Interlude: Sauntering Vaguely Downwards
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Interlude: Sauntering Vaguely Downwards
These are my final moments. I can hear them coming, and I know the plan. If we win here—at any cost—the others will have a chance to escape. It won't all have been for nothing.
We already know this will cost some of us our lives. Maybe all of us. That's why I'll be spending the cheapest one first. I never learned any suicide techniques, so I can't create an opening with the wave of a hand. But it won't be hard to remind them how much ninjutsu I know, and then I'll be a priority target, forcing them to focus fire. After all, somebody has to do it.
If I had to name one regret before I die, it's not having made more mistakes. Mistakes are how you learn the boundaries of who you are and what you can do. They're how you develop a sense of identity.
-o-
It's my first day at the Academy today, and I think I'm excited. Apparently, I have lots of chakra, and that means I'm going to be a ninja. I don't know what chakra is, and all the real ninja are too busy to tell me, but I'm sure I'll find out soon.
But does being a ninja mean I'm going to have to fight people? I'm not very good at fighting. I hope there are ninja who do other things. I think there might be ninja who steal things? Mum says stealing isn't wrong if you're a ninja. I don't know how that works.
I hope I get on well with the other children. Mum says she's sure this time I'll make lots of friends.
-o-
I'm unhappy today. I knew the answers this time, and I put my hand up twice but Saka-sensei acted like I wasn't there again. I think it's the loud children who get all the attention, and that isn't fair. I'm not loud—Mum always says I shouldn't cause trouble for people—so at this rate he'll never notice me. Maybe I can do something helpful so he'll have to turn around and tell me what a good girl I am. I think the grease traps need cleaning, and after all, somebody has to do it.
=o-
I still don't think Saka-sensei has noticed. I tried cleaning up the classroom after lessons were over, so maybe that'll help. I think the other children have forgotten I'm there too, because sometimes they don't invite me to things. But the grease traps are very clean now, and that makes me a little happy.
-o-
I think I like a boy. I've never liked a boy before, and it feels much stranger than I expected. I'm scared and excited, and I don't get scared or excited as much as other people. But Satoshi is very handsome, and he's good at everything, and he's so kind to people. I hope he notices me too. I don't know if I'm brave enough to talk to him, but I'm going to try.
-o-
He still hasn't noticed me. I've tried to get his attention three times now, and he brushed me off and kept on talking with his friends. Maybe I could try talking to him a fourth time tomorrow, but I think Kanako's starting to glare at me whenever I go near him. I'm not very good at recognising that kind of thing, so she must be being very obvious about it. Maybe she likes him too?
Kanako is pretty, and very smart, and she's very good at taijutsu and ranged weapons. I'm a bit plain, and I'm not quite as smart as her, and I'm still not a great fighter no matter how hard I try. I'm a little bit sad, but I suppose it was nice while it lasted.
-o-
Graduation is near, and everyone's making their final choices on what to specialise in. I'm still not sure what to do. Taijutsu and ranged weapons are right out. I could be a spy, because I'm patient and I don't draw attention. But you also have to be good at improvising, and initiative isn't a strong point for me. Seduction isn't happening because you have to draw attention, and it takes an interesting person to seduce someone.
I was thinking about becoming a sealmaster, because even though I'm not a genius, you can get a long way through sheer hard work. Besides, if I can learn to make storage seals and explosive tags and so on, I can free up the talented sealmasters' time for more research. After all, somebody has to do it. Only the lab disappeared last night—fortunately, there was only one sealmaster inside at the time—and they won't have finished the next one by the time I graduate. It's probably for the best.
-o-
I finally have a team. I was late joining because Makino-sensei forgot to put my name on the assignment list. My team leader thinks I should focus on ninjutsu, because building chakra reserves and training ninjutsu are both about dedication more than talent. I don't think I'm terribly dedicated, but she seems to have faith in me, so I have to do my best.
I have the Earth Element, apparently, which is good for defence and utility. I like the sound of that. Mayumi and Riku are both taijutsu-spec (which seems like poor balancing to me, but maybe they were last on the list too), and this way I can protect them from things they can't fight up close. And utility ninjutsu is very important because every team needs it, but nobody wants to be the one to learn it.
-o-
There's always next year.
-o-
I'm a chūnin now. Mum would be proud if she was still alive. I did well in the Chūnin Exam—I knew what to focus my training on this time, and I had a more balanced team after Mayumi got promoted. I didn't make it to the end, but I did get above the internal cutoff.
I don't think I'm the right kind of person to lead my own team, so I suppose I should volunteer for one of the chūnin-only teams they use for B-rank missions. They always need more support ninjutsu, and I can use the Water Element now. I'm working on Fire next, for flexibility, but that's mostly offensive, so I'm less keen on it.
Is it strange that I still don't like killing people? That's what being a ninja turned out to be, after all. Everything is about either killing people or laying the groundwork for killing people. It all feels a bit pointless to me. I probably shouldn't tell anyone, though. It'll be hard to express what I mean with my social skills.
-o-
ANBU. How did that happen? ANBU. The village elite. I'm still expecting to wake up.
Apparently, even heroes need support specialists. It feels oddly validating. Also, there's a lot of paperwork to deal with when you get back home, and you can't outsource something full of village secrets.
-o-
I thought it would be different. Stonefish was going to be a field agent, serving the village by protecting its elite as they accomplished important missions. And doing the paperwork. It's surprising how many of the village's heroes are bad with paperwork.
But I never did get to leave the village. Instead, I'm internal support for ANBU investigations into potential traitors and the like. Apparently that's what happens when you end up in a high-trust category. I still don't know why I'm high trust, either—it's not like sticking to the rules is difficult.
Now the paperwork is about people suspected of betraying the village, plans for when and how to capture them, and sometimes the odd T&I report. I don't like reading the T&I reports.
I still keep up with my training every day. Sometimes I spar with people after work. I don't have hobbies the way a lot of people do, and there's always someone like me who doesn't spend enough time in the field and needs to make sure they don't get rusty.
-o-
So I'm a jōnin now. Apparently, you need jōnin clearance to access Category Five documents, and with four elements I qualify as a ninjutsu special jōnin. It's disconcerting. I am supposed to be one of the village elite now, but my life hasn't changed at all. My co-workers still forget my name, and I still spend a lot of my time sorting through records, or doing things that I'm technically not allowed to think about when I'm not doing them.
It makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes it feels like I'm killing someone just by sending the right documents to the right people. I know it's my job, and I know somebody has to do it, but for the first time, I'm wondering if maybe it should be someone else.
-o-
A woman approached me yesterday, asking me strange questions. What did I think about the current state policies? Was I satisfied with my life and the direction it was taking me? Did I ever feel like a grindstone in a water mill, grinding people to dust because that was how the river was flowing?
I didn't have answers to any of those questions. Nobody had ever asked.
She asked me to take the time to think about it, and maybe next time she'd introduce me to her friend who had some very original ideas on the subject.
-o-
I'm still figuring out how I ended up here. I know the sequence of events. They persuaded me that leaving the village was the right thing to do, and that my knowledge and my abilities, and above all my reliability, was what they would need to survive. I think they were exaggerating, but I also didn't see any reason to refuse. The village wouldn't suffer much for me being gone—though I wish I'd been able to stay long enough to prepare a replacement—and field support was what I'd originally trained for. Besides, I had organisational skills, and in-depth knowledge of strike teams, hunter-nin and everyone else who provided traitor-related reports. I'd be useful to someone whether I stayed or went.
-o-
The positive side of all this is that there's variety. Somebody has to keep the access points clear of chakra beasts. Somebody has to triage and provide first aid (I have some medic-nin training, though not at specialist level). Somebody has to keep track of logistics now that Sumie is gone. Somebody has to keep working on the base with the Earth Element, and set up dummy shelters. Somebody has to organise the "off-duty" genin to make sure they're doing something productive. In a way, it's more fulfilling than when I was working for the sake of the entire village back home.
-o-
They're coming. He's coming, and I know the plan. Inoue proposed it, and Shikigami agreed without hesitation. If all three of us stand together, we might be able to beat Captain Zabuza. It's not guaranteed—I've read his mission reports—but even if we all die, we just need to take him down with us. Or at least cripple him. The rest of the group know where to go if Hidden Swamp is destroyed, and Captain Zabuza is the only one with the skill and motivation to track them through the swamp and past the Fire border.
In these final moments, I realise I've finally made a mistake. I accepted Shikigami and Inoue's suicidal choice to go from Mist to Fire.
I've finally made a mistake, and I finally know who I am. I'm a woman who goes with the flow because wherever I end up, there will always be someone I can help.
I think I'm ready to die now.
I wonder how many of them will remember my name.
