For every rising star that the shinobi world produces, a hundred other geniuses are chewed up and spit out. Seiko crawls out of that grinder, only to find that she still has the rest of her life to face head on.
She really had tried her best. It seems arrogant to loudly proclaim to the heavens that she'd done everything right, that she'd trained hard, that she'd been proud to graduate even one year ahead of her genius little brother.
But she had been.
She'd wanted--
The medic drags another needle out of her leg.
Seiko screams, her dog picking up the sound and howling right alongside her.
"Shush, girl," the medic grunts. "We wouldn't even have to do this if you'd received proper care in the field. You look more like a pincushion than a person, and the person who got you back to Konoha must have dragged you by the foot for all the good it's done you."
They tap her knee, milky white eyes scrunched up as they activate the Byakugan.
"You've got another bit stuck inside your knee. I don't think that one's coming out short of a miracle-- or Lady Tsunade." They snort. "Don't think she's coming around for some genin, when she won't even enter the hospital for her own teammates. And--"
Seiko screams again, an ear piercing sound.
"Kami's grace, kiddo. How old are you? 12? You and that dog are going to bust my eardrums. I need those."
"He's the one that dragged me back here," Seiko says. She scratches his ears. "Aren't you a good boy, Biter?"
Even using her hands to pet him sends white hot flashes of pain to explode behind her eyes.
"The dog got you here?" The med-nin blinks, eyes narrowing even as their hands continue carefully plucking needles. "So your whole team is dead, then. Sorry for your loss. This one's going to hurt."
"They all h--"
She nearly goes unconscious from the pain.
"--hurt," she breathes, throat hoarse. "And no. I've still got one teammate. Biter said--" Barked, whatever. "The poison got in him, so--"
"Oh, dear," the med-nin says, staring at her knee. "I don't think that one's coming out."
"So, he was having trouble...closing his hands," Seiko finishes. She swallows. "What do you mean it's not..."
"You've got a piece of metal broken off inside the knee," the Hyuuga tells her. "Looks like you're going to be limping for the rest of your life, kiddo."
What?
"Don't worry," the words keep going. "You've got a lot of long lasting injuries, and I've done the best of my abilities to deal with the poison, but Konoha doesn't discharge anyone during active wartime. You've got a family, right? A clan? This is a field station, I don't have anyone's records."
"My dad's.. An active ninja," Seiko says. "But my brother should still be at home. He's graduating this year, you know."
"Oh? Congratulations. I hope you make a full recovery in time to attend."
"I hope so too," Seiko says.
"You missed the graduation," Sakumo says. He's sitting beside her bed when she wakes up, one hand clamped firmly around Biter's muzzle to keep his growls from waking her up until he'd gotten into position.
She hasn't seen her father since...
Well, the second war had begun the year Kakashi was born, but he'd been around more in the beginning. But five years is a long time for a war to run, and the White Fang had been called to the battlefield more and more..
"You missed mine," She says. Though Kakashi had attended, the grouchy little brat. He'd wanted to graduate at the same time as her, even though he'd been four and she'd been...eight? No, that's not right. Nine. Her fault for having an early birthday.
Pain slices through his face, though she hadn't really meant it as a jab against him.
"I'm sorry about that, Seiko," he says. "I tried to return to the village, but--"
"-- the mission comes first," they both say together.
The lines cut into his face deepen even as she recites the line.
"At least you made it in time for his," she says. "He sulked for a month after you missed his birthday."
Sakumo slumps even further into his own shoulders. He used to put more effort into appearing invulnerable in front of her, but battle has ground him down as surely as poison has eroded her nerves.
"How's Kakashi been, really?" he asks her. "I know I gave him that mask, but he's so hard to read..."
"You're the one who's seen him most recently." Seiko shrugs, pushing herself off the hospital bed to go limp across the room and start packing her stuff. "He hasn't come to visit since they relocated me back to the main hospital. Figured he burned down the house trying to boil water and was too embarrassed to tell me or something."
"That's no way to treat your sister..." Sakumo says, disgruntled. "I'll talk to him once we get home."
Seiko blinks.
"He's still in Konoha? Thought they were still putting genin in the field." That's what they'd done to her not 10 months ago, afterall.
Sakumo shakes his head, clearly relieved.
"We're doing the final treaty negotiations now. The Hokage's pulled all genin back-- he doesn't want to risk any overexcited youngster causing the peace to fail."
So they let Kakashi speed through because they're on wartime footing, then immediately decide they don't need him..
Classic.
Seiko sways on her feet, the world suddenly blurring around her as she reaches for her forehead protector. Her weak knee buckles first, dropping her down and sending a shockwave of pain up her leg as it hits the ground.
Everything--fucking--hurts
"--Seiko!" Sakumo grabs her arm, pulling her back up to standing.
"Let go of me," Seiko mutters. "That hurts."
Biter twines through her legs, soft black fur a comfort as he picks the fallen forehead protector up in his teeth and carefully tucks it away.
"Good dog. Good Biter."
"I thought--" Sakumo really can't afford the amount of worry lines he's picking up, not when he already has white hair. They're going to mistake him for Kakashi's grandfather or something. "Seiko, I thought you were healed."
"I'm..." Seiko rubs a hand across her face. "Recovered to the extent of the hospital's ability, Dad."
The field medic really had done their best, but they'd missed some of the poison-- or maybe some poison had remained in that one broken needle still stuck in her. Either way, the pain hadn't gone away, nor had the limp. And then the dizzy spells, the loss of balance, the trembles in her hands...
"Are you...still capable of doing missions, Seiko?"
She knows he's just asking her if she's doing okay. And there's really only one answer she can give him.
"Yeah, it'll be fine. The doctor actually said my chakra was attempting to act as phantom nerves... In a couple of years, all this stuff might just go away on its own. I'll be ship-shape and ready to go!" Seiko pumps her arm in an offhanded attempt at cheer, then immediately winces as her hand fails to curl all the way into a fist, pain her only reward for that attempt.
He knows battlefield injuries better than she does, but he doesn't disagree with her, even though she sees the hope that this is just a small hiccup in her life fade away in his eyes.
"You can get through this," he tells her, picking up her back and looping it over his own shoulder as he escorts her out. "You're tough. You'll make it."
But what about you, dad. Are you going to make it?
...
Please?
Kakashi throws a ninja star at her as his typical greeting.
Before she can say goodbye to her fleeting yet still remarkably painful life, Sakumo grabs it out of the air, tucking it into his own pockets and giving Kakashi a stern look.
"Kakashi, your sister is still...injured," Sakumo says, barely hesitating before moving on with that part of the sentence. "She's not going to be able to play with you right now."
Kakashi's fingers immediately flash into hand signals.
"It's not playing. It's training."
"Okay. She's not going to be able to train with you right now. She's on strict home rest orders for the next--" He looks over at her.
"I've got another month," Seiko says. "Then I go back in to see where they move me to. My sensei died, so I'm probably getting moved off jounin track." Unless another Jounin wants to take her on, of course, but that's not happening with her current condition.
"I'm sorry about your sensei," Sakumo says. "He was a good man."
Had he known him? She's doubly sorry, then. It had been a bad death.
Kakashi tucks his hands into his pants, sullenly looking between the two of them before his eyes settle on Sakumo.
"I'm--" he jabs his thumb into his chest as he makes the gesture. "Stuck doing stupid D levels while they wait for the Jounin I'm assigned to to get back. You could..."
"Sorry, Kakashi," Sakumo says. "I'm headed back into the field. I just came by to make sure you two were doing okay."
He apologizes to them more than he's home with them.
Seiko watches him go before she turns back to Kakashi.
"I thought you burned the house down trying to cook," she says.
"I can cook," Kakashi shoots back. "... noodles. And rice."
Seiko crosses her arms.
"Oh look, the little genin can cook. Okay, genius. Then why didn't you come visit? I was bored."
His gaze slides away.
"Training," he finally says. "For my graduation."
Seiko rolls her eyes at him, starting to limp her way into the house. She's already been standing for long enough that the pain is now pulsing through her leg and up into her spine, like some over eager chiropractor ready to use their self granted license.
"I thought you were going to say you finally made some friends," she says.
At least they don't live somewhere with more than two floors. Thank the kami for small mercies.
"They're all weak and stupid," Kakashi summarizes bluntly. "None of them even know how to fight."
"They're five year olds."
"I'm five."
She ruffles his hair. It's bristly and stiff, not soft at all.
"Okay then, genius. Make yourself dinner-- I'm going to bed."
He catches her hand, grumply shoving it off his head.
"You missed the graduation ceremony," he tells her. "It was really cool. Everyone wanted to go see dad."
"Yeah?" If she doesn't sit down within the next minute she's going to kill someone. "I thought they were all there to see you."
Kakashi wrinkles his nose at her, dark blue fabric of his mask distending with the motion.
"He's a war hero," he says, like it's obvious. "He's Konoha's strongest."
"Isn't that the Sanin?" She gives up on standing up and just sits on the floor. It doesn't help, just transferring the pulsing of her knee to a pulsing in her head. "Dad's just doing his duty."
"Doing his duty by being the strongest," Kakashi insists, hands moving at a rapid pace. "I missed my chance this time, but the next time a war happens, I'll be right there beside him."
"So certain another war is going to break out?" She says. "We haven't even finished this one."
"War's not like your gross cooking," Kakashi grumps. "I don't have to finish it all to leave the table."
"I won't be cooking this month," Seiko says, voice casual. "Doctor's orders." She can't even hold chopsticks properly, right now.
"Liar!"
She knows he'd wanted to have her and Sakumo both home, and now he's getting the worst of both worlds. Their dad's still busy, and she's not going to be doing much more than lying around and taking Biter on walks.
"Oh no," Seiko says, voice empty. "Looks like I'm unable to do the dishes this month as well."
Such a look of betrayal on his face.
"Oh, and the laundry as well...."
"Liar!"
It's a lot to pile onto a five year old. She really... wishes that she could do it. That Sakumo would come home and do it. That their mom would rise back out of the grave and do it.
They're not bad people, her family.
But trash compactors don't check for temperament.
It's good that her teammate waited to show up until a day when Kakashi had wandered off to go hang by a cliff with his bare hands, or whatever else he got up to in his spare time.
She'd hate to have a loud fight in front of her little brother.
Who knows what bad habits he'd pick up?
Hoheto Hyuga nearly always wore his hair in a ponytail while in the field, but back in Konoha he wears it the traditional Hyuga way: though his hair is short enough that leaving it free falling still barely covers the back of his neck.
He'd never wear his forehead protector anywhere other than his forehead, though. It's one thing to bend the knee, and another to be unashamed of servitude.
Or it could just be because he's, like, nine.
"Looks like you got your sight back," Seiko says. "What're you doing here, 'Heto? You never come to visit."
"You never went to our training spot," Hoheto states, trying to cross his arms but struggling a little with it due to the amount of bandages still wrapped up and down both arms and around his upper torso. "You... what are you doing, letting yourself lose your conditioning, when you never once missed a day! They're going to reassign us to the genin corps at this rate. We'll be eternal genin."
He says it like it's a curse.
But, aren't they already cursed? There's nothing to be done but sit in a castle and grow out their hair.
"Yeah..." Seiko says, wrists clasped loosely behind her back so that their interminably trembling doesn't make her seem weak. "I'm not applying for a new sensei, 'Heto. I'm going to ask to work in the tower."
He goes pale, rage eagerly shoving despair aside to claim its place as this month's local bingo winner.
"You're abandoning me!?"
Hey. That's not fair.
Biter bares his teeth, growling a little at the young man whose life he had saved.
"What are you, a lost kitten in a cardboard box? I'm just telling you my plans. You could go work at the tower as well, you know. Your injuries are pretty bad too, so--"
"I'm not some coward who refuses to return to the field just because of a few scratches. Seiko, this could be our--"
Hoheto's hands curl into fists.
"It could be my only chance at staying Jounin tracked, Seiko," he says. "I'm not the daughter of a war hero. I'm only ahead of the curve until I grow up-- It needs to be now. I need to make chunin before eleven, and the war's already as good as over."
He's too proud to beg. Good, because that would be an awful thing to do only to discover that it was pointless the whole time.
"You can do that without me," Seiko says.
Though, she doesn't know if he can. If they were a package deal, if a Jounin wanted the prestige of teaching The White Fang's eldest, then also teaching a young Hyuga prodigy was nothing. An easy acceptance.
If Hoheto is stuck doing it alone, well.. It's like he said. You're only a genius until your peers catch up. With his injuries, his peers have quite a head start. And he'll receive no help from his clan.
"I can't," Seiko says. "'Heto, I can't hold my sword."
She holds her hands out to him, watching them shudder and wobble outside of her control. Watches him see the scars on the back of both her wrists, flesh ripped out as if caught on a fishhook.
"No!" Hoheto insists, and she knows that he can't acknowledge reality anymore than she can change it. "Coward! You're just scared of heading back out there. My life's been harsh too, you know. But there's only one way out-- and it's on the battlefield."
She really hadn't realized how much of her world she'd been balancing on the edge of her blade.
And now, all of it is falling...
"Okay," she says. "Let's fight. If you win... I'll go with you."
Biter holds the bandage roll in his teeth as she carefully, laboriously binds the blade to her hand. The sword is what Sakumo knows, so the sword is what he taught his children. Even though Kakashi had always been more interested in jutsus...
She wasn't joking about him nearly burning the house down. Honestly, that kid.
So, a sword in her left hand. Fighting Hyuga in close quarters was the type of thing stupid and suicidal people did, so she does have a few ideas about how to go about it.
She uses the dog to pull herself back up to her feet, posture falling into a shambling mockery of her preferred fighting stance. The blade hangs in her loose arm as she stares out at Hoheto through her silver hair.
He, too, assumes proper stance, bandaged fingers clumsily moving through a few warm ups before settling into their final position as his eyes flare and turn into the full Byakugan.
There's no signal of readiness. Just a single moment of stillness, and--
Seiko slams her palm on the ground, the shockwaves of putting that much weight on her hand sending pain spiking through her shoulder.
Biter disappears from her side, diving through the circle to run through the ground to his target.
"You know that won't work on me," Hoheto snaps, eyes following the dog through the ground long enough to jump away as Biter's jaws emerge from the grass to narrowly miss his ankles. He lunges at her instead of going after Biter, hands glowing with the ominous green of the only techniques he's allowed.
"Gentle Fist: Tenketsu Needle!" His two fingers lodge themselves deep into her right arm, at last causing the throbbing pain in that wrist to subside as she feels nothing at all, the entire limb rendered numb by the strike.
It shouldn't happen like that: the gentle fist only touched the chakra, not the nerve. But, didn't the doctor tell her that her nerves were already eaten up... It was just her chakra giving her the ghost of an arm to flop around.
Good riddance.
Her sword slashes down as she pivots on her busted knee and sweeps his leg out from under him, only managing to cut a narrow line across his cheek as he falls and twists away.
"First blood," she says.
"My techniques don't draw blood, you--" He bites off the word before it becomes an insult, too well taught to lower himself like that.
There's a tense worry in his eyes as he sees her arm hang limp. Does he need a little encouragement to keep going? She doesn't mind. Chakra begins to slide down her hand into the blade, heavy and dangerous.
"What's wrong, 'Heto? Too afraid to fight? I thought that was supposed to be me."
The more she fights, the calmer she gets. Though, she can't say the same for her knee. There's a guy who can't wait to explode.
"I guess you must have gotten too used to losing against me and Kiyomu?"
It's the mention of their dead teammate that gets him.
"I'm just sick of your attitude," Hoheto hisses, regaining his fire as he runs towards her. "Always so condescending. Always so aloof. You received more training than me, so what?"
Rage makes him sloppy.
Seiko's sword cuts through the cloth into the skin of his forehead, causing his forehead protector to fall over his eyes as blood seeps down.
For a second, his seal is exposed.
"I'm better than you..." Seiko echoes. "So what?"
It's unfortunate that blindness means nothing to a Hyuga. Hoheto kicks forward, fist finally finding its proper resting spot in her stomach. Seiko gasps, breath knocked out of her as Hoheto punches her again, following her down to the ground, hand around her one working arm to keep her locked in place as he punches her again in the jaw.
"You--"
"Biter!" Seiko spits out, a bit of blood dribbling out of the corner of her mouth.
The jaws of a 150 pound japanese mastiff surge up from the ground to lock around Hoheto's leg.
He stiffens, silver eyes staring into hers as his hand stops inches from her nose.
He needs to be able to recover in order to be able to get a jounin sensei in order to get a promotion in order to become a chunin in order to gain even a scrap of recognition from his clan. A ripped tendon from a dog bite would be far, far too much.
She considers ordering Biter to bite down anyway.
He's not like her, who has nothing left to lose from a stupid fight with her only friend.
"Seiko," he says, voice resigned. "You're going to ruin my life, one way or the other."
His hair is down, his seal is exposed, he's dripping blood on her from both of the cuts she slashed into his face.
She smiles at him.
"Good luck out there, Hoheto."
His fist rushes down, hitting the ground next to her head.
"Traitor," he says.
"Loser," she says.
She's still laying on the grass when Kakashi gets back home in the late evening.
"What're you doing out here?" he says, though she can see him scan the scene, notice the blood droplets, check the broken parts of the grass.
"I'm cloud gazing," Seiko says. She can feel bits of feeling coming back to her right arm, which is nice. She holds her left hand out to her brother. "Hey. Help me up."
He looks like she's just asked him to move a mountain, contemplating and putting some deep thought into it as he stares down at her left hand. The short sword is still bound to it, since she naturally can't use her other hand to untie it.
He ends up crouching down to untie the bandages, leaving the sword to lie on the grass as he tugs her up--
Only for her knee to immediately drop her back down to kneeling. Well. Close enough. She grabs Kakashi's shoulder, using him as a rather short cane while she limps back into the house.
"And you?" She says. "Out training?"
Kakashi steps away from her as soon as she makes it through the front door, lighting fast.
"Did your sensei make you take a test before accepting you?" He asks directly, hands spelling things out even faster than normal.
Biter drags a chair out from the kitchen table for her to sit on, which she gratefully sinks down into, rubbing his ears in thanks.
"Yeah," she says, still looking at her dog. "It's not required, but a lot of jounin do it. Usually they're about teamwork, though.. I don't know why anyone would bother if you're going to be a solo protege."
"But did yours do it."
"No." Their sensei had had a good selection-- the Hatake heir, a talented Hyuga, and the highest performing civilian in the class. He'd been more than willing to take them at face value for what they were: relatively disciplined kids with a lot to prove.
Or maybe he'd just liked them. He had died for them, after all.
"Then I don't want to do it either," Kakashi says, crossing his arms. "I don't need this teacher. I can get another."
"Yeah? Who is he?"
Seiko props up her chin with the palm of her hand, discovering with excitement that this actually helped to stabilize her various tremors, for once giving her back a facsimile of her old attitude.
"I don't know. Some Inuzuka."
No wonder he's so defensive about it.
"Still haven't managed your first summon, genius?" She says, mouth curling up into a smile. "Don't worry. Me and Biter believe in you. Don't we, Biter."
Biter growls from his position underneath her chair. He's almost too big to even fit under there.
"See? Well, you can always give up, Kakashi. I'm sure you'll find another jounin willing to put up with you."
"I'm not the one who just lost a fight," Kakashi says, eyes flicking back to look at their front door.
"The fight with the clouds?" Seiko says, blinking her eyes lazily. "Oh, don't worry-- I won."
"Liar."
The Konoha Mission Assignment Desk is a rather large room within the ground floor of the tower, enclosed on all sides except for the six wide open windows situated behind the actual desk the room is named for.
The only thing special about the desk itself is its age. This room was one of the first rooms ever built for the newly founded village, the missions being justification for existence and the source of most funds all at once. Without missions, then what's the point of a village?
Well, maybe Hashirama had a different opinion than her about that.
"Seiko Hatake," she says, introducing herself to one of the chunin staffing the desk. "Returning to active duty." She's heard that apparently the Hokage likes to come down and give the missions in person, but with the war set to end, apparently he has better things to do.
"Hatake..." The woman recognizes the name, giving her a look over before quickly scanning through the scrolls in front of her to find the correct name. "Got it."
The guy next to her looks up. While the women was nondescript, this guy could not be more clearly a Nara, from his ponytail all the way down to the cold, bored look in his eyes.
"Oh, you," he says. "Your teammate came through here just last week. Sorry about your sensei, kid. He was a good one."
"Thanks," Seiko says.
"No problem. The Hyuga requested to go to a different jounin, though we're kinda understaffed right now... it might be a while. I can put you in with his application, just let me find it--"
"That won't be necessary," Seiko says, fingers curling into Biter's fur as she continues to stand there. She needs to get him a harness, if he'll let her-- something that she can really hang on to. He didn't sign up to be a makeshift walker, though. Hopefully he won't take it badly.
"No?" The guy discards the scroll. "Well, can't help you, then."
The woman she'd first talked to clears her throat, throwing an annoyed glance at her coworker. "So, Hatake. If you don't want another jounin sensei, your options get a lot more limited. Are you sure about this?"
She'd thought it would be harder.
"I'm sure," she says.
"Okay..." The woman gives her a dubious look, which is fair. Seiko's neck is the same height as the desk-- she's still got a lot of growing left to do. "So, you've got a couple of options. The hospital is always looking for people willing to train to become med-nins. It's important work, and what with Lady Tsunade... taking an extended term to study outside of the village, we need all the people we can get."
Seiko shakes her head.
"Girl, you really can't afford to be this picky. Next up is the normal genin corps. You'll be doing all the normal stuff you did before-- D ranks around the village, basic supply runs, the village's bread and butter. The only difference is that you'll be doing it with a random assortment of genin and chunin, whoever shows up for that assignment. A lot of them run in their own self-picked teams, so it's kind of rough in the beginning... but that's life. Other than that--" The woman shrugs. "We're alway looking for people to volunteer for long term undercover posts. It's not that bad, you just live in some out of nowhere village and send reports back every couple months. Some people like that kind of life... You're a little bit young for that, though. Come back in a few years; twelve is the current minimum age."
She hadn't thought it would be this straightforward.
"I don't want to do that," she says. "I want to work here. In the tower."
"Seriously?" The guy from earlier mutters.
"I..." The woman doesn't seem so excited, either. "It says here you're a close combat specialist, Hatake. There's not much of a place for that in this line of work. You are aware we don't offer promotions, right? You've got a lot of missions on your roster for barely being a genin one full year. You have a promising career ahead of you."
She gives Seiko an encouraging look.
"Look, I know it's rough out there. Hell, I've lost teammates before. It's normal to not want to head back out.. But it's our job to do just that. As long as you get your chunin promotion, there'll always be a place in the tower for you then, right?"
Biter growls as Seiko's fingers shakily dig deeper into his fur.
She was willing to show her shaking hands to Hoheto. He deserved to know. But she's not willing to do the same here. What do they get to know about her?
Nothing.
"It's my career," Seiko says, voice flat and cold. "I can ruin it if I want to."
"I'm just saying," the woman sighs, reaching over and writing something down onto Seiko's record. "It's not going to look good, kid. It's going to look like you gave up."
She slaps the paper down onto Seiko's side.
Seiko Hatake-- Reassigned from Genin-- (Jounin attached) to Genin-- (unassigned).
"Show up to the tower bright and early tomorrow morning, and someone will find something for you to do," the woman says. "Hope you like talking to strangers."
"Well," Seiko says. "I like saying goodbye to them."
Seiko comes home from a long shift in the tower one day to a tiny, bristly little dog with an attitude. Oh, and she also met Pakkun.
"He's adorable," Seiko says, absolutely delighted. "Look-- he looks like he can fit on Biter's head!"
"Don't test that," Pakkun states, voice comically lower than what his little pug body should be able to produce. "Kakashi, tell her to leave me alone."
"Dad says he'll grow bigger," Kakashi says, hand gestures growing sweepingly large as he demonstrates Pakkun's potential size to her. Bigger than Biter, with sharp teeth and a heavy weight to him. A dog for ripping throats and guts and viscera.
"Uh huh," Seiko says.
Biter has consented to a modified harness, a simple one with a strap that she can grab on to. He hadn't wanted it-- something like that is a terrible weakness in a battlefield, a handhold your enemy will use against you.
But he loved her more than he loved battle, so she wrapped her shaky hands around a harness.
"He will."
Her little brother is so defensive. What's he got to prove to anyone?
"Okay," Seiko says. "Sure. He'll be big and tall. Taller than me."
Pakkun looks between the two of them, lost and slightly confused.
"Kakashi..." he says. "I.. that's not..."
"He's going to be perfect," Kakashi says, scooping the little pug up and holding it in his arms.
Seiko smiles at him.
"It's not enough that he's a genius?" She says, voice gentle. "That he can talk? Most ninken can't do that."
That only makes Kakashi angrier.
"I bet Biter can talk," he mutters, shaping his fingers against Pakkun's back. "He just doesn't do it when I'm around."
She doesn't recognize the sound of her own laughter until Biter joins in with her, both of them shaking with it.
"Don't worry, genius," she says. "Everything Biter says about you, he says to your face."
Genin aren't allowed to sit at the main desk and hand out missions, owing to issues of life-or-death responsibility, classified information, and the ability to abuse your position to unfairly inconvenience anyone you don't like.
"D-Rank Mission: Clean Training Grounds 14-17," Seiko says, indifferently shoving the scroll in question towards the waiting band of genin corps staring down at her from the other side of the table.
"That's the ranged target areas!" The man shouts at her. "That's going to take ages."
"Have a nice day," Seiko says, and goes back to attempting to find whatever arcane system of a bygone era her 'supervisor' had used to organize the scrolls. So far she's managed to eliminate the idea that he had done it by rank, and now she was almost certain that it also hadn't been alphabetized, or color coded.
"Don't tell me to have a nice day, little girl--" The man pauses, perhaps realizing the terrible end that comes from yelling at someone who could not more clearly not want to hear it.
But that dim hope quickly fades.
"You're a genin," he says, managing to sound both deeply betrayed and smug at attaining the higher ground. "You've got less seniority than I do! Why don't you run along and clean the training grounds, and I take a look at those missions, hm?"
Seiko hears a vague growl from below the desk.
"The form to transfer from the genin corps to working in the tower is around her somewhere," Seiko says, eyes not even shifting from where she'd been scanning through the filing system below the desk. "We're very short staffed at the moment. I was ditched-- sorry, I was offered an emergency momentary promotion-- because the coffee machine exploded upstairs and took several files with it. But the transfer form was not in that file, I promise...."
Strangely, there's no response-- the man in question appears to have taken his mission and left while she wasn't paying attention.
"Biter," Seiko says, voice mild.
Biter's tail thumbs back and forth as it wags.
"Good boy."
"Good job, Hatake." Ensui Nara's hand claps her shoulder as the man stares down over her with unbelievably stereotypical Nara arrogance and laziness, for all the world a ninja unaware that he'd left his newest and least experienced recruit to handle the front lines for over 5 hours while he sat and contemplated the pros and cons of attempting to requisition a new coffee maker. "I knew you could handle it."
"I signed your name on all the forms," Seiko says. "Hope your handwriting is illegibly bad."
Her hands still shake, after all.
"Oh, it is." The jounin rummages around in one of his many pockets until he finds a new pack of bubblegum to pop into his mouth and blow out an obnoxiously large pink bubble. "You know, if you went and got a chunin promotion, you wouldn't need to put up with all this blowback."
This guy.
"I wouldn't have any blowback if I wasn't doing chunin jobs."
The bubble pops.
"We're understaffed, you know," the guy who does no work says. "No one works here all the time. Not Tonbo, not Chobee--This is just what you do while you wait to do something else."
Seiko glares at him.
"You run the whole tower," she says. "What are you waiting for?"
He fakes looking hurt.
"Now, Hatake. The Hokage runs the--"
Alarm bells erupt through the building.
Asuma Sarutobi is almost two years older than Kakashi, but what he lacks in her little brother's natural talent at being irritating, he makes up for in practice at being snotty, angry, and extremely petulant. His spiky brown hair both sticks straight up and manages to fall into place to form a sort of mullet, which is the sort of look that should make him very glad indeed that photography is a rare commodity not to be wasted on keeping funny pictures of your children.
Which is a shame, because Seiko has seen Kakashi do some truly humiliating things to his hair.
"All I did was take one thing from dad's office," Asuma mutters, scuffing his foot as he stares at his new entourage of several ANBU, all three of the current mission desk staff members who'd been working today, and the very displeased glare of the Yamanaka head of T&I, since they sometimes used the upper offices. "What's the big deal?"
Seiko's grip tightens on Biter's harness as she sways slightly, the stairs she'd needed to climb to get up here now making it feel like someone had jammed a whole new set of poisoned needles through her knee. She looks at Ensui in the vague hope that he'll take charge so everyone can go home, but he'd just gone right back to loudly chewing gum the minute he realized they were in no real danger.
The ANBU, too, seem more than content to just stand there, blank faced behind white masks. Bastards.
"Oh, only a matter of security that will involve me manually resetting all the seals specifically designed to warn me of thievery in the office," The T&I person says, airy voice not at all gentling the irritated cadence of his delivery. "Please, young master. Don't pay any consideration to the effort of protecting our precious village's secrets."
"What secrets?" Asuma demands, crossing his arms. "There's nothing interesting in here! Just a bunch of boring old junk! See!?"
He tosses an old kunai at the ground, causing both ANBU agents to quite suddenly dive for it, one closing their fingers over its handle seconds before it hits the ground.
Ah.
Seiko distantly notices she's shifted back into a sword stance only when her hands close around nothing, not having brought her weapons to the tower. She blinks, awkwardly slinking a little further backward out of embarrassment that she'd been the only one to have such a noticeable flinch.
"I'll head back downstairs," she says, voice flat. "We left the desk unattended."
"Oh, no..." Ensui drawls, and she suddenly realizes that the shadows itself in the room have curled uncomfortably close to young Sarutobi, with one of the ANBU not moving to grab the kunai but instead, possibly, protect the kid from the edge of a startled jounin or two. "I couldn't possibly leave you to do that. Shouldn't kids be able to talk to each other? No, I think... I'm going to go head down there with Chobee. Have fun, all of you!"
She hopes he swallows his gum and it clogs his intestines and gives him constipation for the rest of his life. Chobee's half apologetic glance behind his tiny spectacles just makes her wish the same fate on him as they both escape, leaving her behind.
"I'm not a kid," Asuma says, voice sullen. "And who are you, anyway!? I thought 'kids weren't allowed in the Hokage's tower'" The sing-song tone of his voice as he looks back at his ANBU certainly conveys a well-tread argument.
"I'm not a kid," Seiko says. "I'm a ninja."
Did she remember to wear her... ah, yeah.
She points at the head piece slung casually over Biter's head, watching both the ANBU and T&I inspector's gaze latch onto the scars on the back of her wrists and not the forehead protector. They should guess what her elbows look like.
"See?"
"That looks like the dog's the ninja, not you," Asuma says, not at all convinced. "I bet that's your dad's ninken. Okay, you two. You can kick her out of the tower as well!"
Now that the only people left are his guards, her, and the now mostly silent T&I guy, he's a lot more courageous, huh.
Biter growls a little, a low, unhappy sound.
"I'm glad it wasn't an emergency after all," Seiko says politely. "Looks like I'll also be heading back down. I have... files. Letters. Numbers, even."
"Hey!" Asuma's voice raises sharply. "Why aren't you guys kicking her out!"
The ANBU on the left-- she's never bothered looking at one for this long. Is her mask supposed to be a.. Lizard? Clears her throat.
"You're... Sakumo's eldest, right?"
Seiko freezes. Unfortunately, the Yamanaka also looks in her direction.
"Eldest and heir," Seiko says, voice dead. "If that's all--"
"I'll escort her downstairs," Lizard says. "Bullfrog, you take the kid for a bit."
"Hey!? Hey! I'm not--"
Seiko kind of wishes she was back in that room. A stairway with an overly interested ANBU is almost a downgrade in circumstances.
Almost.
"Heard your team went down fighting Chiyo Poisontongue and her team," Lizard says. "Most don't walk away from that."
Seiko snorts.
"Wasn't walked. Dragged." She gives Biter another scratch behind the ear, then clings even tighter to the halter strap as she takes the first of hundreds of steps.
"She probably targeted you because of the hair," Lizard says, voice casual. "Her son died last year to the White Fang."
Don't let Hoheto hear that, or he'll really kill her for getting Kiyomu killed and him crippled.
"It's not common knowledge who I was up against," Seiko says, eyes flickering from the dog to the stairs to anywhere except her new conversation partner. "Don't think dad knows."
"I'm something of a poison expert myself," Lizard muses, voice completely unchanged from her original mild cadence. "No one thought you were going to make it, due to Lady Tsunade not being available to counter the poison."
"Thanks."
Seiko doesn't know why this lady is so interested, and can think of absolutely no good reason.
"And yet here you are, whole and hearty."
"I'm not hearty. I take daily medicine."
"You're well enough to work," Lizard says.
"I'm sickly. I'm injured. I'm frail." Seiko is, in fact, about to lose her grip on the harness because her hands are shaking so badly. It works much less well as a balancing aid when going downstairs rather than upstairs, due to the cruel laws of gravity and all that.
"Yes, yes..." There's a strange, indulgent cadence to her tone. A mother speaking to a recalcitrant child. "If you ever tire of the doldrums of the tower, you could always visit the hospital. They're always on the lookout for people with poison resistance."
"I'm not poison resistant. I'm still poisoned."
Seiko closes her eyes for a second to resist a migraine spike that risks sending her tumbling into a neck breaking fall, and when she opens them, she's all alone in the stairwell.
Typical.
Sakumo means well.
She knows that. She does. That's why it's good, and not frustrating, that he's managed to be home for almost a month straight. She wants him to be home. But-- she and Kakashi had their little, terrible routine. It was never obviously an issue that neither of them were ever home during daylight hours because both of them were busy, him with his new Jounin-sensei and her with the mission desk.
But it makes their dad sad that his children don't play.
Even so--
Even so--
Seiko swallows an ugly swear word as the frisbee Biter had jumped for and missed hits her square in the face, knocking her on her ass as Biter runs up to her, tail wagging back and forth.
"Nice catch, Seiko!" Sakumo yells from the other side of their yard. It's late evening, the setting sun jealously dyeing all of their silver hair in its own brilliant gold light. On the side lines, Kakashi scoffs, too cool to play until it becomes something he can show off and beat her at.
"Let me do it instead," Kakashi says, right on schedule. "Pakkun can catch that."
"Hmm..." Sakumu says, the deep tiredness in his voice slightly lifted as he pretends equivalent indifference to Kakashi's little play. "I don't know... I think Biter and Seiko were just getting into the moment."
What moment? The moment of asking a 180 pound dog to jump after a frisbee?
Biter whines as he rubs against her knees, apologetic that he let her get hit.
"Me and Pakkun can do it," Kakashi says, loyally supporting his tiny dog. Honestly.. She thought he'd have tried summoning more by now, but he appears to think that if he summons more that would imply that he thinks that Pakkun is less awesome than Biter, which, while obviously true, is unpalatable.
Biter came with the agreement that as long as she had him, she'd never summon another. That she would spend the rest of her life permanently hosting in him enough chakra that he would never have to de-summon.
Pakkun, has, like, pack-mates back in the Spirit World. Hopefully he'd talk to Kakashi about it.
"Catch!" Pakkun does the yell instead of Kakashi, just in time for the frisbee to hurtle over Seiko's head and bury itself with a solid thunk several inches into a tree trunk.
"That could really hurt someone," Seiko observes, not getting up off the ground.
"Not if you'd caught it," Kakashi says. "You used to be good at this game."
Kids.
"Kids," Sakumo says, voice exasperated. "Let's try to get along for five minutes, alright?"
"Yes, Father,"
"Yes, dad."
"Excuse Me! Young Maiden of Valor!"
Oh, no.
Seiko blinks up from where she's been taking a short nap on the mission desk to see a true vision of green and black peering down at her.
"Yes...?" She says, scrambling to sit up straight. "Can I help you? Sir?"
There's a bit of an odd expression in his eyes, like he hadn't expected to get any sort of willing response at all.
"Sir?" Seiko repeats, trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes. It doesn't work.
"There Is No Need to Refer To Me as 'Sir', Young Maiden! After All, Are We Not the Same Rank?"
Oh, yeah. He's a genin.
"That's okay," Seiko says. "I don't use sir for higher ranks anyway. Can I help you?"
If people who work at the mission desk have baggage about how they're referred to, they don't last very long at the village's one and only place to receive complaints.
Another slight shift of his eyes underneath his very thick eyebrows. Is it.. What? Embarrassment?
"The Springtime of Youth is Eternal! Unfortunately, the Fleeting Nature of Meeting and Parting with My Fellow Man Has Lead Me To Constantly Be Searching For New Wonderful Training Partners!"
It's kind of him to pause long enough for her to parse out what on earth he's talking about.
"You... don't currently have some other genin working with you, and you need them because all D-ranks are team assignments," Seiko says, checking to make sure.
"Truly, Your--" he pauses, coughs. "Truly, the young maiden is both valiant and wise beyond her years."
"Thanks. Well..." Seiko rolls out the word as she shifts through various scrolls, pausing her and there for her fingers to quit twitching as she looks for what she needs. She doesn't envy whoever does this work when she's not in the office, because Ensui's organizational system based on time of arrival has now been thoroughly overlaid by her supplemental sort of rank qualification. Basically, where previously only Ensui could find things, now no one can.
"Got it." She slaps a couple of different scrolls onto the table, drama ruined by a twitch of her finger sending one to roll off the edge of the desk, which Might Duy scrambles to catch and put back on the table. "Let's start with that one."
Might Duy opens it and scans the contents, brows wrinkling.
"I've never seen this before..." he says. "Is this a brand new assignment!?"
"It's not." It's just usually not the first option. "This is an open ended list for qualified ninja with a certain number of years of seniority to volunteer to field test any new seal that Konoha's hospital or any other department would like to be put through its paces. Payment and rank scales according to danger, and as a genin you'd only be allowed to work with the relatively safe ones. It's not exactly what you were--"
If his taijutsu was normally as fast as the hand that reached out to put brush to paper, there was no reason at all for him to have not made chunin.
"Not a maiden, but an angel!" He says, staring at her with burning eyes. "Helping Konoha Learn and Grow Is The Greatest Honor Imaginable!"
Seiko just blinks.
"Yeah. So, if you'll open the next scroll--"
He nearly rips the parchment he opens it so fast, eyebrows flying up across his forehead.
"Again, this isn't exactly what you asked for. This is a C-rank mission that the client sent back to us as failed. Naturally, the team that failed the task should be the ones to properly apologize and restore Konoha's reputation, but since the team in question promptly went on to die, there needs to be someone else. One of the T&I guys came down and investigated whether it really was a C-rank and not a missclassed B; he said yes but Tonbo from tracking said no, and Ensui believes Tonbo. So an apology but no refund."
Seiko pauses for breath.
"Unpopular as that will be," she tacks on.
Really, a solo job is just a job that no one wants to do.
Might Duy takes her warning in stride, eagerly accepting that scroll as well.
"An important mission..." he breathes. "I shall venture to deeply apologize and give all possible consolations!"
"As long as you don't give them money. The third one is--"
She stops talking as Might Duy frantically shakes his head back and forth.
"This is... more than enough," he says, cradling the one mission scroll in his hand while earnestly bobbing his head up and down. "I have just one last question-- I need the name of my most gracious benefactor!"
All she's done is offer him unwanted tasks that didn't even fulfill what he'd wanted from her.
"I'm Seiko."
The pause stretches on. As if most people couldn't tell just from looking at her.
"Hatake."
His eyes round out until they could be mistaken for the bottom of exclamation points.
"Hatake-san," he starts.
"Just Seiko."
"Seiko-san! What an honor to meet my son's rival's older sister!"
Is that.. Anything?
"I didn't know Kakashi had made any friends his age," Seiko says. She should probably have tried to encourage him more to hang out with the other kids, but she'd been gone a lot of the only year he'd been in school. "What's his name?"
Duy nearly explodes with pride.
"Guy! I named him Guy. He's such a hard worker that they allowed him to enter the academy as a substitute candidate on his taijutsu alone! I know he has it in him to graduate and become a genin-- no, become chunin-- no, jounin! That's what it means when you're willing to work hard and embrace your passion! When you're spurred on by your Rival!"
"He sounds like a good kid," Seiko says, unaware of how it looks for a nine year old to say that. "I'm glad that--"
A jounin plus her genin team enters the room. Two of the genin graduated the same year as she did, though both of the girls are a little older than her.
"Oi, Seiko!" One of them yells. "Quit talking to that loser, his lack of potential's gonna rub off on you. We need a new mission-- a hard one. Who knows, the next time you see us, it might be at our promotion ceremony!"
Seiko ignores them.
"I'm glad that he's doing so well in school," she says. "I'll look into if any genin groups have an available slot. Ensui's the one who has final say over teams, even if he lets everyone sort it out among themselves."
If Ensui cracks down on a group, they won't dare tell Duy he can't be part of their team just because he's a little clumsy and talentless. That's nothing short of defying the will of fire.
Duy bows so low he's perpendicular to the floor.
"You are the everblooming rose of victory!" He announces. "Truly my son has new heights to aspire to!"
"Kakashi's pretty short, though," Seiko says. "It's all hair." She finally turns to the next team, who's jounin watches with indulgent indifference as the genin fidget and twitch. "Hi. How can I help you?"
"A hard mission," repeats Iwana, voice rising a little in frustration. "I just told you, Seiko!"
"A C Rank," their jounin says. His hands tap out the parameters behind his student's back-- Land of Rivers, or Land of Hotsprings if that's available.
Land of Hotsprings is never available. You want those, you had better be best friends with Ensui himself. Hells, forget Ensui. You'd better be friends with the Hokage.
Seiko pulls up a mission scroll.
"Congrats," she says. "Someone's fish has just recently gone missing."
"Seikoooo...."
She should've taken it as the huge warning sign it was when Sakumo had started trying to connect with Kakashi through helping him summon. Even though the dog contract was from their mother, just the act of supporting Kakashi's tiny little chakra reserves enough to get a few more little puppies to bounce through the summoning circle and chew on the furniture was enough to really make their house echo with nostalgic, long forgotten noise.
That nostalgia--
If only it had prevented Sakumo from offering her a sword.
Seiko stares at him, trying not to feel ambushed after coming back from walking Biter at the crack of dawn.
"Hi, Seiko," he says.
"Hi, dad," Seiko says. "You're up early."
He smiles down at her, weary lines deepening below his eyes at her observation.
"I actually have a mission coming up later today," he says. "Biter keeping you in shape?"
"He likes this time of day," Seiko says, hoping that if she continues to ignore the sword, he'll eventually drop it. "It makes him frisky."
Biter nuzzles into her side.
"I see," Sakumo says. "I thought you hated it, when I woke you up to train."
Seiko smiles at him helplessly.
"You get used to it," she says. "It was fun."
Don't ask her, please don't--
He brightens up so fast.
"We should run through a couple drills," he says. "I notice your hand tremors have been getting better, lately!"
...
There are many ways she can be more subtle about her injuries. Instead of using a bandage the way she'd done against Hoheto, for example, she could manipulate chakra to 'stick' the sword to her hand, allowing for a certain level of leeway whenever her fingers convulse around the hilt and she'd otherwise drop the weapon.
She could modify her stances to give up some level of stability in favor of positioning her knee in a way that hurts less. She could use Biter as a distraction whenever she needs to fall back. She could--
Kakashi should still be asleep right now. Good.
Seiko grabs the sword out of his hand and then throws it through a window, listening to the glass shriek and crack as the sword hits the ground outside.
"Oops," she says, voice flat. "My hand slipped."
"Seiko--"
Her stomach feels curdled, and her throat and neck is hot. She hates upsetting him.
She walks back out of the house. There's nothing wrong with showing up to the mission desk a few hours ahead of her normal shift-- Chobee runs it at this hour, and he'll have brought breakfast.
He squints at her through his spectacles, warm red swirls on his cheeks highlighting his walrus handle mustache as he offers her a full bowl of rice, still warm.
"Seiko-chan, you're limping," he observes, pulling out a chair for her. "Waking up too early can impact the chakra balance of the young mind."
That sounds like complete nonsense.
"Hi, Chobee," Seiko says. "What do you even do at this hour, anyway?"
He looks awfully busy for someone working at a place that doesn't receive any major traffic for another few hours.
"Oh, you know..." Chobee says vaguely, before very obviously looking around and checking for evesdroppers. "You know we're understaffed, so this is actually supposed to be jounin only. And kept in the upper offices. Ahem. Anyway, we keep a record of every ninja who's been killed or gone missing in the line of duty on file, as well as what mission they died on, known family, all of that. Someone's requested a look through and record of age of academy graduation versus known age of death in the past 5 years, I think because there's some pushing back and forth on changing the academy graduation requirements again? Honestly, it feels like they change that thing every year."
"I can help," Seiko says.
Chobee does a big show of hemming and hawing, but in the end he pushes a huge stack of papers in her direction.
"All of these need to be back under lock and seal in an hour," he says. "Or Ensui's going to kill us both."
"Isn't this his job to begin with?" Seiko sighs, feeling the tremors in her hands start up immediately as soon as she tries to put ink to paper. It's fine, no one cares if the marks are illegible.
"Technically, either Tonbo or Yakumi are qualified as well...ah, have you met Yakumi yet, Seiko?"
"No, I haven't."
Raido Namiashi, graduated age 10, current rank: genin. Still Alive.
"I think you'd like her. But she's Uchiha, so she's not allowed to work here full time. So she's over in the Police right now. But she'll come back next month!"
Aoba Yamashiro, graduated age 8, current rank: genin. Still Alive.
"Oh, wait... I think she might've been the one on duty when I asked to transfer here."
Kiyomu Fukuda, graduated age 9, current rank: genin. Died age 9 on Rank C mission upgraded to Rank S mission.
"Oh, is that so? That's wonderful! She usually gets a ton of complaints from the desk about not being helpful enough."
Iwana Akame, graduated age 11, current rank: genin. Still Alive.
"It was Ensui who wasn't helpful at all," Seiko mutters, quietly inputting more and more of the data points while doing her best to keep her rice and chopsticks away from everything.
Hoheto Hyuga, graduated age 9, current rank: genin. Still Alive
"It's his job to make sure everyone who works here can be trusted," Chobee says, voice matter of fact. "The Hokage trusts Ensui-san completely, and that means Ensui takes responsibility for all of this."
Yoshino Nara, graduated age 10, current rank: chunin. Still Alive.
"Responsibility? Ensui?"
Tsume Inuzuka, graduated age 9, current rank: jounin. Still Alive.
"He's actually quite young for this position, you know," Chobee says. "He just seems so old to you because you're so young yourself."
Kakashi Hatake, graduated age 5, current rank: genin. Still Alive.
"Why'd he come here, then? Surely there's better places for an up and coming young jounin."
Chobee gives her a rather sad look.
"Surely there's better places for an up and coming young genin," he says, voice gentle.
Seiko gives him an ugly look in return.
"You've made your point," she says.
"What's this?" Ensui's voice floats down the hallway as he wanders into the room, summoned from some cushioned pit of hell by Chobee's defense of his character. "Gossip? So early in the morning?"
"Data analysis is boring work," Seiko says.
"Wow!" Ensui yawns. "Sure glad that you two are so on top of that, then. A great day for you to pitch in and come to work ahead of time." His own hair is halfway falling out of its own ponytail, looking a lot like he'd done it in a hurry, blindly, in a windstorm.
Seiko glowers at him, then looks down at the sheet. What was--
Ah.
Seiko Hatake, graduated age 9, current rank: genin. Still Alive.
A/N: It's a different kind of story than my other works, lol. But in the end, I don't really think of this story as angst. It's just slice of life, and sometimes the slice is bad.
"Heard your dad started another war," someone says to her, ugly look in their eyes as they storm up to the mission desk.
She'd thought she'd have more time.
"Excuse me," Seiko says politely, then gets up and walks upstairs, leaving the guy to stare at an empty desk. "Ensui, you have to take the mission desk. I'm going home."
"Ah, Seiko," Ensui says. "Bad news. We're back on potential war footing, so Tonbo and Chobee are both back on active duty, starting tomorrow. Start trying to recruit some more people, 'kay?"
"I--" Seiko stares at him blankly.
"I need to go home," she repeats. "Right now."
"Seiko-chan," Ensui says. "We're understaffed."
She's growing to hate that phrase.
"I need," she repeats, "To leave. Ensui, everyone at the front desk is coming in with a grudge."
It's not normal for a mission failure to spread this fast. Did his teammates immediately come back and start talking? Who are Sakumo's teammates anyway? He's never brought them home.
There's something close to pity in Ensui's eyes.
"Leaving isn't going to make them hate you less," he says. "You're good at this job, Seiko. Don't show weakness now."
He doesn't get it.
"Who cares about them!?" Seiko tries to keep her voice even. "I'll be back in an hour. I need to go find--" She stops short. Who does she need to find? Sakumo, whose death might be closer than her vague memories had ever warned her... or Kakashi. He's used to Sakumo being the coolest guy. Someone you can brag about. Should she try and brace him?
You used to be good at this game.
Kakashi will be fine.
"I need to go find my dad," she says. "He's going to take this badly."
"He knew what the consequences would be," Ensui's voice is flat and cold. "He made his choices, and now we all get to live with them."
The only people in the entire village who would be happy about something like this are the old warmongers and the young and ambitious. This is Hoheto's ticket up the ranks, if he lives through his second war.
"Ensui-san," Seiko says. "He made his choices, and now I get to live with him." She bites her lip, stress inflaming her aches and pains until she's swaying where she stands.
His laughter is sharp.
"Take your hour, kid," he says. "The only place you're going to be living from now on is at that desk."
He's never looked younger than today, the laziness stripped away from his nature to reveal the honed edge of someone who twitches whenever someone new enters the room that he doesn't know.
"You're only eight years older than I am," Seiko says. A seventeen year old who talks like an old man.
"Kid, I've been a jounin for longer than you've been alive."
That's not true. She's seen his file: He's only been a jounin for six of those years. Just long enough that every year of it happened during a war.
"I can't recruit anyone without your approval," Seiko says, instead. "There's no point."
"Don't worry about it," Ensui says, contradicting himself without a sign of shame. "There'll be newly injured chunin and jounin trapped here soon enough-- if they can get through you, I'll give them a chance."
And what was that supposed to mean?
She hasn't attempted any kind of body flicker in the last month, and the rust nearly sends her falling off a rooftop as her foot slips and she collapses, Biter's jaws firmly clamping around her sleeve the only thing that stops her from a second hospital visit as he pulls her back onto solid ground. Well. Solid roof.
Seiko just lies there for a second, panting.
"This used to be easy," she tells Biter.
He gives her a somber nod.
It's never going to be easy again.
She climbs back up to her feet, and properly readies herself for her next flicker. She can do it. She can do this-- she just. Needs. To go home.
And then...
Sakumo is weeding in the backyard. The garden often goes to hell when he's on long missions, the yard being a non necessity that Kakashi doesn't tend to and Seiko hasn't tried to deal with. Weeds creep up everywhere, waiting for the dip of the spade.
She breathes out a sigh of relief.
"Hi, dad," she says. "Welcome home."
His back stiffens, even though he'd known she was there.
"Seiko.." he says. He sounds soft, uncertain. Either Kakashi's already talked to him, or he just has low expectations. "I'm back."
"Yeah, I heard."
His face tightens.
"Seiko," he says again. "I..."
The mission had come before Kakashi's graduation, her birthday, and their mothers funeral, but it hadn't come before his teammates' lives. Well, that's how it is.
"I've never met your teammates," Seiko says.
She always gets the most bitter of smiles out of him.
"I'd always intended to introduce you to them when the time was right..." he murmurs. "But young children always made them quite skittish."
Seiko snorts, crossing her arms.
"They should've been forced to do more D-ranks when they were genin, then."
"And how many D-ranks did you do, Seiko?" Sakumo says, voice almost teasing.
Living with Kakashi qualified as a D-Rank, though she bet Ensui would've been willing to reclassify it as a C.
"Enough."
She rolls her eyes.
"I gotta head back to work soon," she says. "I just..."
Got really worried.
"Forgot something at the house."
A bit of the light fades out of his eyes.
"I am sorry, Seiko," he says.
For what? For breaking the rules he raised her and Kakashi by? Or because she's about to bear the brunt of a lot of public dislike?
She gives him the benefit of doubt. He probably hasn't even realized what her being at the mission desk is going to mean. Well, she certainly isn't going to tell him. He needs to be-- helped. Stabilized. Something.
Her foot hurts where she had taken a final plunge off a roof to get here.
"Kakashi's going to be a little annoyed," she says. "He doesn't mean it."
He does mean it.
"I know. He's a good kid."
He's a good ninja.
"Dad..." she swallows her words, unused to sounding so young. "It's... I mean..."
The thing is, her teammate is already dead.
And he had died-- slowly. Screamed. Begged. Chiyo Poisontongue had strung him like a puppet and the strings themselves were poisoned. She'd had one of those strings hooked into each of her arms. Only Hoheto had been without them, gentle fist cutting through the chakra threads.
So why should her dad's teammates get to live, when Kiyomu is dead? That's what she wants to know, but, most precisely, that's what everyone in Konoha will want to know. And there's no answer: only that the will of fire burns its upholders.
"Are you coming with me to clean the grave?"
It's probably going to depress him more: it's probably going to make him worse, and be all her fault. But still--
He nods.
"Yes.. that's coming up, isn't it."
He always takes bad missions this month.
"Yes," she says. "Glad to hear it."
She's got to go back to work.
"Genin currently aren't authorized to go past the Land of Fire's borders without specific permission," Seiko says, carefully not looking at Hoheto standing behind his new teammates. His new jounin-sensei is a lady named Uroko Kurama, who stares at Seiko with an anxious purse to her lips. "Do you have that permission? It would be in the form of a written exception. Or an oral one from the Hokage."
"Just let us take it, Seiko," Hoheto says, nearly spitting the words. "No one's going to hold you responsible."
She ignores him.
"I have a different C-Rank available if you no longer can fulfill the requirements for--"
"No, I've got it," Uroko mumbles, digging around in one of her storage seals until she finds the right scrap of paper.
Seiko looks at it.
It is, indeed, signed by the Hokage.
I have every faith these young genin can handle themselves.
The Hokage had signed one of these for her team, as well.
"Here you go," Seiko says, and hands over the C-Rank. "Next in line?"
Kakashi is sitting on the front steps of their home, arms crossed.
"Hey genius," Seiko says to him. "Did you forget which side of the door had food behind it?"
Kakashi wrinkles his nose at her.
Then, he hesitates.
"My jounin-sensei is getting called to the field," he says.
Ah.
He'd been delaying so she'd tell Sakumo for him. Wonderful.
"And he's taking you?"
Seiko sits down next to him, ignoring how her legs give way slightly before what should have been a dignified sit and end up letting her fall the last couple of inches until she thumps into the wood. Ouch.
Kakashi nods, hunching his shoulders.
"He says I'm good enough." It's almost defensive. "Chunin good."
"He thinks he can get you a promotion?"
The thing is, she knows that the jounin will mean this as a kindness. Being a solo genin is rough; being a solo chunin is vastly preferable. It will mean Kakashi has more control over his missions; his housing; his pay; his life. It will guarantee him stability that's not dependent on Sakumo.
"He thinks I can get myself a promotion."
Okay.
Her gaze slides over to his direction.
"People respect chunin," she observes.
He knows what she's digging at.
"I don't get it," he mutters. "The mission comes first. Mission, then teammates. Everyone knows that."
He's able to say it like that because he hasn't lost any teammates yet. She's glad for him.
"There's never only one path forward," Seiko says.
"There's one path," Kakashi says. "War. Duh."
She elbows him, hard.
But he makes an important point. There are people who will be mad at their dad for not following the mission, and there will be people mad at him for causing a war-- and while those are overlapping stances, they aren't the same stance. Something to watch out for.
"War's gonna end eventually," she says.
She knows it doesn't mean anything to him.
"He's been avoiding me," Kakashi says, abrupt. Hurt. "He won't train with me."
"Maybe he's injured."
"He doesn't smell injured."
"You mean he doesn't smell like blood," Seiko sighs. "Don't rely on Pakkun for this kind of thing, genius."
"Pakkun's super smart," Kakashi says, grumbly.
"For a puppy," Seiko says. She uses Kakashi's shoulder to push herself back up to standing. "Okay, I'll go talk to him. When are you leaving?"
Another, worse flinch of hesitation, stiffened up with some good old sullenness around the eyes. Uh oh.
"Tomorrow," he says.
She's going to kill him.
"Sorry," Seiko says. "I don't have the authority to accept mission requests. You'll have to talk to the senior jounin on site, who--"
The man bangs his hands on the desk. He looks civilian, which makes this slightly unusual. Hopefully he's just gotten lost.
"I don't care who I have to talk to!" He yells. "I want to pull my child out of the Academy."
That's definitely not in her purview.
"This isn't the Academy," Seiko says. "And I don't have any say over Academy students, since they aren't registered ninjas. You'll want to talk to--"
She doesn't know any of the teachers over there.
"-- Uh. Just a second." She starts rummaging through her stuff, ignoring the way Biter yips when one of the scrolls accidentally falls on him. "I'm sure we have a list of teaching staff in here. Somewhere."
"I wasn't implying that you had any say over it," the man-- father, probably-- says, disbelief evident in his voice. "You're barely a year older than my son!"
Great.
"I graduated over a year ago," Seiko sighs. She pokes at Biter, who casually lifts his head up to show where her forehead protector hangs around his neck. "The good news is that we do allow withdrawals all the way through the moment when you graduate and are assigned a registration number. Did something happen to your son..?"
Aha. Not a mission so it's not in Ensui's insane filing system, teaching staff sounds like a list that Chobee would have made, and Chobee puts his own files in a specific seal underneath the table to keep them out of Ensui's way. Got it.
"Not yet," the man says, voice dark. "But he's being bullied, I know it."
This is unsurprising.
"I should warn you," Seiko says, pulling out the list and looking through it. "Children are allowed to attend the Academy without parental permission when they are age 12 or older. And if he really wants to be a ninja, he won't appreciate this at all."
She taps a name that Chobee had circled.
"This is the teacher in charge," she says. "Say the mission desk sent you."
"If he wants to go back at twelve--" There's a stony look in his eyes. "Well. That's a long time away."
Not long enough for the war to be over. But how could this man know that?
"If there's any--"
A blur of legs bolts into the room and barrels past the man to duck behind the desk.
"I'm not going!" It yells. "I wanna talk to my dad! Right! Now!"
Oh, dear.
"You should go," Seiko says, losing track of whether the man follows her advice as her limited attention falls onto her next problem.
Unfortunately, the brat recognizes her voice.
"You! I thought the ANBU had taken you away! Why are you back here!" Asuma Sarutobi whines, voice loud enough that whatever had driven him here surely wasn't a fear of being chased.
"I work here," Seiko says, watching the man leave with a pace so slow that she could almost hear his ears straining to eavesdrop. "I thought that your guards kept better track of you."
The kid huffs, tucking some of his hair behind his ear as he continues to crouch behind the desk.
"Those guys got called away," he says. "The new ones are wayyy easier to ditch."
How charming.
"And why would you do that?" Seiko wonders. "I wasn't aware there was something interesting over here."
She nudges Biter with her foot. If she's going to be stuck here during her normal lunch break, the dog needs to go bring her some food. The dog huffs at her. He's getting lazy, just sitting under her desk all day.
"My dad comes here!" Asuma proclaims. "I know it, and so do the teachers at the Academy!"
She's heard that, too.
"He hasn't been here once in the months I've worked here," Seiko says. "Get lost."
"You can't say that to me," he says. "And that's not true! He used to be down here allll the time."
"Your information is out of date, kid," Seiko says. "Better work on that."
The kid growls at her.
"You're wrong," he says. "My dad says that it's important that the Hokage sit at the mission desk. So he can listen to the village."
That sounds like a direct quote.
"He hasn't been here," Seiko repeats, voice patient. "Since I started working here. If you would like, I can go call Ensui and ask him when the Hokage is next going to take a shift. Perhaps he could fill out the calendar that Ensui d--"
"That won't be necessary," a leather-worn voice tells her as an older man with the beginnings of a beard and deep, deep crows eyes walks into the room.
Should she kneel? That would hurt her knees, and she doesn't want to.
"Hello," she says. "Can I help you with something?"
The man smiles at her, either amused or approving.
"Seiko Hatake, was it," he says. "I've heard a great deal about you."
She stares at him blankly.
It's difficult, really. Most of the time she's happy in the village, and most of the time she's okay with working here, and most of the time she's aware she volunteered to be a ninja and all that.
Many things in this world are his fault, but most of them are unspecifically his fault, in a way that killing him would do nothing. Which she knows for certain: because when he dies, nothing is improved, and in fact much is made worse.
And she can't kill him anyway, so there's no point in thinking about it.
"I can't help you with that," she says.
"No?" the Hokage says. "I always felt the best way to learn about people was from their own lips."
Crouching behind the desk, Asuma looks furious.
"It's not my job to help you with that," Seiko corrects herself. "Is there anything else?"
She can feel the weight of the stare of the unseen ANBU who are, somewhere, listening to her. Judging her.
"You can't talk like that to the old man," Asuma says, hurling himself around the corner of the desk to argue with her. "It's rude!"
The Hokage makes a pained grimace at being called an old man by his own son.
"You shouldn't constantly threaten to send ANBU after me," Seiko says. "It's rude."
Kid clearly doesn't like being embarrassed in front of his dad.
"I only did that once!" He insists. "It's your fault for being so suspicious. I talked to Lizard, and she said she'd put you where you belonged!"
"Lizard was kind enough to escort me downstairs," Seiko says.
"How responsible of her," the Hokage says. "Now, Asuma. I'd like to speak to Seiko here in private. Would you mind waiting outside for a little bit?"
It's not really a question.
Seiko laces her fingers together, trying to ignore their trembling. She shouldn't have sent Biter away.
"But, dad--"
"Later, Asuma. I promise."
He's never going to like you more than he does right now, Seiko considers saying. You should prioritize speaking to people who want to be around you. That's how you maintain relationships.
But what would she know about that?
She stays silent, and eventually, the room echoes her own silence back at her. Until, of course, the Hokage shatters it.
"Now then," he says. "I've been meaning to talk to you, Seiko."
Great.
"I'm not going anywhere," Seiko says.
"Yes, quite."
The Hokage moves around the desk to sit down beside her.
"Working at the mission desk is quite a big responsibility for one so young," he says. There's a kind sympathy in his smile. "I was quite worried when Ensui told me the age of his newest recruit."
"Ensui didn't recruit me," Seiko says. "I wanted to be here."
In a sense of 'wanting'.
"That's a relief to hear," the Hokage says, smile deepening the beginnings of his crow's eyes. "It's actually quite hard to find people with the proper mindset to work here."
"It's not hard work," Seiko says. Her hands shift over the various scrolls that cover the desk, though they can offer no information on what this man wants from her. "Anyone could do it."
She can't read anything from him.
"Any chunin could do it," the Hokage says. It sounds even worse on his lips than when it came from Ensui's mouth.
Seiko doesn't respond.
The silence drags on until the Hokage clears his throat and continues.
"Your family has faithfully served Konoha for generations, and your own generation has shown nothing but true talent, faithfully devoted to the village and the Will of Fire."
Her wrists hurt.
"Ensui saw that potential, and that's why he accepted your request to do this important work-- and why I allowed it to continue. But security protocols tighten during war time."
"You didn't talk to Ensui about this," she says, hoping.
He probably won't care that much.
"Seiko-chan." She knows it's not uncommon for higher level jounin to be disrespectful, but coming from a genin from a currently disgraced clan, it's probably less accepted. "I see your potential as well. And I've seen your mission track record-- an excellent showing for your age and experience. Many of our most esteemed members can't claim to have a completed Rank S mission, let alone your well rounded number of C and D ranks."
Seiko nods.
"My brother hopes to make chunin shortly after his next birthday," she says. "Now that the war has started back up, the C-Ranks for genin will become as plentiful for him as they were for my team."
Pain, slashed across his face as it so often hurts Sakumo.
"If your jounin-sensei had survived, both you and your fellow teammate should have been promoted off the back of that mission alone," he tells her.
Seiko bites down hard on her lip, swallowing before replying.
"Hoheto would be glad if you passed that on to his current sensei. Her name is Uroko Kurama."
She doesn't have to check her papers to remember a simple thing like that.
"We are talking about you, Seiko Hatake. And your current supervising jounin-sensei is Ensui Nara."
"No he's not."
The words just slip out of her mouth.
It's the Hokage's turn to give her an almost baffled look.
"I don't have a jounin-sensei," Seiko says, voice definitive. "I'm unassigned."
Another long pause.
"I see I haven't been straightforward enough," the Hokage says, finally. "Seiko. I don't like a policy of exceptions. You must be a chunin to do the duties you are doing-- so you can accept the idea of Ensui as a jounin-sensei, and act on his requirements to climb to chunin, or you will no longer be allowed to work at the mission desk."
Seiko feels her world suddenly turn dizzyingly narrow from the force of her own rage.
"Thank you for telling me that," she says, reaching into the desk to pull out the bundle of mission scrolls that she'd organized down there. While it had come in handy whenever she was trying to help Duy, the reason she'd had all that knowledge on hand was much simpler-- she had been doing research on what she, herself could do if she ever stopped working here. "I'll take one of these as my new mission for the week, then."
She stands up, hands grimly clinging to the edge of the table to keep her balance, bows to the Hokage, and walks towards the door to the office.
It's actually relatively good timing; she needs to be at home more often to make sure her dad doesn't--
"Oi, oi," Ensui drawls from his position in the doorway, one of his hands curled around Biter's harness to prevent him from shoving into the room. The lunch that Biter had gone to retrieve for her also now dangles loosely from his hands. "I thought you'd at least be a little mean about it, Seiko. That was more boring to watch than you handing out directions."
He's blocking her way.
"Ensui."
She abandons her lunch as a lost cause.
"Let go of my dog."
Ensui's lip quirks up, but there's a type of death in his eyes.
"Make me."
She blinks at him, and slowly, unwillingly, she looks back down at Biter.
Leaving a Nara room to plan is inadvisable; the best way to take him down would be a quick strike from an unexpected direction. Ensui gets freaked out by sudden noises and movements, which could be good or bad for her. She doesn't carry her sword with her in the office.
The Hokage is still sitting at the desk, watching her.
Biter is waiting for her command.
She's felt like this before; has walked into traps before. Chiyo Poisontongue had a genin team, and she'd had them round up her and her teammates, drive them into a specific area where all the dead bodies had been replaced by puppetry. The entire field glinting with chakra threads, and invisible web of malice.
She couldn't see them. Only Hoheto could. But she could feel them, and she can feel them now. The shadows in this room are dim, but present.
"Ensui," she says again. She knows he can hear the warning. But his aim was this moment, so naturally it doesn't phase him. "I'd like to go home."
"You know how it is, Seiko," he says. "We're understaffed."
She gets it. She gets it she. Understands.
A chunin exam.
She could fail it. All she has to do is fail to get past him, and she's unqualified. It's the type of exam most could only dream of having-- no risk of dying. A simple task.
Ensui did it like this as a kindness. Because he knows she doesn't want to.
She hates him. He doesn't understand at all-- she has to go home. There's no option. Kakashi's birthday is next week. He could make chunin any day after that. Their dad is .. waiting.
To die.
"Biter." Everything in this world. Why can't she have good things? Is the only thing left just...childish jokes. "No biting."
Biter snaps his head back and howls, a spine chilling, mourning sound that sends a pure shockwave of force out, staggering Ensui back and sending every loose paper in the room flying.
Expecting her to be able to run past a jounin is far too much, unless Biter is willing to drag her corpse somewhere. She pushes herself towards Ensui, the chakra edge that would normally drag across a blade instead dragged along the chopping side of her hand as she lunges towards him--
Only to grind to a halt as his hands form into the seal that stops her hand inches from his neck.
"You shouldn't get so close to shadow users, Seiko," Ensui says. "I'm disappointed."
It's a cruel joke. Of course, she knows plenty of those.
"I'm trained for close combat," Seiko says. "What about you? I thought Nara preferred to stay away from people. Set them up, not knock them down."
The thing is. She doesn't actually have any feeling in her left hand. It's all a chakra-fueled illusion, from start to finish. Even the shaking, the pain, is all an illusion-- with her mind being the only control she has, and well.
She'll be the first to tell you her mind's seen better days.
Hoheto had called them out, string by string. Cut left.Further up. Keep going.
"You know me," Ensui says. "I'm a lone wolf."
Cut them out of your flesh. Keep going.
"Wrong metaphor," Seiko says.
Her hand isn't real. The strings aren't real. The blade that runs along her hand is made of chakra, and it's real. It's just like her sword is here with her. Her sword would never abandon her, never leave her. It would cut them extend beyond her and break the strings that keep her here and--
Ensui coughs up blood as the chakra blade stabs through him, his change in movement enough to let her yank free of the shadows and lunge forward again-- only to feel the slick darkness curl around her wrist as the shadow tendril coils around it and lifts her completely off the ground to dangle.
"My, my," Ensui says, rubbing the bit of blood off his lip. "You can't just attack someone without finishing your sentence, Seiko. Now I'm curious."
Her wrist hurts.
"You're a Nara," Seiko says. "Deer run in herds, so they don't get picked off."
He doesn't like that she keeps putting him alongside the rest of his family.
"I could be a wolf."
He's so defensive about it. Maybe he was in ANBU, and he used a wolf mask. That would be...
Hilarious.
Seiko whistles sharply between her teeth. Then she swings, legs kicking the air until they find safe purchase on the ceiling. Her free hand slams down on the surface of the wooden beams. Her hand isn't real. Her pain isn't real. The blood is real.
Biter's teeth glow with flickering red energy as he leaps at Ensui, only for his fangs to close around nothing but shadow as the clone dissipates, leaving Ensui standing on the other side of the dog.
"You still haven't explained the metaphor, Seiko."
He's staring up at her, only to freeze as Biter howls again and lunges at Ensui's shadow, biting and ripping it as if it were flesh and blood. And the shadow bleeds.
Now.
Seiko bolts across the ceiling, scrabbling on all fours to make up for her various limbs failing her. She spots the Hokage's face as she slips out the open window behind the desk.
Honestly. Shouldn't he be happier?
She drops to the ground, her knee collapsing on itself as she forces even more chakra into another jutsu.
"Summoning Technique: Return!"
Biter re-emerges from the ground in front of her, seizing her shirt in his teeth and pulling her back up to her feet as they both run back towards their home.
It's not a victory. It's a loss.
She knows it, she knows, she knows.
But--
Still--
"Congratulations, Seiko," Sakumo says, smiling at her with a confused sort of happiness as she arrives at home, Ensui having made it there ahead of her. "This young man, ah your jounin-sensei...?"
"Direct supervisor," Ensui corrects. She's never seen him so uncomfortable. No gum, no papers-- just the stiffness of some injuries to keep him company.
"Your supervisor," Sakumo says. "He was telling me that the Hokage himself oversaw your promotion. I'm so proud of you. I knew you could do it."
She gnawed off her own limbs to escape one cage. If only doing that again would get her out of this one.
"Thanks, dad," she says. "I guess Kakashi will have to wait one more promotion to get ahead."
There's a peacefulness in his eyes.
"Yes, you and him.. You're both doing so well."
No, no, no...
But they have a guest.
"You can go now," Seiko says, voice flat.
"Seiko!" Her dad sounds kind of horrified.
"Candid as always." Ensui also looks ready to chew off an arm if that's what it takes to leave. But, for some reason, he stays where he is. "Seiko, I'm a curious soul. You know that."
He's incurious about paperwork.
"You said I got the metaphor wrong."
He's so insistent. Why does he even care?
"You did. When a deer falls behind the heard, they abandon them. But when a wolf falls behind the pack, they bring them back to the den."
Her father takes a sharp breath.
"I see," Ensui says.
She doubts it.
A/N: ending on an ambiguous metaphor feels very nostalgic for me
Reading this chapter made me think about how she could have actually won. Here it is.
—
"Ensui," she says again. She knows he can hear the warning. But his aim was this moment, so naturally it doesn't phase him. "I'd like to go home."
"You know how it is, Seiko," he says. "We're understaffed."
She gets it. She gets it she. Understands.
A chunin exam.
She could fail it. All she has to do is fail to get past him, and she's unqualified. It's the type of exam most could only dream of having-- no risk of dying. A simple task.
Ensui did it like this as a kindness. Because he knows she doesn't want to.
She hates him. He doesn't understand at all-- she has to go home. There's no option. Kakashi's birthday is next week. He could make chunin any day after that. Their dad is .. waiting.
To die.
And then, she finds the answer.
Seiko closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath, and remembers the despair she felt that day. The feeling of watching people she cared about die. The pain, so intense she wanted to do anything to make it stop-
She opens her eyes, but they are empty. A shaky hand rises to her neck. Her fingernails are sharp enough to do, in a pinch.
"If you don't let me go home, I'll kill myself."
If that threw Ensui off balance, she wasn't focused enough on him to see it. "Nice try, Seiko, but I'm experienced enough to tell when someone's bluffing."
"Am I?" Her lip curled. Funny. "I'm not sure myself. But regardless, can you really afford to risk it? After all, you're understaffed." You're, not we're. Distancing oneself, a warning flag. She has no doubt he picks up on it.
Ensui switches tacks. First point, first blood.
"Do you really think stabbing yourself with your fingernails is enough to kill you? Give me some more credit, here. Stabilizing you is well within my capabilities, and a small wound like that is something the med-nin can easily handle."
"Once, yes." She nodded. "But can they do it again? And again? How much resources will I drain before it's not worth the effort? And even if I don't right away, do you propose putting me on constant watch? That makes your manpower issues worse, not better."
A second point. A second victory. Her fingernails press harder into her flesh.
Ensui goes for her jugular, metaphorically. Her finger's already pressing into the literal one, so it's only fitting.
"What about your family? You'd really crush them like that? Don't pretend you don't care for them."
Seiko falters. She knew this was coming, but it was still difficult. Remember the despair.
"Sakomoto will commit suicide in a matter of weeks regardless of if I'm around. People like you don't do anything, because 'it isn't your problem', and the people who do act will pressure him past the point of no return. Kakashi will take it horribly because he bought into the propaganda, and throw himself into training to compensate. He'll be fast-tracked into ANBU, and that'll compound his isolation issues. If I try to help him, he'll lash out at me, making him feel even worse.
"So really, me killing myself is probably the best thing I could do for them. After all, me dying like this will make Kakashi think, make him wonder. And that might just be enough to get him to think about why it's better to die than become someone like you."
Distantly, she could feel tears beginning to form in her eyes. Ensui wasn't saying anything, just looking at her.
Three points. Three strikes. She smiles at him.
"Five."
* * *
The next day, Seiko returns to working the mission desk for the foreseeable future.
She and Kakashi's birthdays are only a week apart, her turning 10 as he turns 6. So it goes like this; he has a birthday; she gives him a notebook. For writing down all of your half baked jutsus. It has an embossed paw print on the cover. She has a birthday; he gives her a modified harness for Biter, customized to look like the chunin vest she doesn't wear. At least the dog has some pride. The stitchery on the leather has such a vast array of quality it is impossible not to notice which parts Kakashi did, and which parts Sakumo had taken on himself.
She goes home from work, and Sakumo is there, weeding their garden. He hasn't taken another job since he got back. There's a quietness in him.
"Hi, dad," she says. Biter barks from behind her legs.
He looks up, greets her with a gentle smile.
"Hello, Seiko," he says. "It's good that you got back. I wanted to talk to you about your brother's promotion gift."
He'd tried to give her a promotion gift. His own saber. It's still there, sitting on his desk. Waiting.
"He's already got everything," Seiko says. "Just give him the saber."
Sakumo looks hurt.
"That's for you, Seiko. Your mom would have wanted you to have it."
She is never going to touch that sword.
"Another dog then. Pakkun's meant to have a pack."
Seiko already knows the issue even as she suggests it. That's something Kakashi's going to need to do by himself. Not much of a gift, telling someone that they need to go out and do something that they'd been putting off.
"I was thinking we could do something a little more.. Celebratory," Sakumo says, the word fitting oddly in his mouth. "Invite him and any of his friends out to a restaurant."
Seiko stares at him. Birthdays had been family only for forever, and now this?
"Friends? Who?"
"He has friends," Sakumo says, optimistically. "I met one of them. Young Might Gai. A remarkable young man."
Kakashi may be permanently scarred from this exercise of fatherly devotion. Thank the gods Sakumo had not tried this on her. But if he's going through with it, then... sure. Why not.
In her head, files start to flip back and forth. Let's see... genin who would have overlapped with Kakashi's one and a half years in the academy.
"Aoba Yamashiro," She says, eyes going distant as she taps her fingers against her numb wrist. "Shimon Hijiro." Is there anyone else...? Not Obito or Rin, they haven't graduated yet. "Daen Nara."
She'd given out their D-ranks so recently. A babysitting one for Shimon and his group. Lost pet tracking for Aoba's group. Training grounds clean up for Daen's group. He'd complained the loudest.
"Seiko-chan?"
"Graduated Genin or chunin who may have overlapped with Kakashi's schooling who aren't completely out of his age range."
He's still staring at her.
"Aoba Yamashiro was first in his class when he graduated. He's currently my age, so a little old..? Forget him. Shimon Hijiro is much better, he's only like 9 months older than Kakashi. Just made genin earlier this month. Daen's also part of that same last month graduation.... He's out on a C-rank, though. Return time unknown."
Shimon is also civilian born, making it unlikely that he'd turn down an invitation due to Sakumo's reputation. Nara is much more risky.
"Invite their parents as well," Seiko says. "Might Guy's and Shimon Hijiro's. I'm heading in. See you."
"Congratulations on making chunin," Seiko says to Hoheto, sitting across the table from him as his white eyes attempt to burn through her skull. One of his new teammates had been an early loss in the new war, but he'd earned a battlefield promotion out of it.
That's one sensei and two teammates in three years.
"You--" Hoheto spits out, back rigid and straight even as his anger ever consumes him. "They're letting you just hide behind that desk while the rest of us die in the field!"
His voice is clipped and low, even with all that rage. He can't endanger his new rank.
Biter growls anyway.
"Aw, come on," Seiko says, voice shifting into the drawl that she used to use all the time. Strange... where did it go? "Someone's got to live, 'Heto. It might as well be me."
That gets him going. He slams his palm against the desk, breath hissing in behind his teeth as he struggles to take a deep breath.
"They promoted you," he says, voice full of disbelief. "For what? Dereliction of duty?"
Seiko nods along.
"Yes, exactly," she says. "They were so proud of me that the Hokage came down in person to proctor my trial."
From behind her, another set of footsteps that can truly only be summoned through having an unpleasant discussion lets itself be heard.
"What's this about your pride, Seiko?" Ensui Nara says, popping a huge pink bubble of gum as he peers over her shoulder at Hoheto Hyuga. "I didn't know you had any."
She'd liked it better when he used her last name.
"I don't,"
"She doesn't," Hoheto says at the exact same time. "And who are you?"
Ensui wouldn't get this reaction if he bothered to do any shifts down here.
"I'm her..." There's a long pause. For some reason, Ensui has a worse reaction to the words jounin-sensei than she does. "Supervisor."
"You should fire her," Hoheto says. He's more comfortable around hierarchies than anything. Or maybe just more used to a specific form of torture.
"I can't fire her," Ensui says mournfully. "All of the rest of my staff is back out in the field. Who would do the work?"
Even Chobee has finally left the office, though not for anything Seiko would define as field work. He'd been pulled to cover the required Akimichi guard duty shifts and free up whoever had been previously doing that for actual fieldwork. But it worked out the same for this office, in the end.
"Can't you just requisition some Nara?" Hoheto says.
She should care more that he's trying to get her fired. It's dangerous, being an unattached chunin in wartime. Doing messenger duty with a limp? It might not even be her brain that gives out first.
But instead--
Her eyes are caught on the shadows that swirl around Hoheto's feet.
Ensui leans forward, and Hoheto leans forward too, so naturally that he doesn't even realize he hasn't done it of his own free will.
"I know who you are," Ensui says softly. "Hoheto Hyuuga, age 11. Branch family member. Recent chunin. Maybe I should arrange for your next assignment to be a full Hyuga clan brigade. Since you're so enamored with clan arrangements."
Hoheto's face goes so white that his skin matches his eyes. He tries to step back, but can't.
"I--"
"Shut up, Ensui," Seiko says. Her scars are pulsing, or maybe that's just the headache. "If you've got time to do that, then you've got time to fill out that calendar that I keep--"
"I get it, I get it," Ensui mutters, taking a step back and breaking the shadow's hold. "Oh, look, something just came up. I've got to go."
He ducks away, leaving them both as quickly as he came.
"I hate that guy," Seiko says. The only thing worse than talking to Ensui is fighting with him.
Hoheto's fists clench.
"Your chunin trial," he says. "What was it."
"Here's your next mission," Seiko says, pulling out a scroll and handing it to him.
Kakashi bolts into her room and looks around for some place to hide, eyes wide.
"He ambushed me," he says, perhaps to her, perhaps to the unjust world at large. "He invited some random kids to the restaurant, and he ambushed me. He disguised his scent so Pakkun wouldn't be able to tell he was there! Why would he do that?"
"Did you stick around long enough to find out?" Seiko asks, yawning as she stays sitting on her bed.
"I'm not good enough to outrun dad," Kakashi says, as if this is obvious, and not something that will cease to be true in the coming years. "And there was barbeque."
So he'd kept his complaints bottled up until that party was over. That's good.
And their dad seemed to be... doing better...?
"He told me you told him you had friends," Seiko says instead.
Kakashi scowls.
"I do have kids I play with. Sometimes. Occasionally. It's none of his business. Not that I do much of that anymore...."
He looks away from her, arms still crossed.
"You don't have friends at all, so you wouldn't know."
Ouch. There's this odd pain in her left wrist, where she usually can't feel anything.
"I saw you got assigned a new jounin-sensei," Seiko says. She's technically not supposed to be able to see jounin files, not that that matters.
Kakashi hesitates.
"He's still out on a long-term mission," he says. "Something super secret. And cool," he adds, a bit defensively. "It'll be official when he gets back. Soon."
While most of the village hates their family right now, the Hokage has gone out of his way to ensure that Seiko and Kakashi are taken care of. Her promotion, Kakashi's promotion and subsequent attachment to Minato....
Giving her brother a direct mentor to student lineage claim on the Hokage's seat is not a small matter. He is doing everything in his power to assert that the Hatake clan is still a part of Konoha. To reassure Sakumo the village remains behind him.
Biter thumps his tail on the floor.
"Where's dad now?"
Kakashi gives her another annoyed look, as she's lost track of whatever he was ranting about.
"How would I know? Probably doing boring stuff in his study. I didn't walk home with him."
It's late, and she doesn't want to have to walk up the stairs...
Seiko groans.
"Did you tell him you need to get a bigger uniform size...?"
Blank look in his eyes. He sinks his chin a little further into his scarf.
Great.
"Don't mind me, limping all by my lonesome..."
Kakashi huffs and ignores her. Brat.
Halfway through her painful climb up the stairs, Biter howls, bounding ahead of her to burst through the closed sliding door.
There's a rope, hanging from the ceiling. When his hands twitch, is it a phantom twitch, like how hers---
On her lunch break, Seiko makes her slow way up to the second floor of the tower, where Ensui hides from people with schedules and urgent requests. Tragically for him, she has both.
"I'm busy," Ensui says, before she can even knock on his door. "Talk to my secretary. Downstairs. Can't miss her."
"I'm taking the afternoon off," Seiko says, one hand clenched around Biter's harness. It's been strangely difficult to stand up today. Her balance is off.
"You can't do that," Ensui says. "There's no one to replace you."
"I have to attend a funeral," Seiko says. "I was just informing you that no one would be downstairs. I'll be back tomorrow morning, usual time."
Biter has a black ribbon wrapped around his neck.
She's halfway back down the stairwell when the door swings open above her.
Ensui follows her down, the creep of his shadows almost strange in his absence as he keeps them tightly controlled, not even a hint of his constant paranoia allowed to shine through in the space.
However, he doesn't sit down on the desk, following her to the front entrance and out into the sunlight before he turns around and sets his hand on the wall, a huge seal appearing and twisting into the air.
No one is entering the tower today, it seems.
"You're on the wrong side of the barrier," Seiko says. "The people are on this side."
"Oh, whoops," Ensui drawls. "I guess I'm stuck out here."
He's got bags under his eyes.
"It's easy to get confused when you're stupid," Seiko agrees. "I'll be going, now."
A hand on her shoulder.
"Wait. you might.. Get lost on the way to the cemetery. It's kind of hard to find."
They're burying him next to her mom. She knows the way.
"You--"
It's weird seeing Ensui outside the tower. The only other time was when he was at her house. Talking to Sakumo.
In daylight, his twitching eyes that track the civilians that mill around them, his ticks-- his youth. He's eighteen. She always forgets.
She lost track of her sentence somewhere along the way.
"Yes?" Ensui says. The longer they just stand here the more uncomfortable he gets.
Seiko blinks, coming back to her body.
"Why not," she says. "Dad liked you."
Perhaps that's not what he wanted to hear. His hair doesn't pineapple-spike like some Nara, always drooping as it's forced to obey the laws of gravity within the confines of a ponytail. The rest of him drops now alongside the hair, as if she's told a man standing on the edge of a cliff that the rock's already fallen out and he's got no support but the air.
She lets him lead her to the graveyard.
Kakashi had been sitting by the grave when they arrived, hastily standing up and brushing the dirt off his knees as he sees she isn't alone.
"You're late," he mutters, eyes low. He hasn't been sleeping well, it seems. Pakkun peeks out from behind his legs.
"Hello, Biter," Pakkun says quietly.
Biter ignores him. He doesn't speak to other dogs. Or anyone, really. He noses at the dirt around Sakumo's grave before his ears twitch, picking up on heavy steps over loose soil as a black clad ninja approaches, funeral urn wrapped in white cloth held in both hands.
She watches them bury it beneath the small stone monument. Receives the smaller box of ash for the house. Feels the wretched pause in the expected ritual as neither she nor Kakashi say anything about their father.
What's she going to say?
'He was a man who couldn't abandon his teammates, but easily managed to abandon his family...' No. 'I should've missed the funeral the way he missed my graduation'. A little tacky.
She doesn't have anything kind to say about Sakumo right now.
Kakashi's face is hidden behind his mask, but his shoulders have begun to shake.
Seiko touches the stone.
"Bye, dad," she says.
Her eyes hurt.
She spends the next day listening to people complain about the fact that the tower was closed without notice.
"I had my full mission report filled out, you know!" A special jounin tells her. "Fully filled out! Ready to go!"
"You can put it over there," Seiko says. Her hands have been visibly shaking so badly that she has to keep them tucked under the desk. She's smudged the single piece of paper she attempted to sign this morning so badly that over half of it somehow became harder to read. More work for Ensui, then.
"You know, I remember when Chobee was doing this," the guy says, staring down at her. "He was really good. Helpful."
"He's out doing gate duty," Seiko says. "You could join him there."
"You're such a rude kid. What are you? Twelve?"
She's ten.
"I'm eighty three. You've fallen for my illusion."
He almost brings his hands up to form the Kai seal before realizing she's joking.
"You-- ugh. Whatever. It's not my fault that the reports are late, alright! Note that down!"
And behind him, more and more.
Kakashi takes a longer mission, and doesn't come back for three weeks.
No reason to take vacation days.
Except--
Academy Student Asuma Sarutobi ducks behind her desk.
"Tell them I'm not here!" He whispers furiously.
A year has not done much to improve his personality. But the gaggle of girls and boys that bolt into the room after him is almost enough to endanger sympathy. If she wasn't the one who had to talk to them.
Dozens of high pitched voices spike through her skull as they all desperately try to convey to her that they-- and only they-- are looking for their classmate, the young, handsome, talented, only living son of the Hokage. A bit young for this, no? Seriously?
"There's certainly no one like that around here," Seiko states. "I think if I'd seen someone young, talented and handsome, I'd know it."
Asuma glares at her from his position of cowering behind the dog.
It takes almost half an hour to kick them out.
"Thanks," Asuma mutters, an embarrassed read tinge not well concealed by his floppy hair spikes. "I was just messing around at the Academy training grounds and I-- I don't know what happened."
It's normal that he's an Academy student at 7. Or is that still oddly young? Seiko had become a genin when she was 8. It can't be that young.
"I remember you bragged you were good enough at stealth to dodge ANBU," Seiko observes.
Beet red.
"I-- well....!!"
"Hm?"
But of course, eventually, you always have to go home.
"Hey, genius," Seiko says, one handedly dumping some rice into a pot on the stove as Kakashi shifts uncomfortably at the edge of the room. "You're blocking the door."
He hadn't used to flinch at the title, but she can see it settling in around him. Nothing like humility, just a sensitivity to her own tongue. As if he's lost the shield that kept her words from harming him. Poor baby.
"No I'm not," he mutters, hands buried in his pockets.
He straightens up.
"I've got to tell you something."
"You forgot it was your turn to do the laundry this week," Seiko says.
There's a scent of burning in the air. Come on. Not this pot too. She can't wait until Chobee comes back and brings his food back with him.
"I'll get around to it," the little liar says, before coughing again. "Not that."
"You found a secret scroll that was an inheritance of one of the old Hokages," Seiko says. "You've received a divine revelation and need to go hide in your room for two decades to think about life."
"Seiko."
She scrapes some of the burned rice off the bottom of the pan.
He takes advantage of her turning her back on him to speak.
"I'm moving out."
Her hand jerks, the pot falling to smash onto the tiles, pottery shards barely missing her feet as Biter surges into motion to bat them away.
"What's wrong with this house?" Seiko asks, before she can really gauge the question.
Kakashi stares back at her, shoulders rigid. Unwittingly, his eyes creep towards the stairs.
But they're all from the same stock, him and her and their parents.
Rather die than admit weakness.
"The chunin dorms are closer to the training grounds," Kakashi says. "I don't want to be late."
The laughter catches her by surprise.
Biter curls uneasily around her legs as the chuckles burn her throat on the way out, and seem to burn Kakashi's ears as well.
"What!?" He snaps. "I'm-- I'm not some slacker. You're the one who always dozes off in the afternoons!"
The surge of laughter finally subsides as quickly as the flinch of her hand that dropped the pot to shatter.
"I know," she says. Slowly, she knees down, and begins to sweep up the shards with the edge of her sheathe. "So. When are you leaving?"
There's no need to ask him for help, with the shards or with standing back up or with washing the dishes. She's going to have to do all of this alone, soon enough.
"Academy sign ups don't open up until next month," Seiko repeats for the second time to a nervous looking mother and her really excited kid. "Please come back in a month. We don't do advanced reservations."
"Yes, but..." The lady mutters. "Are you sure there's going to be room in her year?"
Seiko flips through clan-submitted quotas in her mind, since doing it manually would probably mean she'd drop them. There'd been a push for more teachers for the school recently, due to the increasing number of clan kids who would automatically receive a spot.
"I am positive, ma'am. Konoha has always prized its children highly."
The woman seems at least a little bit settled by this blatant lie.
"Next month!" She says sharply turning around. "Don't forget me! My name is--"
"Is that Seiko?"
Suzume's voice cuts right through whatever the lady had said as two kids from Seiko's own year both stepped into the room. Well. They were a year or so older than Seiko, since she'd graduated a little young. Potato, potahto.
"I thought you'd quit working here for sure," Akame says, his arms crossed as he follows Suzume up to her desk.
Suzume has black, curly hair and glasses. She ignores Akame along with the lady.
"You're a chunin already?" She says. "Wow... I mean, I can believe it, I saw you in the Academy and all. Maybe you could help me up the ranks after you're discharged from this place."
"Poor Suzume. Always out of the loop," Akame scoffs. "Seiko's--"
"What happened to your third teammate?" Seiko asks.
Akame's glare turns venomous.
"None of your business."
"He's dead," Suzume says. Her hands wring a little. "Do you have a sink somewhere around here, Seiko? I need to wash my hands."
Her hands are cracked from harsh scrubbing. And perfectly clean.
"You're fine," Akame snaps. "Knock that off, already. Ninja's don't let a little dirt bother them."
Seiko was going to ask them if they had mission parameters, then changed her mind. They would take whatever she pulled out.
The scroll slaps down onto the table, instantly drawing Akame's ire back onto her.
"A D-Rank? You want us to--"
There's an explosion of green from behind them.
"A Direct Request from the Youthful Maiden of Valor!" Might Duy announces, cheerily taking the scroll from Akame's loose grip. "Might I have the honor of taking this, young lady?"
"No, I've got a better one for you," Seiko says. "That's for them."
"You can't..." Akame trails off. There's a world of difference between getting in an argument with someone you went to class with and someone who's your dad's age, even if he is, technically, the same rank as you.
"We'll take it," Suzume says, voice tight. "Come on, Akame."
Sour faces fade from memory easily. Every day people come here and leave unsatisfied.
But Might Duy is still giving her a very intense look indeed.
And then he gets down on both knees, hands braced on the floor, and bows.
What--
"I! Am! Sorry!"
He's crying tears that seem to echo as they hit the floor, there's so many of them.
"To have such a cruel thing happen to you!"
What?
"To have been forced to stand on your own!" A fist smashes down at the floor as his own anguish grows ever louder. "TO HAVE LET MY OWN JOY BLIND ME!"
Seiko shoves her way around the desk, letting stuff scatter everywhere. Her knee clips a corner and pain curdles in her as she slumps down in front of him.
"Please, stand up," she mutters. "Sir--"
"To have spoken with him at his own son's wonderful birthday party! To have stood next to him, unable to understand his pain!!"
Ah.
Seiko hasn't felt the visceral failure of her ability to truly grip things in her hand for years in the way that she can't manage to pull this man off the ground.
"It's not your fault," she says. "It's--"
Hands grasp onto hers.
He stands up, helping her back to her feet with a charisma that implied he'd had no doubts at all about her ability to stand back up without assistance.
"Young maiden," he says. "Last year... why did you help me?"
Seiko stares at him.
"No reason," she says.
He hasn't let go.
"I am proud of my son," he says. "I believe him when he says he will break through his limits to become an outstanding warrior. But that's not why I wanted him to believe in youth. In spring."
From the corner of her eye, shadows twitch.
"Even if he couldn't become a ninja. Youth is about joy! It is about faith! It is about keeping spring in your heart! It is about working as hard as you can at the things that you love!"
He's crying again, loud sobs that can safely conceal her as his back blocks the view of the door.
"It is about persistence, even if you are mocked," he says. "I am sorry that the nobility that he so successfully passed onto his children could not see him through the winter."
He presses a black funeral pouch into her hands.
Seiko breath rasps on the way out. What's with that? Her throat isn't one of the many places where her injured nerves are. It should know when to stay quiet.
"... I set aside an appropriate mission for you a few days ago. Let me find it."
Without Kakashi or Sakumo at home, no one weeds. She can't grip the plants to pull them out by the roots, so the garden is... ugly, now. She was going to add Sakumo to the family shrine, but the shrine is in his office, which is--
Seiko closes her eyes and then opens them again.
Anyway, it's upstairs, which is already asking a lot of her. There's no rail on the staircase, making it in many ways more dangerous for her than the stupid one in the tower. Only it's much shorter, nothing truly would happen to her if she fell aside from a few bruises. Or she could make Biter carry...
She looks at the dog, then at the box of ashes that sits on the kitchen table. A stick of unlit incense is propped up against it. Seiko puts the black pouch on the other side of the box and sighs.
It can just stay down there. She doesn't eat at that table anyway.
Biter sneezes at the dust and gives her a sour look.
"You clean, if it bothers you so much," Seiko mutters back. "I'll tie a dust rag to your tail."
The dog butts his head against her shin.
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
She's hungry, but not in the mood to cook. Biter's food is always put out ahead of time, so he can eat whenever he wants. He's a smart dog. She believes in him.
There's a chair at the edge of the porch where she can stare out at the grown over grass where she'd gotten into a fight with Hoheto more than a year ago. Biter rears up, putting his paws all over her lap as if he thinks he can pull off the lap dog effect.
"You'll break the chair, idiot," Seiko says.
With a whine, he sits down on her feet instead.
He's been stressed lately. No one except her around the house means he's constantly on alert. No one in close range for him to summon through a sharp bark if she drops something. No one else to keep watch while she sleeps. No one too--
"I've got a hospital check in next month. Hope Ensui gets off his ass and finds more staff before then, because I'm usually in there for at least overnight while they all stare at me. Last time it took three days."
The sun slowly fades into twilight as she sits there, dull voice interweaving with the beat of Biter's tail against the floor as she speaks of nothing and remembers nothing and feels...
Her head snaps up at the same time as Biter's as an almost distant scream seems to be coming closer and closer.
"IFIDONTMANAGETODO5000LAPSTHENIWILLWEEDMYRIVAL'SSISTER'SGARDEN! IF I DON'T MANAGE TO TO 6000 PULL UPS THEN I WILL SCRUB MY RIVAL'S SISTER'S HOUSE TOP TO BOTTOM! IF I--"
There's a small green hurricane in front of her, breathing heavily.
"Hello, Sister of My Rival! I am Might Guy!"
He's very short.
"You can just call me Seiko," Seiko says, mind still catching up. "I know you. You're Kakashi's friend. He doesn't live here right now, though. I can give you his ad--"
A bow making his waist parallel to the ground as he continues to pant for breath..
"Miss Seiko! It would! Be an honor! To help you! Weed your garden!"
It's...
"Did your father tell you to do this?" Seiko asks. "You don't have to. I can just--"
Well. She can't, really. She can just sit here and have the garden not be taken care of. It's not like anything terrible would happen if she did that.
Or she could have help.
How odd.
"It's kind of a mess out there," Seiko says, quietly. "And you have to watch out. There are flowers somewhere underneath the weeds. I don't want those gone." She'll have to figure out some way to pay him.
Might Guy's eyes practically burn with fire.
"My months of D-Ranks have prepared me for this!"
It's--
He runs through her whole garden, and then he heads inside her house while she's still staring at the neat rows, the lines that had already grown distant in her memory restored.
It's--
He'd dusted the table where she keeps Sakumo's ashes, and lit the incensce, and left a freshly cut flower there. And underneath the flower, a note.
To: Seiko Hatake
If you're anything like my great Rival, you probably don't remember this at all! But I remember when my dad came home the day after he met you. He was smiling so brightly that I thought he'd blind the sun with his brilliance. He picked me up and danced around and said see! You could become a wonderful ninja just like her! Someone who fights for the dignity of the human spirit! Someone who carries spring in her heart!
In some ways this goal was so much harder than my goal of beating my Rival that I was shocked. But Goals are How We Improve!
And lastly, written in the same awkward, stilted hand:
I wanted to challenge you to a match as well, but my father said that wasn't appropriate. But! If it Ever Is!
--Might Guy, Genin of Konohagakure.
The paper crumples in her hands as she stares at the box of ashes.
"You hear that, dad..."
Damn it all.
She wouldn't be crying if she'd remembered to eat.
"I should start calling him the genius, instead of my stupid brother," Seiko sighs. "What do you think, Biter? Too much favoritism?"
From a rational standpoint, Seiko Hatake was the best kind of subordinate one could have. She did not take days off, she did not lose any records or scrolls she was given, she rarely ever stood up from the desk, let alone climbed the stairs to bother him.
Complaints about her were many, but they were always vague, meaningless things. She was rude, she was apathetic, she didn't speak with respect to people who were older or of higher rank.
Her coworkers-- when they were around, spoke highly of her. Chobee said he wished his nieces were as sweet as her. Tonbo wasn't around much, but he liked her. And hell, Yakumi was the one who'd hired her, even if her clan circumstances meant she'd ditched the tower soon after for the field.
He often left his shadow to hide in the footsteps of her dog as it watched the incoming and outgoing traffic. A safety measure. The minute the dog's shadow crossed another, he could grab them, lock them down. Kill them from a full storey away, no eyes needed on the target.
He doesn't really need to work. All he needs to do is guard.
It's something he'd discovered early on. It's not really necessary to work. A lot of Nara laziness is a carefully cultivated lie. It's hard to relax when you can't stop thinking. But some of it isn't. Shadows are strongest in twilight. You only really need to be awake for the five minutes that count, and the rest is just... waiting.
His gaze drops to the dark pouch resting on his desk.
If he'd planned ahead he could have given it to Seiko before the short funeral ceremony, and then never had to think about it again. But he hadn't known her father was dead until the morning she showed up, because she'd come to work the day after he died. The records only move so fast.
So it was too late.
He'd had to go get the pouch from the Nara clan storage, so everything was slow. And then he'd had it.
And then months passed.
Biter wears Seiko's black ribbon the same way he wears Seiko's forehead protector and Seiko's vest and Seiko's sword. Perhaps he still wears the ribbon because Seiko's hands aren't steady enough to untie it without help, and she won't risk cutting so close to her dog's throat.
She's basically given up on any paperwork that requires more of her than either a checkmark or an illegible signature. All of that lands on him, now.
He'd not used the Shadow Imitation Shadow Bind Technique on her during her "chunin exam". That was his personal variation of a clan technique not even permitted to be taught until you were a jounin.
The Hokage had been testing him as well, after all.
Restraint. Control. Judgement.
He had passed, but in the end he had still failed to see what she was so afraid of. He can only see it now that she is no longer afraid. No one had thought The White Fang would kill himself rather than simply re-devote himself back to the battlefield. Re-earn his honor.
But she had.
She'd been terrified.
And, slowly, she'd relaxed. But never by that much. There was a futility in it. She couldn't always be with him, so she could only hope that he would center himself. Because there was nothing else she could have done.
He could have done something, though.
He could have left his shadow in Sakumo Hatake's. It wasn't a difficult thing to do, to be shadowless while you wait. If she had only--
There is a knock on the door.
"Ensui." Seiko's voice is flat and tight. The flatness is inherent. The tightness is from pain, since she must have walked up the stairs. "I've got more stuff to drop off."
The funeral pouch vanishes into his seals.
"Come on..." Ensui drawls, dropping his feet from where they'd been kicked up over the desk back down to the floor so he can crack the door open. "You better not be handing me a calendar again."
Seiko steps past him to drop the pile of reports onto his desk. They plop down right over the imprint his shoes had made on the previous top of the pile.
She's put on another growth spurt. A few inches. Or maybe it's just that her gray hair is spiked more than usual? Since she doesn't wear her chunin vest.
No. It's not that.
Growth has stretched out the scar tissue that covers her wrists, elongating them alongside her. He hadn't noticed at first, but with time comes closer observation. It's not actually scar tissue from one wound. It's two wounds. The deeper one snarls right over the wrist joint. The one that looks like someone yanked a giant fish hook out of where it had been caught in her bones.
And on top of that one, the ragged sword slices that run from practically mid forearm to over the top of her hands, stopping just short of her knuckles.
The cut is deeper on her left arm than her right. Obvious, from how she has scars on both arms but only one of them still feels.
Seiko Hatake used to be left handed.
The shadows in his mind paint an inky picture. She'd done the first cut with her already damaged wrist, shaky but proficient. No long term damage.
And then she had had to hold the blade in her off hand, one already shaking and bleeding heavily from the wrist wound.
Fighting a Suna puppet-master when they have strings on you is suicide. She'd made the right choice.
"Quit spacing out," Seiko says. "You're not busy."
"Seiko-chan," Ensui says. He opens a new gum packet, pops it in his mouth. "How long do you think you'll be working in this place?"
One of the things he doesn't know about Seiko is if she can still use the Body Replacement technique. She didn't use it in their fight. He's seen ninja with injured legs pull it off before-- it should work fine.
No, perhaps it's... a hand seal issue? Has he ever seen her go for a technique that needed more than simply slapping her hand on the ground? If he were to fight her again, the first thing he'd need to do is lock down the dog. Biter is where her mobility comes from. Shadowbind the dog, and then--
"Until I quit," Seiko says. "Whenever that is."
His endless chain of thoughts crashes to a halt.
"You can't quit. We don't have replacements."
"That's not my problem," Seiko says, even though it is, since it's her who's doing more work. "I'm just answering your question. I'll be here until the war's over. I don't want to go fight."
That's the type of answer that explains why her former teammate acts up so much whenever he's forced to come here. If she were in ANBU, an answer like that might get her killed by her own teammates for disloyalty.
Other than her disloyalty, she'd have been a great agent. He's supposed to be recruiting for them as well...
He's got ANBU casualty records in one of his seals. Somewhere. Maybe he can start pushing the upkeep for those onto Seiko as well. Most of the records come straight to him from the team captains before being passed up to Danzo Shimura and the Hokage-- though both of them also have separate reports that go straight to them. So it seems kind of pointless.
"Looks like you're stuck here for a while then," Ensui says. He'd been fourteen when the second war started, and now he was eighteen and they'd started the third. Jounin betting pool says that this one'll be even longer than the last, and the Jounin Commander is his uncle. He's got the inside scoop.
He should've put more money down on five years, but it had felt a little too depressing at the time. More fool him for letting that stop his hand.
She's staring at him. Or more accurately, staring past him. Not a person prone to meeting someone's eyes, Seiko.
"You don't usually linger up here," Ensui says.
Is she going to ask him for something? She never does that.
"I'll be in the hospital for my annual check in. You'll have to cover shifts until I get back."
...
There's an odd twist inside of him.
"That shouldn't take more than a day. You can take a day off without coming up here and telling me."
Mockery in the gaze that doesn't meet his.
"Last time I was in for three days. You going to be fine with that?"
Three days?
Shock drags his inquiries out of the twilight of his mind and into the air.
"A check-up shouldn't take that long."
Biter growls around her feet, a low thrum. That dog doesn't like him very much. Or maybe it's the stairs that piss him off. She never seems to mind it, but she's not the one responsible for catching herself when she misses a step, is she?
And she has missed steps.
"Mine do."
Seiko turns to leave, conversational goal achieved.
The shadows always crawl around the corners of his vision, even when he's not actively controlling them. Careful, careful.
"Seiko-chan."
When she turns to look back at him, for one second her blank hostility is lost to a more genuine confusion.
"Yes?"
"You can do wall walking. Why don't you just walk down the side of the building, instead of taking the stairs?"
Seiko looks at him. Then slowly, exaggeratedly, looks down at her bad knee.
"Pain disrupts chakra cycling," she says, voice slow like she's speaking to an idiot. "And Biter doesn't like wall walking."
It kind of sounds like the second point has higher priority. Though, what does pain have to do with anything? Just ignore it. They have pills for that, don't they?
Or at least. ANBU do.
Ensui pops the bubblegum he'd been blowing and gets started on another bubble.
"We're technically under the Intelligence Division, so I'll see if I can grab one of their people for a bit. That's how we used to get Tonbo." The Analysis team is... rather busy, though. Maybe T&I has someone sitting around.
Their headquarters aren't directly in the tower, but instead down the street a bit. At least, that's where the building that's got the jail cells is.
"That's fine then." Seiko gives a sharp nod, and shuts the door behind her.
Is it?
A sharp knock on the door of his apartment deep into the night wakes him more thoroughly than his much battered alarm clock ever could.
"What is it," he snaps, badly hidden killing intent not at all concealed by the way his sleep tangled hair keeps falling in front of his eyes.
A blonde woman only a year or so older than him stares back, rectangular glasses firmly in place across her nose. She bows to him politely, hands clasped.
"I'm Nono Yakushi, a senior med-nin," she says. She's not wearing a jounin uniform, but to be at that rank, she'd have to be one. "You are Seiko Hatake's jounin-sensei, are you not?"
He isn't.
It's revolting. Having that level of responsibility--
"What if I'm not," Ensui mutters.
"Then we would have a problem, Ensui-san. Because Seiko's only other registered contact is her brother, who isn't in Konoha currently. So I would be in quite the dilemma."
What a useless little brat. Though it's more than likely Seiko deliberately picked a window where he wouldn't be present to go to the hospital-- she's got access to chunin missions. She knows where he is.
His hands tighten behind his back.
"She's fine, right. It was just a routine check in."
He doesn't like the way she smiles at him.
"Why don't you come with me, Ensui-san."
....
Seiko is sitting in a wheelchair when he gets there, boredom plain on her face. The leggings she usually wears are rolled up to show the knee she's always limping on, while both of her sleeves are pushed up to let a Hyuga med-nin stare into her chakra networks with fascination.
What was the midnight wake up all about? She's fine.
Seiko raises an eyebrow when she sees him.
"They gave me a pill that numbs all pain," she says to him, eyes a little dilated. "I told them I could just do the whole thing standing up in that case, but they insisted on the wheelchair. Useless thing, there aren't any ramps in this place. Do they expect Biter to pick the whole thing up?"
Ensui blinks, taken aback by the rapid fire commentary.
"Please stay still," the med-nin who'd been staring at Seiko's knee mutters. "Do you think draining poison is easy? It's practically a part of your bloodstream by now."
Poison!?
"Someone poisoned you," Ensui says, voice flat while his paranoia spikes. Saboteurs? In the village? What if--
"Yeah, by Chiyo Poisontongue," Seiko says, eyes still blankly roaming the room. "I've got one of her needles in my knee. The needle's not coming out without my joint coming with it, so they do this whole clown show instead. Well, they didn't use to. This seems new."
It's funny. There he'd been saying that if only she'd told him one problem she had, he could have done something, and now she has told him of a different problem he can do absolutely nothing about.
Why is he even here? He narrows his eyes at Nono.
"This has nothing to do with me."
She smiles back at him, eyes out of focus behind her glasses. Wait.. that chakra... this is on him for not paying attention. ANBU Designation: Lizard.
"If we'd realized the poison would retain its potency for so long we could have done more..." She says, voice regretful. "But there were many poison related injuries during the second war. It seems that the power Sasori of the Red Sand wielded against our troops didn't come from nowhere."
"This still has nothing to do with--"
"Seiko-chan hasn't been very communicative with us about her encounter," Nono says. "We were hoping that you knew more... though it seems like that was a false hope."
There's a weird sound.
A hacking, coughing thing. In the wheelchair, Seiko is bent forward, wheezing with laughter.
"You already know," Seiko says, voice slurring from the drugs she's under. "It's written on my skin. It's in my hair. Nosy bastards. Strung us up on hooks and made us dance." Her voice slows down into a croon as she stares down at her dog. "But they couldn't get you, Biter. Bit him, chewed him, spit him out."
There's a smile on her face that he's never seen before.
He remembers, suddenly, Biter's ability to bite into shadow and have it hurt the real thing. Would that work on puppets? Could that dog bite wood and chew flesh?
"They just want the poison," Seiko whispers to her dog, loud enough that everyone in the room can hear it. Her wrists don't shake, but her hands still hang stiffly, unable to close properly as she attempts to scratch Biter's ears. "Good thing Dad didn't survive the first attempt, or this place would have made him do it again." She pets the dog's nose. "Isn't that right, Biter? Who's a good boy."
Biter howls.
This is--
"I'm her jounin-sensei," Ensui repeats, a heavy sense of disbelief in his heart even as he speaks. "I'm... responsible, here."
"Ensui-san?"
Every single ninja in the room stops moving as the shadows shiver under their feet.
Ensui carefully picks Seiko up, flinching at the giggle she makes as he does so.
"I think she will recover better at home," he says, voice firm.
Then he jumps through the window, the dog fast at his heels.
Kakashi's new room is kind of small. That's okay, though, as it's just somewhere to sleep. No long hallways that are always getting dusty, and the line to hang his laundry is just outside the window, instead of way far out in the yard, for some reason. And it's right next to the training grounds!
He doesn't even understand what the other chunin complain about. Who cares that there's no kitchen set up? Seiko didn't cook anything good, and-- and Father couldn't cook anyway!
But anyway. It's going to be two years since he became a genin. He hadn't wanted to mention it to Seiko, but his old jounin-sensei-- he'd died. So that's why he'd gotten a replacement.
...
Gaku-sensei had been a good guy. He should've brought Kakashi with him on that mission, so then--
Kakashi takes a deep breath and begins to do his morning pushups. He can't fall behind. He can't be weak. He's going to meet his new jounin-sensei today! He's done his research, this time. Minato Namikaze's jounin-sensei was Jiraya the Toad Sage's jounin-sensei, who learned from the Hokage himself.
He has been given a great opportunity. It's finally time for him to get out into the war. He just needs to show that he's ready. That he's not like the rest of his family. That he wants to be out there. Serving Konoha.
He's been told to report to training ground seven.
Carefully half an hour early, Kakashi debates whether it would give a better impression if he slipped into hiding, only to emerge when his instructor arrived, or to remain perfectly visible, so as to make sure he knows Kakashi got here early--
His cheeks flush a little as he hears Seiko's mocking laughter in his ears. He doesn't need to try so hard. It will be fine.
...
He's late. No, maybe it's Kakashi who got the location wrong. Or the date is wrong. Or he just missed something. A test? Is it a test? But he's already a chunin, he shouldn't need to take one. But it wouldn't hurt to reinvestigate the area around the main open space. That's just being proactive, which is good.
When you look underneath the underneath, that's when you're safe. Otherwise, all you see is--
A slight shadow in the bushes.
Kakashi whirls, hands shuriken spinning in his hands as a tall, yellow-blonde young man trips on a root and stumbles his way into the clearing.
"That came out of nowhere," he says, hopping a little before settling down as he sees Kakashi. "Oh, wow... you're tiny."
He is not.
Kakashi bristles a little.
"Kakashi Hatake, Chunin!"
There's a trace of a wince across the man's face.
"Hey, there," he says. "I'm Minato Namikaze. I've never taught anyone before, so I'll be in your care, okay?"
He gets a stiff nod from Kakashi for his troubles.
"You just need to get me on the battlefield," Kakashi says. "I can take care of myself."
Minato does not look reassured.
"Well!" he says, clapping his hands together. "If it's a mission that will get us really understanding each other, then a mission it is! Let's head over to the mission desk and get--"
"No."
There's something tight and frantic in Kakashi's chest. There's no need to go all the way over there, right?
Minato tips his head.
"No? Is there something--"
"There's nothing wrong," Kakashi says, very rapidly. "I didn't know you also got your orders from the mission desk."
Minato laughs.
"Oh, is that it? Yeah, wartime missions are given by the Jounin Commander, and sent directly to the recipient instead of using the medium of the desk. But I've been given a mo-- well, definitely at least a week away from the frontlines to pick you up!"
A week...
"Then we should just train," Kakashi says, determined. "If you want to. Sir."
Sensei? Should he be using Sensei?
Minato stares at him for an uncomfortably long time before nodding.
"One of my buddies is also on leave for a bit. She's also a jounin-sensei! We can go do joint training with her group!"
Joint training isn't... It's much more efficient to train alone.
But it's not the mission desk. So Kakashi just nods.
He shouldn't have agreed to it.
"Minato!"
The friend Minato had been referring to was Uroko Kurama, a dark haired lady who gives Minato a weary smile as he approaches her.
"It's good to see you, Uroko," Minato says. "It feels like it's been years."
"It probably has been," Uroko sighs, pushing a strand of hair out of her face as she stares down at Kakashi. "Oh, it's the youngest Hatake. You've made chunin already?"
Behind her, Hoheto Hyuga stares out with dark eyes. He's wearing a chunin vest as well, but he doesn't seem happy about it at all. Or maybe it's just Kakashi who's making him unhappy.
The last time Kakashi ever saw him was when he'd picked a fight with Seiko and somehow lost, and then Seiko had never talked about him again. Father had also never talked about his teammates...
But before all that, Kakashi has vague memories of Hoheto and... the other guy... Sometimes being at the house. There's a picture of the three of them in Seiko's room. They'd used to play cards in there and then lock him out when he tried to see what was going on.
"Around four months ago," Kakashi responds after a bit of a delay.
Had it only been a few months ago...?
Everything had seemed so bright.
"Oh, Hoheto just got his last week!" Uroko says, voice bright. "He really went above and beyond the call of duty."
Hohteto's lips curl into a cool sneer.
"Promotions are promotions," he says. "It doesn't matter what you did to get them. Even if you didn't do anything."
"Now, now," Minato starts. "That isn't--"
Kakashi's eyes narrow.
Is he implying Kakashi didn't earn--
"You must have crushed someone who was already injured," Kakashi starts talking before he can really register what he's saying. "As far as I know, that's how you deal with all your problems."
Rage flashes behind Hoheto's eyes, cool disdain sliced clean away. That's right, just start making a hand seal and Kakashi can show what he's made of.
But he should have known the type of people who Seiko had used to like.
"Oh yeah?" Hoheto whispers, the taunt clear in his white eyes. "She always called you a genius. You must have used that superior mind of yours to figure out the best way forward was to abandon your famil--"
There's a kunai in Kakashi's hand before he knows it. And Hoheto smiles, the veins around his eyes growing obvious as he smoothly shifts into the stance of the Gentle Fist.
"Eight Trigrams Sixteen Palms," Hoheto states, hands smoothing beginning to glow with a green chakra.
Kakashi smirks. He can handle something as weak as that. He darts forward, covering the disadvantage from fighting a taller opponent. The edge of his kunai begins to spark, as he focuses for his own counter.
"Lighting Release: L--
A far more intense smell of ozone flashes through the air as Minato materializes between them, spinning so that one leg trips Hoheto while his hand grips Kakashi's wrist. There's a slightly worried look in his eyes, like someone who thinks they might've forgotten to take their drying laundry back inside before it rains.
The gap between their ability....
"That wasn't very nice, Kakashi," Minato says, lifting him up by the wrist to dangle a few inches above the ground as he keeps his other eye on Hoheto. "We are supposed to support our fellow ninja."
He'd made him look bad in front of Minato!
"He started it," Kakashi says, sullen.
"Kakashi." Minato's voice is hard. "Fights begin not with actions, but with words. You both-- and, in fact, all ninja of Konoha-- have earned your promotions honorably."
He doesn't know.
Kakashi's stomach sinks as he nods.
"I understand," he says.
But he doesn't understand, and he sees that same thing in Hoheto's sardonic eyes. He doesn't understand how Seiko, who hasn't left the village since even before the current war even started, earned her promotion.
Minato sighs.
"Well, we all learned something today," he says, and cheers right back up as if nothing happened. "Looks like we should catch up another time, Uroko."
Uroko sighs as well, giving Kakashi a meaningful look.
He looks away.
"Yeah, that's for the best. We should meet up sometime the next time Kushina has some time off!"
Kushina? Who's that?
Kakashi keeps his curiosity firmly sealed for the five minutes it takes to distance themselves from Hoheto's gaze.
"You seem to know a lot of people," Kakashi says.
Minato laughs.
"Is two people a lot? Though I guess you're right, I do know a lot of people! I like to keep in touch. It's easy to start drifting away from people when you're no longer a genin...But it's important to know the people you're working with. Konoha is separate from our rival villages because we are more connected! That's what makes us strong."
It hadn't felt like his father was connected to the village.
"If you say so," Kakashi says.
Minato ruffles his hair.
"I do."
Kakashi crosses his arms. He's too old for someone to do that to him.
"Hey, since you didn't want to go to the tower to pick up a mission for us, I'll go do that before we meet up tomorrow. Got it?"
Kakashi freezes.
"I'll go."
"Huh? You don't have to."
Nice going, genius. What's next? Going to burn down the house?
"I'm going with you."
Ever since the war started, Kakashi has only ever seen Seiko sitting alone at a long desk wide enough for three people to work comfortably. Biter always sits in front, dark eyes watchful of all who enter even while Seiko's own remain dull and indifferent.
She wears her hair longer than he does, sloppily tied back in a low ponytail, and she doesn't wear a mask. So, sitting there, at that desk, she always looks
Like their father.
Her hands both rest on the desk, awkwardly clawed. Even as he watches, one of her fingers does an awkward little spasm as she reaches for an already prepared mission scroll.
"Hi there!" Minato says cheerfully. "I'm Minato Namikaze and this is my new teammate, Kakashi Hatake. We're just looking to help out the village a little while we're on downtime."
Seiko raises an eyebrow at Kakashi.
Kakashi hunches his shoulders a little.
"Not a lot of in village missions for jounin at your level," Seiko says, ignoring Kakashi completely. "I know the guy who's organizing all the outer guard rotations if you want to do that instead."
Gate guarding. He'd rather die.
"Just give us a D-rank, already," Kakashi mutters. "You've already got it in your hand and everything."
A crinkle at the very edges of her eyes. Not the normal ones, an extra one. The one that says she's laughing at him.
"A young Might Gai has been going through my whole D-rank roster at a lightning pace," she says. "They're going to have to put him out in the field just to make sure there's any left for the rest of the genin."
He can't be worse at something than Gai.
"I'll show him what lightning looks like," Kakashi says.
Seiko snorts and tosses it to him.
"Okay, genius. Let's see you design a jutsu capable of constricting the space-time continuum."
Kakashi glances down at the scroll.
Babysitting. Three hours.
"Seiko." He can hear the whine in his own voice.
Minato intervenes, carefully taking the scroll out of Kakashi's hands.
"Wow, taking care of triplets! How exciting! This is going to be great."
Kakashi spares a second to look up at Minato, incredulous. He doesn't appear to be joking.
"I love kids," Minato says sheepishly. "They're so cute."
He can see the snide joke beginning to form in Seiko's head before her lips even start to move. He grabs Minato's arm and frantically drags him back out of the room before she can say one more thing to his new teacher.
"We shouldn't go back in there," Kakashi says, definitively.
Minato just blinks his eyes down at Kakashi.
"No? But she seemed so nice. And she looked... hey, now that I think about it... was that your cousin, Kakashi?"
Kakashi stares back up at him, blindsided.
"No. That's my sister."
...
"We have to go back in there," Minato says. "We should invite her on the mission or something!"
"We can't do that."
Kakashi can't go back in there. He hasn't gone to visit Seiko once since he left.
"Huh? Why not?"
It feels like his mouth isn't under his own power.
"She's always exaggerating her injuries so she doesn't have to do any work."
"Her injuries?"
Kakashi can hear Minato's voice rising, but he can't stop talking. He's had no one to talk to. He needs this man to understand.
"And she's got this slow limp, but I've seen her run. Most of the time she just doesn't. And she's strong enough to beat Hoheto, but not strong enough to even spar with me!? She may have some wrist problems, but she-- she can still hold a sword!"
Then he shakes his head, and his smile returns to normal.
"I'm glad you told me this, Kakashi. Let's head over to complete the D-rank, okay? The whole three hours."
That's right. The mission comes first.
Kakashi blinks a little, himself a little uncertain about the words that he'd just said. Hopefully Minato didn't take them too seriously... It's all in the past. He and Seiko don't have much to say to each other these days.
"Okay."
He watches Minato take a left.
...
"Minato...Sensei," Kakashi says. The word is weird in his mouth. "That's the wrong way."
This is his village. These are his familiar streets.
No noose hangs behind Seiko's desk.
He will be strong enough to redeem their name.
A/N: I'm quite fond of Seiko's secondary cast, if you can't tell.
"Asuma Sarutobi, reporting for his first mission as a Genin!"
Seiko rubs her eyes with the palm of her hand as she stares blearily down at Asuma, closely flanked on each side by a young Kurenai and a... Raido. She thought he was about to hit chunin... had the Hokage asked him to let his promotion slide in order to make sure his son had a better than average team?
Asuma's hand slaps the desk, jerking her out of her thoughts.
"Give us an A rank!" He says. "Something awesome!"
Behind him, his jounin sensei gives her an apologetic shrug.
She glances down at Asuma's records casually. Graduated at nine years old. Pretty standard for this war.
"I've picked out something suited to your abilities," Seiko says, which already makes Raido wince. The jounin, being far older and wiser and not having to do anything but supervise, just looks annoyed.
No need to stretch out the joke.
"A D-rank!?"
It had been much funnier when she'd done this to Kakashi. But that had been months ago.
..
She watches another genin team file in as Asuma is dragged back out.
"Seiko-san!"
A green force of nature bolts towards the table, forehead protector proudly hanging around his neck. Hm? Maybe it's not the Hokage's special treatment that Asuma got a more experienced genin, if Gai is also being put on a team with two new graduates. Or maybe the Hokage just pushed for every team formed this year to get an assembly like that.
Ebisu and Genma stumble in behind him, both of them staring up at her nervously. Ebisu adjusts his glasses. Genma rolls his senbon onto the other side of his mouth.
Behind them, Chouza Akimichi, patriarch of his clan, crosses his arms and gives her a nod.
"Hello, Gai," Seiko says. "Looks like you've got a strong team behind you, this time."
Gai nods eagerly.
"Seiko Hatake," Chouza says, voice soft and deep. "Chobee says good things about you."
"He should come back to work at the desk," Seiko says. But it's sweet of him to say.
"I'll tell him you said so. So, what have you got for us today?"
Seiko keeps her elbow carefully on the table so that she doesn't randomly lose and scrolls as she fans out the options.
"Bunch of D-ranks," she says.
She looks at Gai, doing his best to hide disappointment at another year of this.
"Or, a C-rank just came in. There's an annual event in the Land of Tea."
All three of them jerk up in sudden excitement, while Chouza smiles. The Land of Tea is a notoriously softball assignment. If you aren't in with the tower, you'll never see it in your entire life.
"I don't know..." Seiko says, lip twitching quietly. "Are you really ready for that?"
"Yes!!!" Three different voices chorus up at her, little hands grabbing at the scroll.
Her eyes flip up to watch Chouza. It's not like she doesn't know that first time C ranks are notoriously cursed. Hers certainly had been.
Chouza's hands flip through seals behind the backs of his genin.
They've got the potential.
She already knows that.
"Okay, then," Seiko says, releasing the scroll. "It's all yours."
"We won't let you down!!" Gai says.
As if he could.
Grocery shopping is one of those things that the devil invented to convince people that the earth was already worse than hell. The bag that Seiko had grimly sandwiched between her elbow and her waist makes its final little flirtation with gravity and then falls to its death, scattering fresh fruit and cups of ramen all over the sidewalk.
One can of soup bounces and manages to hit Biter before rolling into some gutter.
This is--
"Do you need help!?"
Seiko glowers a little.
"The bag's already ripped," she mutters, not bothering to turn around. "You don't need to pick those up unless you're willing to carry them all the way back to my house."
A hand reaches down to catch the soup can before it can get any further way. Her gaze tracks up, following that hand all the way to the bristly black hair held back by oversized orange goggles.
Obito Uchiha gives her an anxious smile as he sets about trying to pick up as much as he can.
"It's okay, I can be a little late to the Academy," he says. "It's my last year, you know! I'm going to graduate this time for sure!"
Already...?
"Forget about the fruit," Seiko sighs. "It's already touched the ground. Get the packaged things. Careful--"
Obito follows her all the way back to the Hatake estate, eyes tracing over the makeshift altar she still hasn't moved off the dining room table as he carefully sets his burdens down.
She hasn't retrieved the photo of her mom from the real shrine, so a scrawled piece of paper with her name sits beside Sakumo's box of ashes, both slightly hidden behind the framed photo of Seiko and both her old teammates.
Maybe it's cursing Hoheto a little to have his picture in there with the rest of the dead.
"Are you going to be alright putting all of this stuff away," Obito says, eyes skittering away from all of that.
Seiko waves him off.
"I do this every week. It's fine. Go get back to your class."
Obito yelps, clearly having forgotten where he was supposed to be.
"Sorry! I have to go!"
He dashes away, only to collide headfirst with an incoming young Hyuga.
...
"Watch where you're going," Hoheto says coldly, brushing invisible dirt off of his clothes and Obito dazedly shakes his head and staggers back to his feet.
"Uh, sorry... Oh, I am so late!" Obito darts off again, barely avoiding a second collision.
Seiko leans across the table and pushes the picture frame to lie face down before walking back out to the porch.
Kiyomu doesn't need to see this.
She sits down on the edge of the porch. This isn't going to be worth standing for.
Hoheto stops some feet away from her, arms crossed and mouth tight.
"Fancy seeing you here," Seiko says, when it becomes clear they'll be stuck here for hours if he isn't prompted to speak. "Thought you'd had your fill of this place."
"Got into a fight with your brother," Hoheto says.
Oh?
"I'm sure he deserved it," Seiko says. "Unless you hospitalized him or something."
"Minato Namikaze," Hoheto says, voice soft and precise. "Whose teacher was Jiraiya the Sage."
"Jiraiya the Sage," Seiko says. "Whose teacher was the Third Hokage. Yes."
Hoheto was very direct when she had known him. Point A to Point B, straight as an arrow. It had made him dangerous, though it also made it dangerously easy to manipulate his thought process.
"He's being put in line for succession," Hoheto says. "An eight year old idiot."
"We all start somewhere," Seiko says. She yawns. "What do you want from me, Hoheto? Right now you're just stating facts."
"I thought you'd be a little angrier," Hoheto says. "You're being skipped over."
Skipped over?
Seiko's eyes for the first time stop flicking around and settle squarely onto Hoheto's face.
"Aw, 'Heto," she says, voice soft. "You still believe I could beat him down?"
Biter gives a little snap of his teeth.
Hoheto's lips tighten.
"You stopped training," he mutters. "So of course not."
She was going to say something mean to make him go away... But she could always explain things properly. Listening to her go on about Konoha's complex inner politics could be considered its own punishment.
Seiko scoots Biter's head so it's a bit more onto her lap.
"The Hokage," Seiko says mildly. "Is doing several things at once. First of all, he is attempting to make sure Kakashi doesn't go off the deep end. Before he's a terrifying ninja, Minato Namikaze is a very kind person. He's well suited to the task. Or as well as anyone. Second. From an optimistic line of thought, Kakashi's qualifications will never matter. Minato is a shoo-in for the next Hokage, and he and Kakashi are barely a decade apart in age. Should Minato live even to his thirties, it won't be Kakashi who becomes Hokage-- it will be Minato's potential children, or Kakashi's own students."
It's clear Hoheto is caught remembering when she used to give these kinds of lectures all the time. It had bored Kiyomu silly.
"Ignoring, of course, that the other current Hokage candidate for the next line after Minato is Asuma Sarutobi, who is also around Kakashi's age."
Seiko smiles a little, though there's no trace of joy.
"And compared to how talented my little brother is, is there really a comparison? I'm not sure if our Hokage should be happy or sad his son will likely be spared."
There are other factors as well, of course. But what's important isn't the future, but why the choices being made are already set into place.
"Spared from such a high position," Hoheto spits back. "Of course that's how you'd see it."
His fingers reach up to the forehead protector he wears rigidly over his forehead, yanking at it and throwing it to the ground.
Seiko hisses in sympathetic pain as she sees the new scars that nearly cover the caged bird seal, scar tissue so widespread that the green of the seal itself seems ill and discolored.
"I tried to cut it off," Hoheto says, voice conversational. "The seal."
It hadn't looked like this when they'd fought--
"'Heto..." Seiko whispers. "Why did you do that?. You managed it, you made chunin. You can make jounin. I didn't crush your dreams or anything."
"Yeah, I made it," Hoheto says. His formality has slipped over time. He used to be so careful with his wording. "I was naive back then. I thought that making jounin would be enough. But I understand now. Even gaining recognition from my clan would do nothing but tighten my prison."
"Not even the Hokage has the authority to tell a major clan how to protect their own secrets," Seiko says. Her thumb brushes behind Biter's ear, soothing him as Hoheto meanders ever closer to her during his rant. He won't attack her... probably.
"Do you understand, Seiko!? It hurts. And they can make it hurt whenever they want. Sometimes I feel it twinge even when I've done nothing wrong. My whole life it's hurt!"
"Wow," Seiko says dryly. "I wonder what it would be like going through life with something that always hurt."
Biter snuffles a little. He thinks she's funny.
"You--" Hoheto is about to curse her for real. "That's exactly it. I was already dealing with this when you weren't injured at all! Still fighting to improve myself, get myself a better lot in this caged life. And then you just quit? Do you know how much I want to quit, Seiko! But... no matter what, it's impossible for me."
He's being sincere with her, in his own way.
Seiko pats the porch next to her.
"Sit down, 'Heto."
He stares at her, agonized.
"No. I can't do that. I need to go train."
It's quiet after he leaves. Seiko stares out at her freshly trimmed grass, grown slightly longer in the weeks that Gai has been out on his latest mission.
"Training...huh."
She'd been given various hand exercises by the hospital that she'd done for a bit, and then quit. Doing it around Kakashi was embarrassing. Doing it in front of Sakumo had made him have expectations.
She doesn't want to train because she doesn't want to go back into the field. Hoheto was right, she's not like him. She has more choices, and she lives alone and not in the Hyuuga clan sector with a bunch of people who can see through walls.
Biter nudges his head against her stomach.
Seiko tilts her head up to stare at the sky. The sun is setting, spilling orange and red across the streets.
"Biter," Seiko says. "I think we're going to take an evening walk today."
After she goes and fixes the pictures on the altar.
Without her dog, she'd never have been able to find the place at all. With Biter, it still turns into a surprisingly long trek across the width of Konoha, Seiko limping along as the shadows spread from house to house and the entire city becomes illuminated by lamplight and the soft moon overhead.
A carefully maintained single room house sits nestled in the outskirts of the town. And outside, in its own yard, Might Duy doesn't notice her approach, too engrossed in his own training routine.
Seiko coughs.
Might Duy blinks, staggering a little as he comes out of whatever trance he was in.
"Young maiden! What brings you all the way out here!? Come in, sit down..."
He goes to the extent of bringing a stool out of his own house for her to rest her leg. Seiko sits down with relief. She hasn't walked so far in... over a year. Going back is going to be even worse.
"My son is still out and about," Might Duy says, dropping a towel around his shoulders as he stares at her worriedly. "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," Seiko says. "I know he's out. I wanted to talk to you. I didn't realize you'd still be exercising this late at night."
"Oh, it's an old habit," Might Duy says, relaxing. "No time for it in the day, after all! I've got work to do, a son to raise."
"You must not sleep very much."
Might Duy laughs that one off.
"My spirit keeps me young!"
His spirit keeps him a genin.
"Why do you do that?" Seiko asks, hands gripped onto Biter's harness as the stool wobbles. "Train so much."
"Well," Might Duy says. He looks around, checking once again that no one else is around. "Keep this a secret from Gai, alright? He won't need to know this until he's much older."
Seiko mimes sealing her lips and throwing away the key.
He heaves a huge sigh of relief.
"Alright. Have you ever heard of the Eight Gates?"
She nods.
"It's a sacrifice technique. It would be classified as a Forbidden Jutsu if it were a jutsu in the first place."
His jaw drops as he stares at her.
"Knowledgeable and wise! That is not common knowledge, young lady!"
She does have an explanation... though it's not as if he'd demand one from her.
"It was one of the theories they were testing when they were looking at my left arm, since my chakra system replaced the nervous system and it hasn't shown any signs of reverting, and I still don't have much feeling in that arm. The thought ended up being discarded."
Might Guy nods deeply.
"I see! Then I will skip some parts of the explanation. I'm training like this because I want to be capable of using all eight gates-- I can feel it! I'm already on the seventh gate.. I'm so close to a breakthrough!"
"That's a death sentence," Seiko says.
Perhaps something in her voice worries him. He kneels down in front of her so that he can look her in the eyes as he speaks.
"Seiko. You asked why I'm doing this. Well, the answer is simple. I'm not good at ninjutsu or genjutsu, though I do my best. My ability to contribute to the village is--
"Your contributions are valuable."
He beams at her.
"--Limited. So, I am happy to do what I can. But, out beyond the bounds of Konoha, sometimes your best is not enough. Sometimes there are enemies that are simply a wall forever beyond your reach."
The first thing she'd felt had been the needles.
Seiko nods.
"But!" Might Duy continues, "With the Eight Gates Activation, that changes. Your taijutsu becomes a hundred-- no, a thousand times stronger!"
"Is that why?" Seiko says. "To reach for power?"
He shakes his head so hard his hair flips out and momentarily looks like some strange black frisbee.
"You know... I started training this technique almost eighteen years ago. Gai wasn't even a twinkle in the eye! I was fifteen. Back then, I really thought-- 'with this, I'll be able to be a jounin! That was my motivation, for those early years. First I thought just the first gate would be enough, and then I thought no... I should keep working till I mastered the second gate... Then the third...Then the fourth..."
There's a fondness in his eyes.
"Then I ended up as Gai's only parent. Holding him in my arms... I swore then and there that I wouldn't stop until I reached the eight gate. Nothing less would do."
"So he'd be proud of you?"
"I don't need him to be proud of me." She's seen this look in her father's eyes. "I need him to live. It doesn't matter if the fourth gate would be enough for basic missions. I need to be able to put my life on the line to keep him safe. And I need it to work."
He lifts his chin.
"And I hope he learns this technique as well. I'm sure that he'll be much better at it than me. So one day, when he's all grown up... he'll be able to make that same choice. He'll be able to protect something more precious than his own life."
"So you train..." Seiko says slowly. "Because you want agency." In the end, wasn't that the same thing that Hoheto wanted?
He pats her shoulder.
"Do you want me to escort you back?"
"...No," Seiko says. "Do you mind if I keep watching you train, tonight?"
He makes a grand pumping up fist.
"Your presence will only spur me onwards!"
She falls asleep with her back resting against the wooden planks of the house, and wakes up with a rough blanket draped over her.
She could always ask Ensui awful questions that he will hate. It's this cheery thought that makes the staircase even mildly bearable as she decides to take the next hour as a break and go up to bother him.
"Ensui," Seiko says to his door. "You in there?"
"No," Ensui says.
Seiko opens the door.
"I'm not filling out the schedule," Ensui adds. His feet are up on his desk, neatly covering whatever documents he had or had not been working on. "We're getting more work assigned to us next month anyway. It would be pointless."
At this point, she's given up on that.
"Who even gives you more work? I've never seen you answer to a superior."
Ensui gives her a flat look.
"The Hokage. The Jounin Commander. Who do you think?"
Seiko sits down on his desk since there isn't another chair in the room.
"Thought that the Jounin Commander doesn't assign missions through us."
"He doesn't. Other way around, we pass statistics on to him."
Ensui's hand drums on the desk. Bad sign, only does that when he's got something to say that she won't like. Her fault for coming up here instead of waiting the weeks it would have taken Ensui to walk downstairs and tell her then.
"I've been trying to get you cleared to work on ANBU stuff," Ensui finally says. "It's usually limited to former agents only, but most of those types don't do paperwork."
He's as good as admitted he's former ANBU without saying it. Should she be surprised? Maybe he's not even 'former'.
"I don't need to be cleared," Seiko says. "You can do that stuff."
Ensui ignores her great point.
"You're going to need to go before the Hokage and one of his advisors whenever they find a clear spot in the schedule. It's just a formality."
"What if I don't go?"
Ensui looks at her.
"I wouldn't recommend that."
Of course.
"I came here because I had a question," Seiko says instead. "Do you think sacrificial techniques are suicide?"
The chair that he'd been precariously tipping backwards onto two legs nearly falls all the way to the ground.
"No," Ensui says, once he's no longer at risk of sudden adult death through stupidity.
"Why not? Do you have any?"
"...No." Ensui's fingers unconsciously curl into an approximation of the Rat seal as he stares at her. "But any technique can be a 'sacrifice technique' if you use up all of your chakra to cast it."
Seiko tips her head forward, interested.
"So that's not suicide."
"No. That's just using all the weapons at your disposal."
"So it's using your own life as a weapon."
Ensui crosses his arms.
"You know, technically a 'sacrificial technique' doesn't have to be fatal. Sometimes it's just damage. If what you did to escape Chiyo Poisontongue was repeatable, it might meet the definition."
He sounds almost defensive. But what's he even defending?
"I didn't mean to lose so much," Seiko murmurs. "I guess I was too optimistic."
"Seiko," Ensui says. "Why are you asking about this?"
That's a good question. She doesn't answer it.
"Do you still train?"
A pause.
"...I'm still combat operational," Ensui says, voice now very, very edgy. "Most Nara techniques are trained within the mind."
"I used to do sword katas," Seiko says. "Every morning. At sunrise."
She still gets up at sunrise and walks Biter. She likes the dawn, and sleep is not something that treats her well.
"That doesn't sound fun."
She blinks.
Fun? Was that something she forgot to ask about?
"Was it fun for you? Learning the Nara stuff."
Ensui shrugs.
"While I was doing that I didn't have to do chores."
"Lazy bastard."
"Hey."
One of Seiko's hands reaches out to press down on the squishy ball she'd brought to work before it rolls off the table and hits Biter on the way down.
Hand exercises... they certainly didn't feel good.
Maybe that's a sign that they were working?
She glances down at the scroll telling her to report to the Hokage's office.
So soon... he should just come down here. To talk to her.
"Isn't that right, Biter..."
Resigned, Seiko reaches down and pulls the forehead protector that hangs around his throat off, wrapping it around her wrist instead.
She's already limping heavily by the time she reaches the office and gives a dull knock.
"Come in."
The Hokage sits at his desk, a pleasant smile on his face beneath the shadow of his red and white hat.
Standing next to him behind the desk is Danzo Shimura, white bandages covering half his face while he wears a dark gray yukata with one fully white sleeve.
Seiko tilts her head forward in a vague approximation of a bow, and refrains from kneeling. Her leg hurts.
"Ah, Seiko," The Hokage says. "It's good to see you again."
She can't say the same.
"Ensui said you guys needed to see me."
Danzo gives her a cold glance, not appreciating her lack of formality.
"Seiko Hatake," he says. "Your career path has been... unusual."
"Genin at age 9. Four C-Ranks, all completed," Seiko says. "One S-Rank, also completed with significant casualties. No further missions. Promoted to Chunin at age 10."
She's eleven now.
"Promoted to Chunin through a trial overseen by the Hokage," Danzo says. "I can only assume your performance was more than satisfactory."
"It was quite enlightening," the Hokage says. "Seiko, do you know why you are here?"
"I need a higher clearance," Seiko says.
Hopefully she won't get it.
"You are here," The Hokage says, "Because I am impressed with you, Seiko. The mission desk is-- pardon me for saying this-- a thankless task with a very high turnover rate. Much the way that ANBU's secrecy requirements mean that ninja who go that route often go years or decades before getting their incredibly earned promotion and public recognition of a jounin of Konoha, the desk restricts upwards mobility. Recognition is a hard thing to sacrifice."
"It wasn't a sacrifice," Seiko says.
"Recognition is an unnecessary thing for a shinobi to begin with," Danzo says. "All it does is give information to your enemies."
That's a rich thing to say from someone forever pissed off he wasn't chosen to be Hokage.
"It wasn't a sacrifice," Seiko clarifies. "For me. I am sure there are many who struggle every day not to be overlooked for their efforts."
Danzo sneers.
"Quite so," the Hokage says. "In any case, you've remained loyal to Konoha even under deeply trying personal circumstances."
It's strange to think of 'just living day to day' as 'showing loyalty'. What should she have done instead? Left the village?
She supposes she could always sell village secrets to an enemy in exchange for moving there. But why would she do that? There aren't any villages better than Konoha. And she'd have to go there. On foot.
"It's the least I could do," Seiko says.
The Hokage smiles at her. There's that same tinge of sadness as she saw when he'd forced her to make chunin.
"I wanted to ask you something, Seiko. A few months ago, two different genin teams of the same composition came to ask you for missions. The first, the one with my son in it, received a D rank. The second received a C rank. What was your thought process?"
She liked Gai more.
"I'm not familiar with the jounin-sensei in charge of Asuma, Kurenai, and Raido, and so had to work with the fact that based off my previous experience with Asuma, I think some time improving teamwork and having a few in village mishaps under the team's belt before their first more dangerous assignment would be best. On the other hand, I know who Chouza Akimichi is, and I think he's more than capable of handling a C Rank gone wrong. In addition, Might Gai, who was added onto the team, is incredibly talented and skilled at working in groups. He'll be able to cover for his teammates until they improve."
Danzo's eye sharpens. It's clear he disagrees with some parts of her conclusions, but not with the information she used to make those judgments.
"So Asuma's status as my son didn't factor into your decision?"
Seiko nearly rolls her eyes.
"It factored in because he's been in the tower more often than most Academy students due to his status, so I already know his personality."
His personality: annoying brat.
"I see." The Hokage settles back into his seat. "One final question, and then you can go. Under what circumstances would you betray Konoha?"
..
Seiko stares at him, to check that he's serious. And then she gives it some thought.
"If I was tortured. I'm not good with pain."
Or if Kakashi defected, but like... her brother isn't going to do that.
"She doesn't need the seal." Ensui's arms are crossed as he looks over at Lizard.
Lizard looks back at him, and then down at Seiko.
"I wasn't told this was for you. My apologies. It won't work anyway: we've tried putting seals on her left arm before and they don't work. Nothing can connect into her system."
Seiko's eyes flick between the two.
"Just put it on," she says. "It's fine if it doesn't work."
"It might explode," Ensui says.
"So we won't do it next to you."
Lizard goes silent. It's hard to see anything beyond the mask, but there's an odd edge of contemplation in the air.
"You'll owe me a favor," she says to Seiko.
"For putting on a seal that doesn't work?"
"For lying about it in my report."
...
She honestly doesn't even really know what the seal should do.
"The rumors about ANBU seals are that they're like.. Dead man's switches. Meant to prevent enemy capture."
Ensui snorts while Lizard lets out an amused huff.
"While I can't speak about what seals ANBU do or do not have," Ensui says drily. "You're not getting the full version either way. Some of our files have seals on them that resonate with the seal you're getting and prevent you from speaking about anything you read in that sealed scroll."
So, just keep her mouth shut.
Lizard pushes Ensui several feet back before she pulls her inkbrush back out and gently paints the seal onto Seiko's arm.
Seiko, naturally, feels nothing. She watches in fascination as the seal flares a little, black ink almost seeming to struggle to settle onto her skin before it stops moving.
"It failed to take root," Lizard says. "I'll find you when I need you."
She leaves as fast as she came.
Seiko looks over at Ensui.
"I didn't realize getting clearance would be such a pain," she says.
Ensui scowls, looking almost guilty.
"Clearance and authority are how you stay here. In the tower," he says. "Or else they start pulling you into the analyst or tracker divisions."
More authority, to give her the option of staying here, which she had said she wanted. But the result is a binding seal. Less agency, as she'd put it in front of Might Duy.
She'd been thinking about it ever since 'Heto dropped by. Why not quit the ninja corps entirely after the third war ends and they allow people to quit again. Unlike Hoheto, she can do that. There's no longer even any awkward familial encounters to avoid at home.
Her dad had chosen to sacrifice his honor for his teammate's life. She's sure, at the time, that that was something he thought he could live with.
She'd chosen to sacrifice her mobility because she wanted to live. She'd known as she sliced down that it was going to be bad. Maybe that's what he'd felt when he failed to turn back. He'd known it was going to be bad, but not how bad. Not how long.
So, then. In Might Duy's eyes, a sacrifice technique is a blessing, because it allows you to protect something that without it, you would be too weak to protect.
Kakashi will be fine without her.
She shouldn't not train just because she's scared of being requalified. That's losing something for nothing. A binding seal that does nothing.
Biter buts his head against her knee and she fumbles to scratch him.
...
She wants to protect the life she sacrificed her stupid sword arm for.
Her dad had sacrificed his reputation and what he'd ended up with hadn't been enough. She's not like him, she wants to have--
She wants to have a good life. One that's fun. One where she didn't cut away her friends along with the chakra strings.
Ensui cuts through her thoughts.
"Something on your mind, Seiko?"
She sighs.
"I need to do more wrist exercises. I can't scratch Biter's ears like this."
Just as she's pushing Ibiko and Tokara and whoever else back out the door with their first D rank mission in hand, some more new genin tumble in through the door. Obito's hands are laced behind his head as he walks in with a little bit of undeserved swagger, while a young Rin slips in behind him. And then, behind her--
Kakashi meets her eyes from his position almost behind Minato Namikaze. His eyes flick away uncomfortably and twitch around the room.
Obito and Rin had both made genin at 10. It's a pretty impressive graduating age, though of course, nothing compared to Kakashi's. And if the graduation exam had been held even a few months earlier, then maybe Rin would have been able to say she graduated at 9.
Not that that's anything to brag about. Her twelfth birthday has come and gone without fanfare, and soon her thirteenth will do the same. She's old enough to leave the village for work at a distant outpost, if she ever grows too weary and tired. Though maybe her injuries are too distinctive?
"Hey!" Obito yells, and his young voice overlaps with Asuma's, and Gai's, and more from people whose names she doesn't even recall. "We're here to take a real ninja mission!"
She looks at Kakashi, who's slumping into his scarf, mask not enough to hide his embarrassment at being associated with his own peers.
"Is that so?"
She turns her gaze to Minato.
He's watching her, smile fixed in place.
"Hello, Hatake-san," he says. "It's a pleasure to see you again."
So formal.
"You've got a full group, this time," Seiko says. She could speculate on the politics of the choice, if she wanted to. But there likely hadn't been anything too drastic. Maybe Minato had just wanted Kakashi to have friends.
"Yes, it's so exciting! Do you still have that mission we did last time?"
Obito immediately brightens up.
"Anything Kakashi did, we can definitely do!" He proclaims. Then he peers more closely at her. "Hey, wait a second! You're that lady from..."
She's been promoted to adult so easily in his eyes. It must be the grey hair.
Obito claps his fist into his open hand.
"The grocery store! I told you guys I wasn't lying about why I was late that day!" He eyes her anxiously, as if she's about to drop his mission scroll like she had her vegetables. To be fair, she might.
Kakashi starts a little, as if the idea that his sister is also now doing the same things that he is doing is baffling to him. They both live alone, after all. What does he expect?
"The same mission it is, then," Seiko says. It's not like she's ever going to be short of D-Ranked babysitting missions. She hands it over to Obito, who rushes back to Rin, cheering and showing it off due to the fact he hasn't opened it yet. Rin gives the scroll a wary look.
"Kakashi already knows the place," Minato says, smile still present on his face. "Why don't you guys go ahead?"
Kakashi looks between Minato and Seiko with deep reluctance, but it's not like he's going to disobey Minato's request.
He nods, and slips out of the building, Obito and Rin at his heels.
Seiko tilts her head a little.
"Did you need something else...?"
The smile on Minato's face instantly cramps up.
"I wanted to apologize for last time," he says. "Kakashi didn't mention you were his older sister until after we'd already left the building."
It still feels like she's missing something.
"It's not an important piece of information," Seiko says. "I've heard good things about you from Hoheto. He's a pretty good judge of character-- Kakashi is lucky to have you."
Minato's shoulders shrink a little, which only makes his spiky blonde hair stand up straighter.
"I don't mean to pry," he starts, which is a prelude to prying if Seiko's ever heard one. "But Kakashi mentioned you were... Injured."
"I don't think he said it like that," Seiko says dryly.
"Ahem. No. But, I wanted to ask if there was anything specific you were struggling with. I talked to my girlfriend--" He blushes a little as he says this, which is incredible-- "Because the Uzumaki have a lot of knowledge on healing that other clans don't. And she said, basically, that healing seals aren't really meant to heal people, they're meant to... Compensate for something the body wouldn't do naturally. Which is a fascinating way of looking at sealing that really helped me with my own work, but anyway-- ah, I'm going about this all wrong."
Minato takes a deep breath.
"Do you have something that you can't do that you want to do?"
She's never gotten hit by a truck before. She imagines it must have some of the same level of disbelief, a normal person walking across a crosswalk and seeing a truck and thinking 'surely they are going to stop, aren't they?' There's lines painted on the ground, after all.
But lines are social, trucks are physical.
She sucks in a deep breath, complaints piling up against her teeth, and swallows them all back down.
Biter shifts at her feet, sensing the plummeting of her mood.
Does she have something she can't do that she wants to do.
"Namikaze," she says.
And now Minato also catches on to the wobble in her voice, because he looks even more alarmed than Biter.
And that's finally enough for her to laugh at him instead of cry.
"You're more similar to Kakashi than I thought," she says, after that's done. It's not really a compliment, but it's not not a compliment.
She tilts her head a little.
"Crutches," she says. "I can't use the ones they have around here. Can't grip onto their handles." She can get them under her armpits, sort of, but then the grip... they should make more things for people whose hands don't work.
Seiko blinks a little.
"Not that you have to do anything," she tacks on hastily. "It's not--"
"You should come over for dinner sometime," Minato says happily. "Uhm, I'll be cooking and not Kushina, in case you've heard any substanceless rumors about her cooking habits. Let's do it when I'm back in the village in a few months! Alright."
He's out of the room before she can decline it.
Seiko slowly sinks back down into her seat.
If this is anything like whatever Minato's enemies feel when they see him on the battlefield, it's no wonder why he's such a terrifying foe.
When she turns thirteen, the biggest news in the war is that Sasori of the Red Sands-- 15 this year-- has abandoned his own side to become missing nin. It's good for Konoha, but it's an ugly type of news. It's put next to Tsunade of the Sannin, who's gone on extended sabbatical from Konoha, and the news Zabuza of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, who killed every other genin in his brutal graduation.
But he's still with the Mist.
And Zabuza hadn't been directly in line to be the next Mizukage, unlike Tsunade or Sasori.
The White Fang is dead. The Raikage is dead. The Uzumaki are destroyed, the country of Rain pillaged.
The war at its tipping point, where all the villages have definitely lost more talent than even ten years of peace could recoup.
Seiko stares down at the newest little genin in her office.
Shisui Uchiha, age 5, stares back at her. His hair is a bit curlier than most Uchiha.
There's a bit of crumpling in her chest. It's going to be a bad year.
"You've got a jounin-sensei?" Seiko checks in with him. "I don't see one with you." Mostly Uchiha have Uchiha jounin, which is theoretically speaking because they can train the younger ones to use the sharingan, and practically speaking, a bad idea.
"It's my second uncle," Shisui says. He's got a reassuring smile on his face, which fails to reassure her. "He'll be here in a second."
Fugaku Uchiha does, indeed, show up within five minutes. He looks deeply harried by life and not particularly happy to be here, which is fair. Well, at least he's older than Minato. By a little bit.
Seiko reaches for her D-Ranks and hands it to him. Not babysitting, she's not putting a baby through that. They can go chase cats.
Fugaku glances at the scroll and grimaces.
"No," he says. "We're not doing that."
"Okay," Seiko says, deciding if she wants to get into a fight with someone while in front of an impressionable kid. Sure, why not. "Goodbye, then."
He stares at her.
"We're not taking the mission," he repeats himself. "I'll do a C-rank with him." He stares at her pointedly. "Chouza Akimichi got a C-rank."
Gods preserve fools and idiots.
Shisui looks between the two of them with an increasingly forced smile.
"I can do a C-Rank," he promises her.
"Great. Go do this mission and then come back for one."
The conversation stalls out again as Fugaku clamps his mouth shut, arms crossed as he stews up his next argument.
The silence is sadly fleeting.
"I don't need to take missions from the mission desk," he starts next. "He can accompany me on police patrols."
"You're right," Seiko agrees. "You don't have to do this. Here are some alternatives. You can operate within the Uchiha Police roles. You can go over my head and talk to my boss, Ensui Nara. You can go over Ensui's head and talk to his boss, the Hokage."
Shisui looks between the two of them, smile finally faltering.
"Uncle...?"
"You've made the wrong choice," Fugaku says crisply, holding the D-Rank in one clenched hand.
The next week, Yakumi Uchiha is back to working alongside Seiko at the front desk.
"Hey," Yakumi says. "I thought you were never gonna stick around this place. Glad I was wrong."
It seems like the Uchiha weren't so busy they couldn't spare her from the force afterall.
"It's nice to see you back," Seiko agrees. "What were you doing over there?"
Yakumi rolls her eyes.
"I was doing Fugaku's secretary work, what do you think? The Clan Head before him died a few years ago and he's been running the Police, then getting deployed out for combat missions, and also supposedly running the whole clan-- but you know how it goes. It's okay, the clan is large enough to mostly manage itself. Thought I was never gonna get out of there."
Yakumi leans her head on her hands.
"But, like, Seiko. I have to be in charge of handing out the Uchiha missions. I used to do that, but I guess somebody thought it was fine until he ran into something he didn't like."
"You know this feels... Very blatant," Seiko says.
Yakumi shrugs.
"You think the Nara get nothing from having Ensui run this place? Well. Honestly, they probably do get nothing, Ensui is like that. But everyone thinks they get something, so it all shakes out."
It's a very Uchiha perspective.
"He isn't going to go after me personally?" Seiko checks.
"What? Oh, no. I mean, you're Clan Head, right? He'd have to argue with a twelve year old orphan in front of every Clan Head in Konoha. Over a single mission assignment? His first ever interaction as a jounin-sensei? That would be humiliating."
"I think it's too late for it to not be embarrassing for him," Seiko says. And she's thirteen now, not twelve.
Yakumi sighs.
"As long as he just drops it," she says. "It'll be fine."
The months that Minato had promised he'd be back in the village for had vanished as he remained stuck as the anchor that Konoha's battle plans relied on, needing to be everywhere at once and so unable to actually be within Konoha.
And so, instead of doing that, Seiko goes back to the hospital under Nono Yakushi's watchful eye.
"We've been doing some more consulting with Ensui," Nono tells her. "We've been focusing more on your knee than the rest of your issues, but aside from asking Orochimaru to come in and consult about the poison, it's a bit of a dead end. And not worth the village's time due to both Chiyo and Sasori no longer being active combatants."
"No Orochimaru," Seiko says very quickly. "It's not necessary."
Nono stares at her from underneath her spectacles, but says nothing more about that..
"Moving on to your left arm. You have no sensation at all, correct?"
"Phantom pains," Seiko says. "Sometimes it will twitch without my conscious will."
"That's actually a good sign," Nono says. "The more the chakra can be convinced to act like nerves, the better off the arm will be." She makes a check mark on her clipboard. "Can you form hand seals?"
"Not...really."
"Well, make an attempt."
A brutal hour later, both of Seiko's hands have started to shake so badly that she can't hold a basket handle.
"A range of five to fifteen minutes for the formation of one non-functional seal," Nono says. "That's unfortunate."
"You're telling me," Seiko mutters.
Biter whines a bit next to her, tail thumping the floor.
"Yes." Nono gives a simple nod. "Not all is lost, though. You've heard of one handed sealing?"
She's got to be joking.
"I know what it is."
"Yes, it's a rather difficult technique. But if you're ever going to be using jutsu again, it won't be with your right arm. Or, if that seems overwhelming, you could work on developing chakra strings," Nono says. "Like the Suna puppet masters. They don't need their hands to fight."
Seiko's mouth tenses a little. She's not doing that.
If she's ever to use proper jutsu again...
"Okay," Seiko says halfheartedly. "I'll work on it."
She gets up to leave, only for Nono to press a bundle into her hand. Her right hand, so she actually notices.
"Pain suppressants," the healer says. "Emergencies only."
Seiko clumsily tucks the bundle away, surprised. An emergency...what type of emergency would Seiko ever have? She doesn't leave the village. Though, of course, some dangers you just learn to live with.
"Thanks," Seiko says. "If that's all--"
"You know," Nono says, large glasses partially obscuring her eyes. "I recently got my application to open an orphanage accepted."
The vague sense of recognition that Seiko had firmly ignored finally blooms, whispering unwanted information alongside it. Such an unpleasant piece of knowledge. So is the orphanage deliberately a recruiting pool for ROOT, not any more of a recruiting pool than any other orphanage, or a genuine hope that will eventually become poisoned?
"Congratulations," Seiko says. "Are you going to be stepping down from your current job?"
"You know how it is," Nono says, hand on one cheek. "I'll be going onto lessened duties while I take on my new responsibilities. Konoha may be short on med-nin... but it's also rather overflowing with orphans."
Having Yakumi back at the desk has caused Seiko to re-remember that she can take days off, mostly through the fact that Yakumi's take on it is so absolute.
"In the field, you work and you work, and then you go home and you don't take a mission for at least a week," Yakumi tells her casually, the evening before she takes two days off in a row. "That's common sense. So why the hell would I be here every day of the week!? Only a sucker would do that. And Ensui. See you, Seiko-chan~"
And, true to her word, Yakumi simply doesn't come back for another couple of days.
It feels completely different to work everyday when it's just her and Ensui than working everyday when Yakumi obviously doesn't have to. But... what else would she do? If she eventually leaves the desk completely after the war... what will she do instead?
...
Also, why doesn't Ensui take breaks?
Seiko stares across from Ensui as he hands her ANBU restricted files to sort through. Because her seal isn't properly set, she has to deliberately trigger the chakra in her arm in order to read them. Such a pain.
There isn't any written record of what ANBU do. That would be absurd... So instead, these are stripped down to code names and success and injury records. 'Lizard: 20 Mission success. 15 Missions as lead. 1 personal injury. 3 team casualties as lead.'
It's almost nothing, but if you have the right context, then it means everything. It's a pretty good system.
"You're always here," she says to Ensui. "If you hate work so much, you could be like Yakumi."
Ensui snorts.
"She's the weird one, wanting to go back to the Uchiha district so often. It's not like she's older than me, you know? Hanging out there is just asking for her elders to give her more stuff to do. Oh, you look like you're free, why don't you go out and train some more? Why don't you run down to the store and pick up a couple of things for me? Oh, I was speaking to your aunt the other day and she said her son had just been promoted to special jounin, what about you?"
He clicks his tongue, eyes half closed.
"Does that sound like resting to you?"
Seiko rolls her eyes.
"You're already a jounin. You'd be the son of the aunt that was bragging, right?"
"I wonder..." Ensui mutters.
Again with his dislike of his own clan. But that's his business.
"I told you before, didn't I?" Seiko muses. "I used to do sword katas every morning."
Ensui glares at her.
"You're talkative today."
She ignores him. She actually used to be very talkative, now that she thinks about it. She'd talk to Hoheto and Kiryomu about anything. About the war, about her family, about the fact that Kiyomu and Hoheto both blatantly cheated at any game they played.
And then talking to people had gotten very tiring.
"It was fun," she says. "Doing sword katas. I was good at them, and it was fun."
"...How admirable," Ensui says. Though he doesn't sound very admiring.
"Isn't it?"
She's still going through the paperwork while up in Ensui's room. Even though Chobee used to bring classified documents down to the main desk all the time, she's not that careless.
"I can't leave," Ensui says, answering her earlier question. "My job is to guard the building. If it's open, I'm here."
He's mentioned something like that before, but it's still strange to hear. It's like her, probably. He could leave if he recruited someone to hang out here on his days off.
"You could--" Seiko starts, and then both of their gazes snap over to the new urgent knock at the door.
Yakumi looks completely bewildered.
"Seiko-chan," she says. "Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki. Here to see you."
Her eyes say 'get them out of my normal day. Right now.'
Minato waves at her as she finally emerges back into the front room.
"Look, Kushina!" He says, slinging an arm around the shoulders of his girlfriend. "Doesn't she look just like Kakashi?"
Kushina Uzumaki tucks her bright red hair behind her ear and gives a huff. She pulls away from his arm, hands on her hips as she stares down at Seiko. Her eyes are darker than Seiko would have thought, the wear and tear of life that Minato withstands so brightly trapped within them. Or maybe that's just the demon fox.
"Her chakra's even pricklier than his," Kushina says, snorting a little. "A family full of little hedgehogs."
She'd forgotten Kushina could do that.
"You guys didn't have to come here," Seiko says. A tinge of wariness creeps through her. They wouldn't be acting so casually if something bad had happened to Kakashi, so it's not that. "I'm not difficult to find."
"Yes, but we're here to pick you up!"
Kushina says, brightening up.
Huh?
"It's almost dinner time," Minato says. "If Kushina hadn't sensed you still in the building, I'd have assumed you'd already long gone home."
"I don't..."
Biter makes a small pitiful whine at her feet. He wants dinner.
Seiko sighs. If he wants to put up with helping her walk across the village, who is she to argue?
"Well, it looks like I'm free," she says instead, not even attempting to disguise her rapid change of mind.
"Wonderful!" Minato says, clapping his hands together. "I'm so glad this all worked out. I was worried that without enough advance notice, you might have already had plans with other friends!"
Seiko stares at him for a second, trying to see if he's joking. He doesn't appear to be.
It ends up being much less of a walk than she'd anticipated, due largely to the fact that Minato lives with Kushina in one of the very central town mansions that had previously been reserved for any visiting Uzumaki.
Now, of course, it's completely empty except for the two of them, Kushina's clan almost entirely dead.
"It's a little big," Kushina says, half heartedly apologetic as Minato moves ahead into the kitchen. "We don't really use half of the place, and I just got back from the Mist... my grandmother got sick of it and personally went way overkill, putting even anti-dust seals everywhere to keep it nice, so at least there's that."
"That's fine," Seiko says politely. "My house is like this as well."
A dead silent beat in the conversation drops before Kushina snickers, giving Seiko's shoulder a friendly slap.
"Yeah, I'll believe that! Well, then, we've gotta swap tricks!" Her smile is bright and cheery and Seiko blinks for a second, dazed by her resemblance to her own son. "Come on, Seiko-chan, sit down while you talk." She pulls out a chair around the small table set up near the kitchen. "You gotta help me out! What do you do, living in a giant cavern like this?"
Biter butts his head against Seiko's leg, and she reaches down to clumsily pet his head as she tries to think.
"Uhh..." Seiko sits up straight, unused to being in other people's homes. Oh no, wait, what if Minato cooks something that's going to show how difficult it is for her to use chopsticks... "Well, I don't spend a lot of my time inside. I have-- I mean, if you ever for some reason need to visit my house, my mother used to work very hard on our garden, so the best place is actually on the porch. Um, there's two layers-- there's the outer facing part, but most of the prettiest parts used to be in the inner courtyard..."
"Ohhh," Kushina breaths out, leaning forward with both elbows on the tables. "That's a good idea! There's an inner set up in this place too, but it's just another place to set up targets for practice. And I don't need that anymore..." She laughs again. "Actually wait, I need somewhere I can really blow things up. Sometimes you just gotta do that, so maybe not a great spot for some flowers! But I like it, I like it. You can't just hang seals everywhere and call that decoration."
Kushina waves her hand at the room they're sitting in dismissively.
Seals hang from every door and window, black ink on beautiful scrolls of fabric and parchment. Though perhaps for someone who can actually read the various symbols, they lose a little bit of mystique, and might instead feel more like living in a world where every window has a giant label that says WINDOW: DO NOT OPEN. Which might lose a little charm after a while.
"It makes a statement," Seiko says.
Kushina rolls her eyes.
"It's boring as hell, believe it," she says. "Maybe--" she cuts herself off as Minato comes back into the room with a bunch of steaming bowls carefully balanced in his arms. "Minato, this isn't the grocery store!! You don't need to take everything in one trip!"
He's wearing an apron.
"That's because you already take all the bags yourself," Minato says, casually setting down his various burdens, which thankfully include soup, which she probably won't drop in her lap and burn anything with. "So there's nothing for me to hold."
"That's what the chains are for, Minato!!"
He sits down at his own place setting and they both dig in, tactfully ignoring both that she puts a bowl of food from the table down on the ground for Biter, and that she's occasionally forced to use chakra to stick her utensils to her hands to avoid something falling to the floor.
It's delicious, way better than what she eats when on her own.
After she finishes eating, she once again feels Minato's eyes fall on her, heavier than before.
"Seiko-chan," Minato says.
She had been trying very hard not to have hopes about this.
Seiko stares back at him, mouth suddenly glued shut. At her feet Biter stops eating his own seconds, going still and watchful, though not quite wary enough to stand up from sitting.
"We put a lot of thought into your requests," Minato says. "Me and Kushina both."
Kushina nods definitively, still chewing.
The devices he sets down on the table seem oddly small for what she'd asked of him, almost like strange archery arrow guards, where instead of the main amount of leather being used to protect the soft inner arm, that leather has shrunk to a smaller strip etched with countless seals.
As Minato helps her put them on, that leather strap settles to cover the outer part of her forearm, following the bone from pinky to elbow. It's completely smooth except for an odd metal patch halfway down.
Seiko examines both of her arms carefully. Even if whatever they're supposed to help her with doesn't work, at least they're not bad as a fashion statement.
"Okay," Minato says, sounding excited. "I first came up with a way to trigger this effect through seals, but then I-- well, Kushina,-- realized that might not work out. For you. Might even make it completely useless! So with enough practice, you should just be able to trigger it with pure chakra and will, just like anyone--"
That does sound like something a genius specializing in chakra manipulation would say.
"But before that day comes, I came up with a different solution. You just need to slide your fingers across the metal plate and press down. Try it!"
Seiko carefully took her left hand and dragged it down the hard leather until her fingers finally connected with the cool metal. Even if the magnitude of how much her hands were shaking couldn't stop her from a simple weight distribution.
As she presses down, there's a soft click, and then all of the seals light up, for a second, a light blue glow sparking out of them and then--
The metal cap jerks to the side and a long wooden rod, every inch papered over with more seals, extends down to the ground from her mid forearm.
Seiko tentatively stands up from the table as she clicks the other one, and then stills as she's finally able to take some pressure off her stupid, uncooperative knee. Her hands flex and tremble with no effect, as the ability to keep herself balanced and upright is no longer contingent on her having working hands.
"It's still a prototype," Minato says immediately. "I wanted to have some ability to adjust the length on the fly, or change where exactly along the forearm the wood can come out of. Actually, my initial first idea was simply to try and manipulate gravity so that there wouldn't be a physical crutch at all, but I just couldn't get that to work in such a short period of time. I'm already working on a better version-- ah, a lot of this is just a modified storage seal with some weight corrections and sensors thrown in--"
Biter's tail is wagging so hard that he almost knocks over Seiko's abandoned chair. He bounces up to his feet and then rears up, paws landing up on Minato's shoulders as he starts licking the man's face.
Seiko blinks, then blinks again as her eyes go damp.
She tries out the crutches again, testing her new walking pattern. She doesn't even have to use her left leg at all-- she can completely lean on the left crutch and then put the right crutch forward and then simply step forward with her right and drag the other leg with it. She doesn't have to put any pressure on it at all.
Seiko swallows.
"B-biter," she mutters. "Don't do that to him, you'll knock him over."
As if to contrast that statement, Kushina herself flies over to Seiko's side, picking her up and twirling her around as if she weighs nothing at all.
"Do you like it!?" Kushina says, beaming. "Oh my god, you're smiling! You have such a pretty smile, Seiko-chan!"
Is she? Does she?
"I-" Seiko's voice is rough. "Thank you. So much. Both of you."
She'd bow if she were on her own feet.
"I don't know how I'll repay you for this."
It's hard to focus even after Kushina sets her back down. Biter has completely ignored her order in favor of sticking his giant wet nose in Minato's throat.
"Oh, you don't need to worry about that," Kushina says, eyes still glowing with warmth. "Designing this was soo much fun! We used to use seals for all sorts of stuff back in Uzushiogakure-- lots of stuff that wasn't just warfare. This brings me back... even if I had to reinvent a lot of stuff that I couldn't quite remember..."
"I'm serious," Seiko says quietly. "You didn't have to do this. I'll remember it."
"No, you really don't--"
Minato puts a hand on Kushina's shoulder.
"Just pay us back by being nice to Kakashi when he's older, okay?" He says. "I know he doesn't really want to burn all the bridges he's set on fire."
At that, Seiko finally has to laugh.
It's a sweet sound, barely bitter at all.
"I know," she says. "He's not a bad kid."
And she does love him.
A/N: for those who'd like even more visualization, look up "platform crutches". She's got a Naruto-esque take on them.
Ensui set a weird looking package down on her desk. It's a green bag that's been kind of sloppily sealed with some wire.
Seiko looks at him. Had he waited for Yakumi to take a day off to make absolutely sure it was her that got saddled with extra work? Now that she's finally gotten people to keep a schedule, it's become her own misfortune?
"This had better not be your new way of delivering forms," Seiko says.
"It's not," Ensui says. "Open it."
He's not chewing any gum, which is kind of weird.
The wire is easy to undo even with her hands, and Seiko opens up the cloth to blink in confusion at the clink of carefully packed pill vials branded with the Nara seal. It's a good thing that none of this broke in transit, if these are real Nara medicine balls. The clan's healing knowledge is as valuable as it is secretive.
"Your clan has finally started treating this place like the home address for your mail...?" She suggests.
Ensui scowls, looking testy.
"It's for you," he says. "You're fourteen today."
There's a gap in her understanding of the world for a second as her fingers clench around the bag.
"This is...a birthday present?"
Ensui's been making a vague attempt at growing stubble lately, which in her opinion looks absolutely terrible. It also emphasizes how dark his eyebags are, how fast his eyes skitter away from her.
"My aunts have been nagging and nagging at me about never having gotten to meet 'my genin', even though that's none of their business, and you stopped being one of those right away. They pretty much forced me to take those."
Seiko blinks at him.
Ensui gives an edgy one shoulder shrug, which fails to expand on his lacking explanation in any way.
"Anyway. Never go visit the Nara compound. But also you should if you ever need refills. Those are-- you shouldn't need them. But one of my aunts was just like... what if--"
Ensui swallows and licks his lips.
"If you ever get poisoned again, or take another injury that wrecks the current equilibrium you have with the poison in your body, take one immediately. And another if that one doesn't work. Just... keep them on you, hey?"
There's real fear somewhere underneath his skin. Even though nothing like that can happen while Ensui guards this building.
The joke Seiko had been going to make at his expense dies in her throat.
"Alright," she says.
Underneath Ensui's gaze, she tucks them into a pocket of Biter's vest right next to the emergency pain pills that Nono had given her.
It's only after she's done this that Ensui pops out a new piece of gum and starts chewing, a loud, obnoxious, normal sound.
Maybe that moment of relaxation is what makes Seiko willing to talk to him.
"Ensui," she says. "I feel like I'm surrounded by ghosts."
It's been something that she has to ignore. The fact that everyone she talks to is doomed. Obito and Rin will leave sometime in the next two years, and never return to her desk. Minato and Kushina will follow them to the grave, and then Nono will die one day, on a ROOT mission far from home, and then Shisui will rip his eyes out and seal his fate, and then even Fugaku will not long outlive him. The Hokage will die fourteen years from now, and Danzo will die in sixteen years, and Hoheto will probably die long before then, and then--
"Everyone I talk to," she says. "They don't even know they're dead yet. They don't even know."
She starts a little to feel Ensui's hand awkwardly rest on her upper arm, giving it a couple of pats. It's so terribly out of place that she starts to laugh a little, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Seiko--" Ensui starts.
"No, I know." She can't really hear him. "They're not dead yet, fate might be kind to them, the war will be over soon. But that won't save them. They'll--"
"Seiko!"
Ensui's voice cracks in her ear. It jolts her out of her disjointed ramble, shocked at the emotion in his voice the way she couldn't hear it in her own.
He's kneeling by her chair.
"Seiko," Ensui repeats for the third time. His pink bubblegum has gracelessly popped, leaving a remnant on his lip and cheek, but his eyes are completely focused up on her. "I'm not a ghost, I'm alive."
Seiko nods slowly. That's right, she doesn't know Ensui. He's alive. Even though he haunts this place, he's alive.
"Hoheto is a driven young man. You think he's going to die before he comes back here and complains one last time? Don't be silly. He'll drag himself back here just so he can die at your feet. Don't go writing him off just yet."
Despite herself, Seiko manages a wet snort.
...
She doesn't know Hoheto's fate. He could live. It just seems unlikely, since--
"And what about Chobee? Or Yakumi? You think people like that are just going to drop dead? Seiko, people like them are really committed to slacking off! If the Pure Lands start calling their names, they'll just roll over and pretend they can't hear anything!"
Hypocritical bastard.
And-- it's not going to save Yakumi.
Seiko shivers a little, then determinedly shakes her head, scrubbing at her burning eyes. Naturally, her wrist also picks that moment to twitch and shake, and she ends up hitting herself square in the face.
That--
Burying her face in both hands, Seiko begins to laugh.
Ensui's desperately uncomfortable silence only makes it funnier.
"Ah..." Seiko mumbles, aware that she seems completely hysterical. Not seems. Is hysterical. She is hysterical. She's having a fit of hysteria. "Ensui. Thanks for the present."
The silence somehow seems even louder and funnier, broken only by her quiet wheezes of laughter and Biters keening whine.
"No, seriously. Thanks. By the way, when's your birthday?"
She's known him for four years and never cared to know, but today seems like a special day indeed.
"You're... What. 22?"
"... Something like that."
Seiko finally reaches down to pat Biter. Sorry, sorry. She's back to normal now.
"So your birthday would also be a mystery. Well, that's fine."
She shakes her head once last time to knock loose the rest of the sadness. It's like a sinus infection. You just need to have a fit and then get back to your life.
"Do you--"
A genin team bolts through the entrance of the tower, jounin in tow. One of the boys is proudly waving a scroll over his head.
Oh wait, not just any boy. Asuma grins as he runs towards her.
"That's our first C rank clear!" He yells. "We did it!"
In the seconds it's taken him to make it to the desk, all remnants of weakness have vanished into the shadows alongside Ensui, everything back in its proper place.
"Congratulations," Seiko says, staring down at one of her youngest ghosts. "It seems you have a bright future ahead of you, young man."
"This is a joint gift between myself and my Rival, Kakashi!" Might Guy declares, just like he'd declared last year. It's not true, of course, but she understands why he does it.
Thankfully she's gotten him to agree that in the case that he was also giving presents to Kakashi, that her name would not be involved.
"Thank you, Guy," Seiko says.
Last year he'd gotten her the rocking chair that she's sitting in now. It's a little large for her, built for a full grown adult, but that in itself was its own gift. He'd given it with the hope that she would keep it for a long, long time.
This year, he's got dog treats for Biter.
"These are Special Springtime Biscuits!" He announces loudly, waving it in front of Biter as the dog gives the jar a suspicious sniff.
"Yeah?" Seiko says. "Hear that, Biter? They're special. Maybe if you eat one you'll turn into an alley cat. Or maybe a huge green frog on a lilypad."
Biter's ear flicks in her direction, annoyed. Calling her a traitor just for having a little fun? She can't have a little fun with the fact that this is a few weeks after her birthday, because Guy had been out on a mission?
One of her arms swings out from the chair, the tiniest delay between her trigger of the crutches and the thunk onto the soft wood of the deck as she uses it to stand up before triggering the other side.
It would be mean to call Guy dog-like for the way his head swivels to face her at the same time as Biter's does.
"Have you actually fought my brother yet?" Seiko asks Guy, leaning back onto her crutches as she slowly walks down into the yard. "Or still working up to that."
"I have fought him!" Guy declares proudly. "My Rival will not stay ahead forever!"
"That's good."
She disengages the crutch, then reingages it. The weight is not that bad, really. About the same as carrying a heavy dagger in a wrist brace.
Seiko looks back at Guy.
"Hey," she says. She's a slow speaker, much like her brother. Perhaps speaking to her is Guy's training for how to understand Kakashi. Though she likes to think she's more straightforward than him. And nicer. "There's a short sword in my dad's office. Upstairs."
Sakumo had kept it up there after she'd had that tantrum and threw it through a window.
Her mouth is oddly dry.
"Could you go get it for me?"
It's no wonder that he'll eventually manage to join ANBU, not with how quiet he got when he went to get it and give it to her. You'd think he was a thief in the night, not a vision of spring.
It's not a particularly distinctive blade, for a piece of family heritage.
Seiko uses her right hand to take it from Guy, the one that will still let her feel it. A solid leather wrapped handle. Nothing special.
As she moves to change it over to her left hand, she drops it in the grass.
An odd flush of embarrassment hisses through her as she sighs, shaking her head when Guy moves to pick it back up again. That's what she gets for not immediately sticking it to her palm with chakra.
She still has so much pride left.
Since kneeling on her left knee would be agonizing, she drops down onto her right knee to reach it. She's thought about it. Whether she wants to learn how to fight with her right hand instead of her left.
But, honestly--
She doesn't want to. This is going to be something she's doing because she misses doing it. There's no need for practicality to enter into it. She wants to use her left hand, so even if she drops this stupid thing a thousand more times, she'll do it left-handed.
She reaches out and grabs it, then faces her next issue.
Triggering the crutches when one hand is full is annoying. She's going to need to practice doing this purely through chakra, because it's simply not workable doing it like this. Maybe if she had chosen to emphasize to Minato that her fingers themselves were not nimble--.
But she had not done so.
It's taken her a full ten minutes to simply be standing with the sword in the right hand.
Seiko sighs.
"Sorry about that," she says. Alright, onto the starting line. Time to start rolling this stupid boulder.
Guy is still watching her, fists clenching and unclenching as he resists the urge to help.
"I didn't give you a birthday present when you turned ten," Seiko says.
She'd just forgotten. Her fault, that's the kind of thing that you're supposed to stay on top of.
"That's fine!" Guy says immediately.
Okay, now she really feels bad.
"So I thought..." Seiko trails off awkwardly. "Well, this is helping me more than it helps you. So it's probably not a present at all. I thought... I'd start doing sword katas again. If you want to do those with me. And keeping in mind I will be going. Slowly. Turtle speed."
"I love turtles," Guy says. His eyes are gleaming. "Turtles are my favorite animal. A noble beast whose persistence overcomes all obstacles! Who's mighty shield defends the weak! A green Champion of peace and prosperity! Springtime's Ultimate Form!"
He gives a huge thumbs up as he says this.
But, on top of all of that... he looks like he's crying.
"...Right," Seiko says.
She knows he thinks it's cool and not rude that she and Kakashi are so restrained in their words. Even though it is... not precisely something she's proud of.
Seiko slowly brings her sword up to her waist for the first form, and then has to halt immediately as she figures out an adjustment for only using the right crutch. Medical advice would tell her that if she were to only use one crutch, she should use the crutch on the left, but that's not any good...
She stops, curses, and repositions again.
Then she looks up and sees Guy staring at her cluelessly. Because she hadn't told him what she was doing.
"So...the opponent for this form is first going to be standing directly in front of you. The first slash is targeted towards the stomach."
Speaking like this reminds her of when Sakumo first taught her how to do this.
"I'm going to drop the sword for now. Anything a swordsman can do with a sword, they should be able to do bare handed. A killer kills with anything. Never fear enemy steel."
Her back straightens as she speaks, intonation changing into an intense, flat monotone as she continues to talk to Guy as she remakes the form.
"Step forward. The second strike requires a pivot of the foot, and then a second step to the side. To do that--"
Seiko breaks off, hissing with pain as she fails to achieve the pivot. She grabs onto Guy anyway, recklessly yanking his shoulder off balance as the edge of her palm slides across his neck.
"To do that, I'm going to need to widen the second step, which will heighten the risk of me being pushed off balance by my opponent. That's the price of adaptation. After that, reverse the blade and plunge up the throat through the base of the jaw."
She steps back and shakes her head, knee throbbing from the failed turn, seeing the modified form in her head and hating it. Biter gives her a sharp bark from his seat on the porch.
"No, Biter's right, that's not good at all. Too risky. I'll have to start again from the beginning."
She speaks a lot when she's happy.
...
Guy has been quieter than she thought.
"My apologies for using you as a test dummy. I understand that I'm not properly--"
"You're having fun," Guy says.
Seiko blinks at him.
"... Yes," she says. "This is a hobby."
"Training," Guy says. "You like training."
"It's not training, it's adapting forms to circumstance," Seiko says absentmindedly. "A set of moves can never be perfect, it can only be tested. Repeatedly."
It's something she'd actually used to argue with her dad about. Traditional forms were designed for a reason, but they weren't designed with the knowledge of more commonplace jutsu. The beauty of swordsmanship was precision in the face of change. It's like calligraphy. The same word can be written endlessly, and be different every time.
He's practically shaking.
"I'd like to challenge you to a duel!"
Huh?
"A.. duel?"
"A Turtle Duel!" Guy proclaims. She has to take him seriously, even though he is over three years younger than her and has an unflattering bowl cut and is wearing green spandex.
"And what... is a turtle duel."
"A slow motion fight! Taijutsu against taijutsu! I am gaining in skill just from hearing from you! Just from watching you! Please!"
She's just very bad at saying no.
It becomes an almost clown show in front of the sunset, every move proudly declared beforehand and then painstakingly arced out.
"Strong Fist Style!" Guy proclaims over and over, inventing different strange turtle names for moves that he's obviously never formally bothered giving names to, and in true combat will never use.
And in place of that is Seiko's precise, endless muttering as she continues to stumble around in her own backyard.
"Sword strike slicing down left to right across the chest," She says, leaning heavily onto her right crutch as she pauses mid move and realizes an error. "No, that's inefficient."
Her left hand shivers in the air from an uncontrollable jolt as she sighs and attempts a vertical downwards slash. "Adaptation of the 2nd kata, third movement. Neck to sternum."
She can almost see it. She used to be able to see where to make changes so easily, because she could just do the correct form.
Guy's vulnerabilities are obvious. If she had two legs she could kick in his knee. If she had better aim she could target his elbow joint. If she had--
In the end, it simply gets too dark to see.
"I need to go home," Guy says apologetically. "My dad will worry."
Ah, she's going to regret doing all that tomorrow. Everything that didn't hurt so much while she was having fun is going to keep her up at night.
"Kakashi goes back into the field in two days," Seiko says. "You should catch him before he gives you the slip."
"My orphanage officially opened a few months ago," Nono says, green eyes dull behind her spectacles as she holds Seiko's wrist in her hands. "It's a shame you missed the grand opening."
"I don't need a grand opening to see some orphans," Seiko says. "I do that every day."
Nono snorts, thumb pressing sharply down on one of Seiko's scars for a second.
"Nevertheless," Nono says. "You should come."
It's unlike Nono to imply that Seiko should do something for her. Almost unwillingly, Seiko begins to slowly circulate facts and knowledge, always linking together towards something greater. As always, she hates what she understands, and understands what she hates.
The only remarkable orphan to be produced from Nono's orphanage is Kabuto. There's nothing else to see.
"Nono," Seiko says, staring past the woman who has likely been ROOT for her entire life. Nono's appearance is always bland, light brown hair tied back into a low ponytail. "Have you ever thought about adopting one of the kids as your own?"
"That would be irresponsible of me," Nono says.
She sets Seiko's hand down and kneels down to begin a diagnostic of Seiko's knee.
"But," Nono repeats, for the third time, "You should see them. Make note of their names. Speak to them of the dangers of the life they will live."
Looking down at her head, Seiko has to acknowledge it again. It's not just how Ensui was so, so scared when he gave her those medicine pills. It's not just how she's scared, all the time.
Nono is afraid, too.
But unlike her and Ensui's paranoia, Nono's fear is as real and concrete as the bricks of the orphanage. Her good deed in caring for children will come to naught as Danzo recruits her best and brightest. She cannot stand up against him, and cannot prevent him speaking to Kabuto behind her back.
This will kill her. Kabuto will kill her, or Danzo will kill her through Kabuto. Her desire to fix a small portion of the world will result in her unable to drag her own leg out of that bear trap called an orphanage.
Seiko sits in silence as Nono finishes up.
Well. She has an inkling of what Nono wants from her.
Though of course, there's more than one way to approach it.
"I'll head over on my next day off," Seiko says. Whenever she feels like taking one.
Nono is too controlled to look relieved.
That makes one of them.
...
There are more kids in that place than she'd thought. Most of them give her side-eyed glances, eyes stuck on her crutches while they pretend to be absorbed in their chores. She's halfway to fifteen, so it's not like she's a prospective adopter.
But at the same time, there aren't any kids her age living here. Ninja academy graduates can get different housing... so anyone her age here would have been unable to even become a genin.
Or maybe they were adopted by civilian parents. She shouldn't assume.
Biter approaches each and every child of the orphanage, and sniffs their hands. Even though he doesn't like children.
Nono has called her here to prevent these children from entering ROOT and being erased from the world.
So she asks their names.
"I know you," one of the kids says. She's got blank brown eyes and spiky dark hair tied up in a ponytail. "I've seen you. You buy lunch from that ramen place outside the academy."
It's strange how the things that you do so much that the actions themselves become invisible to you are still visible to other people.
"That's me," Seiko says. "And you are..?"
"Anko Mitarashi!"
Seiko stills.
So, it was arrogance on her part to think that only one person mattered. That was her fault. So Orochimaru's genin had also been orphaned. Anko had a last name, even. So likely not orphaned from birth.
"It's nice to meet you, Anko," Seiko says. "And you'll be a ninja soon, I presume?"
The girl's face lights up.
"Hell yeah I am! I'm gonna pass the test next year, and become the greatest ninja ever! And then I'm out of this dump!" She pauses. "No offense!"
"None taken," Seiko says. A spark of light catches in her throat, so, for some reason, she keeps on talking. "I'm in charge of genin missions," she says. "I'll ask Nono if you've been doing well here. Helping out. And... if she says yes..."
Her crutches make the floorboards creak as she leans forward to whisper in Anko's ear.
"There will be a super fun mission for your first outing. Alright?"
Seiko presses a shaking finger to her lips.
Anko gasps, and then mimes zipping her lips shut, eyes blazing with excitement, joy for being treated for even a moment as a unique and special existence.
"I'll do super well!" Anko shouts. "I'll be the most awesome helper ever!!"
Biter snuffles a bit against Seiko's legs.
Showing bias like that. Well. It's okay. Anko's life will be hard in the future. Her reputation will tank the same way Sakumo's did, and for something completely out of her control, and it will never, ever recover. Not for decades. Her achievement will be smothered in Orochimaru's shadow, never to be untainted.
She's been thinking about it. Retiring from the desk in two more years.
But if she does...
It will be just her and Biter in that big house.
What if Biter gets lonely?
There's another kid tucked away in the corner with a book. He has soft white hair and oversized round glasses that don't fit him properly.
This will be the last one.
It would be appropriate to kneel down to talk to him, since he's so much younger than her.
Of course, she can't do that.
"You've been talking to everyone," Kabuto says. His voice is wavery and faint. "My name is Kabuto. Are you... the friend that Miss Nono said would come?"
Had Nono said something about her?
"Probably."
Kabuto sits in silence with that for a moment.
"You're much younger than Miss Nono," he says.
"And how old do you think Nono is?"
His eyes widen, clearly not having thought about that at all.
"Old," he says.
"And how old is old?"
He has to give this some thought.
"30."
Incredible.
"And how old am I?"
"Miss Nono said you are fourteen and a half," Kabuto says immediately.
It's no fun if he already knows.
"She's not thirty," Seiko says, amused. "She's still in her twenties, you know..."
This difference clearly doesn't mean very much to the kid. He can't be more than five years old himself. A year or so younger than Shisui.
"Kabuto," Seiko says. "What are you going to do when you grow up?"
It's something she's asked most of the kids here. The answer is usually very simple, since they all want to be ninjas. Except for the girl that wanted to open a sweetshop, since then she'd be able to eat as much candy as she wanted.
"I'm going to help Miss Nono."
Her wrists have started to hurt. It's because she's been standing up more than usual. Her forearms also burn. Because of the weight of the crutches that she's still not used to.
"Really? That's a good goal. How are you going to do that?"
There's a pause.
"Miss Nono said I shouldn't brag," Kabuto says, voice quiet. "But you are Miss Nono's friend. So I'll tell you. I'm studying healing."
He still has a bit of a lisp in his voice. He sounds a lot like Kakashi had at that age.
"Miss Nono makes money healing. So I will help her. She says I will be very good in the future."
"Is that so?"
She extends her shaking wrist to him.
"Then, can you tell what's wrong with this little thing?"
Small fingers grasp her wrist, and his eyes narrow in concentration before suddenly widening.
"There's needle holes in your bones," he whispers, both horrified and amazed. "You've got scars on your bones."
She can tell him now. The problem is that he is too skilled. He was born with a weak moral compass and too much skill, so what can be done about it? That's the kind of prize that people simply can't let go of.
And she cannot prevent him from agreeing to join ROOT. Because his levers are too easy to move. Danzo will say this: you joining me will help Nono. You not joining will hurt Nono. So he will agree.
Nono already knows this.
When she was with her own genin squad, she had used to entertain them by drawing out entire scripts. You will say that, so then they will say that, and then in the end, this will happen. And then Kiyomu and Hoheto would bet on if it would happen or not.
She'd said it to Kiyomu.
Because you're clanless, you will always be targeted first. It will never be good for you to be at the front.
Come on, Seiko, that's great! No matter what, I'll always be able to protect you guys!
"Because you're clanless," Seiko says to Kabuto. "Your ties to life are thin. They can be cut off easily, leaving you as a ghost without a name. You'll be left wandering the living world, whispering to yourself 'who am I?' 'What am I?'"
Her voice has not changed from its quiet politeness. Even someone only yards away from her could not tell the difference between the tone as she spoke to every other kid in the orphanage, and the one she was using now.
"Eventually, your glasses will fall through your own form, because a ghost can no longer use mortal devices."
There's a stillness when he looks at her. His hands have not let go of her wrist.
"However," Seiko says. "I see ghosts all the time. So naturally, should your ties to the living world be cut, I would still see you. Keep that in mind, yes? No matter what happens."
She rarely uses her own authority. Because it's not something someone who's planning on retiring from the world of ninjas should do.
"My name is Seiko Hatake," she says. "Clan Head of the Hatake Clan. I expect that when you are older, you'll be talented enough to be able to help me out a little bit. With that in mind, I will sponsor the orphanage."
Everything has to be reasonable. There can be no acknowledgement of ROOT's existence. Seiko can never imply that Nono asked her to do this in case Danzo retaliates against her.
"In exchange, you should come visit my house every few months or so. To update me on your progress." To make sure that you do not one day vanish from the orphanage.
Overtime, the innocence in his eyes will become more and more of a facade as he gains more secrets that he thinks she doesn't know.
He will become arrogant, because he is trusted by so many schemers who all believe he is a loyal and obedient person.
And he will go off course, because his goal is simply to help Nono. But by his very existence, he pushes her hopes for Danzo to leave the orphanage alone further away.
"Alright," Kabuto says obediently. "I will do my best."
She doesn't think her dad will mind spending a bit of the family money on an orphanage. But even so, she has to go to the shrine at the end of the dining table and talk to him.
"I know you thought I'd be fine," she says.
Another long pause.
"I really thought about it. Why did you do that?"
Wind whistles through the air.
"Isn't it because you ran out of hope. So, occasionally. I should do something. Even if I think the kid is going to be fine without me. Because..."
Her voice trails off.
"I don't really think it's true. That a kid can be fine if left alone just because they're a little smart."
Biter rears up, putting his paws onto her shoulders so he can lick her face.
"Right?"
Seiko's voice is gentle.
"They don't have you, Biter. So they wouldn't be fine at all."
A/N: eight chapters in and were still meeting more supporting cast members? yes
![Fallow Fields [Naruto SI]](/data/threadmark-index-icons/l/68/68024.jpg?1675929329){kind=icon}
