Squad 4: For Whom The Bell Tolls - Complete

[Ganryu]

Nobushige sighed as he watched Yuuki far below practicing with the sword. To be honest, Nobushige did have a bit of joy in the fact it had become so sloppy. Still… something was on his mind.

“You know, I’m starting to worry about him. Really about all of them. The hell was your old man thinking putting me as Sensei? I’m an ANBU operative at heart.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Tsubaki sighed, “maybe it was to keep you from slipping over the edge or something. Seen it happen to other ANBU before.”

“Heh, you’re not wrong. Then again, don’t tell me you’re any better. Hard to feel during the day, hard to sleep at night. Trademarks of ANBU… I think I’m the most honest sensei they could have had. Haven’t lied yet. But I’m kind of worried they are turning out like me.

“Don’t tell the old man, but remember the mission I took him on? Gave him orders to unseal the door and stay there. He went inside to finish the mission and killed three ninjas. That bloodthirst is what worries me. The other two aren’t much better. Nagisa’s seen some shit in her life, I can tell that, and it doesn’t seem to be healing. Katsumi’s more vicious than the other two combined when pressed.”

“The war certainly isn’t helping any of them, it’ll just be like us all over again.” Dark eyes glanced over at the other shinobi, “Have you been following their missions? Seems Nagisa and a few others got roped into a mission you and I should have been sent on.”

“Yeah… Hasn’t helped the sleep issues, but yeah. Nagisa interrogated a man and didn’t say a word about it later. Repressed it like it was nothing. Exactly what an ANBU would do. Exactly what the two of us would do. Heh, remember the good cop bad cop gig we did in Hidden Hotsprings? Two of us are probably monsters, blood everywhere, tons of fun. I drank all the booze in the house. Told you there wasn’t any.”

“I know, asshole."

“But yeah, at this rate, all three of them will be in ANBU just like us. I’m still hoping they won’t though. To be honest, teaching’s generally fun, but sucks to have no idea what to do. Like, how do I know what to do with them from here? Do I just assume that’s where they end up? Still hope they don’t?”

Tsubaki was quiet for a long moment, watching Yuuki spar against one of their cousins. “I’m really not the person to ask about this… Almost swear Uchiha are cursed to end like this, with dad being the exception.” She shook her head, “Maybe find a mission to really gauge where the three of them stand? Something only someone like us would do?”

Nobushige took a deep breath as he thought on it. As he let it out, the faintest traces of a smile could be seen under his bandages.

“Heh, time to see if I have a shred of humanity left, I guess. Oddly, haven’t really picked a mission I’ve hoped they’d failed before. I suppose mostly because I’ve wanted them to think failure is death.

…. Thanks Tsubaki.”

 

[Ganryu]

All three of the chunin would find notes attached to their front doors. Unlike most of Nobushige's notes, they were short, and unpersonalized. Crass as they normally were, there was an... odd personal touch to the regular ones. These also weren't bizarely delivered, such as attached to a kunai and delivered to their beds at 4 in the morning. Or stamped to the door and then a smoke bomb to the door. Nobushige was still proud about the time Nagisa had managed to actually catch one of his clones. These, however, were simply taped to the door.

Spoiler: Nagisa/Yuuki/Katsumi

Mission tomorrow. Meet at gate, 7 pm. Tracking. Pack for speed.

Nobushige sat atop a street lamp at the appointed gate. He didn't have his bandages on. Scars of chainmarks ran all up his neck, with distorted skin. Worst of all his lips were torn in several places, large gashes and missing flesh apparent. His nose was hardly better, the left nostril having a hole up its side. The marks and scars led from his nose down to his chest. He looked like a zombie in real life. Even shinobi avoided him.

Even if it took a second, his clothing, hair, and the knife he was juggling absentmindedly identified him. He gave a shrug to his students.

"Haven't slept well, bandages are a pain the ass to put on, so @#$@ it." He offered a halfhearted explanation.

"Yuuki, you're squad leader, especially seeing as you have the most knowledge of clan politics. I'm also not coming. Can't keep up at the moment."

He then cracked his neck, and pulled up a dossier.

"Alright, missing nin hunt. Hyuga. Anyone who knows the clan knows they are a bunch of assholes, and get missing nin often. Part of the price for them in the village and their amazing doujutsu is we have to hunt down these missing nin... all the time. This one is your age, Matsuri of the bells. By the way, guess from her moniker her specialty. Last seen around the Valley of the End. Just know you failing means we have to send more specialized ninja, and it's on your record. I leave this mission to your full discretion. "

 

[AtlannianSpy]

Nagisa Kanazawa
​

"Alright, whatever. We'll handle it," said Nagisa tersely. Nobushige's behavior was throwing her off, she hadn't really realized how much she had come to expect and anticipate his weirdness now that it was absent before they'd even gotten into some life threatening situation, something she'd often wished for in that past. The effect was unnerving, then there were those scars.

It wasn't that the injuries themselves that made her uneasy, Nagisa understood well enough what it meant to have a part of you, that you wanted to keep hidden underneath bandages. It was more that his excuse struck her as obviously bullshit. It was so obvious that it seemed deliberate. No matter what kind of bullshit hour Nobushige called them out at, even before then, when she was living with the old man, Nagisa had never once left the house without bandaging her arm. It wasn't the kind of thing you didn't bother with just because you were a little tired.

Nagisa stared at Nobushige with a hard expression but her eyes slid away before he looked up from the dossier.

Focus on the mission, as long as there are no mistakes you'll have plenty of time to call him out when you get back. Some crazy Hyuuga runaway probably isn't the kind of problem it take on half assed and distracted.

Nagisa pushed herself off from the railing and looked expectantly at Yuuki. "Not much point hanging around is there?"

 

[InsaneAsylum]

Katsumi Nonoba

Katsumi’s first reaction to her sensei’s appearance was to let out a brief ear piercing scream. She quickly brought her hand over mouth, and looked away. It wasn’t his horribly scarred and battered appearance that frightened her, but the thought of what had happened to him that scared her. She’d seen plenty of broken bruised and mutilated ninja. More so in the past year.

Fortunately, the mission didn’t sound as terrible as her past ones, but it sounded difficult nonetheless. A Hyuga that used bells? Katsumi didn’t know what the bell part was all about, but she knew that Hyuga’s were no thing to fool with. It was hard to treat someone nearly killed by a Hyuga. But with teamwork, they could totally win! Yuuki and Nagisa were super strong and smart.

Katsumi leaped after Nagisa. “W-wait! What did he mean by bells?”

 

[KageYuuki]

Yuuki Uchiha
Yuuki was quiet through their short briefing, rubbing an ear left ringing by Katsumi's shriek. Nobushige looked awful, there really wasn't any denying that. He was pretty sure the injuries came from the same mission Tsubaki got very similar scars on her sword arm. As for the mission itself... dealing with a Hyuuga was going to be troublesome. It probably wasn't going to be safe for any of them to get too close which really limited Katsumi's options.

But Matsuri... from the Academy? Being sent after complete strangers was one thing. But someone they knew, even if not all too well... Yuuki wasn't sure how he felt about that.

“W-wait! What did he mean by bells?”

Bells? The Uchiha groaned, looking over at Nobushige. "Ah fuck... she's a genjutsu specialist, isn't she?"

 

[KageYuuki]

Nobushige held his ear, resisting the urge to murder Katsumi. It was a hard urge. He glanced at Yuuki. "You tell me, Sherlock. Nagisa's right, the hell you three waiting for? You have your orders, are packed, and know I ain't coming. Now I gotta treat a splitting headache too. I ain't staying in public long, apparently, it makes little girls scream."

He shrugged and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Inside the dossier, a description of the last report of the Hyuga, seen a day ago headed towards the Rice Country border, and that an intercept team would likely meet her at the Valley of the End. Her skills were listed as:

A little note was left from Nobushige:
Mostly leaving this to you, but remember, formation in hunting counts. Also remember, I don’t give a damn the reason, in the field, listen to the squad leader.

“So? How exactly do you wanna do this?” Nagisa asked Yuuki as the three of them left the village. “I know none of us are that great with genjutsu but I’m even worse than you guys,” Nagisa held up her false arm with a flat expression. “Can’t do the ‘kai’ thingy all that well. If she uses bells to cast genjutsu could we just plug our ears? Would that work?”

“B-but what if she sneaks up on us while we can’t hear?” Katsumi asked. Genjutsu was terrifying to the young kunoichi, and she hadn’t ever encountered much of it yet, except for a few times in the past during her ‘special training’. “Since pain can break you out of genjutsu, maybe we can all have a kunai ready to give ourselves a good poke after we hear a bell!” Katsumi exclaimed, the idea seeming brilliant to her.

Nagisa blinked. “Great, we’ll just stab ourselves. Dunno why I didn’t think of that, thanks, Katsumi,” Nagisa’s tone was neutral but slightly taut, as if about to snap.

Yuuki ran a hand over his face, eyes already shifting from deep brown to piercing scarlet. “Blocking out the sound might help… so would finding and stopping the bells. They emit chakra so I should be able to see them.”

“We could have two of us block our ears while one person keeps them clear to listen,” suggested Nagisa. “Limit our exposure while still being alert. Katsumi, I think you have the best hearing out of us. As long as you stay alert there won’t be much that you don’t pick up that me and Yuuki would catch anyway,”

“Oh… ok I’ll do that…” Katsumi mumbled, with wet eyes.

Yuuki glanced back at Katsumi with a quirked eyebrow, they really hadn’t even started yet and she was crying… At least she still always pulled through in the end. Somehow. “Tsubaki’s been helping me with my sharingan, I’ll be able to catch if you’re under a genjutsu. Still can’t see it on myself though.”

“Then maybe you could focus on suppressing her genjutsu?” Nagisa suggested. “Target her bells when you see ‘em, harass her when she goes for hand seals, worst comes to worst you be the one to break us out.

Katsumi and I together can probably handle her in a close range fight but if we get caught in a genjutsu things could go south quickly. So instead of attacking aggressively, we prioritize sealing her most dangerous abilities and slowly wear her down with our advantage in numbers? It’s one option anyway,”

“Might be the best,” Yuuki mused. “But genjutsu specialist or not, she’s still a Hyuuga. The Byakugan and gentle fist aren’t something we can ignore.”

“Please do your best not to get hit you two, I can’t fix your chakra pathways if they get closed,” Katsumi reminded them. “So, uh, w-what will our formation be like?”

“I should probably take point, I’ll have a better chance of my sharingan seeing anything. Katsumi, you should be in the center. Nagisa, you have the best range so you’ll be able to easily support us from the rear.” He glanced over at them, “sound good?”

“Y-yea, sounds good.”

Nagisa nodded curtly.

As the group traveled northward, the trail of Matsuri Hyuuga was surprisingly sparse. She left few tracks, and apparently moved quickly. However, she had been seen frequently, a Hyuuga being a rather easy thing to spot. For the most part, the travel was relatively peaceful. It was on the third day the first sign of her could be seen. As Yuuki passed a branch, should he look back, he would notice a tag behind them. Its siblings were well hidden from the direction of the leaf, making it a surprise as people passed. A second later, a cloud of purple smoke detonated in the area.

Dammit! Nagisa instinctively covered her mouth and nose as the thick purple smoke began to fill her vision but that wouldn’t be enough alone. With her prosthetic arm Nagisa summoned an arrow in her hand, gripped it and had her hand spin rapidly at the wrist, forming a sort of makeshift fan that she used to ward the smoke away.

Katsumi emitted a startled squeal, before she too covered her hands and nose, doing her best to hold her breath. Having been shocked by the trap, she forgot to maintain her footing, and slipped and fell off a branch. She landed nimbly, but was desperate to take a breath.

Shit! Yuuki stopped running, focusing his chakra instead. The Uchiha seized and animated every tag and sheet of paper he carried in his pouches, his belt, sword, and jacket soon dissolving as well. Now would have been a great time to know wind release… The sheets quickly coalesced along his back to form massive wings. Clinging to the tree with chakra, they flapped as hard as they could, trying to kick up wind and dissipate the smoke.

The purple smoke was blown slightly by the wings and fan, but coming from four direction, fans would pull it as much as push it away. It was laced with a fairly strong sleeping agent, but thankfully it was the type to be inhaled, and Squad 4 had the sense to try and not inhale it. A slight drowsiness was the worst that would come of it as long as they were quick. The smoke rose into the distance, also giving the traps detonation away for quite some distance. At the very least they could consider stealth out the window.

In the next small town past the Valley of the End, about 3 hours away, a small girl looked out in the distance, taking a blindfold off.

“I-I thought I had a bit more time… Do I leave?”

She looked at the edges of a burned barn, and shook her head.

“Worst they can do is kill me. These people have been nice to me.”


“Fuck!” Nagisa snapped, slamming her prosthetic into a nearby tree as the thick cloud of smoke wafted up into the sky. “Well, there goes the element of surprise, great job taking point there,”

As soon as she said that Nagisa realized her outburst wasn’t productive, the faint sense of unease that had been following her around all day had built up and boiled over. “We need to keep moving or we’ll lose her entirely, try not to walk us into anything else,” she said shortly, folding her arms and trying to ignore the throbbing in her head.

Yuuki flinched, avoiding her gaze. “R-right, let’s just get a move on… You alright, Katsumi?”

“Yea, I’m fine…” Katsumi said, her eyes flickering from Yuuki to Nagisa nervously.

The squad’s travel would take them past the Valley of the End. At the valley there was little sign of her, the trail again becoming difficult, but eventually, recent activity could be seen on the opposite side, broken tree branches where someone had fallen out of a tree, perhaps due to exhaustion. The path led on towards a small farm village on the other side.

On the outskirts of it, a rather large man with a straw hat, and straw in his mouth looked up from his harvest (of straw).

“What’chu folks doing round here? Not often we get visitors, now we get several in a few days. Jerst passing on through? Some bandits or something round these part I durn know about?”

“Several visitors?” Yuuki’s head canted to one side, his sharingan having faded from sight for the time being. “Who else has been through here?”

“Some poor blind girl, came crashing through the woods. She was so exhausted my wife was taking care of her. Poor thing. Looked like she was running for days. And ya know the first thing she did when she woke up? She asked if she could help around the farm! Think she’s cleaning up the barn now. So what’chu be needing?”

“Just looking to stop and rest for a little bit, we’ll keep out of your way.”

“Actually I don’t suppose you have any food we could buy do you?” Nagisa interrupted, before shooting Yuuki an entirely manufactured but fairly authentic look of exasperation. “Some of us didn’t pack enough supplies for the whole journey, we can pay whatever you want for the trouble,”

Yuuki rolled his eyes, “Not my fault sensei dropped this on me the moment I walked in the village gate from another mission.”

“It is your fault you were late getting back from that mission,” Nagisa shot back to keep the charade going.

“It’s a’ight, I ain’t letting no kids go hungry on my watch. We don’t got much, but we can help out a bit. Got some apples from the orchard, a bit of jerky from last winter, some homemade bread. You three just want to stay for dinner? I wouldn’t mind in the least, but I would like a bit of help out here if ya do. How’s that instead of money?"

“B-but I packed plenty of supplies! Whaddya mean?!”

“Oh, now you say something,” Yuuki didn’t even try to hide the exasperation in his voice. “Would it have killed you to say something back when I was being chewed out?”

“I-I-I….” Katsumi was terribly confused. “I’m sorry…”

“You packed plenty of supplies for yourself,” Nagisa cut in hurriedly, shooting Katsumi what she hoped was a sufficiently meaningful look. “But Yuuki didn’t pack his so unless you want to go on half rations for the rest of the journey I think it’d be in our best interests to accept this incredibly generous offer,” Nagisa said, offering the farmer a strained smile.

Yuuki nodded, offering the man a short bow, “So what do you need us to do?”

The farmer looked confused, dropping his straw he was chewing on halfway through the display, and looking annoyed at fall.

“You folks better not be trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Just because we’re honest folk and not ninja don’t mean we should be treated any less. Buuuut… I really could use help harvesting the hay. Someone to harvest, someone to haul it, and someone to make sure no water gets in. Do that, and we’ll see ‘bout getting ya’ll some food and a good dinner. I’ll go notify the wife. Heh, dinner for 6, it’ll be like when we had kids again.”

He left the group for what was likely a quick work for ninja.


A few hours later, a dinner of Kobe style beef, mixed with rice and noodles. It was a pricey meal for even a farmer. The farmer’s wife was a rather plump lady, with a ladle in hand, and a dirty apron on. Also at the table was a small girl wearing a blindfold. Even from behind it, a look of fear and confusion rose from her as she saw the three Leaf nin. Her hand brushed past her side, bells chiming, though she did little other than stand at the ready. The farmer had acquired a new straw to chew on.

“Don’t look so tense, girl. Travelers just like you. Worked a day, figured might as well feed’em fine.”

Katsumi didn’t break a sweat at all that day doing work for the farmer. Hauling hay was time consuming, but it was so light that she barely noticed she was carrying it! Compared to her construction work this was child’s play. But now, with the girl who was most likely the target across the table, Katsumi started sweating profusely. She rubbed her arm nervously, glancing at Nagisa and Yuuki.

“U-uhm… hello…” Katsumi squeaked out, barely audible.

A quick flash of crimson as the farmers’ backs were turned, just enough to be sure no chakra seeped from the bells. Yuuki offered the Hyuuga a slight wave, “Hey, on the road too, huh?” Turning to the farmer’s wife, he offered a bow, “Thank you for allowing us to stay.”

“I was surprised to hear someone else was traveling through here alone,” Nagisa said, calmly taking a seat at the table and tucking into the food. “The area’s pretty remote, aren’t you concerned for your safety?”

Hard work for honest pay was not exactly Nagisa’s style and her shoulders were now a little stiff. She just wanted this mission to be other but with her target sitting across the table she couldn’t afford to get sloppy now. Still, if Nagisa’s suppositions about the Hyuuga girl were correct then they had the edge here. There was an opening they could exploit.

The Hyuga still sat tense the entire time, more confused than anything. Her face showed it. She did start to eat, but jumped at every little movement. She did answer though, her voice soft.

“To be honest, terrified, but, well, if someone wants to start over a new leaf, you have to take things one step at a time. The only one who can dictate your life is you.”

The farmers were in the middle of their meal when the wife jumped up. The husband facepalmed, foreseeing a coming storm.

“I forgot the desert in the oven. Hibiki dear, come help me real quick! If it's not burned, topping it will need an extra hand.”

The two old farmers moved quickly, though the husband grumbled “can’t we just enjoy the meal here.” Despite his grumblings, he didn’t seem to slow down any to wait for a response.

As they left the room, the Hyuga leaned in.

“What are you guys doing? You’re after me right? Please just wait til after this, and we can settle it. I really don’t want to drag those two into it, they’ve been nice to me. I’d at least like them to think I was on my way, rather than….”

Yuuki closed his eyes for a moment, resting his chin on interlaced fingers. “Fine,” he said after taking a breath. When he looked back at her, burning crimson had replaced the soft brown of his eyes. “But the moment you try anything, we’ll kill both of them.”

Katsumi nearly coughed up the food n her mouth when Yuuki mentioned killing both of the farmers. She wanted to disagree with him, but quickly went back to eating. She knew she’d be the odd one out on the issue. They had to whatever they could to capture the Hyuuga either way.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” said Nagisa, her voice low and calm. “We’re all going to eat dinner, then you’re going to leave with my teammates while I stay here. When you get back to Konoha my team will send me back a message via hawk, when I get it I’ll follow you back. As long as I get that message within three days, they’ll never even know I stuck around. If I don’t get it, or something about the message I get seems off…”

Nagisa trailed off as bustling sounds from the kitchen heralded the return of the old couple and she smiled politely at them.

Matsuri sighed, fidgeting slightly under the table, and politely stood up with her dinner half finished.

“I’m sorry Mr. and Mrs. Tagashi.”

Matsuri held up her hand, a tag held in it. The tag read: Raiju.

“I left the Hyuga because they were cruel. I guess I can be too, I just… don’t want to be a ninja anymore. I can’t stomach it. I can’t stomach the things I have to do anymore.”

Yuuki raised an eyebrow, “Can’t stomach it, yet you’re the one threatening to blow up the couple that helped you when you collapsed?”

Slowly but surely, Katsumi scooted her chair backwards, standing up carefully and walking towards the kitchen and casually as possible. “I-I’m gonna go see how the dessert is looking,” Katsumi said nervously.

“Come on, we all know if you were capable of doing something like that then we wouldn’t even be here,” said Nagisa, slowly, deliberately. Although her voice was level the muscles in her arms and shoulder were coiled and tense and her fingers, resting on the table, were ready to tap the lightning flash seals on her gloves in an instant.

“If you were half that cold, you would have just stolen some food from these people and left as soon as you could walk. If you were even one-tenth that cold you would have at least left when we set off your trap this morning. But instead you stuck around to fix a barn and now we’re all here having dinner together.”

Nagisa exhaled slowly. “So sit down, have a slice of whatever that is and then come back with us. There’s no chance in hell they’ll even trust you with missions after this, best case scenario, they find some kind of noncombat role where you can be useful, worst case, you go to jail for the rest of your life and… I dunno get really good at shogi or something. I suspect the reality will be somewhere between those two extremes.”

The tag in Matsuri’s hand went off. A bright magnesium level flare blinded the room, the paper continuing to shine, even after Matsuri had dropped it. Matsuri hadn’t wanted to use everything escaping, but the situation gave her no choice. The farmers probably wouldn’t forgive her, but she really had no choice, she was a rat in a corner.

“I have to at least save them before I die…”

Katsumi would be largely unaffected at the dessert table, and might notice Matsuri lunging for the elderly couple with two enclosing seals.

“Sorry!”

Katsumi nearly choked on the piece of pie she had stuffed in her mouth at the sound of clattering in the dining room. Did the bomb go off, or were they fighting? Katsumi dropped her plate, and ran into the dining room, fork still in hand. She was just in time to see her comrades recoiling from the flashbang, and the Hyuuga girl leaping at the farmers with some kind of scroll! Instinctively, Katsumi threw a single kunai at the girl.

Catching the surge of chakra towards the tag, Yuuki closed his eyes and turned his head away. Hearing her footsteps moving away from the table, shuriken left his hand towards her legs. Either they’d strike, or the wires would catch her. Or he’d miss. There was a downside to literally throwing blind.

A few thoughts went through Nagisa’s mind as her vision erupted in blinding, white light. Thoughts like why does everyone have to do things the hard way? and Being on the other end of one of these things really sucks

Most of Nagisa’s weapons were useless without her sight, or even more harm than good, before she could do anything she needed to figure out where Matsuri was so she lashed out wildly with one arm, spreading a fan like pattern of chakra threads from her fingertips roughly where she thought the girl might travel. If some of the threads caught Matsuri, even if just for the split second it took the Hyuuga to slice through them with chakra, Nagisa could make something that at least approximated an aimed shot with her crossbow.

Matsuri leapt over the shurikens and kunai just in time to touch both couple before the bolas flying under her could hurt them. However, she also leapt through a chakra thread, unable to see it with her byakugan. Matsuri turned as the crossbow fired, putting her arm in the way of it, taking the bolt to the forearm, and wincing from the pain. She continued running though, opening the door and heading out. She threw the paper seals in the barn as she continued north away from the valley of the end. The blood loss, however, would ensure she’d have to stop to bandage herself.

Yuuki growled, giving chase to the sound of retreating footsteps, only watching long enough to see what direction she was headed before turning back. The light was finally fading, but it would probably be some time before their sight returned. “Either of you hurt?”

Katsumi grunted, pulling one of Yuuki’s shuriken out of her upper arm. “I’m ok!” She replied, noting that the two farmers were missing. “W-we gotta hurry… right?” Katsumi took another hesitant glance at the two farmers’ empty seats and back to the delicious pie in the kitchen before running out the door after Yuuki and Matsuri.

“W-Wait I can’t- Nryggh fuck!” Nagisa cursed as she collided with the side of the door frame with a dull thunk. She’d been trying to navigate away from the blinding light even as it died down to spare her eyes but it was slow going. “I can’t see! Urggh! Where’d she go? Did I get her? It felt like I hit her,”

“Yeah, you hit her,” Yuuki caught Nagisa by the shoulders, looking her over briefly. “Went right through her arm, too.” He sighed, “Look, we don’t have a lot of time, one of us will have to carry you until your eyes clear up.”

“W-What!? Carry me? What the hell are you talking about?” demanded Nagisa hotly, trying rather ineffectually to free herself from Yuuki’s grip. “Is this a genjutsu?!”

“No, just a flash bomb. A really fucking bright one. So either we carry you or you stay put until your eyes clear up.”

“You’re not going anywhere without me seeing as even when I’m blind I’m apparently still the only one who can hit a target here,” Nagisa said firmly. She hesitated for a moment more and then sighed in defeat. “Just make sure you put me down before we get close, if she sees me like this I’ll never live it down,”

“I bet you used chakra threads to help you aim,” Yuuki muttered before shaking his head. “Whatever, let’s go.” He turned his back to her, pulling her arms around his neck, “Just climb on my back.”

“I used threads to find her,” Nagisa muttered defensively, her cheeks flushing as she clambered awkwardly onto Yuuki’s back. “The shot was all skill,”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Yuuki glanced back, “Katsumi, let’s go.”


Sitting a tree, Matsuri finished wrapping her arm, and looked down.

“What’s the point. Even if I got away, they’d just send better guys. I said I’d escape the Hyuuga, and I did. How’d I get so stupid to stay though? All that we see or seem. Is but a dream within a dream.”

Matsuri sighed, and started to do something she didn’t even understand why she was doing it. Leaning her head back, and brushing her bells constantly, she started to sing softly to the air around her. The air was laced with genjutsu, and far below a story started from a moving image, with Matsuri as a farmer shown below, with no Byakugan. As she sang, the image of herself below occasionally changed. Sometimes it was a farmer, sometimes it a was a librarian, sometimes a merchant, but never a ninja, and never anything of note like nobility. If she was going to go, she could at least end one dream with another.

“The Hyuuga really are an awful bunch,” Yuuki muttered, well within earshot. He’d set Nagisa down some time ago, her eyes having recovered enough to move on her own.

“Not really. I mean, not like they have a choice, not like we can suddenly not have a byakugan unlike the sharingan. It's just… I was born wrong. I’m not supposed to be a ninja. I mean, I know the logic. I fall into the enemy hands, it’s bad for everyone, even with this curse seal. I move to some rural area, that’s never even heard of ninjas, and word gets around of the white-eyed girl, and they’d do what you threatened to those farmers. But I can’t go back the Leaf, I just can’t. Just go ahead, you ARE ninja. Do what you have to.”

The little theatre kept dancing below.

Yuuki scoffed, “They have a choice. You don’t see Uchiha branding each other with curse seals or splitting our clan into castes. We’re not taking you back to the Leaf.”

“W-we aren’t?” Katsumi asked, gazing down below the trees at Matsuri’s genjutsu. She didn’t want to have to make the girl live in captivity in the Leaf, but she also didn’t want to lie to her village.

“Giving her back to the Hyuuga would be worse than any death sentence.”

Katsumi didn’t reply. She just stared at the ground, as her muscles began to relax.

“The world’s full of shitty people,” said Nagisa, sounding tired. “How is that our fault? I don’t have anyone to vouch for me if we fuck this up. If I want to keep moving forward I have to perform better than everyone whose clan can get them a posting,”

Nagisa squared herself up against Matsuri, closing the distance between them. “I can’t afford to take it easy on you,” she said bitterly.

Matsuri simply nodded, then looked upward as she continued her song.

Below the illusionary Matsuri took on white clothing.

There was a snap as Nagisa's crossbow fired and an arrow hissed through the air, slamming into the wood of Matsuri's tree with a splintering noise.

"Yuuki did I get her? I still can't see too well from that flare," Nagisa asked flatly, without turning around.

Yuuki let out a shaky breath, “Yeah… you and Katsumi head back to the farmhouse and unseal them. See what the damages are.” He unlocked his blade, “I’ll take care of the proof.”

“Right,” Nagisa nodded and turned away, putting a hand on Katsumi’s shoulder and pulling her away. “C’mon let’s go, you’re not gonna want to see the rest,”

With tears in her eyes, Katsumi brushed Nagisa’s hand off of her, hurrying away. She wanting nothing to do with it all anyway.

“Sorry, Matsuri,” he murmured, drawing his sword. “Maybe your next life will be kinder to you.”


Back at the village gate, Nobushige stood waiting by the gate. He still wasn’t wearing his bandages. He looked down at his three students, studying them carefully.

“So… did you do it?”

“Yeah,” Yuuki pushed a tag into his hand. “It’s done.”

“We took care of her,” Nagisa said, folding her arms up behind her head as she passed Nobushige. “Now would you please do something about your face? You’re going to scare all the children,”

Katsumi just stared at the ground blankly. Her face was tired, but her expression was blank, like she was sleepwalking.

Nobushige just stared for a minute, then smirked with his zombie face. “I see. Congratulations”

He also summoned a kunai behind his back for the moment Nagisa turned around. The word ‘kindness’ was etched in, for advice he’d been given for teaching.