FOR THE SAKE OF THOSE LEFT BEHIND
Underlined - English
‘Italicised’ - Thoughts
In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast
SENJU TSUNADE
“Hokage-sama!”
I look up from my unreasonable pile of paperwork just in time to see a chunin I couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of bolt into my office: a Sunagakure hawk on his shoulder and half-opened scroll in his hand.
“Hokage-sama!” He repeats, panting. “It’s the Kazekage! He’s been kidnapped!”
Something in my stomach plumits with all the implications of such an act.
“Shizune!” I holler, heart racing. “Get me Tenten, Neji, Lee, Naruto, and Sasuke!”
UZUMAKI NARUTO
Sasuke and I get our summons at the exact same time.
“I have a bad feeling …” I hear Sasuke mutter.
I glance over, “Not about Gaara.”
Sasuke just shakes his head, eyes on something far in the horizon. “No.”
I nod once, solidly, and push the tension mounting in my gut to the side. “She’s going to be fine,” I state - half assuring myself, half willing it to be true. “She’s going to be fine.”
HATAKE KAKASHI
Noa isn’t even fully out the gaping hole in the wall before I’m launching myself after her -
Only to be swarmed en-mass by the Aburame Heir’s kikaichu.
“Shino, move -” I command, eyes locked on Noa’s retreating form. “I have to -”
“No, you don’t. Why?” Shino levels out, hidden eyes burning into my back. “Because you are not thinking straight. Because a clan is dead save a single woman. Because this was a trap.”
I rip my eyes from the point in the distance where my only sister has vanished, “She’s a shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato.”
“No,” Shikamaru contradicts - speaking for the first time in a dull, vacant voice.
I follow his raised finger to the gleam of a hitai-ate resting beside the bodies of Tsubasa Hiroma and Hirona.
“No,” Shikamaru repeats as my stomach drops. “She’s not.”
TSUBASA NOA
I’ve been flying for about twenty minutes before I realize my hitai-ate is missing.
A hole had been carved in my heart in its absence. Well, what was left of my heart - after it shattered.
But I feel naked in a way I really shouldn’t, but I do regardless. Before I even realize what I’m doing I’ve twitched my chakra; a gleaming, bright hitai-ate forms around my forehead with a single kanji on it.
Shinobi.
The war’s coming, after all.
NARA SHIKAMARU
The trek back is a blur. We check in with the gate guardians in a blur - at least for me. Shino … Shino does the talking. I just hand over my ID’s.
We beeline for the Hokage’s office. Someone … must’ve gone ahead. Told Godaime-sama that … Noa wasn’t with us.
Noa. Hisoka. Noa. Hisoka.
We push open the door. Tsunade stands to great us.
“What the hell happened?” She demands.
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t KNOW.
TSUBASA NOA
Just as the sun begins to touch the earth, I finally come to a stop.
(Running on fumes, adrenaline, determination could only get one so far, after all.)
I had nothing left to keep me moving through this numbness. Setting up camp is mechanical; nothing too fancy (I’m from Konoha, I live in trees) but after a short hunt and a quick katon jutsu I’ve cooked myself a rabbit, using sharp herbs to disguise the scent of cooked meat. All perfect Konoha regulation.
(Pretending that the sharp pain at that thought doesn’t exist is more difficult than it should be for a shinobi of my caliber.)
What now?
What now.
Noa you can’t do this. You can’t look at this effectively - not just by thinking. You’ll get stuck. It’s just a game - like a video game back Before or a-
A game of Shogi. With my Shika.
I have lost most of my effectivity and influence but gained maneuverability. No missions means no papers to get where I need to go, but also means that I am not bound my mission parameters.
I’m a lone piece on the shogi board - a gold general. I am powerful and diverse, but I’m not important enough to be protected. It doesn’t matter if I die, only that I can protect the King. My friends. Konoha.
But this isn’t shogi. No, this is chess. I’m a rogue queen - powerful, mobile. Determined. This cannot be shogi, because I refuse to be used against those I love. Against my King.
If you kill a Queen, she never comes back. For either side.
(Maybe my death will stick this time.)
Is this type of sacrifice healthy? No, but it is effective. Whether or not I am considered a part of this world doesn’t matter anymore - I’ve changed too much. Once upon a time there was for sure a happy ending. My actions may have changed that. I can’t afford to distance myself out of some misplaced bid of self-preservation.
I don’t have to make it, anymore. I don’t have to have a future. I don’t have a future, not one that will matter. So I don’t have to save my life. Just have to guarantee everyone else’s.
If the world ends, it will all be my fault. I can’t die knowing that.
So I’ll fight. I’ll fix.
But where do I start?
What was the next deadly ‘thing’ in the timeline? What event? What can I predict?
Threats: Orochimaru, Kabuto, Danzo, Akatsuki, Pein, Obito, Madara, and Zetsu.
Okay, Orochimaru. Oto. He’s got Kabuto with him, most likely. They pull a shit ton of people back from the dead during War Number IV, so I have to deal with them. I need to eliminate the chance of me being used against anyone. Of Minato. Of Kushina. Of Sakumo. Of - anyone I couldn’t save.
Danzo. Lost a lot of advantage with him, but he’s still after me - especially now that I am the only source of my bloodline left. Too valuable to pass up. I’ll keep my guard up, but I have to trust my King, to trust Konoha. Have to trust that Kakashi will care enough to go after ROOT, despite how much I’ve let him down.
Akatsuki and Pein. Pein needs to be reasoned with, in Ame. Konan may be reasoned with … I can’t let Jiraiya die. Or Asuma. For the sake of my boys, I can’t -
Obito needs to get the seal off his heart. Madara is a puppet. Zetsu -
I don’t know enough. I need more information.
I don’t remember -
‘Enough,’ I cut myself off. ‘You’ll be dead well before then.’
Prioritize. Danzo has stretched himself too far, especially considering that he revealed ROOT to Kakashi and -
Sasuke and Ruto will ask questions. Kakashi will have to answer them. Danzo needs me alive, but doesn’t know where I am or will be. Sasuke killed him last time …
I’m not strong enough to take on Pein. Nagato has too much of an advantage on me. With his Paths and with Konan and the Akatsuki to back him up …
Oto it is. Time to kill Kabuto.
SENJU TSUNADE
The creak of my desk is the only thing that tells me just how tight I’ve been gripping it.
My shinobi haven’t said a word. Shizune hasn’t said a word.
My office is quiet.
Abruptly I turn away, away from where Hatake Kakashi has fallen apart and where Nara Shikamaru is just an eerie mirror of me after Orochimaru and where Aburame Shino is the only one in this room with anything even resembling composure.
I look out the window. To the monument.
What was that she said? Noa - Hisoka - once griped about how absurd the monument was. Going on about how it was an empty gesture.
‘Teach, didn’t you know? Something like this’ - She had gestured to the monument - ‘is only setting our leaders up for failure. After all …’
She had a maniac grin on her face.
‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall.’
She wasn't big. Not in the cosmic sense, no she wasn’t big. But how she laughed at her hangovers and - and - complained about her training and insisted she was fine when she had a temperature through the tower roof -
That was huge.
TSUBASA NOA
Luck would have it that I had flown so far west that I’d ended up in the Land of Earth.
(How I managed to avoid the patrols …?)
I count myself lucky, however. Not being in Fire makes it so that the chance of correlation between me and Konoha is less likely. I’m not a missing-nin in the traditional sense … yet. Just - literally a shinobi that my home village has no idea how to find. With my new hitai-ate and my foreign features, I can at least hope that my identity will remain at least in question for a decent amount of time.
But ties must be cut. For my sake and theirs - so I start talking to myself, lowly. Konoha’s accent isn’t harsh, but it is identifiable, especially when Iwa is so detached from Konoha; both in terms of geography and culture. But English is different, leaves a slur to my words when I talk too long. So soon enough, when I switch back to Common after a couple of high flying hours reciting song lyrics I’ve regained the lilt to my words that made me stick out so much as a kid.
I fly for another couple hours after that (my training demanding somewhere in the back of my mind that 34.5 hours without backup in Rock territory was no bueno) backtracking while heading north, following the border of Grass. I stop down only long enough for a refill of water and meat before I make a choice. This would all be for naught if anyone - Tsunade, Danzo, Team 7, anyone - could track me. I need to get out -
My map is meagre and frankly became useless three pit stops ago so I abandon it; gazing out at the sea. Land of Iron should be northeast of here.
Land of Iron. The Land of Samurai. Bordering the Land of Sound to the south.
I ready myself for a long flight.
TENZO
“What do you mean it’s Akatsuki?” Crow - Sasuke, Sasuke - demands of Uzumaki-san.
“What else is there to say, Teme?” Uzumaki growls back, eyes closed and stained orange with natural chakra. “I can’t feel Gaara - not really - but it’s not because he’s not here. He’s being drained, and the only people powerful enough to go after Bijuu - after Gaara - are the Akatsuki. And after my seal stops flushing out Kankuro’s system he’ll be able to positively identify them. Hard to miss the shiny-shiny coats.”
I look over to Hyuuga-san - Neji - and see a similar look of confused apprehension on his face as I felt on mine.
Senpai hadn’t been specific about why Sasuke was going dark, but this?
Who the hell was hunting jinchuriki?
TSUBASA NOA
I overshot. Holy shit I overshot - this is bad.
I should’ve known better. Even on short flights, distance is hard to gauge - this was no excuse -
I landed in the Land of Lightning.
It didn’t take me long to realize that, what with the almost immediately noticeable shinobi presence. I had barely landed before my chakra was picked up by the patrols. Bolting, I took to the air again, disguising my chakra signature before I could be spotted - taking high into the air. Riding a current, I assess my options.
Landing in Kumo wasn’t exactly a bad thing. I would have the element of surprise by entering the Land of Sound through Lightning territory that I wouldn’t have with the Land of Iron. Any advantage was a good advantage, but -
It was now even more dangerous if I were to get caught in foreign territory, especially if I was tied back to Konoha. Foreign features would have spared me slightly in Rock, but only because I was there so briefly. By leaving the territory so quickly, barely being spotted as it was, there was no reason to look into me seriously. But if I wanted to preserve my strength for the trek into Oto, through, prolonged use of my wings was a handicap I couldn’t afford.
I needed to disguise myself. And well.
With a quick henge into a dark skinned Ino with pupils, I check into a rural inn - one with too little customers to ask questions or stay suspicious for long. The place is so dingy I count myself lucky to even have a sink and mirror.
I drop the henge. Drink in Tsubasa Noa for the last time.
Then, steeling myself, I channel chakra into my hands and get started.
Being a medic meant that I learned quite a few totally obscure thing - facts and tidbits I never thought would come in any practical use. That’s how I know that the keratin in our hair defines the shape of it, how it falls and how it grows. It’s common for perms to affect the keratin using a variety of chemicals that I don’t even bother with; I simply reach up and run my chakra coated hand down each chunk of my hair.
It feels like I’m carving off skin. Ripping out parts of myself.
I shared most, if not all, of my characteristics from my past life. The differences were small, really, most likely based more off what chakra did to my body that whatever kind of genetics I really had ... but my hair, oh my hair. It was exactly like it was in my past life. It was tough and curly and refused to listen to me and I hated it - and I had never thought of having it in any other way. No matter how much I complained and griped and struggled, it was part of me - familiar, something to fall back on when this new world became too much.
And now I won’t even have that.
In some way this was worse than leaving my hitai-ate behind. Worse than killing my so-called father. Worse than the thought of me dying.
All I had for so long was who I was - how my soul and my mind and my body were mine and untouched in the chaos I was thrust into ... but now with each run of my jutsu I feel less and less like me.
I don’t care to worry about how long this is taking - it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that eventually straight hair hanging well past my waist swings in long, majestic tresses.
I hate it.
But I can’t stop there. I change tracks - hands glowing every so little stronger in a different jutsu - and start again. Chunk by chunk. Segment by segment. Section by section.
Except this time around it’s shocking silver that bleeds from beneath my hands, not silk.
‘I broke Kakashi’s heart. The least I can do is live up to being his sister.’
The pit - the tension - in my gut grows ever so much stronger; the slightest tang of excessive chakra use only enhancing the feeling of wrong. But I carry on, push through, until my hair shines with an ethereal glow only the moon could ever hope to compare to and falls gracefully in a wave of molten silver.
I hate it.
I catch a wisp of hair - wind it around my fingers - and stare with a kind of sick fascination akin to examining a particularly disgusting bug. The dark tan of my skin, even darker after the relentless beating of the sun on my flight across the water, stands out even further with my new hair. It’s bizarre.
But I know that I can’t stop here, either.
I swallow. Clear my throat uselessly. Push back my apprehension.
I close my eyes, as if my thin lids can save me from the reality of what I must do.
‘For Ruto. For Sasuke. For Kakashi. For Gai.’
A pang in my heart.
‘For Shikamaru.’
I raise my hands to my eyes.