Triune Nindō (Naruto/Taimanin/Girls und Panzer)

[Scopas]

Story concept: Fusion fic between Naruto, Action Taimanin, and Girls und Panzer. The Rookie Nine from Naruto are all aged up to 16 because throwing 12 year olds into active combat is absurd and Team Gai are 17, but the story otherwise starts a few months before the events of Naruto Episode 1. From Girls und Panzer, the Anglerfish Team and their families have been integrated into Konoha, with the exception of Akiyama Yukari and her family. Gosha Village from Action Taimanin has been dropped into the world as a village specializing in hunting yōkai, who are different from both Summons and Biju. Akiyama Yukari is now a member of the Akiyama Clan from the Taimaninverse, a cousin of Akiyama Rinko and Tatsurou.

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to Metaldragon and Sunny for editing and Non for the Naruto detail checks.)


(Story concept: Fusion fic between Naruto, Action Taimanin, and Girls und Panzer. The Rookie Nine from Naruto are all aged up to 16 because throwing 12 year olds into active combat is absurd and Team Gai are 17, but the story otherwise starts a few months before the events of Naruto Episode 1. From Girls und Panzer, the Anglerfish Team and their families have been integrated into Konoha, with the exception of Akiyama Yukari and her family. Gosha Village from Action Taimanin has been dropped into the world as a village specializing in hunting yōkai, who are different from both Summons and Biju. Akiyama Yukari is now a member of the Akiyama Clan from the Taimaninverse, a cousin of Akiyama Rinko and Tatsurou.)


Tamba Village, Land of Fire


"Not to sound ungrateful or anything," the village head began, scratching at his whiskers, "but… Begging your pardon, Honored Kunoichi, I only requested a single team from Konoha for this task."


"Hehe! No worries!" Igawa Sakura, jōnin of Gosha Village, chirped in reply. "Those guys are from Konoha! Me and my cute students are just along for the ride! Lucky you, Mister Head, you're getting a two for one special! Teehee!"


Tearing his gaze away from the remarkably cheerful blonde and the teenagers clustered around her, the village head followed her outstretched arm and ran headlong into Maito Gai's aggressively eager grin.


"Yes!" the Konoha jōnin bellowed exuberantly, "Team Gai has arrived! Straight from beautiful Konoha, my wonderful team has come to set right what has gone wrong!"


"And if we can't complete your mission in a day or less, I'll do one thousand pull-ups with extra weight!"


An expression of fascinated horror spread across the village headman's face as Gai's beloved protégé Rock Lee stepped forward, his green leotard and orange accessories a perfect match for his teacher's.


"Such youth!" came the approving boom from the proud jōnin-sensei. "What mission can withstand the will of such a dedicated student?! When we complete this mission, I will run a hundred laps around the village perimeter with you, Lee!"


"Uhm…" the headman's incredulous eyes swiveled back towards the knot of Gosha-nin. "Can I join you, or is this something private…?"


The speaker, a youth of average height, looked almost as surprised by his own words as the headman felt at hearing them. Between the boy's unremarkable appearance and the highly remarkable appearances of the two jōnin, the village head hadn't even noted his presence.


"Ooh, good for you, Tatsu~!" Sakura cooed delightedly, clapping her hands with approval. "All girls love a man with endurance!"


"I'd love anybody willing to take my place with these two morons," muttered the female half of the decidedly less impressed pair of Konoha genin. "You're absolutely welcome to join them, Akiyama," she continued over the rising exclamations on the theme of "Youth!" "In fact, I'm begging you to join them. Please, distract them for me; I swear your sacrifice won't be in vain."


"Hey, you dummy!" one of the other Gosha-nin objected, stepping out from around her teacher to glare at Tatsurou, though she seemed to be having trouble keeping her frown in place. "W-we're not here for you to show off or whatever! We've got a job to do!" Whipping away from Tatsurou, face glowing with heat, the girl turned to catch the headman's eye. "D-don't we, sir?"


"Aww, no need to be a buzzkill, Yuki!" Sakura sighed, folding her arms across her chest and pouting. "I think it's good for young guys to show off every now and again."


"Lady Yukikaze is correct," two voices chorused, and the haughty Konoha boy and the tall girl from Gosha started at the inadvertent syncope, turning mutual glares upon one another before turning as one to glare at their respective teachers. "We have a mission to complete," they chorused again before turning renewed glares upon one another, brimming with an indignation that was, again, entirely mutual.


"Ah, right," the village head coughed, taken aback. Shinobi were notoriously strange, but even this was a bit much for him. "So… you got our request, I suppose?"


"Yes!" exclaimed Gai, broken free from his mutual admiration loop with Rock by the implacable call of duty. "A gang of highwaymen and thieves have been causing mischief on your roads! Most unyouthful, and quite the burden upon your village!"


"As you say, Honored Shinobi," the village head confirmed, ducking his head. "Thankfully, nobody has been hurt yet, but trade has all but dried up since they robbed Jiro the Peddler blind – even going so far as to strip the shirt off his back! Worse still, two nights ago they over-ran the cottage of Old Haya, a farmer a half day's walk from where we stand and talk now, and they took all of his winter stores! I fear it is only a matter of time before they escalate even further…"


"You were wise to call upon Konoha for aid!" Gai proclaimed, fists planted firmly upon his hips and grinning in a manner the village head assumed the man believed to be reassuring. "Fear not! Between my mighty students and those under the care of the beautiful Sakura, we shall handle your bandit problem before the sun sets tomorrow!"


"Awww~!" Sakura cooed, batting her eyes at the back of Gai's head. "Such a charmer! But yeah," she added, turning to the headman, "we've got this handled. How do you want your proof, Mister Customer? Fingers, ears, or maybe the whole head?"


"Ahh… that won't be necessary, Honorable Kunoichi," the village head quickly forced out, feeling cold sweat break out across the back of his neck. "Your word is more than enough proof for me. Please just let me know when the bandits are gone, and I'll pay you for the contract."


"Okay-dokey!" Sakura cheered, before turning back to her students. "Alrighty guys, let's get going! Those bad guys aren't gonna kill themselves!"


"We cannot let Gosha claim all of the glory for themselves!" Gai roared, circling around on his own genin team. "Team Gai! It's time to prove Konoha's honor once again! Let's hunt!"


And before the village head could get another word in, the eight ninja arrayed upon the village green blurred like air rising from heated stones and, moving faster than his aged eyes could follow, vanished from sight.


For a moment, the headman almost felt pity for the bandits. Dirty, desperate men that they were and sneering ruffians all, there was no way they could be prepared for what had been loosed upon their trails.


Nobody forced them to rob, he reminded himself, hardening his heart, and it's not like we haven't been hungry and desperate ourselves when times have grown lean. Damn them all, and good hunting to the shinobi.

---

In a copse of trees several li down the road leading to the village, the ninja slowed to a stop, seeming to coalesce from the thin air to stand in a loose ring among the trees.


"Woohoo!" Sakura cheered, stretching her arms above her head and lifting her face, eyes closed, to the sun in private celebration. Neji, Tatsurou, and Lee looked away, the latter two unaccountable flushed from their short run. "Nice short simple negotiations! I love those things!"


"Umm, Sensei?" Yukikaze asked worriedly, plucking up her courage. "Are… Are we actually going to k-kill the bandits when we find them…?"


"Probably not!" Sakura chirped, lowering her arms and her face to smile at her student. "The client didn't specifically request it, so the choice is up to us. We could kill them, but killing makes me feel icky and bloodstains are a pain to get out, so if they don't act like total idiots I'll be fine with just scaring the pee out of them."


"Just so!" Gai boomed with an approving nod, arms folded over his chest. Beside him, Lee had pulled out a small notebook, which he was furiously scribbling his teacher's words into. "Killing should be the resort of last choice, not your first option. Remember that!"


"Yes, Gai-sensei," his students chorused with varying levels of enthusiasm.


"Unless your comrades are in danger or your objective is threatened," Sakura added in an uncharacteristically serious voice. "In which case, do whatever you must to efficiently eliminate the threat. Remember kiddos, your lives come first, then the objective, then civilians, and then the well-being of your enemies last of all."


"Why not just kill your enemies immediately?" asked Neji, Gai's other male student and a scion of Konoha's most noble, by default, clan. "That would prevent them from posing a threat later."


"You are not incorrect, Neji," Gai acknowledged, his mighty brows furrowing thoughtfully. "However! Proceeding immediately to the option of last resort denies any room for further escalation. When confronting a dangerous foe who by simply facing in combat represents a threat to your life, that sort of immediate escalation can be justified! Otherwise, though, you will garner a reputation as a killer, which will prompt any who recognize you to immediately escalate in turn. Does that answer your question, Neji?"


"It does," Neji replied, inclining his head the minimum respectful angle. His tone made it clear that this was a simple statement of acknowledgement, not agreement.


"Anyway!" Gai continued with a shrug, "First, we must find these highwaymen! Jōnin Igawa," he said and turned to Sakura, "do you have any ideas?"


"Nope!" Sakura cheerfully replied. "Over to you, Yuki!"


"Me?!" Mizuki Yukikaze's head snapped around as she stared at her teacher, aghast at suddenly being thrown to the wolves. Realizing that everyone else in the ring of ninja were staring at her, she flushed and forced an expression of supreme confidence. "Ah! Right! Me!"


"You're a genius, Lady Yukikaze," Akiyama Rinko, Tatsurou's sister and Yukikaze's best friend, said encouragingly. "How do you think we could best locate the bandits?"


"Hmm…" Yukikaze tapped a finger against her chin for a moment before turning to the lone Konoha kunoichi in attendance. "Tenten? Would you please go up top and see if you see any smoke trails rising?:


"Sure thing!" Tenten readily agreed after Gai nodded his approval. In a flash, she had vanished up the trunk of a nearby tree, leaving only a few leaves twirling down to the ground as evidence of her passage. A few moments later, the rest of the group heard the rhythmic thumping of her descent as she hurdled from branch to branch.


"Didn't see anything, Yuki," Tenten shrugged apologetically. "Sorry."


"That's 'Lady Yukikaze' to you," Rinko hissed, starting forward before she was halted in her steps by a firm "Rinko!" from Yukikaze.


"It's fine, Rinko," Yukikaze said, grabbing her friend's arm and pulling her back in line. Across the clearing Lee and Neji relaxed out of the combat positions they had instantly assumed.


"Thank you, Tenten," Yukikaze said, turning to the other girl. "Please… Call me Yukikaze though, alright?"


"Y-yeah…" Tenten nodded, keeping a wary eye on the brooding Rinko. "Sure thing."


"Alright," Yukikaze nodded firmly, "since there's no smoke, I guess we'll have to do it the long way. We have five hours of daylight left, so we should be able to scan a pretty good perimeter around the village. Maybe we go clockwise," she asked, turning back to Sakura, "while Jōnin, uh… Maito and his team go counterclockwise, and we'll meet up at the other side?"


"Good thinking!" Gai praised, prompting a pleased blush from the tanned kunoichi. "If either group spots the enemy, they will send a messenger to the other team, so we can smash down upon them with the full force of our combined youth!"


"Sounds good to me!" Sakura readily agreed, patting Yukikaze's head. "You're, like, so smart, Yuki! Pat pat pat on your noggin!"


"Sakura-sensei…!" Yukikaze whined, still blushing, "Stoop! We're on a mission!


"So we are!" Sakura said with a cheerful smile. "Time to find the bad guys! Team Asskick, move out!"


As she leapt up into the trees, Yukikaze distinctly heard Neji echo, "Team Asskick?" and blushed again, incredibly happy that her teacher wouldn't have a chance to embarrass her in front of the Konoha team again for the next several hours.

---

As it turned out, barely more than a single hour was required to track down the bandit gang.


Mostly because the gang in question had settled into a leafy bivouac scarcely more than a stone's throw from one of the outlying farms surrounding Tamba Village, clearly preparing to replicate their success of two nights' past.


Peering down from her perch among the branches stretched high above the prey, Akiyama Rinko, genin of Gosha Village, counted thirteen heads.


Nine of those heads were resting, stretched out on sleeping mats or curled up in hammocks. One crouched by a cunningly-built fire, smokeless yet still hot enough to cook the squirrels impaled upon a slowly turning spit.


The remaining three heads, scarcely more perceptive than the sleepers, stood guard over the encampment.


To Rinko's eyes, all thirteen were of one mold. Hard-faced men in travel-worn clothes, cheeks crusted with stubble and hair dense with grease, all armed with an assortment of chipped swords, dull hatchets, and cooking knives straight from the kitchens. Two of the sleepers had unstrung bows resting beside them in the leaf litter of the forest floor, while a still strung bow and quiver were propped up against a tree in easy reach of the man tending to the roasting squirrels.


Two branches over, Lady Yukikaze was conferring with Sakura-sensei, working out a strategy while Tatsurou fetched the Konoha team and Rinko kept watch. Rinko gazed over at her sworn mistress and her teacher for a moment, wondering what they had in mind, before dismissing her curiosity as irrelevant and returning her focus to the prey encampment below her feet.


She was the sword in Lady Yukikaze's hand; sworn to serve her friend from the moment she first met Lady Yukikaze at age five, as every Akiyama had sworn to serve the Mizuki Clan, Rinko would happily obey any order her lady gave her regardless of the reasoning behind the plan.


Not just because she was her lady's sworn sword, but because her lady had been her first and truest friend.


Tatsurou excepted, of course.


A branch rustled nearby, but Ishikiri Kanemitsu, Rinko's sword, stayed in her sheath; she would have recognized her little brother's presence anywhere.


"Hey, Rinko," Tatsurou whispered as he crept up next to her on her bough. "Anything happen while I was away?"


"Nothing of note," she assured him. "Lady Yukikaze is scheming something with Sakura-sensei. Shoo, Brother – go ask our lady what part we will play in her plan."


"Uh… I'll be right back," Tatsurou promised, before all but vanishing from her side, as Rinko had fully expected.


Her brother, after all, never neglected a chance to spend time in Lady Yukikaze's presence.


See, Lady Yukikaze? I can scheme too.


Rinko allowed herself a pleased smirk at the thought. She was well aware of how… lateral… her thoughts generally were, and how limited her capacity for imagination or reflection was.


And yet, I still have my moments. Besides, Lady Yukikaze is creative enough for all three of us. That is why she is a genius.


The branch next to her rustled again, and this time Rinko very nearly did go for her sword, only stating her hand when she recognized the scowling presence of Hyuuga Neji.


"Hyuuga," she said, by way of curt greeting.


"Akiyama," the Konoha-nin replied, his voice emotionless but his blank eyes speaking volumes that Rinko had little difficulty interpreting.


Pleasantries thus dispensed with, Rinko turned her attention back to the ruffians polluting the forest below her.


"...Aren't you going to ask what your role will be in the plan?" Neji asked after a moment, disbelief and frustration coloring his otherwise blank voice.


"Were you not sent here to brief me?" Rinko asked, not deigning to glance back at the boy. "Do you require an invitation to fulfill your duty?"


I can hear his teeth grinding over the sounds of wind and leaves, Rinko marveled in the privacy of her own head. It will be a wonder if he has any teeth remaining in ten years.


"...Your jōnin-sensei has ordered you to do the following," Neji began, his words clipped and taught with badly suppressed anger. "Circle around the clearing until you are between the encampment and the farm. If any of the bandits try to run, send a wind blade over their heads and demand their surrender. If they continue to run after your warning, take their heads. Do you understand?"


"Containment," Rinko acknowledged, jerking her head into a nod. "I understand my role."


Without another word, the Hyuuga vanished in the puff of smoke all of the Konoha-nin Rinko had worked with loved to use to disguise the vector of their flash step.


Considering Rinko could see Neji perched on a branch stretching almost over the center of the camp, clearly primed to jump down and sow havoc among the prey below, it seemed like pointless theatrics to her.


Let him show off, Rinko told herself as she launched herself from her branch, hurling her body across the void to the tree she had selected as her next perch. I have a job to do. Lady Yukikaze is depending upon me.


Some invisible signal must have passed between the other members of the combined Konoha-Gosha team, for moments after Rinko had found an ideal overlook of the side of the camp facing the farm, Neji, Lee, and Jōnin Maito descended from the foliage above like stooping falcons. Almost at the same instant, a hail of senbon needles flew from one corner of the camp and crossbow quarrels crackling with lightning ripped from another as Tenten and Yukikaze dropped their henges and let fly with their respective weapons, aiming first for the utterly surprised guards. Bracketing Tenten and Yukikaze, Tatsurou and Sakura-sensei stepped out from the shadows at either end of the camp, steel in their hands, ready to strike down any bandit who tried to flee.


Still concealed in the branches and slightly further back from the camp than her comrades, Rinko watched as the bandits lucky enough to escape the first volley and the flashing hands of the Konoha-nin stampeded for the apparent safety of hersector.


Just like the prey they are, they flee the beater only to run straight into the hunter's snare.


"Wind Release," Rinko intoned, wind chakra swirling around her hands as she grasped the hilt and scabbard of Ishikiri Kanemitsu. "Butterfly Guillotine."


Quicker than a serpent's tongue, her beautiful sword flicked out, moving like an extension of Rinko's own strong right arm. The art of her clan, the Wind Warrior was with her, a blade upon her blade. As her sword slashed out to cleave the afternoon air apart the Butterfly Guillotine lashed out as well, rippling out in a blade of air so solid that Rinko could almost see it as it parted with her blade and screamed past the ear of a particularly haggard bandit.


The man screamed as blood exploded from the side of his head, the very edge of her wind blade caressing his temple in its passing, coming a literal hairsbreadth from leaving a groove in his skull. Behind him, the bark of a tree shuddered as the "jumping" effect of the Butterfly Guillotine sent shivers rippling through it, disrupting the thin protection it could afford as the actual blade of her clan technique slammed home into the heartwood of the tree, sending wood chips flying out in a scything explosion.


"Surrender or die," Rinko announced, the wind lifting her voice to a booming roar without straining her throat. "This is your chance to live. Throw down your weapons or I will take your head."


Almost as one, the fleeing bandits stopped in their tracks, throwing themselves to the ground or lifting their hands high to the sky, rusty steel falling to the leaves at their feet from nerveless fingers. The exception was the man whom Rinko had wounded: Still bleeding profusely, he uttered a wordless shrieking scream as he bolted, eyes wide and unseeing as they rolled in their sockets.


At last, Rinko thought, something dark and ugly rising from the depths of her soul. At long last… a valid target. A permitted target.


An excuse.


"Wind Release," Rinko intoned again, her will made manifest in her chakra as a blade she could not see but only feel crawled up the keen edge of her beloved katana, an Akiyama artifact passed from generation to generation until it had at last reached her own hand. "Sev-"


"Shadow Art: Walk Between Worlds~"


Abruptly, the bandit's screams ceased, his terror-maddened eyes rolling up in his skull as he pitched forwards. Out from his shadow stepped Sakura-sensei, the shadow of a club resting comfortably on her shoulder.


"Oooh, so that's where you all went!" Sakura exclaimed, eyes sparkling with delight as she looked around at the surrendering bandits. "One, two, many, lots~ I think that's all of them! Good job, Rinko," she added, turning around to smile up at her student in the leaves. "You can come on down now! I think they're all ready to be good boys now!"


Something blinked down at Rinko's teacher in disbelieving rage, trembling with thwarted anticipation and fury. It had been so close! If only she had been a moment slower…


Sighing deeply, Rinko closed her eyes, centered herself, and allowed her jutsu to disperse, the wind blade that would have taken her prey's head from its shoulders softening back into warm forest air once more. Flicking her blade free of the blood that was not there, Rinko returned Ishikiri Kanemitsu to her sheath and, following her teacher's bidding, hopped down to the forest floor below.


By the time she had set foot on the loam, the rest of her comrades for this mission had already congregated around the surrendering bandits, pushing the six who hadn't even made it out of the clearing into the circle with the rest of their comrades. Surprisingly, very few of the bandits had any visible wounds, though a few were moving with the stiff soreness Rinko recognized from past spars against Hyuuga using their Gentle Palm technique.


Only the fool who had tried to run – only her rightful prey – was unconscious. All of the rest were awake and alert, though only a few looked like they weren't on the brink of voiding their bowels. Judging by the stench, at least a handful had already done so.


"Alrighty~" Sakura sang out, prancing out into the center of the ring, every male eye in the clearing immediately fixed upon her. "So, here's what's going to happen~ Neither the Hokage nor the Fire Daimyo want you here in their lands anymore, 'kay? So you're gonna get up and head north, and you're gonna keep heading north until you cross the border and then you're never gonna come back. Got that?"


A general round of frantic nodding and muttered assent rose from the disarmed and thoroughly demoralized bandits, even those who didn't look utterly unmanned by terror. Proving that there's always at least one fool in every group, though, one of the braver – or dumber – bandits decided to mouth off instead.


"You stupid bitch!" he yelled from where he knelt upon the forest floor, his voice shrill with brittle anger and sharp-edged fear, ignoring or ignorant of his comrades' horrified gazes. "I'm gonna remember this, you hear?! I don't care how long it takes, I'm gonna make you regret the shit you pulled today! I'll be taking my revenge! You'll regret you crossed the path of Muto-"


With a wet thump, Sakura's ninjato buried itself up to the hilt in the vengeful bandit's forehead, the blade rupturing out the back of his head as the guard brushed against his eyebrows. A moment later, the body folded over backwards at the knees, leaving the shocked cadaver staring blankly up into the sky.


"Here's another lesson for you, kiddos," Sakura announced, speaking seriously for an unheard-of second time in one day as she casually placed a booted foot on the bandit's face and pulled her short sword free from his skull without any apparent strain. "Always believe the threats your enemies make and act accordingly. If someone swears revenge against you, believe them. Respect their will to do you harm by guaranteeing that they will never again be in a position to lay a finger upon you."


A worthy lesson, Rinko thought, and noted approvingly that Lee had pulled his notebook back out and was jotting down her sensei's words. Never leave a knife at your back.


"Now," Jōnin Maito stepped forward, his usually smiling face fixed into an expression of such intense sternness that Rinko almost found herself quailing before it. "You men have engaged in most unyouthful activity – robbing farmers, waylaying travelers, and threatening ladies! I think crossing the border without weapons, sandals, or belts will provide you an opportunity to learn a highly youthful lesson in self-reliance! Divest yourself of these items immediately and head north before I allow Lady Sakura to provide you further instruction!"


"And before you get any thoughts of wandering off or trying to circle back to the village~" Sakura piped back up, industriously wiping her blade clean on the tunic of the deceased bandit, "lemme show you something cool!"


"Shadow Art: Stalking Shade~!"


In the umbra of a shadow cast by the thick trunk of a tree, a pair of malevolent yellow eyes opened, sulfurous and hateful. Meeting them, Rinko knew without a doubt that, whatever those eyes belonged to, it was a predator, a canny, intelligent thing whose strength lay just as much in its fell patience as in the claws she knew were there, but just like her wind blade, could not see.


"I'll be watching you~"

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to Metaldragon and Sunny for editing and Non for the Naruto detail checks.)


Somewhere in Wave Country…


"Catch."


Without turning to look, Kousaka Shizuku, chūnin of Gosha Village, seconded to her village's overlords in the Land of Fire, extended her free hand and snagged the ration bar from the air just as it flew past her head.


"Thanks~!" she sang out, her usual cheer only somewhat dented by the need to keep a low profile. "But Mizuki… Could you please open this for me~? I'm so hungry, but I can't put down my binoculars~?"


"You have two hands," came the grumpy reply. "What, are your fingers broken or something?"


Despite the complaining, the grass behind Shizuku rustled as her partner for the mission crawled forward to join her on the crest of the hill. Unseen behind her binoculars, the kunoichi from the Land of Rivers grinned, pleased with her tiny triumph. Mizuki, unlike most of the Konoha-nin she'd worked with, had a massive stick up his ass; any chance she got to tweak his nose, Shizuku enthusiastically took.


And for some reason, Mizuki was incredibly reluctant to get within arm's reach of her. Perhaps he was simply nervous around women; perhaps it was how, when they stopped at the last village on the Konoha side of the border with Wave to enjoy a night's sleep indoors and a drunken lout in the common room had tried to set hands on her, she'd broken his arm in three places.


The mysteries of a man's mind, Shizuku thought with a private smile.


"Mizuki~" she sang out again, her voice low as she peered out across the dark waves beating against the coast a hundred feet below them and five hundred away, "what's taking you so long? Did you stop to… appreciate… the scenery? You can do that later, silly boy~! And I'm hungry now!"


"Don't you ever shut up?" the white haired chūnin grumbled as he heaved himself up beside her and dropped, belly first, down into the wet grass. "Seriously, are all Gosha-nin incapable of even an hour's silence?"


"That's a village secret!" Shizuku exclaimed brightly, accepting the opened ration bar. "Thanks Mizuki~! Such a good boy~!"


"Shut it." There was just a hint of anger in the Konoha-nin's voice this time. "What's the word? See anything?"


Deciding not to push her partner any further, especially since, as the Konoha representative, he was her nominal superior for this mission, Shizuku dropped the teasing for the moment and switched to what she privately called 'professional mode.'


"Yessir," she replied smartly, passing the binoculars over to the other ninja. "If you look over towards that pointy rock, about two hundred feet past the breakers, you'll see it. Might take a minute or two, but look for the white. It's there, just like the villagers said."


"A bakekujira, here in Wave…" Mizuki said, sounding skeptical as he fiddled with the focus knob. "I still don't know about this… Those are normally deep sea beasts, aren't they? What's one doing here, hanging around just off the coast?"


"Couldn't say for sure," Shizuku tried to shrug, but lying on her belly limited the motion, "but they only really show up where whales die thanklessly and in pain. So, I'd bet that a generation or two back, a whale swam too close to the coast and the villagers managed to kill it. Not being professional whalers, they probably just drove it into the shallows and hacked it to death. Probably took a long time, and I'd bet that they didn't do a great job cleaning up the corpse. So…"


"...So now we have a whale ghost screwing with the shipping schedules," Mizuki sighed, clearly missing his comfy, warm, and above all else, dry bed back in Konoha. "Sounds about right. You handled one of these things before, Kousaka?"


"Nope~," Shizuku popped the word, slipping momentarily back into teasing mode before she caught herself. "No," she repeated, "but the Village has before."


"But you know how to kill it, then?"


"Shouldn't be too hard," Shizuku replied, trying again to shrug. This time it worked a bit better, but only because she lifted her chest up enough that the movement of her shoulders was visible.


Mizuki, she noticed, actually turned his head to look away.


Heh! Afraid of women! I knew it! Shizuku allowed herself a single second's worth of a cruel smile at the back of the Konoha-nin's head. Who knew you were so cute, Mizuki-kun~?


"I mean, it's a ghost, sure," she continued, turning her thoughts back to the bakekujira lurking out in the sea, "but it's the ghost of an animal with a general grudge against humanity for the cruelty and ingratitude it suffered. With an animal's intelligence and such a broad focus, it's only dangerous in a broad way, not in a really upsetting specific way. Like, if this was the ghost of a man one of us had killed, that'd be a different story; higher intelligence, and a specific connection. But since neither of us are fishermen…"


"Still dangerous," Mizuki pointed out dubiously. "And I'm hearing a lot of general information from you, Gosha-nin, and not a lot of specifics yourself. Do you know how to kill it?"


"It's already dead." Really, she couldn't help herself sometimes. That stick needed to come out. "But yes, I know how to kill it. It's water-aspected and we're both earth-aspected, so that's step one. Step two," she reached out and patted the shaft of the harpoon lying next to her in the grass, the iron head plated with silver, "is this baby. A normal harpoon will just go straight through the ghost or bounce off a rib or whatever, but this one will sink deep into its memory of when it still had blubber. We stick it with this, pull it onto shore, and then bury it."


"Bury it?" Mizuki turned to face her, shocked. "Why the hell are you only bringing this up now? We could have dug a hole in advance! We could have dug a hole, hauled it up, shoved it in, and then just dumped dirt on it until it stopped moving!"


"...I might be underselling just how much of a pain in the ass it's going to be to get the whale on shore once we harpoon it," Shizuku admitted, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "Like… It's still a whale. Dead or not, it's not going to take kindly to being stabbed. It's going to fight us, and we're going to have to pull it out of the water and onto the ground. Who knows where we'll actually manage to pull it up, but once we do, we're going to have to keep it on land long enough to dig a grave for it."


Silence reigned over the windswept hill, broken only by the sounds of crashing waves and the long grass rustling in the fresh sea breeze.


"Alright," Mizuki said at last, his voice already tired. "Fine. Fine. When can we start?"


"As soon as the bakekujira gets close enough to land for us to hit it from shore," Shizuku promptly replied, taking mercy on the Konoha-nin. "If it manages to pull us into the water, it's going to drown us, so we need to keep our feet anchored to the beach. The harpoon's a toggle-head model, so as soon as it hits, the head's going to detach and sink under a rib, so the good news is that we can just throw it from shore. We'll only get one chance, though. While one of us throws, the other will keep a hand on the rope, and as soon as this puppy hits, we'll both dump earth chakra into the rope and into our feet. We send the chakra down the rope to weaken the whale and push with our feet until we haul it onto shore."


"...Fine," Mizuki said again, accepting her plan without a single complaint, exhaustion or her role as the expert in demon-slaying overwhelming his usual nagging. "Do you want to throw? Or should I?"


"I'll throw," Shizuku decided. "I think you're stronger than me, so you can be the anchor."


"Fine by me," Mizuki said. "If this goes wrong, you'll be the first one pulled into the drink."


Swallowing her instinctive retort, Shizuku reclaimed her binoculars and irritably spun the focus wheel.


He's the boss for this mission, she reminded herself, raising the binoculars back up to her glasses. He's an asshole, but that doesn't matter. Don't let him get to you, and-


White flashed. More importantly, it flashed a hell of a lot closer to the shingle-covered strip of beach than to the pointy rock Shizuku had been using as a landmark.


"Mizuki!" she hissed, grabbing for the harpoon. "It's time! It's here!"

---

Somewhere in Grass Country…


"Ah, Lady Takeno and Lady Morita," the teahouse waiter bowed low, already smiling in unctuous greeting for his two guests, whose auras of confidence and utter poise all but shouted their noble status. Their expensive, but tastefully elegant, kimonos, of course, did nothing to mute those shouts. "Your private room is ready, of course. Please, follow this humble servant."


The two ladies, of course, did not dignify the waiter with a reply. Not that he expected them to do so; actually recognizing his existence was far beneath the dignity of two such obviously rich women.


A generous gift left in the room once they left, was, of course, to be expected. At least if they wanted any assurance that he or a fellow staff member wouldn't leak their reservations to whatever enemies they might have. That they had the capacity to leave such a gift was, of course, what made them gracious.


"Right this way, if you please, beautiful ladies," the waiter oiled as he opened the sliding door to the private room, swiveling into a full right-angled bow as the two women swept past him. The tea room was already set with the traditional Grass Country samovar, along with the multitude of teas in lovingly carved boxes, jams in individually-blown jars and vials, and a small glass of amber honey, glistening with crystals of purest sweetness. "When your guest arrives, we will conduct them straight to your room. Otherwise, my ladies, you will not be disturbed, per your orders."


And with that, the door closed and the waiter smartly straightened, turned, and marched away, pleased that he could report the ladies' apparent satisfaction to the teahouse majordomo and already anticipating his commensurately large cut of the "gift" their noble guests would leave behind.


Inside the private room, 'Lady Takeno' folded her hands together, the tips of her thumb, middle, and little fingers touching, her index and ring finger interlocking. A watcher trained in ninjutsu would have immediately recognized it as the tori hand seal, commonly associated with wind release jutsu, and likely would not have been surprised by the faint buzzing that filled the room, just loud enough to make any listener strain to overhear.


"Room secured?" 'Lady Morita' asked, hard brown eyes sweeping the room.


"Room secured," 'Lady Takeno' confidently replied, her hands relaxing out of the seal. "Unless someone actually tries, they aren't going to hear anything we say. And if they're trying that hard…"


"I will see them," 'Morita' stated matter-of-factly. "Fine." She turned a critical eye on the waiting samovar. "...Any idea how to use this thing?"


"None," 'Takeno' admitted. "To tell the truth, I'd expected a regular teapot. Perhaps I shouldn't have asked for their best room…?"


"You shouldn't have," 'Morita' sternly replied, "though not for that reason. If any room in the house is under persistent surveillance, it will be this one."


"If it's under persistent surveillance, then it's probably Kusa doing the surveilling," 'Takeno' reasoned, her partner's criticism smoothly sliding off her back. "Since we're here at Kusa's invitation and with their leader's knowledge, I'm not sure why they'd bother. Maybe to keep a record of our conversation?"


"Kusa exists only on an international scale," 'Morita' drawled, folding her legs as she knelt on one of the waiting cushions by the table. "That we are here on the invitation of their leader is a mixed blessing, at the least."


"I'd heard as much from those who had worked in Kusa before," 'Takeno' admitted as she joined her companion at the table, still trying to puzzle out the samovar. "Although it's less of an issue for us then it presumably is for you, since the problems we are generally called upon to resolve are generally everybody's problems. I think we light this part here, underneath the vase?"


"Try it," 'Morita' shrugged, clearly not caring. "You and yours might actually find Kusa easier to navigate; from what I have heard, their inner workings are quite similar to how your home was in the Honored Second's day."


"I should hope not," 'Takeno' lightly replied as a spark danced from the tip of one finger and set the charcoal alight. "Nobody wants to go back to those days, after all, nor the ones after. Both for good, if different, reasons. Ah, there we go! And the water must go into this kettle up here… I hope it doesn't take too long to heat."


"It won't," 'Morita' said with a confidence 'Takeno' found surprising for a woman who had just admitted her ignorance of the device's operation. "Otherwise the staff would have lit it for us before we came in. They aren't going to make us wait to spend our money on their tea."


"It was so kind of the village to give us a discretionary budget," 'Takeno' smiled, her attention shifting eagerly over to the multitude of options. "Which one are you going for, Shi- Morita? Anything catch your eye?"


"No. Make me a cup of whatever you pick. Also," a trace of irritation entered the other lady's flat voice, "mind your tongue."


"Sorry, sorry," 'Takeno' bobbed her head as she busied herself with the leaves, using a pair of small gold tongs to lift the leaves from their boxes. "What is taking that man so long, anyway? Think he knows that we're waiting for him?"


"I would be shocked otherwise," 'Morita' drawled.


Almost on cue, the door to the hallway slid open. The beaming waiter was back, already bending over at the waist, but the other man standing in the door was far more interesting. Long faced and doleful, the man didn't look a day younger than sixty, though his arms and shoulders were still thick with muscle. His robe, an earthy brown, was lined with saffron and bore on its breast the symbol of the Mohaku clan, one of the five noble clans of Kusagakure.


On the belt of the buckle he wore around his waist, the sigil of Hozuki Castle glimmered in silver.


"Lord Mujo," 'Takeno' greeted, rising to her feet and bowing a carefully calculated degree, "we were just talking about you. Please, join us for a cup or two."


"Mujo is fine," the newcomer simply replied, stepping inside. As he crossed the threshold of 'Takeno's still active jutsu, he blinked and shook his head before nodding appreciatively. Taking a half-step back out of the buzzing range, he turned back to the waiter. "Close the door after you, and move these ladies' bill to the Mohaku tab."


"As you will, Lord Mujo," the waiter happily agreed. "Have an enjoyable meeting, Lord Mujo."


All three people present waited as the door hissed closed, and then waited a moment longer as the waiter's footsteps pattered off down the hall. Then, with a sort of collective sigh, all three relaxed.


"So," Mujo began, stepping back into the range of the buzzing jutsu and sinking down onto a pillow at the foot of the tea table, "which of you is the Konoha representative and which of you comes from Gosha?"


"I will be representing Konoha," 'Morita' replied, tilting her head in a slight nod of polite greeting.


"And I will be speaking for Gosha," 'Takeno' added, "though Konoha speaks for us in this matter. We don't really care about the why's or the who's in this scenario. I'm really only here to provide advice and expert knowledge about the how's and the what's."


"Then it sounds like you already have a decent idea of why Kusagakure has invited you to come," Mujo said, reaching into the sleeve of his robe. His hands, 'Takeno' noticed, were surprisingly large and pale, with stubby fingers tipped in hard, slightly hooked nails. He withdrew a notebook and the stub of a pencil. "I hope that you ladies will not mind if I take notes? I find it helps my memory."


"You're a bit young to be having memory problems," 'Morita' observed. "Forty is far too early for a man in your position to mistrust his memory."


"Call it good practice for when my memory goes, then," Mujo replied, flashing a thin, humorless smile. "Anyway, just to make sure that we are all on the same page, I'll review the main takeaways of our issue.


"Hozuki Castle has served as a prison for over fifty years now, and interning prisoners from across the Elemental Nations has become a cornerstone of Grass Country's economy," Mujo began, in the dull tones of a man who has recited this overview many times before. "Recently," he continued, his voice livening up, "we have had issues with transports to and from the prison. While raids on supply wagons and wagons carrying prisoners to the Castle are far from unheard of, the culprits of these latest incidents are. Simply put, monkeys. Organized, clothes-wearing monkeys."


"Monkeys." 'Morita' replied, her face inscrutable, her voice emotionless. "To be clear, this is not simply a pejorative for the local bandits."


"It is a term for monkeys," Mujo confirmed, his face devoid of humor. "Grey-furred, pink-faced monkeys. Wearing happi jackets and, thankfully, fundoshi. All operating in clear concert, all organized."


"Did any of the monkeys use weaponry or jutsu?" 'Takeno' asked, leaning forwards as she nudged a steaming cup across the table to 'Morita'. "Also, tea's ready."


"Nothing more than sticks and stones," Mujo answered, accepting a cup of his own. "They mostly rely on the shock of their numbers, swarming over the wagons in great number while producing a great racket. The supply wagons they loot, stealing all food and drink. They don't actually take anything from the prisoner wagons, which leads us to think that they cannot differentiate between the two and that they are attacking the prisoner wagons out of that confusion.


"Naturally," Mujo continued, taking a long, slow sip, "we thought first of Konoha. The great Village Hidden in the Leaves… which happens to be led by the greatest known monkey summoner to ever live."


"You dare imply that Konohagakure is responsible for the recent monkey dacoity." 'Morita''s voice was as frigid and hard as the walls of the deep cells of Hozuki Castle itself. "Reclaim your words now, Man of the Grass, or stand ready to defend them with your honor."


"I imply no such thing," Mujo calmly replied. "Only that Konoha, led by the Monkey King Enma's summoner, might bring a unique understanding to the resolution of this issue."


"Sounds to me like a gang of sarugami have colonized your mountain," 'Takeno' opined, placing a calming hand on 'Morita''s arm as she skillfully intervened. "I'd be willing to bet that if your guards paid close attention to the horde, they would find a handful of monkeys giving orders to the rest. They'd probably be the biggest in the group too, maybe even the size of a full-grown man. Those are probably the sarugami themselves. The other monkeys are their followers. Deal with the ringleaders and the rest will return to their normal behavior."


"Cut off the head of the snake," Mujo said, nodding as he jotted down a note. "How would you recommend doing that? Is just killing them sufficient?"


"Killing the ringleaders is generally sufficient to end most plots, in my experience," 'Morita' sniffed.


"Only if you get all of them," 'Takeno' said, shaking her head. "If you miss one, you've got a much worse problem. Your current issue is comparable to a gang of young ruffians coming to town intent on raising hell for their own entertainment. None of your guards or teamsters have died, I assume, otherwise you would have led with that. If you miss one of the sarugami but kill his friends, the survivor will come back to take his vengeance."


"So, killing them all is a high-risk, medium-reward plan," Mujo concluded. "We stand a good chance of restoring the status quo, but the potential to backfire is very much present and quite serious."


"That's about the shape of it," 'Takeno' agreed. "If everything else fails, you can still fall back on it, of course, but I'd recommend pursuing a different strategy as a first resort."


"Alright," Mujo looked back up from his notebook to catch her gaze. "What would you suggest, Lady Takeno? Please provide your expert advice."


"Well…" 'Takeno' sucked at her teeth, then cast an apologetic look at 'Morita'. "You probably won't like this idea, but… as intelligent as the sarugami are, they're basically just monkeys. They are very prone to succumbing to their animal instincts and appetites. I think the easiest way you could deal with them is through simple bribery. Send out a wagon heavily loaded with food – no alcohol, not one drip – and a few strong shinobi. Make it clear that they can have the food if they agree to disperse and go elsewhere."


"You might as well set up a settlement for them at the same time," 'Morita' dismissed. "If you encourage their behavior, they will simply come back for another helping. Trash has no shame."


"That is a risk," 'Takeno' acknowledged, "which brings me to the next option, which I think you'll like more. We have a distinct edge over monkeys in guile, above all else, so I would recommend sending out another transport wagon that looks just the same as the rest from the outside, but make sure that a large part of the shipment is alcohol. Strong alcohol. Have a shinobi hidden under a henge lurking nearby, and once the monkeys take the alcohol, follow them back to their den. Wait until they get drunk and fall asleep. If they're in a cave, start a fire at the mouth to smoke them out. If they're outside, tie them up before they wake."


"Leaving them at our mercy," Mujo noted, a faint smile crossing his face. "I assume that you would advise us to not kill them at this point?"


"I wouldn't presume as much," 'Takeno' said diffidently. "I would just suggest that, if you are set on that course, you only do so when you are absolutely certain that none of them escaped your purge. Otherwise," she smiled coyly, "you are a prison warden, are you not? Why not simply incarcerate them? Surely they can't be much filthier than your usual tenants? And they have been stealing quite a lot…"


Mujo threw his head back and laughed.

---

Despite the assistant warden's invitation to pay their hotel bill, the visiting ladies had declined to spend the night in Kusagakure. 'Morita' had no desire to linger in the disorderly, deceitful town between the bridges and 'Takeno' had no desire to remain in a place that anybody, even an outsider, could liken to the "Bad Old Days" in Gosha's long history.


'Takeno' and 'Morita' vanished before they could cross the Kusa town limits. In their place, a kunoichi sprang from branch to branch, while a heavily armored form galloped below her on a heavy-limbed horse that steamed with heat in the cool night air.


The kunoichi was clad in the familiar hard-wearing, darkly-colored garb common to ninja across the expanse of the Elemental Nations; her companion wore overlapping steel plates and a heavy helm with the ease of one all but born to fight in the archaic armor. Gone were the expensive kimonos, vanished into storage seals. Between the two horns of her helmet, the one who had called herself 'Morita' proudly bore the leaf of Konoha upon her brow where it glinted in the moonlight, her glowering helmet and mask serving as fine replacements for the traditional hitai-ate. In the branches above her, the woman who was not 'Takeno' kept pace with her partner and her thundering beast, a five-spoked wheel shining from the loose sash belted around her waist where the plate of her own hitai-ate was fixed.


"I thought that went rather well," opined Uehara Rin, jōnin of Gosha Village. "It's not every B-mission that can be settled over tea in an hour."


"I still cannot believe that Kusagakure found itself incapable of dealing with monkeys on its own," Nishizumi Shiho, nominal jōnin of Konohagakure and head of the Nishizumi Clan, the only recognized samurai clan in the Land of Fire, replied, almost seething with irritation. "Of all the wastes of time…"


"It was probably wise that they sent the mission through Konoha instead of just offering the contract directly to Gosha," said Rin, speaking in a deliberately casual manner. "That sort of discretion minimizes potentially unpleasant questions. A small amount of time down the drain seems like worthy pay to keep relations… copacetic."


Shiho sniffed, but didn't disagree.


The kunoichi and the kunoichi-by-technicality continued through the night, not stopping to rest until they had crossed the border back into the Land of Fire, leaving the Grass and all the snakes that slithered within its protection far, far behind.

---

Gosha Academy
Gosha Village


"For as long as the rivers of our land have sought the sea, we Taima-nin have sought our query," Yatsu Murasaki, jōnin of Gosha Village and instructor of the life sciences at the village academy, intoned. "The yōkai. The fallen god. The demon. All of these are our rightful prey, for we are their children and their children's children. Using their own powers against them, we stalk our ancestors and take humanity's vengeance upon them for their crimes."


No murmur of approval swept through her assembled students, nor did any cheers rise. Instead, an almost imperceptible air of eagerness swept through rows of neatly seated students. Some leaned forwards slightly in their chairs, while others, remaining slumped, fixed watchful eyes upon her.


Murasaki saw not even the slightest hint of disagreement on the young faces of her charges. None of them doubted the truth of her words. After all, she wasn't telling them anything they didn't already know.


Kannazui Sora sat in the first row, her mismatched eyes downcast, clouded no doubt with memories of the parents she had lost, of the things she had seen while a captive of her parents' killers.


Three rows behind Sora, Chuujou Nanao leaned back against the classroom's wall, her chair tilted back on its hind legs, arms and legs crossed and appearing to disdain the class's proceedings. Murasaki knew better; with all the scars she bore, she could not fault Nanao for her surly attitude and unwillingness to apply herself.


After what Nanao had seen and experienced, that she was still functional enough to attend classes and live a mostly ordinary life was practically inspirational, for all that the girl delighted in giving her teachers lip.


"But," Murasaki went on, raising a hand, "evil is not always obvious, as it is with our progenitors; there are many monsters who walk about in the skins of men and women. Some are lowly and easily dispatched, but others are great and terrible, raising themselves up to become tyrants upon the backs of the oppressed and the duped."


This time, it was the eyes of the clan children that hardened. Their families, the Uehara, the Akiyama, the Inokura, and many more had joined the Igawa in the great rebellion a generation ago that had seen the hated, decadent Fuuma clan driven out, first from power and then from Gosha Village completely.


All of these clan children had arranged themselves throughout the center section of the classroom seating, all arrayed around the sole representative of the Igawa clan in attendance, the young Igawa Sakuya. A cousin of Murasaki's owned beloved mistress, the youth sat with her customary stoic indifference to the children sitting to her left and her right, heedless of the subtle jockeying of the scions around her to catch her eye or her ear.


"It is for this reason that, each year, Gosha Village sends a selection of its own students, the seeds of our future, to our overlord in Konohagakure to learn from the Leaf-nin how best to hunt men." From her desk, Murasaki plucked a scroll sealed with purple wax, the mark of the village leader clear for all to see. "This year," she announced, breaking the seal, "the following students shall be sent to Konoha to serve and learn from our sworn masters:"


"Igawa Sakuya." To nobody's surprise, the leader's relative topped the list. The silver-haired girl gave no reaction, only rising silently from her desk and walking out into the space between Murasaki's desk and the student seating, just as she had been instructed to do.


"Asahi Yuzuha." The petite clanless kunoichi-in-training grinned in silent victory, springing to her feet and darting down the aisle to come to a barely-contained stop beside Sakuya.


"Akiyama Yukari." Smiling nervously, the slender-limbed Akiyama girl rose to her feet and made her way down the aisle, anxiously smoothing her fluffy brown hair down as she found her place next to Yuzuha.


"Uehara Shikanosuke." The only boy called so far stood up glumly from his desk and smoothed his pleated skirt before slinking towards the center of attention that he so clearly despised. Behind her stern teacher's face, Murasaki felt a flutter of sympathy for the boy's clear discomfort. She hoped that he'd enjoy his time in Konoha, far from his clan and its… peculiar traditions.


"Inokura Suzuka." No anxiety from this student; in stark contrast to the previous two called, Suzuka smiled happily when her name was called and quickly made her way down the aisle, though she held herself back enough to avoid repeating Yuzuha's classless display. When she found her place next to Shikanosuke, she smiled supportively at the timid boy as she folded her hands neatly before her.


"Kannazuki Sora." Shakily, the clanless orphan rose to her feet and padded silently to Suzuka's side, smiling gamely as she tried to master her fear. It was a trait that Murasaki had found admirable in her time instructing Sora; for all that she feared almost everything, her student kept pushing forwards, refusing to let her fear dominate her.


"...And Chuujou Nanao."


"Whaaat?" Predictably, the self-styled delinquent was the only one to offer backchat. "C'mon, really? Why do I need to waste a year in Konoha? Those guys are all weaklings anyway!"


"Our leader, Igawa Asagi, swore vassalage to them," Murasaki pointed out frostily, but kept any real bite from her voice. She was willing to make some allowances for Nanao. Some. "Are you implying that she is weak, Miss Nanao?"


"No! But…" Nanao gritted her teeth, clearly trying to find a way out of her new assignment, as she did with every other assignment Murasaki had ever given her. "Fine!" She gave up a few seconds later. Rising to her already impressive height, the clanless girl slumped her way down to stand next to Sora. "Fine, whatever…"


"You seven," Murasaki said, strolling out from around her desk to stand squarely in front of the seven named students, "will be representing Gosha Village. Remember that always, in your conduct and in your skills. You are being sent to learn, but that is not all that will be expected of you. Lady Asagi has high hopes for you, both as student ninja learning your trade and as ambassadors of Gosha Village to one of the Five Great Villages. Uphold the honor of Gosha, but also make it clear to Konoha that they have a friend as well as a servant in our village, and that they could stand to learn from us from time to time."


The moment hung as Murasaki looked from young face to young face. Orphan and scion, weak and strong, guarded and enthusiastic, all seven of her students met her gaze squarely, each nodding in silent, and in Nanao's case, reluctant, acceptance of the charge she had placed upon their shoulders.


"You seven have a meeting scheduled with Lady Asagi in a quarter of an hour," Murasaki informed them. "This will give us just enough time to rehearse the protocol for meeting with the village leader before you can embarrass yourselves."


Ignoring Nanao and Yuzuha's groans, Murasaki looked out over the rest of her students. "Rejoice, the rest of you, for the remainder of the day is yours. I encourage you to put the practice yard to good use, but only you know how best your own skills may be honed. Uphold the honor of Gosha in your own works.


"Dismissed."

 

[Nicolas Morrow]

I like these chapters. I think it is an interesting Naruto/Taimanin story crossover...one that isn't solely focused on sex. I would love to see more. It also seems like the 2 chapters aren't on the same thread mark?

 

[Scopas]

I like these chapters. I think it is an interesting Naruto/Taimanin story crossover...one that isn't solely focused on sex. I would love to see more. It also seems like the 2 chapters aren't on the same thread mark?

Click to shrink...

Thanks! I got this plot idea under my skin and just had to write it. Can't say I'm expecting much attention here, since I aim to keep this story clean enough for parallel posting on SB, but... eh, I crosspost almost everything.


Anyway, yeah, two different chapters, so two threadmarks. Thanks for reminding me!

 

[NTR Commissar]

What the fuck. Watched.

Anyway, if you were going to fuse it with Taimanin anyway, you could have gone with a Naruto AU extrapolated from the pre-Shippuuden Naruto, prior to the 'retcons' that were introduced to get the plot moving.

i.e. Where Naruto is still a pastiche of pop culture Sengoku, where the hidden villages answering to daimyou still makes sense, the fox was a youkai and not one of nine bijuu superweapons and therefore Naruto's ostracisation makes sense, where the thing in Gaara is literally the evil spirit of an old priest and the parallels with Naruto are symbolic and not literal because jinchuuriki aren't a thing etc. etc.

 

[Scopas]

Anyway, if you were going to fuse it with Taimanin anyway, you could have gone with a Naruto AU extrapolated from the pre-Shippuuden Naruto, prior to the 'retcons' that were introduced to get the plot moving.

i.e. Where Naruto is still a pastiche of pop culture Sengoku, where the hidden villages answering to daimyou still makes sense, the fox was a youkai and not one of nine bijuu superweapons and therefore Naruto's ostracisation makes sense, where the thing in Gaara is literally the evil spirit of an old priest and the parallels with Naruto are symbolic and not literal because jinchuuriki aren't a thing etc. etc.

Click to shrink...

Damn, that would have been a really good idea. ...I'll just keep that in my back pocket. Thanks for the watch!

 

[Scopas]

(Thank you to Metaldragon and Sunny for editing.)


Konoha Academy
Konohagakure


Morning broke over Konoha.


Sunlight streamed over tower and tree, over humble civilian houses and over brooding clan compounds, cresting over the carved heads of the Hokage Mountain.


At the foot of the mountain, in the familiar dust of Konoha Academy's taijutsu training ground, Nishizumi Miho eyed her opponent warily.


It was far from the first time she had faced off against her opponent, trading lunging sword-strikes for precisely-hammered blows as they danced across hard-beaten earth between the white-chalked lines. Those private spars, fought in misty mornings and under the sultry afternoon sun, had left Miho with considerable respect for her adversary's incredible speed.


It was that respect, born of bruises and locked joints, that prompted her to raise her bokken into a wary guard, red oak blade stretched almost parallel to her spine, ready to strike left or right in a lightning instant to ward away the incoming hands, folded into deceptively gentle fists.


Obligingly, Miho's opponent did not keep her waiting long; sandaled feet thumping across the span of ground between them, she darted forwards in a sudden rush, eagerly rushing into Miho's space, desperate to close past the reach offered by the bokken and to get with the armslength distance where her victory would be all but guaranteed.


Shifting back on her feet, Miho leaned ever so slightly to the left, her eyes slipping in the same direction for a meaningful fraction of a second. Reading the tells in her body language, her opponent altered her course, vectoring to intercept Miho as she stepped into her attack.


Straining, Miho hurled herself to the right instead, pivoting as she moved to remain oriented towards her opponent. Exploiting her superior reach and committing to an overhead strike, she lifted her arms and raised her wooden sword up from its guard ready to slam down into her opponent's shoulder in a devastating blow.


Just in time, the youngest daughter of the Nishizumi Clan caught the slight smile on her opponent's pale face and frantically backpedaled, ignoring the strain in her arms as she hastily pulled her guard back together.


Slim and small, the hand lashed out with scorpion swiftness, lancing through the air right where Miho's chest would have been. Her opponent had only pretended to fall for her feint, their shared experience informing her opponent well enough to truly read Miho's body language, and she had spun on her trailing foot at the last moment to hurl herself straight into the teeth of Miho's failed ambush.


That first blow multiplied into a flurry, each so swift Miho could barely see the deadly hands flying at her. Instead of relying on conscious thought to calculate the trajectories of the incoming attacks, Miho relaxed fully into instinct, trusting her sword to keep her safe.


Red oak met fingers haloed by chakra glowing blue-white, touched and came apart and touched again. Miho willingly gave ground, reeling back as quickly as she could without compromising her footing, trying to buy space enough to leverage her superior reach.


Her opponent wasn't having any of it, refusing to let her get away. Every step back Miho took was matched in an unrelenting advance, her opponent knowing just as well as Miho did which of them had the edge in physical might and determined to keep the young samurai-in-training from putting her greater strength to use.


Refusing to be herded, Miho took a leaping half-step to the left and dropped into a low crouch, a glowing hand flying straight over her head. Squatting down, Miho was almost immobile, unable to dodge without undermining her footing, but for just a moment she had a clear shot at her opponent's unguarded side, her belly unprotected except by the thin mesh of her undershirt. Seizing her opportunity, Miho slashed sideways in a horizontal cut, the air screaming as the bokken sliced through it.


Her opponent threw herself into a headlong somersault, smoothly rolling over her leading shoulder and across her back and coming up on her feet behind Miho, a quivering hand just brushing the prickling skin at the back of her neck.


"T-too slow, Miporin," said Hyuuga Hinata, holding her stance for just a moment longer before relaxing, the nimbus of chakra surrounding her fingers fading away. "You committed too strongly to the crouch…"


"Yeah…" Miho sighed as she rose back to her full height, shaking her head ruefully. "That was a really good roll, Hina! I didn't expect something like that at all…" Straightening, Miho raised her bokken to her brow in a duelist's salute. "Good match!"


"Good match!" Hinata replied with a smile, clapping her hands together in a return salute. "You nearly got me there…! I… I thought you'd go for the overhead strike like how you usually do."


"I should probably stop doing that, if that's what I 'usually do,'" Miho remarked, smiling at her quiet friend, who returned it. "Did you just learn that roll recently, Hina? I don't remember seeing you do something like that before…"


"Ah, yes…" Hinata scratched the side of her face and looked away nervously. "Father had me practice my falls yesterday…" the Hyuuga sighed, her hand dropping limply to her side. "I wish he had seen that one… then he might have been satisfied."


Miho hummed her sympathetic understanding and said nothing. It was clear from the clouds passing over Hinata's face that she didn't want to speak any further on the topic.


Truthfully, Miho didn't need to hear any further details from her friend: she was already far too familiar with the weight of parental disappointment.


After all, their shared experience as clan disappointments had been the glue that first bound Hinata and Miho's fledgling friendship together.


Failures should look out for one another, after all.


"Did you finish the history homework?" Miho asked instead, beginning to make her way back to the training ground's training rooms where they had left their things. The sun was already starting to climb higher into the sky and classes would be starting soon. "What did you choose to write about, Hinata?"


"Ah!" Hinata started, and then hurried after Miho, catching up in a second. "I… I wrote about the Five Leaf Pact! What about you, Miho?"


Last week's history homework had been an armslength essay on the Third Hokage's first tenure in office – one of Iruka-sensei's arms, not hers! – focusing on their choice of specific incidents or accomplishments.


"I wrote about the same thing!" Miho happily exclaimed, shooting her friend a quick smile. "Only I was using it as an example of the Lord Third's diplomacy succeeding, contrasting it with the peace treaty with Iwa."


The Five Leaf Pact, concluded in the confused days following the end of the Third Great Shinobi War, had seen the previously neutral Gosha Village of the Land of Rivers recognize Konohagakure as its overlord. Weakened by a civil war and menaced by a potential invasion from a Suna no longer distracted by the threat of Iwa, the new leaders of the Taima-nin had pledged the support of their experienced cadres of yōkai hunters and assassins in exchange for protection from the hungering Sand. Ranks thinned after the long war against Iwa and racked by domestic arguments, Konoha had been all too happy to accept Gosha's offer of vassalage. Together, representatives of the two villages had concluded the terms of their new relationship in the Five Leaf Pact.


This new relationship had not come as an unmitigated victory for Konoha. Suna's leader, the Kazekage, had been infuriated when he had heard the news, his designs upon the Land of Rivers thwarted. Kumo, never a friend to Konoha, had grown stronger as the rump of the former Gosha leadership found a new home beneath the banner of the Cloud.


"I-I think the Peace without Rancor was a success too…" Hinata mumbled uncomfortably, pressing her fingers together in a nervous habit. "I mean… we've been at peace for seventeen years now…"


"True," Miho admitted, "and those who said that reparations would only make the scars deeper were right, I think, but…"


The silence hung heavily between them, thick and uncomfortable.


The Nishizumis, after all, hadn't always been a Konoha Clan.


They had also once numbered many more than three.


"Well…" Miho said at last, "I wonder how many of the others wrote about the Five Leaf Pact too? I mean, the Gosha students are supposed to be arriving any day now, aren't they…?"


"They arrived in Konoha last night, Miporin," Hinata hesitantly corrected her friend as she recovered her sweatshirt and hip pouch from her locker. "My father mentioned it… They arrived just before sunset. The Hokage ordered one of the buildings in the guest quarter to be opened for them…"


"Oh!" Miho blinked as she swung her backpack over her shoulders. "So… They'll be in class today then?"


"I… I suppose so?" Hinata shrugged, clearly at the end of her information. "Unless the Hokage wants them for something else, or if they get a day or two to familiarize themselves…"


"Ah, that's true," Miho agreed. "Still though… I wonder if they'll be friendly?"


Before Hinata could answer, both girls were interrupted by the synchronized gurgle of their agonized bellies loudly voiced complaints about the inadequacy of their pre-training snacks.


"Umm…" The blushing Hinata began, "I think we have time to run to the ayu stand down the street before class, if we hurry…"


"Let's get going then," Miho nodded vigorously, her own appetite only slightly less powerful then her friend's capacity for food, which in a less unobtrusive girl would be downright legendary. "We can't meet new friends with empty bellies!"

---

"Quiet down!" Iruka-sensei yelled half an hour later, clearly exasperated.


Miho couldn't blame him, as this was the third time he had demanded silence from his rowdy class since the opening bell had rung twenty minutes ago.


"I said," the teacher repeated, Haruno Sakura letting out a shriek and nearly pitching off her seat two rows down from Miho as Iruka's voice suddenly sounded directly next to the right ear of every one of the thirty charges in his class, the voice-throwing genjutsu catching her by surprise, "pipe down. It's time to take roll."


From her perch up in the back of the classroom, seated beside the retiring Hinata and across an aisle from the somehow even more quiet Shimada Arisu, Miho gazed out across the classroom and watched the rest of her classmates slowly subside into something approaching attentive quiet.


The lecture hall, on the upper floor of the Konoha Ninja Academy, was a bright, well-lit place, with sunbeams streaming in through the open windows that lined the far wall. Despite the brilliance of the strong morning sun, or perhaps because of its comforting heat, Nara Shikamaru and Reizei Mako were both already napping, arms folded on their desks and heads down. Neither appeared to have been woken by Iruka-sensei's genjutsu, though Miho thought she saw Shikamaru crack an annoyed eye open for a moment before seeming to drift off again.


One desk over from the drowsing pair, Akimichi Chouji grinned down at a freshly opened bag of barbeque-flavored potato chips, the crumbs of the bag he had already polished off since sitting down strewn across the desk before him. Not that Aburame Shino, sitting next to him, seemed to mind the mess. To the contrary, the Aburame boy was taking advantage of it; one of his arms rested on the desk, a file of his clan's special kikaichū beetles marching out from his sleeve to salvage the stray chip crumbs before parading back up into dark places Miho tried hard not to think about.


Seated on the other side of the second aisle in the furthest row, Kiba was fiddling with… something that Miho couldn't quite see, but the hulking dog seated on the floor next to him seemed amused, judging by the sound of a thick white-furred tail thumping against the table leg. Behind Kiba and Akamaru, Takebe Saori made a moue of distaste as Akamaru's sweeping tail found her leg and she scooted her stool further away from the inu-nin.


Next to Saori, Haruno Sakura brooded, glaring moodily at the front of the classroom. Or more precisely, Miho knew without following the other kunoichi-in-training's gaze, towards the Last Uchiha, who was half-slumped over his desk and paying just about as much attention to the class's proceedings as Shikamaru and Mako were. Not that Yamanaka Ino, seated next to Sasuke, seemed to notice or care – she was far too busy alternatingly fawning over the Uchiha Clanhead and turning on her stool to shoot smugly victorious looks back at the fuming Sakura.


"Here!" Miho replied, hearing her name as Iruka continued down the attendance sheet. Watching the teacher just long enough to make sure he ticked off her presence on the paper, Miho returned to her survey of the class.


Seated an aisle apart from Ino and directly in front of Kiba, Konoha's number one juvenile troublemaker was leaning as far back on his stool as he could without falling off entirely. Miho narrowed her eyes as she realized he was reaching back towards something, his hands near whatever Kiba was messing with.


Uzumaki Naruto, shockingly visible as always in his panoply of bright colors, was clearly up to something.


Not that Isuzu Hana, heiress to the mercantile Isuzu family and its considerable fortune, seemed to care. Miho's fellow blacksheep-nin was elegant as always in a navy blazer that looked very mature as it almost rubbed sleeves with Naruto's jumpsuit. Her homework assignment was already out on the desk in front of her, neatly rolled up and sealed with a real wax seal, ready for Iruka-sensei to collect. Hana was always so neat and tidy that it was difficult to remember how much of a scandal it had been when she had defied her parents to enroll at the Konoha Academy, aiming to take up the hitai-ate and all of the responsibilities attendant upon the forehead protector instead of the merchant robes of her family.


Jumping slightly as she realized that both Hinata and Arisu already had their own assignments out and similarly ready for collection, Miho quickly scrambled in her backpack for her own completed essay scroll.


"Alright, everybody's here," Iruka announced, satisfied. "Very good – I'd hate for any of you to miss today's special treat!"


The mention of a special treat immediately secured the scarred teacher the undivided attention of his class.


Undivided except for the still sleeping Mako, at least. Even Shikamaru had propped his head up high enough on his arms to peer down at the instructor.


"Ah yes, that got your attention, didn't it?" Iruka said, a knowing smile stretched across his face. "But yes, you heard that right! A special treat."


"Heck yeah!" Naruto whooped, his stool slamming down onto all four legs as he leaned forwards over his desk. "You're gonna buy us all ramen? You're the best, Iruka-sensei!"


"Oh, shut up, Naruto!" Sakura yelled, half-rising from her stool to glower down at the unrepentant blond. "Iruka-sensei wants to say something and you interrupting isn't helping!"


"Thank you, Sakura," Iruka dryly acknowledged, before turning to Naruto. "No such luck today, Naruto. Not after the last time you drained my wallet. I've learned my lesson, thank you very much. No," he continued, turning back to the class, "this is better than ramen."


"Pfeh!" Naruto huffed dismissively. "Better than ramen? I call bullshit, Iruka-sensei!"


"You can come in now," the teacher said, shooting Naruto a glower as he raised his voice, then turned with a smile towards the classroom door. "They're ready for you!"

---

"You can come in now – they're ready for you!"


Standing in front of the classroom door, one hand on the handle ready to slide the portal open, Igawa Sakuya turned back to check over her fellow Gosha-nin, or at least, Gosha-nin-to-be, one last time.


Six pairs of eyes met her own, and while Sora looked almost petrified with anxiety and Nanao was still affecting disdain, the overwhelming emotion Sakuya picked up from her peers was… anticipation.


Good.


"Remember who you are and the names you carry," Sakuya said, the words leaden and pro-forma. It was, she felt, something an Igawa was expected to say, or at least something vaguely like the inspirational speeches her cousin sometimes gave the mustered ranks of their village. "And… don't let our village down."


Leadership, Sakuya thought, not for the first time, as six heads bobbed in acknowledgment, is not my thing. I don't know how Lady Asagi does this all the time.


As much to escape from the silently expectant pressure she could feel radiating off her comrades and peers as to not keep the Konoha instructor waiting, Sakuya opened the door and stepped into the classroom in one swift motion, committing to her course before she could waffle any further.


Thirty-one sets of eyes snapped to her, and Sakuya teetered in her sandals under the weight of the sudden curiosity. Only her own words, still ringing in her ears, and the knowledge that her peers from Gosha were watching her from behind propelled Sakuya forward. Moving somewhat stiffly, she marched towards the center of the classroom where a man clad in the flak-vest of a Konoha chunin, presumably the teacher, waited. Seeing his reassuring smile, some of the stiffness left Sakuya's gait.


Compared to Murasaki-sensei, he looks so laid back! Sakuya marveled. All of his students look similarly undisciplined… Some look to be sleeping, the one in orange clearly isn't paying attention, and the boy in the front row is a thousand miles away… Is this all a ploy? Are they pretending to lack discipline?


"Welcome to Konohagakure, trainees of Gosha Village," the teacher greeted them, snapping Sakuya's focus back to him as he clapped his hands together and bowed a greeting to seven of the Gosha teens. "It will be an honor to have you join us this year. I hope that we all have the opportunity to share much knowledge and that the bonds between our villages deepen as a result."


"You honor us," Sakuya intoned as she bowed to a careful degree, demonstrating respect without obeisance, following the ritual greeting drilled into her head by Murasaki-sensei before she had left for Konoha. "We have heard much of the skill and wisdom of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. We hope that we of Gosha might offer up sufficient secrets that you will likewise appreciate the Village of Five Wheels."


Directly behind her, Sakuya heard a dismissive snort and mentally chalked it up to the dark-haired boy wearing the Uchiha sigil she had noticed sitting in the front row, whose attention had evidently been more focused than she'd suspected.


Never one to suffer insult graciously, the private account of slights to be repaid that already occupied a shelf all its own in the depths of Sakuya's mind immediately grew a new page.


Perhaps such arrogance is why he is the Last of the Uchiha, she thought, carefully tucking the dark thought behind her usual immobile mask. It's almost a pity his traitor brother missed a spot.


"I am certain we shall," the teacher who Sakuya recalled was named Umino Iruka politely replied. "For now, please feel free to find seats among the students. Sit where you would like – there's some extra stools in the back that you can drag up to any desk you'd care to sit at."


And again, six pairs of eyes heated the back of Sakuya's neck as her fellows instinctively turned to her for direction and confirmation.


After all, she was the Igawa attached to this mission, wasn't she?


They should try using their own minds for a change!


"You heard Iruka-sensei," Sakuya very carefully did not snap, annoyed both by the smirk she knew was worming its way across the Uchiha's face and by her comrades' reliance on her for direction, waving the rest of the Gosha trainees into motion. "Find a place to sit."


A storm of chatter rose from the Konoha students as Sakuya's peers dispersed to claim open stools, the already seated Leaf students scooting their stools over to make room for the new arrivals. Trying hard not to listen to the poorly concealed speculation swirling around her and cursedly aware thanks to her perceptive hearing that rumors were already finding their feet, Sakuya momentarily swallowed her resentment and found a seat directly in the front and center of the classroom, prompting a blonde girl to enthusiastically scoot her own stool over towards the Uchiha boy, who stubbornly refused to move from his original position.


Jackass.


Grinding her teeth both at the clear disrespect from the prick and at the way the blonde almost squealed with delight at the excuse to "accidentally" press herself into the boy's side, Sakuya focused on arranging her school supplies, finding some small relief in the order she could impose on the tiny square of desk before her.


"Alright, alright," Iruka, the teacher, said, clapping his hands and drawing the attention of his students with a speed Sakuya was certain Murasaki-sensei would envy. "Settle down everyone! You'll have a chance to talk during recess. In the meantime, everybody in this room from Konoha owes me an essay. Pass them up!"


"Here," a thick, curiously high-pitched voice muttered from behind Sakuya. Mechanically, she reached back and accepted a trio of scrolls, which she dumped in front of the blonde girl next to her, where the girl's own scroll sat next to "Sasuke's~" assignment.


"Oh!" the Konoha girl blinked guiltily down at the scrolls, and then over at Sakuya. "Oh! Yeah, you're here, uh…?"


"Igawa Sakuya," the Gosha student replied curtly, manners compelling her to allow the daughter of her hosts a bit of slack. "Heir-presumptive to the Igawa Clan."


"The Igawa Clan?" the blonde frowned at her a bit, though Sakuya couldn't quite figure out why. "As in, Igawa Asagi? Your village's Kage?"


"Our leader, or commander," Sakuya corrected. "We don't have a Kage."


If we did, we wouldn't have bowed our heads to Konoha, she silently added. Only the Great Villages have Kage, you idiot.


"Ah." The girl didn't sound assuaged in the slightest. In fact, her expression was rapidly growing into a pout. "But you're still related to her, aren't you?"


Sakuya blinked, turning her head to fully face the girl. That last inquiry had sounded much more like an accusation than a question…


"She is my cousin," Sakuya answered, trying to figure out the cause for this sudden apparent enmity. "Or first cousin once removed, I think. My grandmother and her mother were half-sisters." She blinked again, remembering her manners. "Who are you again?"


"I'm Yamanaka Ino, heiress to the Yamanaka name!" Ino proudly announced, smiling in self-congratulation for a moment before glaring at Sakuya again. "And Sasuke is mine, you hear? Mine."


The boy in question, Sakuya nodded, offered no reaction to this claim, instead only staring ahead at the teacher, who was stacking the collected assignments on his desk.


"Good?" Sakuya hazarded, totally adrift at sea and her naturally scarce patience almost expended by this conversation. "You can keep him."


"Great!" And like the sun coming out from behind a thunder cloud, Ino was suddenly beaming at her. "We're gonna be great friends!"

---

One row up and over from where Sakuya fought her solitary social battle, Nanao was making friends in her own way.


"Soo…" the clanless Taimanin began, sitting beside Kiba and craning her head over to check out what her new seatmate was working on with the blond boy seated in front of him, scowling as Kiba raised his arms defensively. "Whatcha doin'?"


"Depends," Kiba guardedly replied. "You cool?"


"The hell?" Nanao asked, incredulous. "Am I cool? Is she cool?"


She jabbed a finger at the unphased Hana, who merely turned around in her seat to favor Nanao with a sweet smile. Scowling, Nanao turned back to glare at Kiba, flushing slightly as she retreated from Hana's megawatt smile. "Whatever. Who gives a shit? Whatever the hell you two idiots are working on can't be that impressive, since you're screwing around with it out in the open! So lemme see already!"


A warning cough from the Konoha teacher, Iruka, Nanao thought his name was, temporarily silenced their conversation. The blond boy seated ahead of her chuckled apologetically and rubbed the back of his head, which somehow worked like an absolute charm to reassure the teacher that nothing too interesting was happening.


"Alright, fine," the dog-boy groused after the coast was clear. "We'll deal you in, but you'd better be cool, okay?"


"Yeah, yeah," Nanao waved her hand dismissively, leaning back in. "Cough up already!"


"Fine!" Kiba jerked his hand sidewise, sending something skittering across the desk towards Nanao, who caught it and held it up for inspection.


It was a permanent marker, no different than any other Nanao had ever seen.


"...Ookay?" she hazarded, carefully picking up the marker and scanning it for distinguishing markings. Seeing nothing of interest on the outside, Nanao clenched her fist around the marker and pulsed her chakra, scanning for any fuuinjutsu seals hidden within the ink chamber. "Kay, I give up. What's the deal with the marker?"


"We're autographin' our desks!" Dog Boy, as Nanao had already dubbed the Inuzaka, proudly declared, the actual dog sitting on the floor next to him thumping his tail with answering enthusiasm. "I'm gonna be the next big man around here, you hear? The Academy can frame my desk up on the wall when I'm in charge, complete with my siggy!"


"No way!" the blond interjected, spinning around on his stool to glare back at Dog Boy. "I'm gonna be the next Hokage, you idiot!"


He's got really pretty eyelashes for a boy, Nanao noticed, suddenly almost face to face with the loudmouth. The gold really goes well with his eyes… What's the deal with the whisker markings, though?


"What's the deal with the whiskers?" Nanao had never had much truck with stepping lightly around when she had questions, or really at any other time either. "They some sort of clan marking, like Dog Boy's paint?"


"Hey!" Dog Boy objected, though he didn't really sound all that upset. "I have a name, you know!"


"Yeah," she agreed, turning to look at him before dropping her eyes meaningfully down to the defaced surface of his desk. "I saw. So," she turned back to the blond, "about the whiskers?"


"Why do ya wanna know?" the blond retorted, thrusting his jaw out pugnaciously. "Got a problem with 'em?"


Behind the tough facade, Nanao saw something flicker. A part of her deep down ached in response in a way she hated.


She'd spent long enough putting up a strong front to recognize the signs.


"Nah," Nanao replied with deliberate casualness, trying not to make this some kind of triggering thing. She wouldn't do that, not to people who looked like it would actually hurt, at least. "Just curious. I think they look kinda cool."


"You think they look cool?!" And suddenly, he was almost touching noses with her. Distantly, she heard the teacher man yelling something. Naruto? Was that the guy's name? What parent named their kid after a topping? "Really? You do?"


"Sure, I guess," Nanao said, pushing herself back just a bit, trying not to blush at the sudden proximity. "I mean… they look neat? Kinda like a cat or something? Maybe a fox?"


Immediately, Nanao realized she'd rammed her foot down her mouth.


Idiot! she cursed herself as Naruto's face fell, all the eager enthusiasm draining away in an instant. Fucking idiot! Why would you tell someone from Konoha that he looked like a fox?!


Knowing full well she was in the wrong, Nanao decided to do something she rarely did, something that ran against her scofflaw nature.


"Hey, I'm sorry…" Gosha Village's self-declared number one ruffian apologized, her ears burning as hot as her signature fire jutsu. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just that your buddy's a dog, so I didn't think cat quite fit…"


"Ah, yeah…" Naruto forced a transparently fake grin. "Don't worry about it… You still think they're cool, yeah?"


"Yeah," Nanao agreed fervently, grateful to be let off the hook so easily. "Way cool."


Inspiration struck.


"You know what'd be even cooler?" Nanao asked, holding out her marker. "If the future Hokage autographed my desk too! That way they could hang it up next to Kiba's."


"Hell ye– hey, wait a second!" Dog Boy yelped, then, "Hey, wait… You did remember my name!"


"Sure did, Dog Boy," Nanao grinned teasingly at the dog-nin, who immediately flushed. "So, what do you say, Naruto," she continued, switching targets. "You gonna sign my desk?"


"Hell yeah!" the blond whooped, grabbing the marker from her hand. "One day, everybody's gonna marvel at the desk that I, Uzumaki Naruto, wrote my name on!"


Wincing, Nanao looked past the scribbling Naruto to meet the angry gaze of the Konoha teacher man, Iruka or something. Sometime in their conversation, he'd crept up right behind Naruto and was now glaring angrily down as the boy happily signed Nanao's desk in big looping letters. At least their instructor could be stealthy when the situation called for it.


"Ah, shit…"

---

Wincing, Uehara Shikanosuke looked away from the scrubbing trio as the bell signifying the end of class rang. All around him, fellow trainees from Konoha and Gosha were both getting to their feet, eager for the midday recess and lunch break. Conversations that had started over passed notes and quiet half-whispers rose in a crescendo as curious Konoha students got to know their new classmates.


"So…" the girl Shikanosuke had sat next to in uneasy silence for the morning classes, Takebe Saori, began, "you're a guy, right?"


"Yeah…" Shikanosuke glumly confirmed, hunching his shoulders, eyes fixed firmly on the desk in front of him. He'd been dreading this moment.


She's gonna ask me why I'm wearing girl's clothes, he sighed internally, resigned to yet another repetition of the same old humiliating routine. She's gonna say I'm weird or a freak or whatever…


I'm so sick of this.


Sixteen years ago, his great-uncle Uehara Shihiro, then the head of the Uehara Clan, had hunted down a fallen god in the shape of a rotting woman, a spirit of health turned into an avatar of plague, and had claimed the corrupt thing's head. But before he landed the killing blow, the pestilence-ghost had cursed his clan with the last gasps of its power, ordaining that all of its men would perish.


Within days, Uehara Shihiro was dead, the fetid touch of the god curdling the flesh while it was still on the bone. Likewise had his uncles, cousins, and the father he had never met perished, suppurating lesions engulfing their skins in a tide of necrotic black and pus yellow.


Still in his mother's womb, Shikanosuke alone of all of the men of the Uehara clan had been spared.


Noting that the curse had left all of the women of the Uehara Clan unscathed, the new clanhead, his aunt Rin, along with his mother, Saya, had decreed upon Shikanosuke's birth and the discovery of his gender that henceforth all Uehara would, upon the brink of adolescence, dress as women and, to the greatest extent possible, act as women in the hopes that the curse that devoured all the men of the clan would overlook their children.


So far, the curse had overlooked Shikanosuke, though sometimes he wondered if a relatively swift death wouldn't have been better. While his mother had always been somewhat… smothering… he hadn't resented it as much as a child. Whenever he had begun to resent it, Saya would tell the story of his father's last days, and of watching her brothers and cousins rot while they still breathed.


Shikanosuke understood his mother's fear, he truly did. He didn't want to die, definitely not like that! He just… just desperately wished that he could have been born someone else, born into some other clan, so he could be the manly man he knew he could have been, should have been, without having to wonder how it would feel for muscle to fall away from cancer-ridden bone.


Why do I do this to myself? the heir to the Uehara Clan unhappily wondered, not for the first time nor the hundredth. None of my younger cousins seem to mind the clothes. They all seem just fine and happy with being dressed as girls… Why am I the only one who just feels so… Wrong?


"You've got really great taste for a guy," Saori said happily, leaning over to pinch the puffed sleeve of his blouse between her fingers. "It's really surprising! I don't think most boys can dress themselves without help. Whoa, is this real silk?"


"Y-Yeah…" Shikanosuke stuttered, thrown utterly for a loop as her honest interest pitched him out of his usual spiraling trace. This wasn't how things usually went for him! Where were the prying questions, the insinuations? Was… was a girl complimenting him? Sure, she was complimenting him on the clothes he despised, but still! "Yeah, it is! My mother picked it out for me!"


He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.


"Ah, ah, ah!" Shikanosuke fumbled, blushing furiously as he tried to think of some way to repair the damage he'd just inflicted upon whatever hope of a friendship with a girl he'd so briefly felt. "I mean, I'm just really close to my mom and she's the one who makes me wear all this!"


You idiot! You made it worse! Shikanosuke screamed at himself as Saori's eyes widened behind the round lenses of her spectacles. You stupid, stupid idiot!


"She makes you wear these clothes?" Saori drew her hand back from Shikanosuke's sleeve as if she'd been burned. "Wha… Why? Huh?"


"It's a curse! I mean, there is a curse. On my family!" Shikanosuke garbled out, before forcing himself to slow down enough to breathe. "Years ago, an evil spirit cursed us and now every male member of my clan dies. My mom makes me wear girl's clothes and grow my hair out and stuff so the curse doesn't find me."


"...Does that work?" the Konoha girl asked, somewhat apprehensively. "And… Umm… Does it, you know… spread?"


She's still talking to me, oh good… Yeah, that's good… I dunno what to say to her?!


"Not so far, thankfully," Shikanosuke got out, still trying to force his breathing to be slow and regular. "And… I guess it works? I mean… I'm still alive. My dad isn't." He forced a laugh, and hated how it came out in a high-pitched, almost effeminate, titter. He hated how high and light his voice naturally was, how he'd inherited his mother's slim, delicate features. It made him look even more like a girl than the clothes did. "So… working so far. Curse still hasn't found me."


"I'm… sorry about your dad?" The condolence pinched off at the end, turning the statement into a question. For a moment, Saori looked like she'd try again, but then swallowed the words, letting Shikanosuke answer.


At least it's not just me.


"Thanks," he said, and then, trying to make the conversation just a bit less horribly uncomfortable, "I never knew him, so I guess it's okay."


"I… guess?"


They stood for a moment in painful, awkward silence, before Saori cleared her throat and forced a smile halfway to a rictus. "Well… Curse aside… You still look good? You, uh… must take pretty good care of your hair? It looks really silky. What brand of shampoo do you use?"


"...Whichever one my mom bought me," Shikanosuke admitted, shoulders hunched in defeat. "Kinda predictable, huh?"


"I mean… I use the shampoo my mom buys too?" This time, Saori's smile looked a bit more genuine and much less pained. "I mean, why go out and buy a different kind when she's already buying for the family, you know?"


"Y-yeah," Shikanosuke agreed, returning the smile as he gripped the lifeline she'd thrown him with all of his might.


I wonder if all Konoha girls are this nice?


They stood in silence for another moment, though this time Shikanosuke didn't feel like he was about to sink through the floor. Then, just as the atmosphere began to turn awkward, Shikanosuke's eyes caught on the disconsolate trio grimly scrubbing away their desks, the permanent marker living fully up to its name.


"I… I think we should go help those guys out," Shikanosuke proposed, his voice a bit shy as he gestured towards Nanao and the two boys whose names he had learned were Naruto and Kiba. "If it's just them, they might not be able to finish up before lunch is over."


"...Yeah," Saori agreed after a moment, first giving Shikanosuke a strange look, and then grimacing as she glanced down at her hands. "It's gonna ruin my nails, scrubbing with all that cleaner…" she moaned piteously. "I just got them done last weekend too…"


"You, uh… don't have to help?" Shikanosuke offered, feeling suddenly guilty for imposing, especially after she'd been nice enough to compliment his clothes and his hair. "I wouldn't want you to ruin your nails or anything…"


"Uh uh," Saori shook her head, a determined glint in her bespectacled eyes as she rolled her sleeves up. "That's not how we do things in Konoha. The Will of Fire says that we're all family, and we should treat each other like family. And family helps family clean up their messes. C'mon, Shikanosuke! Let's go!"


Feeling somewhat dazed, Shikanosuke trailed after Saori, who was already grabbing a bottle of spray-on cleaner from the blond, Naruto, and apparently chiding him for not putting enough force behind his scrubbing.


He wondered if he was in love.


Man, Konoha girls sure are nice…

 

[Nicolas Morrow]

It's nice to see another chapter. I really liked seeing Shikanosuke being explored like this. I started playing Taimanin rpg when it started, and while I think it's characters are neat, there isn't a whole lot about them, at least on EN side. So far, from the game I got his ninja art, that he looks girlish, and that he is a coward. I hope more will be released in the future about various characters, but until then I'll just read your stuff.

 

[Scopas]

I commissioned a picture of my version of Nishizumi Shiho, a samurai in Konoha's service.

Spoiler: Art by MinttSky

Art by MinttSky