Chapter 675: Time's Cold Hand
"Mari, you okay?" Hazō asked quietly.
She looked up at him from her seat by the fire. Her expression was lively, that mischievous smile tugging at her lips the way it always did.
"I'm always fine, Hazō," she said. "Please tell me you're not doing the rounds again? Checking in with everyone, trying to head off drama? That's my gig now and I will have you know that I am on top of it. No problem shall—"
"Mari."
She pretend-glowered at him for a moment...and then gave up and let the vivacious shell slide away to reveal the true face behind it. Or, at least, the next face.
"What's wrong?" Hazō asked, keeping his voice low. Kagome-sensei was starwatching a few dozen yards from the fire, lying on his back on a blanket sturdy enough that neither vampire grass nor boreworms would be able to breach it. His hands were folded behind his head and, the last Hazō had seen, he had worn a quiet smile.
Noburi and Yuno were on a walk, hand in hand while Satsuko chaperoned from Yuno's belt. Tenten had gone to bed. Snowflake and Kei were heads together across the fire, arguing about some point of philosophy (probably?) that Hazō could make neither heads nor fins of. They probably wouldn't notice a low-voiced conversation.
Mari studied him for a moment, visibly deciding whether or not to share, and then shrugged.
"It's a few things," she said. "I look at Noburi and Yuno glowing at each other, and I'm happy for them that they have this relationship, but I'm sad that I never will." The corner of her full lips twitched in something that wasn't a smile but her eyes were far away. "I had my chance, you know. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of when I broke up with Kinu. That was before I switched to I&S; if I had stayed combat track I maybe could have made it work with her. We could have been happy together. That won't happen now."
"It could," Hazō said gently. "You just need to meet the right person." Kinu? Had he heard that name before?
She puffed a laugh. "Hazō, I'm the Lady of a Great Clan. I am never going to have a relationship based purely on love, even if that were possible for me. Plus, I'm an I&S ninja. Relationships are hard enough for any ninja, but for people like me..." She shrugged.
"Mari, are you spiraling again? Back to that whole 'I am a terrible person who can't help but manipulate everyone'? Because we don't have Tsunade with us to kick you out of it, so if you are then I'd appreciate a heads-up so I can go get her."
"I'm fine, Hazō," she said, still staring into the campfire. She was likely staring off into memory and didn't realize her eyes were pointed at the fire. Ninja didn't stare into the fire; it ruined your night vision and left you vulnerable.
Unable to think what else to say, Hazō sat with her, keeping his vision to the side so that he could see the crackle of the flames in his peripheral vision and feel the heat on his face.
"It's the end of September," she said after a time. "My birthday is in a month and it's the last one where I can call myself young."
"You're not old," he said.
"Not for another month, no."
"Oh please. You're...what, twenty-f...three?" He changed his guess quickly when she shot him a narrow-eyed look.
"I'm a woman, Hazō. Men can get rugged or craggy or distinguished as they age. Women just get old. Plus, I'm an I&S ninja. I've spent my entire life training for that. I've given up relationships, the ability to
have relationships with the vast majority of people. I've made love to men and then cut their throats in the afterglow. I've made people fall in love with me and then betrayed them. I've fallen in love with people and then betrayed them. All of those skills, that training, those experiences, I spent an entire lifetime building myself around them. Female I&S ninja have an expiration date, Hazō. Once we get old we aren't as appealing and we lose much of our ability to do the job. What am I if I can't do that?" She waved a hand impatiently to cut him off. "I know, I know. I'm more than my job, I'm valued for who I am, I can still be useful, I haven't been doing I&S work for years now, blah blah. Up here," she tapped her temple, "I know all that."
Hazō sat with that, trying to imagine what Mari must be feeling before he said anything. He wasn't even eighteen.
"If you can't continue as who you were," he said at last, "you'll grow into someone else. You'll grow into whoever you choose to be, and hopefully whoever you want to be."
"Ah, getting very wise very young, I see. I'm not sure what I would have done if you weren't here to help me out of my depression spiral with your insightful words." There was just enough teasing layered under the terribly sincere respectfulness for Hazō to notice.
"I know. I'm glad you appreciate it."
She snorted.
"What would you have done differently?"
She thought about it, still staring into the fire. They had used some logs from their scrolls as starters but most of what was on it was gathered from the surrounding area, and wet. It popped, throwing an ember off into the night.
"I don't know," she said at last. "There are things I regret, things that make me cringe when I remember them, but if I changed anything then I wouldn't be the person sitting here. I...mostly like who I am. Usually. Plus, if I had done things differently then maybe I wouldn't have gone along with Dan's idea of founding Hidden Swamp. I would still be a Mist ninja...well, actually, I'd probably be dead. Yagura and I weren't a good match and...we weren't a good match. If I hadn't chosen you all for the swamp then we wouldn't have found the Pangolin Scroll and used it to join Leaf. You would never have met Kagome and given him the idea for skywalkers. Leaf would never have baited out Yagura, Akatsuki would never had tried their ritual, AMITY would never have existed."
"The Dragons would have destroyed the Seventh Path if you hadn't chosen me for the swamp," Hazō said quietly. "The battle was very close. If the sixth one had been there, the one we killed with the skyslicer, we would have lost. The Dragons would have eaten a dozen Clan Bosses and become unstoppable. You indirectly saved an entire world of people."
"Yay, rah, go me," she said. "It doesn't change the fact that I'm feeling my mortality. Everything I've been is falling away. I've been out of the field long enough that I'm not sure I could do an I&S mission anymore. Even if we somehow beat Akatsuki, open the rift, get Jiraiya and Akane and everyone back...what then? Will Jiraiya still think I'm not marriage material? Maybe he makes a politically better match and I continue as the Gōketsu spymistress. Could I even do that? I pooched it before, with the chocolate."
"Yes, it's true. I suppose you're no good for anything and should go off and become a hermit before you inflict more damage on us. Sure, you kept us alive in the wilderness and raised us up until we became a Great Clan in Leaf, but I'm sure that's all coincidence."
"You're not as funny as you think. Don't quit your day job."
"I am precisely as funny as I think, you just don't appreciate my comedy."
"Hmph."
He chuckled in amusement. And then he slipped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned on him and they didn't speak.
XP AWARD: 1 This was basically an interlude but I'm calling it a chapter and it fits into the timeline, so I'll give at least one point.
"GM had fun" XP: 1 'Fun' isn't exactly the right word, but it was good to write.
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