair that fell out of her ponytail "My sister has our father's pink hair and our mother's green eyes so I was an anomaly to them, my father never knew his grandparents or his uncles so he didn't know where the grey hair and eyes came from and he never looked at the photos my grandmother left him when she passed"
Genma whistles "so how did you know ?"
"I think I was 3 when I went to the attic because I was bored, I opened a bunch of boxes to see what was inside when I stumble upon a box filled with scrolls, books and photos. I took a photo out of the box and it was one of my great-grandparents, my grandparents and my grand-uncles. I was rather shocked to see red and gray hair but I didn't know who they were so I looked through the rest of the stuffs and I found a journal from my grandmother. She wrote about her life and thus, her family. So that's how I discovered my origins."
"damn chibi" Shisui looks impressed "That's one badass ancestry, both Uzumaki and Hatake ? I wasn't aware the two clan had mixed at some point"
"maybe they kept it to themself ?" she shrugs "I think I remember reading that my great-grandfather was the brother of the clan head and my great-grandmother was the daughter of the clan head"
"what ?!" both Shisui and Genma gape at her
"uh, are you alright ? Why do you look at me like that ?" they aren't the only ones, everyone sitting around the fire is looking at her
"kid, you know that the Uzumaki Main Line was Royalty in Uzushio, right ?"
"no, I didn't" she frown "I still don't see why that's shocking"
"chibi" Shisui leans forwards "Uzumakis from the Main Line were thought to have disappeared with the fall of Uzushio and that's why there isn't an Uzumaki clan anymore. Technically, you're a princess"
Saeko blinks once, twice before she understands the info "I'm a what ?!"
"a princess, you should be called Uzumaki-sama or Saeko-hime" Genma smirks
"oh no, no, no,no. I'm not a princess and no one's calling me hime" she glares
"of course, hime"
She throws a pebble at Shisui in an act of petty revenge.