Chapter Text
His hands were covered in blood.
That was the first thing he was really aware of, after the mission he’d been disavowed on. He and the others of his team had been told that, if they were caught, they’d be branded traitors. Their leader had been a good man on the surface, but the façade scraped away to reveal something less than kind.
They had always been a team, had always gotten the work done together.
When they had been told of their newest mission, there had been hesitance. Oh, gods, there had been some hesitance. A few of the members of their team had been panicked at the thought of who they were supposed to dispose of. He hadn’t been. He had, instead, been one of the ones reassuring and convincing.
They had been told that, if they were caught, there would be no safe harbor for them.
Say goodbye to your loved ones now, in whatever form that took.
Most of them hadn’t been too long in that, had barely any people to return to and miss them. Some of them, like him, had lost their families long ago and were ready to go the moment they had been told of the mission.
The mission hadn’t gone well.
Maybe it had been old intel, maybe it had been a traitor, maybe it had been the target already knowing they were coming – whatever it had been, the mission had gone wrong.
His hands were covered in blood.
They had caught one of the younger ones, one of the last brought into the team. He’d had to kill the man—the boy—to keep the rest of them able to escape cleanly. They lost a total of three members of their team.
Their mission had been accomplished, but it had left them branded as traitors, as assassins, as those who would never be welcomed home again.
Standing in the middle of the woods, separated from the others (they would never be able to contact each other again, not so long as they were still attached to their village), he pulled out a small knife and dug the tip of it into the symbol for his village, dragging it across the metal again and again, until the line through the symbol was deep and incapable of being buffed out.
Of being taken back.
He had done what he needed to do, had done what was necessary.
His people had been starting to suffer from the under-the-table dealings their leader had been throwing himself into. He had done what he had always done, what his entire team had always done. They had protected their people, even at the risk, the threat, of never being able to go home again.
The others would, hopefully, be alright. They would find new missions, new homes, new identities. Sign up with a new team.
His hands were still covered in blood.
He knelt next to the stream he’d stumbled across and dipped his hands below the surface of the water, scrubbing until the blood washed off. It was still under his nails, but that was as good as it was going to get without the assistance of a brush and some soap. He would have time for that later, he was still within twenty miles of his village.
Not his village.
Not anymore.
He would have to get used to a new reality, the new truth of his existence. He could never go home again, would never see the friends he had grown up with, the people he had existed alongside. His neighbors would be curious, of course, until they heard the news.
He stood up slowly, hefting his pack up higher on his shoulder and slinging his sword across his back. This was it, no turning back. The chance to turn back had been before he’d killed the kage of his village. Maybe it had even been further back than that, back before he’d been chosen as one of the elite. Or maybe he’d never even had the choice, the chance to turn back. Taking a deep breath, he ran a hand back through his hair, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.
He was an exile now, never to be welcomed back home again.
Hoshigaki Kisame closed his eyes for a moment as he left his former home behind. When the trees grew thicker, closer together, he opened them again.
Looking back wasn’t an option, but he still said a silent goodbye to his home as he walked.