Chapter 9
Next chapter! Happy New Year, y’all:)
Traveling by summons is, apart from Hisana’s newfound airsickness, incredibly practical. Not only is Kanon very fast – three days worth of travel are compressed into one – but they also avoid all sorts of encounters with whatever of Gato’s filth is trawling the countryside. Sometimes she can sense them from above, their chakra signatures brushing by the genjutsu barrier that she erected around the giant bird, and Hisana thanks all gods who will listen that she doesn’t have to engage any of them. They’re not necessarily dangerous but, after taichou obviously disabled Zabuza, there are many. No doubt they anticipated reinforcements. But Kanon glides away far above all of them, silent as anything.
She’s an incredibly useful summon, Hisana thinks not without envy. Ran and Fudo have grown on her, but they’re more suited for infiltration and subterfuge; skills worthy of an Uchiha, she thinks cynically. They’re quite a bit less useful in open combat and absolutely ineffective in speedy pursuit hunts. Sometimes she really wishes she had asked taichou to sign his contract.
But then again – Kakashi and she aren’t all that similar. Hisana prefers sly Ran and canny Fudo over a slavishly devoted pack. Prefers sneaking, ending the fight before it really starts. ‘Cowardly’ as a chuunin had accused her in the Forest of Death; ‘sensible’ Hana insisted before kicking him into one of the giant mammoth trees.
Sasuke is the flashy one of them, just as he’s supposed to be. He’ll be the head of clan and undoubtedly eventually the stronger one. People will respect or even fear him. Hisana is just his cousin; the less preferable, collateral heir. And one day it’ll pay off to be dismissed like this. No, the skunks suit her fine. And yet … something practical wouldn’t go amiss.
Kanon starts an even, shallow descent but Hisana’s stomach still does somersaults. She presses her face into the soft feathers, closes her eyes and thinks of England.
“I can see the village ahead,” the crane informs her. “But is all open terrain on the island. It will be best if I land in the forest; you will have to walk the rest.”
“If you think so,” she grunts, willing to trust the summon on this. The cranes are just as proficient and trustworthy as their master; Hisana has no doubt that Kanon’s judgment is sound. But … – “I am too big navigate the woods. Prepare for a rough landing.”
They crash through the tree tops. Kanon’s wings, hard as iron, cut through the boughs and startle a murder of crows into flight. The noise is deafening. A particularly vicious piece of wood grazes by Hisana’s neck, leaving not a single scratch on the tough material of her guard, but a painful bruise on the skin below.
“Apologies,” Kanon drones, “Apologies.” And then they fall into a sharp dive. There are no more branches, but instead a splash of ice cold water as they clumsily hit a lake and stutter to a halt. Hisana shivers, face moist with nervous sweat and soles gracing the brackish pond water. Kanon shakes herself vigorously. “What an adventure,” she declares, “Let us not do this again.”
They part ways right there. The great crane summon warns her to be careful and to remember that nobody is allowed to kill a Konoha ninja in the woods – Wave country or no Wave country.
Watching her ghostly silhouette disappear, Hisana tries to gather her wits. Her legs are still a bit shaky and her heart beat slows only in increments. She needs to go north now, about four hours through the woods, if she judged the distance correctly. After that she should be able to cross the river in a matter of minutes. By then she’ll have come into range of Kakashi-taichou’s nose. All in all … ETA 255 minutes. Thank god for small mercies.
The village is completely hidden in thick fog, the moonlight casting eerie shadows on it. While sure to at least disorient normal ninja, the high humidity only enhances a tracker’s nose. The scent of people and old fish is nearly stifling, and it guides Hisana like a beacon. She crawls out of the water, watchful of any familiar chakra signatures, casting a weak genjutsu on herself. Nobody is around – neither to stop nor to collect her. Not even the villagers seem awake. It’s not that late yet; maybe nine or ten pm.
A curfew maybe? A few streets over she recognizes team 7’s chakra signatures humming away. So obvious, she thinks fondly. They’re really too young for this mission. Next to them taichou’s chakra flickers like a weak candle. She shivers. It feels … unhealthy. Weak. Not like him at all.
Finding the correct house and window is child’s play. Hisana drops the genjutsu. Everything feels strangely anticlimactic; it’s so quiet that it feels almost peaceful. Only the stench of decay and musk – old food and unwashed people – disturbs the calm picture. In the light of day it might look different, Hisana muses, but the moonlight hides a lot of imperfections. A rusted pipe, a haphazardly repaired window; all of it looks less severe in the dark.
The windows of Tsunami’s house are unsecured. She pads her way up to the upper floor and opens the one to Kakashi’s room quietly, aware of her team leader’s tired eye on her.
“Tenzo was busy,” she informs him, swinging her leg over the window sill. “But no worries, Hisapi is here.”
He grunts at her, maybe in resignation. “I should have known. Tenzo-kun is getting cheeky. And you’re a busybody – reading other people’s mail.”
“He basically shoved it in my face. What now, you’d rather nobody came?”
‘Yes,’ his face says unabashedly. She scoffs at him. The room is tiny; Kakashi’s bed takes up nearly all of it. A broken chair is shoved into the corner, one leg notably shorter than the others. When she closes the window, the door creaks suspiciously and a draft makes the moth eaten curtains flutter.
But despite the shabby appearance, everything is meticulously clean.
Stepping into the middle of the room Hisana gives her superior a firm salute. “Uchiha Hisana reports for duty. Arrived 267 minutes ago several miles south. No enemy contact; immediate area seems deserted.”
“At ease,” he drawls, sitting up with a groan, “idiot. You don’t happen to have some chakra pills, do you?”
Hisana sticks her hand into her pocket, purposefully bypassing the mild Uchiha pills hidden there, corked properly to keep in their scent of dried violets. Instead she hands him the foul tasting Nara pills. Asshole, she thinks. A bit more appreciation wouldn’t kill him. He swallows a handful stoically before handing her the now empty container. “As you surely know, our initial objective was to accompany Tazuna-san back home where he intended to build a bridge. About two and a half days ago we encountered the S-rank missing-nin Momochi Zabuza.” He watches her carefully for a reaction that never comes. “I was able to incapacitate him, but he was extracted by an unknown accomplice. Apparently he was hired by a businessman who intends to seize control of the area, to kill our client. We expect more interference before the bridge is completed.”
She nods. So no major differences to canon yet. ‘Comforting’ may not be the best word for it, but the feeling blooming in Hisana’s chest is definitely something similar.
“Where do I come in?”
He makes an uncertain noise. “I haven’t decided yet. In any case we’ll have to tell my cute little students about us – breaks my heart.”
“I’m sure they’ll forgive us our sordid affair,” she says flatly. “I’ll keep watch on the roof – you go to sleep. The bags under your eyes … make you look like a basset hound.”
She ignores his affected gasp of outrage and climbs out of the window.
The next morning is a bit of a treat.
Hisana knows that Kakashi loves his dramatics, but takes a particular sort of glee in artfully delivered understatements. So when team 7 comes down for breakfast the next morning, they find both of them sitting at the table, sipping a cup of tea. And when Naruto’s face breaks into a look of hilarious, bone-deep betrayal, Hisana very deliberately crinkles her eyes at them and says, “Yo.”
For a moment the blonde looks as if he’s about to explode, cheeks bulging and eyes wide. The he sags like a punctured balloon.
“Nee-san – what the hell! Why are you here?” Sakura and Sasuke merely eye her uncertainly.
“I sent for the best reinforcements,” Kakashi says. “But they were busy, so this one will have to suffice.”
Below the table she digs her fingers into the soft backside of his knee and pinches. It forces a satisfying noise out of him that he skillfully disguises as a cough. “I’m doing my old master a favor,” she says, “You know how it is … with growing age – ouch!”
Tsunami watches dispassionately as they smile beatifically at each other, everything about their body language screaming ‘murder’. It’s been two hours since the two were introduced; for only one of them Hisana managed to act like a respectable ninja. To Hisana’s surprise Sakura at least seems to welcome her arrival. The girl sits down next to her and grabs her hand.
“That Zabuza guy is creepy,” she tells her. “I don’t think I like Mist ninja very much.”
“Sensible,” Hisana comments. “The most important thing is to make sure they don’t like us very much either.”
“Sounds like a plan!” Naruto crows and plops down at the table. Sasuke needs a moment longer, as if to ascertain that it’s really her; or maybe he fears a deeper meaning to her appearance than just reinforcements. That boy took the ‘underneath the underneath’ lesson a little too seriously, maybe. Even as he sits down and takes the bowl of rice that Tsunami hands him, he still remains tense and ready for confrontation. Hisana smiles slyly at him.
To her immense relief it’s been not even a week since team 7 arrived and decided to stay. Sasuke and Naruto haven’t managed more than a few chakra laden steps up their trees, leaving Sakura to guard Tazuna alone and Kakashi to his rest.
Those two boys would be fine, Hisana thinks. And now, with Kakashi on his feet days earlier than expected, Tazuna would be protected. I’m really just the clean-up. How weird a realization. But what now?
She could trawl the woods for Haku – and what? Kill him? Hisana is pretty certain she won’t be able to convince him to stop and go home. To Haku Zabuza’s word is everything, and the mist ninja is stubborn as a mule. Following Haku to Zabuza’s hideout would be suicide. The man may be weakened, but against him and Haku at the same time she wouldn’t stand a chance.
Also, as soon as she reported for duty, Kakashi became her commanding officer on this mission; there’s no way he’d let her go off and look for trouble by herself. But can she really just sit by and wait?
“I want to look for them,” Hisana murmers, vaguely aware that it’s a bad idea. “Look where they’re hiding.”
Kakashi shoots her a sharp look, singular eye turning flinty and calculating. “Just ‘look’, huh?”
“I’m not an idiot,” she grouses, watching Naruto involve Sasuke in particularly loud argument across the table, “Zabuza is too much for me alone, and his accomplice is an unknown. But you don’t exactly need me around here. Instead of waiting for them to come to us, we can at least try and find out who ‘they’ are.”
Her logic is sound. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t at least try to track them down – well, except for the obvious part.
“And how do you intend to find them? I’m an excellent tracker, but even I haven’t quite figured out how to telepathically communicate a scent to you.”
Hisana glares at him. “Let me worry about that. I’m a big girl now, you know.”
It’s almost laughably easy to follow the boys into the small smattering of trees that masquerades as a forest. As far as she remembers, Haku is supposed to wander the area in search of healing herbs. If so, chances are good that he did so even before he met Naruto. Hisana is reasonably sure that Naruto hasn’t met Haku yet, but even if he has, the scent should still be there. And any human scent this far from the village would be Haku’s. The villagers seem to stay away from the forest, worried about animals rather than Gato’s men for once.
“There’s stuff that you’re not telling us,” Ran accuses, even as she obediently goes to sniff for traces of human scent. “You can’t keep doing that.”
Haku’s scent is in fact pretty widely spread. They find it in several places where someone has obviously been harvesting plants. Unfortunately Hisana has no idea for what he might be looking next, so intercepting him won’t work. Instead they keep trawling the undergrowth, trying to find the place where all of his paths converge. He’s good, she has to admit grudgingly. They follow his scent nearly off the small island, before Hisana decides they must have been following a false trail.
“There’s no way he could have dragged Zabuza’s body off the island without anyone noticing. And there must be a reason why he’s gathering herbs here, not somewhere in the greater forests off the island.
In the end she does stumble across Naruto’s and Haku’s famous encounter – or rather, the aftermath.
Naruto’s face would have been hilarious, dumbfounded and almost a little scared by the force of Haku’s revelation, if she weren’t so pressed for time. So she leaves the little ninja to his confused thoughts and sets off after the overly friendly enemy shinobi. Haku is really good. Hisana is reasonably sure he hasn’t noticed her yet, his pace unhurried and posture relaxed, but he stops several times to make sure nobody followed him. Fortunately her genjutsu is solid.
His chakra levels, the way he moves – Hisana would estimate him to be at chuunin level. His kekkei genkai could easily elevate him to tokubetsu jounin, however the rest of his skill set she could probably handle. It would be a risk to ambush him now; a fight would be undoubtedly loud and draw unwelcome visitors. But in a few days … she might be able to spare Naruto his fifteen minutes of survivor guilt. Sasuke though … needs his Sharingan.
Hisana shakes her head; right now she has other worries. Fifty feet above her Haku starts to move again.
At the pier, surrounded by busy noise and cable reels, Kakashi lounges against a steal beam. The lurid orange of his book is like a beacon among the grays and tans of the working crew.
Tazuna’s men seem to take comfort in his blatant, eccentric presence, occasionally glancing over to the jounin who seems to pay them no mind at all.
“Useless,” Hisana tuts, slinking out from behind him. “As always.”
“Like teacher, like student,” he muses, leisurely turning a page. His eye trails over to where Sakura’s vivid head bobs along the water, assessing whether or not she’s likely to drown any moment, before struggling to his feet with a grunt. She watches him in exasperation.
“You’re neither that injured, nor that old.”
“You flatter me, love.” He stuffs his book into his back pocket. “Come on. I think you have a report for me.”