Chapter Text
Kuromaru is perched on the lamppost at the end of the dock when the ferry finally arrives in Gyoko Machi. Zabuza had relaxed enough that quiet conversation had resumed in the absence of his killing intent filling the space. It makes me absurdly pleased that the goons had been the last ones to resume any conversation, and when they did it was stilted nonsense about shift work.
The Demon of the Hidden Mist had looked similarly pleased which does wonders for my ego.
My summons calls out – the sharp repeated barks of a corvid spotting a meal – and the goons sputter and hurry to disembark under his huge shadow and gimlet stare. He turns his attention to the shinobi standing beside me and I don’t need to reach out to feel his chakra to know that he’s wildly disappointed in me. “Lady,” he croaks, “good trip?”
“Uneventful,” I return. Kagome and Kikyo swing wide around Zabuza but close enough to brush the tips of their wings to my hair as they take up positions on electrical lines stretching between the lights that line the pier. Zabuza watches them with amusement simmering in the air between us. I glance up at him hovering by my shoulder and then turn back to my summons. “I’ve made plans tonight.”
“I see that,” Kuromaru croaks darkly. “Momochi Zabuza, the Demon of the Hidden Mist. We know your face now.” Normal corvids can recognize facial features and communicate amongst their flocks so that even members who haven’t seen a person can still recognize them from being told. Summoned Ravens can do that and pass along chakra signatures – they can’t be fooled by disguises and even genjutsu won’t deter them for long.
I reach out silently and briefly share the shimmer of Haku’s signature where it’s still muted and hidden beneath the pier now. Kuromaru clacks his beak a little and dips a bow at me. “Be good, yeah?” I say and let the missing-nin hovering beside me lean in close to direct me forwards.
“Ravens huh?” he asks and shoots me a sideways look as I fall into deliberate even-step beside him. He slows fractionally to allow for our disparate strides and I cross my arms to fold my hands into my long sleeves.
My mission dress is muted grey with dark blue waves and patterned with deep green and brown fish and the Konoha insignia in stark black across my back. It’s the least formal pattern of mission-wear that I own – printed, rather than painted or embroidered – and seemed thematically appropriate when I was deciding which gear to pack for this mission. It also has poisoned senbon lined neatly in hidden pockets inside the sleeves up near my elbows and I count them briefly to settle lingering nerves.
“Most people assume they’re crows,” I return. “The littler ones, at least, and since I’m usually running diplomatic missions, they’re helpful in blending in to scout ahead or spy.” Crows are probably one of the most prolific birds across the continent, to the point that even I’ll sometimes have to double-take on whether it’s a wild crow or one of my Ravens just hanging around an area on Yagura or Yatagarasu’s command.
If I haven’t directly summoned them, it’s at the discretion of the individual Raven to reveal themselves or to allow me to reach out to them through our bond. If I was carrying the weight of chakra required to support as many Ravens on this plane as are physically present, I’d be in a coma. Yatagarasu and Yagura carry the bulk of that cost on my behalf, skirting the edge of the rules that bind Summons to their own realms in that none of those Ravens are actively serving me directly. If the other summon animals have any complaints about this bending of rules, I’m not close enough with anyone holding a Main Contract to hear about it.
Zabuza barks a surprised laugh. “Diplomatic missions?” he asks with amused skepticism. “Fuck off – there’s no way you have Killing Intent like that running diplomatic missions.”
I smile at him. “I’d argue it’s absolutely why I have KI like that,” I say serenely. “I can’t just blanket say…a whole ferry in blood and death. It needs to be subtle - something carefully shaped and tailored.”
He shakes his head at me and huffs a breath. “Sure, alright,” he says. “But it sure felt potent when you brought it out. Wasn’t expecting something like that from a Konoha-nin that looks like you.”
Like me? “Too modern to be traditionally formal but not weird enough to be eccentric?” Visible hitai-ate move the line for where weird starts and ends compared to civilians for the general populace; I’m pretty careful to straddle that line as neatly as I can.
He stops and stares at me for a long breath. “You know,” he says finally, “that’s accurate but not what I actually meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“Hm,” he affects a casual lean that highlights the clean lines of his body in a way that draws an appreciative glance I can’t actually help, “Not important.”
“Then why say anything?”
“Are you always this hostile to men flirting with you?” he asks.
“This is not hostile…!” I get halfway through my complaint before he’s swiftly gathered me up against his chest and tucked a knee high between my thighs, using his hips to pin mine in place against the wall of the warehouse we’d just been passing on our way toward the inn I’ve got a reservation at for the next few days. “Oh,” I breathe and take a moment to appreciate how he’s settled me in such a way that we’re at eye-level to one another, “Was that you flirting?”
“Just a bit,” he says amused and shifts so that he’s using one huge hand wrapped high around my thigh to hold almost my entire weight up in counterbalance to his knee pressing up between my legs. “Now you say something flattering you thought about me.”
“I’m impressed you’re this excited with broken ribs,” I respond and then hold very still when his eyes widen and that dampened chakra presence flares wildly directly behind his back but still out of my sight. “Too honest, yeah?”
“Ignore him,” Zabuza says and then, not to me: “They’re just bruised.”
“They’re definitely broken,” I respond anyway. Having nominal med-nin training means sometimes, when I do things like sync my chakra flow up idly with another nin’s or for various genjutsu purposes, that I also run accidental diagnostics. “Plus side: I’m from Konoha. I’ve got enough training that I can at least fix them so they’re not grinding together?”
“They let a med-nin out of Konoha?” he rears back in genuine surprise as I let my hands spread out across his chest with a tell-tale green glow as I actively now reach out for a proper Diagnostic Jutsu.
“Medical training, not the same thing,” I murmur. “Just some stress fractures, looks like. Only this one is grinding. I could show your partner how to do it if that’s preferable?” I prod a little ungently at the problem rib through the skin of his side and he hisses out a breath.
“Please,” Haku says softly but firmly, sidestepping his master and ignoring our now awkwardly tangled position where Zabuza still has me pinned to the wall. He’s wearing a lovely green kimono and isn’t obviously armed except for in all the ways he definitely is.
“Start by syncing your chakra, feel how I’ve…? Yeah, like that. Now, you’re not going to want to do this next part until you’ve memorized the structure of your basic bone cells but you can still follow along while I encourage just enough growth to seal the worst of the fracture.” I’ve taken liberal advantage of every med-nin that has ever passed through the Embassy, whether they were aware of it or not.
“Why not all the way?”
“Not a med-nin; I don’t know enough about bone marrow or that whole system to want to mess with it. Surface damage is easy enough though…”
“How long did you know we were being followed?” Zabuza asks incredulously even as he continues to hold me up while I hold an impromptu lesson on basic medical jutsu using his own broken rib as an example.
(There’s a good portion of my hind brain that’s very impressed with this, actually, tempered only by Haku’s weirdly serene and accepting presence.)
“Since he started pacing the ferry,” I admit and frown at the man staring at me from mere inches away. “You’re one of the Seven Swordsmen and a high-class missing-nin - if you wanted me dead, I’d be dead.”
“You didn’t say anything?” he seems particularly stuck on this point. Glaring hard at me and pressing in closer, fingers digging bruises into my thighs where he’s shifted his grip to hold me tighter. “That’s insane, even for a Konoha-nin.”
“He wasn’t being a threat?” I have to crane my neck back to peer around where Zabuza snarls something dark and rude into my neck and bullies impossibly closer as I withdraw my chakra from his system with the worst of the damage repaired. “You didn’t feel like you were being a threat,” I tell the beautiful young man faintly smiling at me from over Zabuza’s wild dark hair. “And it wasn’t like I didn’t have my Summons watching us too so it felt fair?”
A little voyeuristic maybe, but I wasn’t going to complain with an attractive and deadly shinobi between my legs flirting with me. I’m not a saint.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” he drops me abruptly and spins away with a snarl. I land easily enough on my own feet and twist my chakra into a mostly finished false surroundings genjutsu – it’ll only need the rat seal to finish and I can do that one-handed – as I smooth out my dress and watch the Demon of the Hidden Mist try to calm his wildly flaring killing intent without much success. “You were supposed to be a harmless bit of fun,” he points at me accusing, whirling around.
“There weren’t meant to be any A-class missing-nin involved in my mission either,” I return cooly. “Since there was, I’d figured discretion was the better part of valor.”
“Fuck him for the cause?” he spits nastily.
“Fuck him because you want to get fucked,” I force my own rising killing intent into settling cool and collected – present still, but calm – around me. “Though for the record, that’s off the table now.”
“Oh, it is, is it?” he steps forward – a huge man full of angry chakra and heavy suspicion.
Haku’s chakra is a subtler thing – no inherent lightning nature sitting in opposition to water the way mine does – but I can still sense it settling in response to me reigning my KI back. I finish fussing with the lay of my dress - and brushing away bruises with flickers of medical chakra – and turn to him with a dipping nod instead of acknowledging the threat display of the advancing Swordsman.
“I’m going to assume he’s not sleeping with you then?”
“I am Zabuza-san’s tool,” Haku says serenely. I don’t need the sharingan to read the only slightly frustrated ‘he’s welcome to, anytime’ in that perfectly calm smile.
“Oi, don’t fucking talk to him,” Zabuza steps bodily between us and glares down at me. “We were in the middle of something here.”
“Until I offended you by fixing your broken rib, yes. I can remember the last few minutes perfectly well, actually.”
“What kind of ninja ignores being stalked by an Oinin and doesn’t say shit?”
“The diplomatic kind who isn’t cleared to be interfering in another village’s affairs?” I send a long flat look at Haku and then turn back to Zabuza. “Also, not an Oinin so…”
“She’s a sensor,” Haku says quietly – half realization, half explanation.
“I’m not,” I disagree. I’m just more aware. Side effect of knowing what it’s like to not sense chakra even at the most basic level and then being dropped into a body that has only ever known chakra. “But I can sense enough if I’m trying. Which I obviously was when Momochi fucking Zabuza parked his ass on my ferry.”
Haku lifts his brows in muted surprise and flicks a look at his now silently looming Master. “I was using Hiding in Mist,” he says mildly. His chakra was spread evenly through the mist – it should have been almost impossible to pick him out if he was hiding his chakra too.
“I know Hiding in Mist,” I shrug a little and flicker my chakra enough to thicken the blanket of fog around us enough to be noticeable. Almost impossible to sense only applies if you don’t know the pattern required to form Hiding in Mist already and are only average at sensing. I let it dissipate almost immediately before the spark in Haku’s eyes sharpens enough to take it as a threat. “There was a particularly shitty team from Kiri at the chunin exams several years back, nabbed a scroll with a handful of techniques on it.”
Well, Shisui did on my behalf. Same difference. Let Zabuza assume I’m at least an experienced chunin – maybe even a newly ranked jounin – rather than the technical genin I actually am.
Zabuza lets out an irritated breath. “I can’t decide if you’re incredibly smart or insanely stupid,” he says.
“Which is more likely to result in my not having to fill out an after-action report?” I ask and settle into a relaxed lean against the wall. “Because your bingo book entry only got updated to missing-nin about a month back, if I’m remembering correctly, and Konoha hasn’t decided whether or not we care about a coup in Kiri.”
“Killing you is starting to look real tempting, you know that?” he says.
“Killing me will just guarantee your whereabouts are reported directly to every Kiri border post within the hour.” There’s an ominous caw from somewhere high above us – Haku jolts a look upwards – but my Summons are cloaked in genjutsu that would take a sharingan to break. To be fair, they’d technically be dismissed immediately back to the Home Tree. But Yatagarasu is leader to Crows as well as Ravens – and for all that Itachi has no contract with the Three-Legged Crow himself there’s enough of a technicality that Yatagarasu will graciously inform Itachi’s flock of my fate.
Honestly, Itachi is a worse threat than the entirety of Kiri’s hunter-nin program. I can’t imagine a world in which my cousin lets my death slide. Not when I’d already managed to escape near certain death once before.
“She healed you,” Haku says quietly, “Zabuza-san.”
“It was one broken rib,” he says.
“You said they were just bruised,” Haku returns without inflection.
There’s something passing between the two men. I’m not dumb enough to get between it. So, I lean against the wall, spinning half-formed genjutsu with delicate flicks of chakra, and reaching out with every bit of chakra-sense in case either of them tries something. I can’t defeat Zabuza in combat, but I already know even a newly formed sharingan is enough to be a nuisance to Haku’s kekkei genkai coming from a barely-graduated genin. Mine is fully formed and I’m significantly more experienced than my baby cousin. I learned to shunshin from Shisui so I’m sure I can at least flee from both of them if it comes down to it.
“Cards on the table,” I say after the silence has stretched long enough to start becoming awkward, “Konoha doesn’t have an official stance on Kiri’s newest missing-nin. My mission is to meet with a representative of the Gato Shipping Company to negotiate a contract for my employer to move goods from the Land of Tea up through Wave Country to Fire. I’m not interested in the hassle that comes from running your presence up the chain of command for no other reason than you’re existing here in Wave.”
“That’s a surprisingly ruthless reason to keep quiet,” Zabuza says. “Thought you Konoha-nin were all about communication and teamwork or some shit.”
“That’s the most recent operational ideology of late, yeah,” I agree. “I came up through the Academy on the tail of the Third War though – missed out on all that bonding shit. I was taught how to balance the books, so to speak. Would rather not throw my life away for money – not even good money. This mission isn’t worth all…that.” I make a vague gesture essentially just indicating all of Zabuza.
Arrogant bastard that he is, Zabuza looks mildly flattered. Haku glances at him askance and then turns his eyes demurely to the ground after meeting my gaze for a brief moment. I’d call it commiseration, but he seems entirely too fond for that.
“This seems awfully convenient,” Zabuza says finally, peering at me with the heavy weight of his restrained killing intent.
You have no idea.
I shrug at him wordlessly. He stares and then sighs hugely, casting a sharp glance at his apprentice. “I’m assuming you want a lesson?” he asks in a tone anyone else would consider rude.
Haku nods agreeably and radiates pleasure. “If you don’t mind, kunoichi-san,” he says in that softly hopeful voice.
I have to take a moment because it’s…kind of a little intimidating for someone as beautiful as this boy to look at you with that sort of smile and gently lidded eyes. How Zabuza has managed to ignore a willing beauty like this when he’s literally following him around is insane to me. “On basic healing?” I ask, for clarification sorely needed after the brief hormone-driven speedbump of being the center of Haku’s focus.
“Since fucking Zabuza-san is off the table,” he says agreeably with a teasing tilt to his head. Zabuza mutters darkly under his breath and looks away from both of us with folded arms and the air of someone done with the conversation.
“I could be persuaded to put it back on for you,” I say, just to watch Zabuza’s head turn sharply and to let Haku feel the way his Master’s killing intent rises immediately. The boy glances over – surprise and delight in the widening of his eyes – but the Demon has already stuffed his intent back down and is fully committed to ignoring us again. “But I’m not opposed to a lesson, if it means we can call this a truce and get our missions done in peace?”
“Whatever Haku wants,” Zabuza grunts irritably.
“You can call me Aiko,” I tell Haku, smiling and flicking a look over at the sulk-rounded shoulders of his Master. Haku’s eyes shine at me – pleasure and hope in the answering flick of a glance over at the other man. “Since Momochi never bothered to ask himself.”
“I didn’t give a fuck what your name was,” Zabuza growls. “So why bother?”
“I’m Haku,” Haku says. “I’m very grateful for you healing my Master, Zabuza-san, even despite…”
Despite everything about Zabuza. I hum an acknowledgement with an amused tilt to my smile at the graceful bow Haku offers instead of an end to that sentence. Zabuza sighs and orders darkly, “Be back by morning,” Then he strolls off in a manner too irritated to be easy but too smooth to be stomping off in a huff.
Although it very much is that.
“We can go to my room at the inn,” I tell the boy. “I’ll show you how to do your basic scan and how to give natural healing a boost – it’s not much but given that I’m not actually a medic, I don’t really feel confident trying to teach you skin or bone cells when I’ve only just got the basics down myself.”
“Anything helps,” Haku says. Then, a little more seriously and sadly, “I hadn’t even noticed his rib was that bad.”
“It really wasn’t terrible,” I admit. “He could’ve wrapped it and taken it easy for a couple weeks and it would’ve healed naturally to where I’ve got it now.”
Haku looks at me and I offer him a little shrug. Yeah, obviously not really an option for a missing-nin from a village that specializes in hunter-nin.
Haku is a fast-learner. We spend the evening going over some healing basics and he manages to successfully run a diagnostic even if he doesn’t manage to conjure any actual healing chakra. It’s about the best you could hope for from one night of tutoring for someone who isn’t an Uchiha capable of copying the technique. I’m wildly impressed at the progress and make sure to tell him so before he leaves in the early hours of the morning after accepting that no more real progress could be made.
“Hey, there’s one more thing,” I blurt impulsively just before he slips out the door after saying goodbye.
Haku catches himself and peers curiously back at me. Faced with his full attention I hesitate. He frowns softly, slowly closing the door, and asks “Yes?”
“Lightning chakra,” I say finally. “You felt the edge of it in my chakra nature, when you synced with me earlier, right?”
“Yes,” Haku says, looking at me expectantly.
“It’s not a common nature, this far south,” I say. This is a monumentally stupid idea. “I don’t imagine you have much experience with lightning jutsu either.”
“No,” he agrees, frowning in faint confusion. “Is this relevant?”
“The thing with lightning chakra,” I say, “Is it’s not really mouldable. Not the way water or earth is. It’s explosive and fast; the best you can do is try to harness the direction – to ground the energy as quickly as possible. It’s why you need to mould healing chakra specifically in order to do any real healing – you can’t harness elemental chakra with enough precision to do the same thing. It’s too set in its nature to be used like that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you want to use healing chakra,” I say. “You need to separate your nature from your chakra. Water is more mouldable than lightning, but you still have to set it aside. It’ll be easier for you, in that regard, but your chakra will naturally resist that change. You have to figure out how to redirect it; the same way you don’t try to take a lightning jutsu on directly – you redirect it to ground before it grounds itself in you.”
“That sounds dangerous,” Haku says. “I’m not sure I see how that’s analogous to separating your inherent chakra nature to form healing chakra.”
“It’s a little heavy-handed for an analogy, yeah,” I agree. I’m shoehorning it in deliberately for reasons though – Chidori, fist-shaped-holes-in-chests reasons. “But the theory is similar – your chakra nature has to go somewhere and the easiest place to put it is to shunt it back into the rest of your chakra – the proverbial ‘ground’ if you follow. You’re not really removing your chakra of its nature, you’re redirecting. It felt like you were attempting the former instead of the latter.”
“Oh,” Haku frowns a little and looks down at his hands. Then, after a moment of flickering and flexing chakra, “Oh, I see.” His expression clears and he looks up at me. “I’m not sure I have the control for this right now,” he admits.
It doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is how my half-assed explanation shoving a tactic for dealing with lightning jutsu into how to use medical healing chakra actually worked out making sense. Did I have to deliberately draw up lightning chakra while I was teaching Haku how to sync our signatures up for the diagnostic jutsu to make it seem at all relevant? Yeah. Did it still work? Sort of!
I’m lucky I’ve made it clear repeatedly that I’m not a proper med-nin. My ridiculous analogy can be explained away as not being familiar enough with the technique except as it applies to how I use it to make teaching another require something as convoluted as that. Am I throwing this dart at a wall blindly and hoping it hits a bullseye? Yes! Again!
Only way I’ll know for sure is if Zabuza is still in the next bingo book.
For Haku’s sake, I hope he remembers the slightly incoherent teaching from a passing Konoha-nin. Knowing Kakashi’s reputation and his bingo book entry? I’m not really going to hold my breath on this one.
Still, it’s a glimmer of hope where there was none. In the grand scheme of this life, it’s not even an event that will affect me in any meaningful way…except for the way I really don’t want to know that Haku and Zabuza die for each other when they didn’t have to. So, I’m taking this far-flung, blind, shot in the dark and hoping for the best.
I smile my best slightly-sheepish grin at Haku. “Sorry for the explanation, it’s hard to explain how I’m managing the control in broader terms when the actual manipulation is on such a small-scale level.”
“I can work on control,” Haku assures me. “I understand what you meant, I just need to figure out how to apply that more effectively within myself.”
“I wish you luck,” I say with a gentler smile now. “Have a good rest of your night. Hopefully Momochi is in a better mood.”
“I doubt it,” Haku sighs a little but it’s fond. “Goodbye, Aiko-san. Good luck on your negotiations. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.”
“Maybe,” I agree. Haku waves a little and leaves – I follow his fading signature until it muffles away and then let up on my chakra-sense. I’ve got a handful of hours before my meeting is scheduled and haven’t slept yet. “Soldier-pill for breakfast it is,” I sigh, and mourn what could have been a fun night and instead turned into a tutorial session complete with a reminder of the cruel mortality of man.
God forbid being a shinobi is ever just fun for once.