fluffy clouds and a tinge of wonder; CH16: A metallic tang

notes: TW, description of dead bodies that may be slightly graphic, also child soldiers engaging in hired murder. this chapter will be more intense than usual. please keep that in mind.

Minato and I follow the road in the trees.

Most of the roads in Fire Country I’ve seen so far are dirt, unpaved, and only maintained by virtue of regular foot traffic keeping the plants from overgrowing. Here, out in the boonies, it’s clear that the local penny pinching lord gets by with a six foot wide, occasionally grass patched thing that’s just asking for muddy holes next time it rains. 

I stop on the wide branch of a towering oak, feet sticking to it with chakra to halt my momentum. In a quiet rustle of fabric Minato lands at my side. His chakra feels a bit lesser than a civilian. Not quite to the level of your average animal, but still. Great progress.

“Your technique is working,” I comment quietly, looking at the road for interesting tracks. It’s odd to adjust the flow of your chakra while using it, but better safe than sorry. I feel a bit trapped under my skin when I’m doing it though.

Minato smiles hesitantly. “Have you found anything yet?”

The strange thing about hunting bandits is that it’s not unlike the tracking exercises they rushed us through in the academy. Instead of looking for my classmates, I’m trying to find adults. 

I take a deep breath through my nose, shutting my eyes. 

We’ve stopped around every five minutes for me to search for interesting smells. We may get unlucky and have to start surveying into the forest blind, but I don’t think we’ll have to. These roads aren’t used very often, and any newer smells will stand—

Something faint piques my interest. Not my chakra sense, a normal smell. Multiple smells mixing together, undeniably human. The stench of iron and something sweet mingles with it like an afterimage. It stands out against the greenery of the forest and the birds. 

“Ah,” I breathe out, opening my eyes. Minato stills beside me, expression sharp. “I think I found something.”

I wave for Minato to follow as I jump closer to the smell. I feel a bit like a dog being led by my nose. Further north, lower, at ground level. It’s being carried by the wind. The breeze feels nice on my face, ruffling my hair.

The closer we get a new smell becomes clear. Rot. I grimace, leaping through the trees with my eyes scanning the grassy ground. It grows stronger until I’m sure even Minato can smell it. We go further into the forest, the road left behind. 

My eyes catch on a bright scrap of fabric. I land with a crouch onto the next branch I can. Minato lets out a quiet gasp. 

A body lies half covered by a thick set of bushes. Fabric clings to it, bright in the few spots not sticking to the corpse. The stench is so strong I have to cover my nose and breathe through my mouth. I can’t see the face of it, only the stomach and legs are sticking out. I have no idea if it’s a man or a woman. Just that the kimono it’s wearing is thoroughly ruined. Flies buzz.

“Seiko?” Minato asks. I look over at where he’s stopped, a few branches above me. His eyes are wide and stuck on the corpse. 

This is the first time either of us have seen a dead person, I think. The first for me in this life. I’d spent a year working at a hospital once, back when I’d been in college. But that was like a distant dream, and very few of the bodies I’d encountered had been in advanced decay. 

I’d rather Minato not look at a rotting one first. The bandits will be better. I don’t need him throwing up here. Fuck, this is horrible.

“Stay there,” I order, sounding a bit stupid with a hand covering my nose. I’ll need to lift it to find the trail of whoever did this, but the smell is disgusting. Horrible. “Watch for if anyone is coming. I won’t be able to sense them well right now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” I reply, jumping down to the grass and taking in the scene. 

Fluids stain the grass around the body, along with what looks like old blood. Someone seems to have haphazardly shoved it into the bushes in an attempt to hide it. Sloppy. Burning or burying it would have been a better bet if they were aiming to be sneaky. It’s far enough from the road that no normal person will smell it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be found. 

“We’ll need to have Jiraiya give us a body scroll for whoever this is,” I tell Minato, leaning down to pull away the bush branches to get a better glimpse of the kimono. I try to discern if there’s still identifiable breasts, or if it’s a more masculine cut. 

“How do you think they died?” Minato asks. He sounds closer. I glance up to see he’s taken my spot on a lower branch. 

I look down again. The fabric seems to have holes at the front. I can’t tell if there was blood staining there from all the bile, but I have to assume there was stabbing involved. I still can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman, and I have no interest in looking at its face to investigate further. Not when just the covered parts of the body are bad enough. I drop the branches. 

“Someone stabbed them a few times in the chest. I’m almost sure it was the bandits. Hopefully they’ve left a trail from here to their hideout,” I explain. I take a few steps back. The body is missing one of its sandals. I wonder where it is. 

“I didn’t know bodies looked like that when they’re left alone,” Minato says morbidly. He’s still looking over at the body’s visible legs with those perceptive eyes. “It’s a bit like when you leave meat out of the fridge.” 

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he’s a little desensitized about these things. A lot of the academy had built in compartmentalization related to death. And Minato in particular is going to massacre people one day with barely a blink. 

All of that feels a bit more real, now. I swat at a fly.

“You shouldn’t leave food out of the fridge long enough to do that,” I say distantly, hand still clinging tightly to my nose. Breathing through my mouth is barely better. Having enhanced senses is overrated. “We shouldn’t turn back now and waste daylight. We’ll let Jiraiya-sensei know about it when we get back.”

Sorry, nameless traveler. You’ll get your rest soon. Along with a return to wherever you came from, too. 

I pull my hand from my face with a disgusted scrunch to my nose. Kakashi had the right idea about wearing a mask all the time. 

It’s only a little difficult to find both the trail of whoever killed the traveller, but also to sense a distant grouping of chakra to the west of us. I’m so lucky that we got our first C-Rank in the middle of the woods, if there were more people around it would be much harder trying to find our marks. 

I jump back into the trees, a sense of unease following me the further we get from the traveller. Who were they? A merchant? They can’t have been a prosperous one, considering the lack of a wagon or guards. Perhaps that had been taken from them and brought into whatever hideout the bandits are using. A handcart would explain a lack of horse or oxen smells.

Cicadas sing and the breeze dies. Sweat starts pooling around my headband again. I’m going to have a breakout by the end of this mission. My feet jolt as I land on another branch, then another. The waxy skin of the body stays in my mind the closer we get. 

Finally, it comes into view. 

Minato and I crouch side by side, arms touching and hidden in the leaves. 

Two miles out from the road, at around a central point between what settlements I know of, sits a makeshift fort. Log walls stake into the earth around a few huts and tents. Crates of goods sit towards the center of the camp, and men walk between them in shabby kosode. A creek runs close by the camp, and I spot a few men washing off in it, complaining about the summer heat. 

“How many do you count?” I whisper, scanning for any outliers. Every man looks like the sort I’d expect. Between teens and middle aged. Scruffy, clearly recovering from lean times. All seem to have some sort of weapon near them, mostly repurposed farm tools.

“Thirty-one,” Minato murmurs. “No, thirty-three, two more were hiding in those shacks.” 

I shut my eyes, trying to detangle the different chakra I can sense from one another to get an accurate count. The problem is that all of them are civilians. Civilians’ chakra systems are far too underdeveloped to piece apart in a crowd, especially from our distance. That’s why Minato and I hiding our chakra at a civilian level is so useful. 

I open my eyes again, letting out an agitated breath. Minato fidgets, and I can feel his eyes on the side of my face. 

“I think we should attack at around two in the morning. The heat is going to make them drowsy, and when things cool down tonight they’ll be out like lights. They’ll probably only be guarding their main point of entry. We can scale the walls and start throat cutting from there.” 

The only entrance into the log walls was a single gate. Two bored looking men seem to be chatting at the front of it, leaning with a pitchfork and kama in hand. 

“While they’re sleeping?” Minato asks. I look over at him and see his frown. 

“I don’t want to give them any chances. It’s kinder to make it quick, Minato-kun.” 

This doesn’t seem to assuage any of his concerns. “What if they wake up?”

“Then we’ll have to be a little less kind about it,” I say darkly. Then add, “Which is why we’re bringing Kushina.”

Weapons or not, sneak attack or not, Kushina is a blunt instrument very good at brute forcing her way. When all else fails, I trust that she’ll be able to punch a bunch of bandits into submission.

Minato and I can too, of course, but there’s something to be said about eagerness. 

Minato huffs a laugh. 

“Now, let me make a quick drawing of the layout, then we can leave,” I say, reaching into my thigh pouch and pulling out a folded piece of paper and pencil. 

—

The sun is setting when we return to the little village, sweaty and successful. 

“‘nato, fill Kushina in on what we saw. I’ll find Jiraiya-sensei to handle the body,” I say as we come to a stop in the trees. Kushina is close by, I can sense her chakra rolling with boredom. 

Minato looks a bit like he wants to say something, but lets the thought pass. He nods once, then he’s leaping in Kushina’s direction. So much leaping. Us Konoha nin are always getting such good leg workouts. That must be why Iwa and Ame want to kill our guts. They’re jealous. 

Or it’s because of some sort of undeniable terrible war crime we did first. They didn’t tell us why the war started in the academy. Mostly there was propaganda about unfair trade infringements and skirmishes that totally weren’t Konoha’s fault. A load of bullshit only brainwashed children would believe.

I take a moment to myself, shutting my eyes and listening to the trees and cicadas. The air is balmy and warm. It’ll cool down in an hour or so, once the sun has set. I stretch my arms high above my head, feeling a few things pop. The mild ache and relief grounds me. 

The air suddenly shifts next to me, and I snap open my eyes, a kunai in hand in seconds. I slide my arm out, aiming for a thigh. I barely have time to pause the movement before I stab my teacher. 

“Good instincts,” Jiraiya praises casually, a bit like how someone talks to a dog. He looks very unperturbed by my kunai hovering a centimeter or two away from his leg. 

“That was impolite, sensei.” I tuck away my kunai, huffing. I didn’t realize I had those instincts. Must be the academy training kicking in. 

“Report,” Jiraiya says with a smile. 

“We located an unidentified body roughly four miles from here due north, maybe forty meters into the treeline. It was in a state of advanced decay. Unsure of the gender. Four stab wounds to the chest. The bandit base was two and a half miles west of there. Assumed perpetrators are the bandits.” 

Jiraiya sighs. “That’s messy. Did you do anything with it?” 

“No, we moved on to the bandit base and agreed to regroup with you to deal with it. None of us carry corpse scrolls, sensei. And I wasn’t going to try and make Minato-kun see it for longer than he had to,” I say, waving a hand. 

“Corpse scrolls are the same as container scrolls, you brat, they just have black ink around the sides to be identifiable,” Jiraiya says, pointing down at my thigh pouch. “You have one on you right now!”

I wrinkle my nose, pointedly not pouting. I do cross my arms though. “It smelled really bad, Jiraiya-sensei. Fresh ones are fine, but that was so gross. Can’t you have a clone do it?”

I know he is fully capable of a kage bunshin, he used them on us during dodging training. Terrible, evil dodging training. 

“You have to get used to nasty smells, Rookie. You’re supposed to be operating this mission like I’m not here.” Jiraiya is notably already making the hand sign for a clone, though he looks peeved about it. 

He forms a cross with his index and middle fingers, and I feel his chakra shift, seemingly cutting itself into half and rushing out of him. In a burst of chakra a second Jiraiya appears next to him. He looks identically irritated. 

I sneeze at the chakra smoke. Both Jiraiyas let out a sudden laugh. 

“Don’t laugh at me, you’re the one wasting chakra,” I grumble, waving a hand over my face as if to fan away the chakra. “I bet I could do that jutsu with half as much smoke.”

“You are the only person I’ve met who acts like chakra gives you allergies. And don’t even think about trying this jutsu, you’ll get yourself put in the hospital from the chakra drain!” Jiraiya says as he pulls out a black ringed scroll from one of his vest pockets, tossing it to his clone. The clone catches it without complaint and starts off in the direction of the body in a blurry shunshin. 

“Then teach me one that doesn’t halve my chakra. I have an earth affinity, you have earth affinity—”

“You can sense that?” Jiraiya cuts in, aghast. “When we get back you’re going to tell me your abilities. All of them.”

“As long as you teach me more jutsu. I’ve been going crazy trying to get my neighbors to show me things,” I say, looking away from him and in the direction I can sense Minato and Kushina. They don’t feel like they’re moving much. I assume Minato is still talking to her. 

Most of my neighbors are graduated shinobi, besides a few newer kids who moved in in the last year. A lot of chunin, a handful of jonin, and a smattering of genin. They’re all helpful enough when they’re home, but a bunch of them are on deployment right now. Losing Uzushio meant losing a significant fighting force of shinobi with huge chakra stores, Uzumaki or not, and they have to be replaced with other bodies on the fronts. Which is bad, because one Uzushio shinobi was worth ten regular ones. 

At least, that’s what my neighbors say. 

Anyway, the ones who are home are either injured, chakra exhausted, or unwilling to show a fresh genin any new tricks without their sensei knowing. Especially one on the jonin track like me. The only jutsu I know now are mostly party tricks or very practical things.

The academy three, shunshin, and a single hand sign jutsu to make a flame at the tip of my finger (usually shown by smokers). Technically the kage bunshin jutsu as well, though I am very aware using it will probably knock me on my ass. The list is very unimpressive. I want more. If Jiraiya doesn’t give me more, I will hunt down Orochimaru and pester him for some. 

Though that may be troublesome. Orochimaru has been on deployment since I graduated as far as I can tell.

“What chakra affinities do Minato-kun and Kushina-chan have?” Jiraiya asks, breaking my thoughts. 

I blink, surprised, and turn back to him. “Wind and water.” 

Jiraiya grunts, looking away from me and thinking. 

“I can work with that, I guess. Run along, Rookie, we’ll talk later.” He waves me off with a flick of his thick fingers, pulling out his notebook and a pencil from his vest. So many hidden things in his vest. 

I roll my eyes and comply, starting off towards Minato and Kushina. We’ll need to pick a place to camp and rest until it’s time for our attack. Damn, I should have asked Kushina to set up camp before we left. But she probably wouldn’t have done it since it’s more menial than staring at a village for hours. Ugh. 

I suppose we don’t need a full camp right now. We may not even stay here right after the mission is finished. Jiraiya has been complaining about how the ground is much worse than a roadside inn since we left Konoha. 

—

The plan, in the end, is quite simple. 

The unfortunate thing for the bandits is that they are civilian, human, and utterly unprepared for any sort of shinobi engagement. Or engagement at all. They have log walls that wouldn’t stand up to even a small group of civilian soldiers. They must sleep and are weak to the elements. They have no way to protect themselves from people who can move silently in the night and remain unseen even in more fortified, well lit areas. 

“This feels unfair,” Kushina whispers in my ear, making me shiver and want to swat at her. She knows I hate when people blow air into it. “And it’s boring.”

“Fairness gets you killed,” I murmur back, eyes sharp on the sight before us.

Genin who try to be fair die, because every other shinobi is stronger and wants you to die. Better to practice making yourself unfair advantages early. 

Before us lies the bandit camp, quiet with nothing but the sound of crickets and croaking frogs. It’s barely lit in the darkness, only a few campfires dying to embers and a torch at the flimsy front gate. There’s only one guard, half snoozing as he leans back into the log wall. 

Minato shifts at my left side, clothes barely rustling. We’re packed close together on this branch, Jiraiya hidden somewhere further up in the tree. I can sense him, and I know that’s because he wants to make sure I know he’s there.

This is a bit like a proctored exam, really. I have always liked acing tests. 

“I’ll kill the guard at the gate. Minato, I want you to take the left side of the camp. Kushina, take the right. Be silent, and try not to wake anyone. Remember to cover their mouths when you cut their throats in case they make noise.” 

I’d rather we not cut throats, on account of the blood, but snapping people who are lying down’s necks is very inconvenient. None of us have big enough hands for it to not be troublesome.

“Why do you get to kill the awake one? Oh, what if another one is awake?” Kushina whispers, fiddling with her kunai pouch. Open, close, open, close. 

“If someone is awake, kill them before they see you. If they see you, kill them before they start shouting,” I say simply, reaching down and stilling her hand. I don’t answer why I’m killing the awake one first. 

I don’t trust Kushina to be quiet enough in approach, and I’d rather Minato start on sleeping people for his first kills. 

“And if they all wake up?” Minato asks, stiff beside me. 

“Then we fight. We’re very good at that,” I say, patting his shoulder. My hand rests there, holding him just as I hold Kushina’s hand. “Are you both ready?” 

Minato nods. Kushina whispers “Hell yeah!” as loud as she can get away with. 

“Then let’s move,” I order. 

In but a breath I’m jumping to the ground below. I land in the grass in a silent roll, pulling a kunai from my pouch and keeping momentum. The dark absorbs me, humid and cool. I landed at the edge of the log walls, out of the guard’s sight. Fifteen meters away. I can feel his chakra, a flickering thing, edging into the small, calm rolls of sleep. He smells like smoke. 

I can’t throw my kunai and risk him crying out. My feet move. Ten meters. Five. The torchlight is bright, moths flying around it. I reach up and grasp the sleepy man by his cheeks, small palm covering his mouth. Bristles of facial hair dig into my fingers. I wrench him down by his face, looking into his wide dark eyes before sliding my kunai across his throat. 

He gargles, surprised. His lips move beneath my palm. Blood sprays from his arteries and I grimace, adjusting my grip on him as he slumps into me. Next time I’ll do this from behind. I let him fall onto the ground slowly, ignoring the way he jerks his hands to try and grab me. Hot blood sticks to my face. Iron and salt fills my nose. Like walking past a butcher shop.

I keep my hand over the man’s mouth until he stops moving. Every second feels too long and too short at once. I take a breath through my nose, ignoring the smell of blood and figuring out where Kushina and Minato are. 

Kushina’s chakra shines like a beacon behind me, in the camp. Minato’s is quieter, though he isn’t circulating his chakra to a civilian level like he was on our way here. He must have forgotten.

I look down at the man beneath me. I wonder what he thought when he saw me. I pull my hand from his face and wipe the blood on my kunai against the back of his shirt, then reach up for the torch. In moments I’ve doused it in the packed dirt. 

The darkness envelops me again. I leave the man face down on the earth and start inside of the camp. His chakra is so weak I can barely sense it. The barest tendrils of smoke leaving in the wind. 

The smell of blood slowly begins to fill the air as surely as it painted my face. I spot Minato’s pale hair flitting to another tent. Kushina sneaks into a shack, hands as red as her hair. I edge through the shadows cast by the dying campfires, feeling for any unsleeping chakra. When a person sleeps, their chakra becomes harder to sense, especially for civilians. 

I slip into a tent on Kushina’s side, further than she has reached yet. Inside two chakra cores mingle together. My eyes adjust to the darkness, seeing two barely clothed men holding each other on a pulled together set of pallets. It’s the sort of thing I’ve been told civilians look down on. I suppose among a band of outcasts, what’s does it matter if two men fuck? 

I pause for a moment, eyeing their positions. Wake one and the other will wake too. My eyes go to the ground, spotting their discarded clothes. I pick up a wad of fabric, a pair of long billowy summer pants. I cut it in half in a quick movement. 

Fabric is shoved into one’s mouth with rough fingers just as I cut his throat, then the other. Both gargle and gag, unable to shout and eyes opening suddenly into the dark. They grab each other disoriented and confused as to who’s hurt them. One goes for the fabric in his mouth, but his hands are too weak to dislodge it. It only takes fifty seven seconds for them both to slump. They die. 

I leave the tent. There’s an urge to murmur “I’m sorry,” and I let that die too.

Minato is making quick work of the left side of the camp, snuffing out chakra. Kushina is—

I stop, abruptly, sensing something both bigger and more awake than it should be in the center of camp. I look in that direction, spotting a shack. The chakra doesn’t feel like a civilians, developed in the way a jutsu user’s would be, but not quite a chunin. Genin sized. Big genin sized.

Ah. Fuck. 

Kushina flits out of the shack she was in and starts for the center shack. 

Fuck fuck fuck. 

I shove my kunai into my thigh pouch and make the tiger sign with such urgency I barely remember to use my chakra. The shunshin is disorienting, and I haven’t used it for sparring much at all, let alone a mission. Speed. Speed is all I know. My chakra buzzes through my limbs and my legs move faster than ever before. In a few nauseating seconds I’m skidding to a stop beside Kushina. 

A sleepy eyed teen opens the shack door before us, shuffling into the dark. On his forehead is a Konoha headband with a slash cutting through the middle. It looks like it's slumping on his face, almost covering his eyes, as if left on while he was sleeping.

I’m on him before he has time to realize what’s happening, slamming a knee into his stomach. He goes flying backwards, gagging, slamming into the flimsy wall of the shack and half breaking it. He lets out a disoriented yelp, and I recognize I’ve messed up my own plans for secrecy. 

Two chakra signatures come to life from sleeping within the shack, smaller than the teen boy but still properly genin sized. 

“Three genin hostiles!” I bark back to Kushina, sensing Minato coming close. The whole camp is going to wake up soon from the commotion. I guess Kushina will get that fight she wants. 

“What?” a feminine voice says in the shack. “We’re being attacked!” another says, a boy. Teens. We’ve stumbled on an older genin team of missing nin. How nice. 

No known jutsu users my ass, Jiraiya-sensei. 

I backpedal out of the doorway with quick feet, smelling the blood and the chakra signatures flickering to waking around us. No other active chakra systems. Good. Three surprises is three too many.

I draw three kunai, eyes not moving from the groaning teen pushing himself from the slumped in wall. Minato lands at my left side, and Kushina rushes up to my right. 

“Sorry, I think I ruined my own plan,” I tell the two of them, rapidly throwing two of my kunai at the teen and watching him curse and jump out of the doorway’s sightline. “Three genin sized chakra systems, one with a Konoha headband—”

I hear an incredulous voice in the shack, the girl, “They sent fucking baby genin after us?”

“All three presumably low priority deserters. We’ll neutralize them and then the waking bandits,” I finish. 

“I killed ten,” Minato offers. There’s a sharpness to his eyes I haven’t seen since the last time he and Mikoto sparred. It feels like it’s been ages. “How many did you get Kushina-chan?” 

“Six,” Kushina says mulishly. Her chakra is rolling with discomfort, hand tight around her kunai. “I’ll get more than you, dattebane.”

“Three. That makes Nineteen down out of thirty-six. Fourteen civilians and three genin left.” 

“Holy fuck, did you hear that?” says one of the boys in the shack. 

“We’re going to kill you brats!” the one I kicked wheezes. I must have knocked the air out of him. I’m certainly not stepping into an enclosed space with three hostiles to pursue my advantage, though. 

“Attack? There’s an attack!” someone shouts nearby. 

Plans fly through my mind, parsed and discarded before my next breath. I decide abruptly that I’d like to get all of the missing nin out of that stupid shack and kill them before we’re swarmed by bandits.

“Hand me that explosion tag, Minato-kun,” I say loudly, bluntly. I make no move to hold out a hand for said fake explosion tag. I throw another kunai into the shack. 

Three forms burst from the thatched roof of the shack, sending old straw everywhere. They land behind us, and I duck under a sudden kick aimed for the back of my head. 

“Sage above, they’re new grads,” the girl who tried to take my head off hisses. “Where’s your commanding officer?”

I twist to face her, shifting out of the way of another kick meant to hit me in the nose. Her foot passes by my ear. I stab her in the meat of that thigh and wrap my arm around it, standing abruptly to make her lose her balance. 

“Chouko!” one of the boys says. More like a young man, what with the patchy beard. He’s engaged with Minato to my right. The one I kicked is fighting Kushina to my left. 

Chouko’s head slams into the ground, now sideways and half upside down. She lets out an enraged shriek. I twist my kunai hard, before jerking it up to cut from her inner muscle to above her knee. She’s not wearing the right clothes for a fight at all. Nothing but a ratty pair of pajama shorts and shirt she must have taken with her from Konoha. 

Blood drips down her bare thigh. I got her femoral artery and seriously damaged her muscles. She’s not going to be as much of a problem now. 

Shinobi always like to surprise you, though. 

I drop her leg before she can try and choke me with her legs. Kushina’s opponent disengages with her, cursing and grabbing Chouko. He leaps backwards, out of my reach. 

I take the short reprieve to take in our opponents. The young woman Chouko has the muscle definition of a kunoichi but none of her gear. She’s panting, pale as her hand covers her wound. The teen I kicked is holding her protectively. He has his headband on, along with what must be his mission grade clothes. He has his thigh pouch. He is looking at me like he’s going to rip my heart out. The third—

Minato slashes him along the face, twisting out of the way of a punch. The third has a patchy beard, just a pair of boxers and his thigh pouch. He’s more muscular than the other two, but with less chakra. 

It doesn’t matter. This is practically a slaughter. They’re unprepared, surrounded by dead men, and clearly got complacent in their desertion. 

“If you surrender now we’ll be quick,” I call, if only to watch how they react. Minato dances with patchy beard, moves as exact and deadly as he was trained to be. 

“You’re a lying brat, you didn’t even have an exploding tag earlier,” the one I kicked shouts back. Men are stumbling out of their tents now, hastily pulling out weapons. “Aoto, we need to leave!” 

Patchy beard, or Aoto, has some trouble disengaging with Minato. Minato matches shifts around every punch, covering him in cuts and slashes for every gap in his technique. A frantic air begins to build in him, eyes widening more and more. 

“Aoto-san is busy right now, senpai. Maybe you should come closer and help him,” I say contemplatively, eyes unmoving from Chouko and the last unnamed shinobi. 

Kushina slams her fist into the face of a brave bandit two feet taller than her, sending him flying through the air. I hear something crack. 

Nameless shinobi forms the tiger seal and I have just enough time to shift out of the way of a kunai aimed for my throat. It grazes my cheek, a burning sting that grounds me. His chakra smells like freshly turned earth, like a petrichor that bellies a storm. I don’t have much time for thinking. 

Aim a fist for his stomach, step out of the way of a slash. Push his arm out of the way when he goes for another. Slash him in the arm. He’s taller, so account for the height difference when I aim hits. Cut the strap of his thigh pouch, grasp it and leap back when he tries to roundhouse kick me. 

Distantly I am reminded of sparring with Mikoto. She’s out of the village right now. I wonder if she’s alright. 

My blood pumps, the cut on my cheek stings. I feel terribly alive. 

“What’s your name?” I ask, throwing his ratty pouch in Kushina’s direction. She’s taking on three bandits a bit like how a cat plays with amusing mice. 

“Eiji,” my opponent bites out. No last name. He tries to slash me in the face. I duck. “Tell the shinigami who brings you to the Pure Land.”

“Seiko,” I reply. No last name. In a way, me ducking is a bit like a polite bow. “Banditry was a terrible idea as a missing nin.”

I would have become a farmer.

Eiji tries to kick me in the face. I don’t take it too personally. I slam my kunai into the soft part of his knee. One day, people are going to realize trying to kick someone who is short is a terrible idea. 

“Aoto!” I hear Chouko scream, anguished. She almost harmonizes with Eiji’s own shout, both at his ruined knee and his dying friend. I feel Aoto’s chakra dribble away. 

I don’t say sorry. 

This is what it means to be a shinobi.

Eiji stumbles back away from me, before his hands form a tiger sign again. In a blurry blink he’s past me, and I turn to see him drop beside his friend’s corpse. 

Aoto lies limply on the ground, a deep slash across his throat. Eiji leans over him, hands covering the wound. Minato stands a few feet away, watching the sight with that look on his face. The trained absence of feeling that seems to come easier to him than others. A cold calculation.

“Minato,” I say, watching those eyes turn to me. I twitch my head in the direction of Chouko. He nods, once. Then he starts towards her. She’s slumped forward weakly, looking pale. She’s lost far too much blood to do anything so long as she doesn’t know any surprise jutsu. 

I walk towards Eiji. Kushina’s fight seems to be letting up, as all I can hear are the groans of her vanquished foes unlucky enough to still live. We’ll have to cut their throats. 

“—Aoto, come on, come on, get up,” Eiji says to himself, sounding younger than he is. “We’re supposed to see the ocean.”

I eye his uncovered neck, estimating where the joints of his spine meet.

I throw my blood slick kunai. Eiji chokes, dropping like a puppet with his strings cut. 

I hope the Pure Land has an ocean. 

I look away from the two corpses, watching Minato stand up straight from handling Chouko. I look to my left, seeing Kushina looking around us with wide eyes. I can see recognition start to form in her face. Understanding. A tinge of disgust.

The air shifts, and the smell of sun baked clay fills my nose. Jiraiya lands in the center of the carnage with a casual air, squinting at all of us and our handywork. 

“What a bloodbath. I definitely didn’t get this many kills on my first out of village mission,” Jiraiya says cheerfully. 

Kushina promptly throws up. I sigh.