Chapter Text
Sayaka was born to be a hero. This she knew with all the childish triumph of a girl who had been raised on too many stories and not enough common sense. When she declared this intention at the tender age of five, standing on top of the jungle gym, a Uchiha boy shouted: “You can’t be Hokage! I’m gonna be Hokage!”
“That’s not what I said!” Sayaka retorted, swaying precariously. “I’m gonna be a hero!”
“What’s the difference, huh?!”
“It means I’m gonna save people!”
The boy screwed up his face. “The Hokage saves tons of people! He’s the strongest shinobi alive!”
“So?” said Sayaka. “I’m gonna save more people as a hero!”
“Are you calling the Hokage weak?!”
They continued to shout each other down as Sayaka balanced herself atop the bars. The boy tried to climb up, red-faced and indignant, but he possessed none of the finesse she had and ended up falling flat on his back. Sayaka felt a pang of conscience; she clambered down and leaned over him, searching for any injuries.
The boy shot up suddenly; their heads collided in a magnificent thunk. Sayaka shrieked and reared back, hands flying to her forehead.
The boy grinned. “Gotcha!” he said.
Sayaka stared at him. Her better judgment, one that her parents tried to hammer in, told her to get up and walk away. It wasn’t worth it. Violence rarely was. But impulses ruled Sayaka. She was only five. The world fit in the palm of her hand, and she saw no reason why she couldn’t enact some justice of her own.
She tackled him. The boy didn’t have time to react. Once he recovered, however, he ended up punching her in the side to throw her off. She wheezed, tearing up from the pain, then brought her elbow down on his gut.
Soon, it devolved into pointless grappling. They roll around in the dirt, snarling and hissing at each other like cats. Sayaka’s parents came running to pull them apart. She glared over her father’s shoulder as the boy clambered to his feet, wiping away his tears.
“You’re stupid!” he yelled. “Being a hero sucks!”
“You take that back!” Sayaka shrieked, and her father had to carry her away. That night she was scolded until her ears rang. She endured it, if only because of the vindication that she, a civilian, managed to get an upper hand over an Uchiha, and only felt a bit remorseful. After all, heroes needed to stand up for people—but if she couldn’t stand up for herself, then she was no hero at all.
(If it had been a fairy tale, there would have been a more gracious beginning:
Once upon a time, in a faraway land; over the mountains, past the desert, and through the forest . . .
There lived a girl who wanted to be a hero.
And the pages would turn, one by one, until it finally reached the end.)
The next time she saw the Uchiha boy was not at the playground but during her first day at the Academy, nearly a year after the initial fight. They saw each other as the crowd thinned and simultaneously pointed; the boy in outrage, Sayaka in recognition, and said in ringing tones: “You!”
Sayaka’s mother dragged her away before she could do anything else. A vaguely familiar girl with face paint calmed the boy down before he could bowl over and start trouble. They exchanged baleful eye contact throughout the entire opening ceremony. Then roll call came, and Sayaka finally learned his name: Obito. He was the only Uchiha in the class this year.
Sayaka had only basic knowledge about ninja clans—the Aburames had bugs, the Inuzuka dogs, and so on—but even civilians knew not to cross an Uchiha. They were aloof and solitary. Their irises could bleed blood-red. But Obito Uchiha’s eyes were a perfectly normal shade of black, and unlike his brethren, he was more obnoxious than broody.
It didn’t surprise her that Obito came right up to her at lunchtime and demanded, “Why are you here?”
“Why can’t I be here?” Sayaka said, folding her arms.
“You said you didn’t want to be the Hokage!”
Some of the other kids turned around to watch their argument. The girl with the face paint started towards them.
Sayaka ignored it. “I want to learn stuff that will help me be a hero,” she informed him. “You can be the Hokage if you want.”
Obito’s chest puffed out. “Damn right I’ll be!”
Some of their classmates were giggling. A silver-haired boy sitting in the front row turned away in obvious irritation. Sayaka bristled; she may have her misgivings with Obito, but that didn’t give anybody the right to look down on him.
Then Obito said, “I bet I can save more people than you.”
“What?” Sayaka said, immediately distracted. “It’s not a competition.”
“I’m still gonna do it!”
“That’s not the point of being a hero!”
“Perfect,” somebody muttered. “Now there's two of 'em.”
“Shut up!” Sayaka and Obito both snapped, and glanced at each other, startled out of their mistrust and suspicion.
(Heroes protected. They stood for justice. They were perfect, immutable, a shining beacon of all that was good and true. But they could not exist in the real world. They only belonged between dog-eared pages and watercolor illustrations.
The real heroes lay in the margins. A girl kissed her crystal-hardened soul farewell. A young voice said: I don’t want them to cry anymore.
If Sayaka had remembered, she would have said, I want to protect. I want to stand for justice. I want to be good and true, like those girls who had saved me.
But she would not have called herself a hero. If she had remembered, then she would know that it was not up to her to decide.)
In her class, Sayaka landed somewhere in the middle. A little below, actually. But at least she was better than Obito, who was a fumbling student in every respect and would rather pull pranks than listen to their teacher.
Some of her classmates were geniuses. The silver-haired boy, Kakashi Hatake, was rumored to graduate within the year. Sayaka was inclined to believe it. She had seen him fight. A whirlwind, she’d thought. That’s what he was. Against him, Obito didn’t stand a chance.
The Third Shinobi War was already underway. The village needed more soldiers, and quickly, no matter how young they might be. Sayaka had heard her parents discussing the matter when they thought she was asleep. We should pull her out, her mother fretted. What will they turn my little girl into? What if they send her to the front lines?
Her parents hadn’t wanted to enroll her in the Academy. Her mother worked as a waitress in a local teashop before becoming a housewife. Her dad was a merchant who whittled as a hobby. Sayaka had to kick and scream her way to the entrance exams. They only relented out of the misconception that she wouldn’t pass, and now all they seemed to do was worry.
Sayaka wanted to reassure them. They won’t send me first, she’d say. They’ll pick Kakashi, then maybe Hoheto and Kurenai. But I’m not good enough to be in front.
That wouldn’t help in the slightest, though. So she scaled the tree outside her bedroom window and ran to the river to practice molding chakra. As the waves lapped against the banks, she formed the hand seal and nudged the leaf into place. It didn’t move even when she craned her neck wildly, seeing if it would fall off.
Obito was pretty bad at molding chakra. His leaf was never on for long.
“How are you doing that?” he demanded one day during outdoor training.
“Practice, duh,” said Sayaka.
“You practice?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“You?” he repeated in disbelief. “But you fall asleep in class half the time!”
“Don’t be rude, Obito,” Rin Nohara chided. Her leaf stayed on as well. “If you do it more often, then you’ll get it one day.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Sayaka, grinning. “Listen to your girlfriend, O-bi-to.”
Predictably, Obito went tomato-red and began sputtering. Rin’s leaf came fluttering down to the grass as she blushed. Sayaka whirled away from Obito and nearly crashed into Raido Namiashi. She waved him off, apologizing and laughing in the same breath, the leaf slipping from her forehead.
(Perhaps her obsession started out of unease. The world outside her bedroom window ebbed and flowed like that of an ocean. Change crashed over them, too quick and heavy to bear. A second war ended and a third one started. Men and women who came back dead-eyed. She watched them roam the streets. Sometimes they stopped to talk to someone with the same injuries they had. Mostly, though, they looked straight ahead and palmed a hidden weapon, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Sayaka watched. She didn’t remember. Like a child, she thought: If this war stops, then it’ll be alright. I can do that, right? Stop a war? Save some people? That’s what a hero does, right? )
Her instructors said her chakra control was exceptional. They all said it with a hint of surprise, as if they couldn’t believe a civilian girl had outpaced some of their clan-born students with ease. For curiosity’s sake, her teacher gave her a slip of paper and told her to feed some chakra into it. It went sodden in her hand.
“Ah,” her teacher said. “I should have guessed.”
Sayaka felt the same way, strangely enough. She liked the sound of the river rushing over the stones, how the waves swelled and broke onto the banks during windy days. Her parents joked that she should be reborn as a ningyo in her next life.
Now her teacher took the wet paper away and considered her. His expression was nearly unreadable.
“With your skill,” he said at last, “you can be a medic-nin.” He held up a hand when Sayaka opened her mouth. “But that means your fundamentals need to be perfect. When was the last time you won a sparring match?”
She shifted and didn’t respond.
“Find a partner to practice with,” her teacher advised. “Go through your katas. Find a specialty besides hand-to-hand. It’ll be a good supplement.”
After class, while her classmates dispersed in groups of twos and threes, Sayaka lingered in front of the Academy entrance. Her feet drew an aimless line through the earth. Katas she could do alone, but everything else . . . she didn’t even know where to start. Her instructors were constantly busy. The clan kids couldn’t spare their secrets, and her civilian classmates didn’t need to improve the way she did. What exactly was she supposed to do?
“Sayaka,” Rin called, “do you want to walk home together?”
Sayaka looked up at her. “Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. Let’s go.”
“C’mon, we coulda left,” Obito complained, but let her catch up anyway. He stuck out his tongue. She pulled a face. Rin bore a patient smile and only stopped them when Sayaka tried to catch Obito by the collar of his jacket.
“Can’t you two get along?” she said, pushing them apart.
“He started it!”
“No, she started it.”
“Please stop,” said Rin, and they both subsided. Obito liked her too much to give her trouble. Sayaka just felt bad. They weren’t really friends, but they had a camaraderie of sorts. Rin didn’t have a conventional shinobi upbringing either. Her father ran a small clinic on the edge of town, near the Uchiha compound. Sometimes Sayaka would see her running errands, and she’d stick her head out the window to shout hello. They would eat lunch together. Casual stuff like that.
They walked side-by-side, now, after they bade Obito farewell. They passed by storefronts and vendors preparing for the rush of evening customers. The sky was tinged pink from the sunset. Out of nowhere, Rin said: “Do you want to train with me?”
Sayaka blinked. “Train?” she repeated dumbly.
“Yeah. Like, taijutsu. Sparring.” Rin twisted a strand of hair between her fingers. “I . . . overheard your conversation with sensei in the hall. Sorry.”
“Are you kidding?" Sayaka said, recovering her wits. “It’s perfect! I mean, I was super lost on what to do—it’s not like I can march up to someone and demand them to tutor me!”
“They’ll just turn you down,” Rin agreed. “Old habits die hard. It’s hard for anyone not trained in clan techniques to get a leg up. You’d think it’ll be easier, with the war and everything.”
Sayaka shrugged. “They still pass people all the time. It’s probably different when it comes to the specialty fields.”
“You want to be a medic-nin, right?”
“I guess. I’ll be decent at it, according to sensei. You?”
“Same. He’s probably going to tell me the same thing sooner or later.”
Sayaka bumped her shoulder and grinned. “Between the two of us, I’m sure we can figure things out. Everybody else won’t stand a chance.”
“You just want to beat Obito,” Rin said, half-resentful, half-amused.
She laughed. “Can you blame me? I have to keep my winning streak!”
(In fairy tales, the heroes always won. They defeated monsters and dragons and rescued the sleeping princess from the high tower. They were bound by rules. They could not die—not until the book was shut, not until they were allowed to rest.
Sayaka never let them. She greedily re-lived their acts of heroism every night at bedtime. Underneath her hand, they came back to life. Over and over again, they lived.)
Though she showed improvement, small though it may be, Sayaka remained slightly below average. Her previous losses and low scores in kunoichi classes accounted for why. She could pour tea fine and send bouquets with hidden meanings, however, which was enough for her. Everything else seemed borderline unnecessary.
“‘S not like you need it, you hardly act like a girl,” Obito said, and she did her best to smack some manners into him the next time they sparred. Somebody had to put him in his place every once in a while, and it certainly wouldn’t be Rin.
“I told Obito I would avenge him,” Rin said during their training session, half-jokingly. And avenge him she did—Rin beat her in two out of three bouts. Sayaka won the third with a well-timed blow to the chest before calling for a break.
They sat underneath the boughs of Konoha’s ancient trees and practically inhaled their water. It was summertime, which meant deathly hot afternoons that made Sayaka yearn for the sweet, icy embrace of winter. She was sweating buckets.
Rin seemed to have similar thoughts. She let out a small sigh as she fanned herself with a hand.
“You’re pretty good at this,” said Sayaka, lowering her bottle.
“I’m okay,” said Rin. Her eyes were half-closed. “I’m a bit rusty.”
“You don’t fight like that during practice matches,” she prodded.
Rin hesitated. “It’s a style from my mom’s family. I don’t like it, but my grandparents want me to learn.”
“Oh.” That made sense. Still, Sayaka huffed. “That’s hardcore. I bet you can take out Kakashi if you want.”
Rin blushed. “I can’t! He’s amazing, and . . . I’m me.”
“You gotta have more confidence,” Sayaka said sagely. “Guys love a confident girl.”
“I don’t think that’s true?”
“Well, that’s how it should be.” She pumped a fist into the air. “If that scares them off, then they’re not worth it!”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Rin said, but she was smiling. “You’re pretty good, too. Only . . .”
Sayaka lowered her hand. “What?”
A shrug. “You probably already know, but you pull your punches. Or you don’t follow through. You could’ve taken me out when I stumbled, but you didn’t.”
That sounded about right. “That bad, huh?”
“It’s not as big of an issue as you’d believe. As long as you commit, you’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,” Sayaka said. She tilted her head up, watching the sunlight shift as a humid breeze rustled through the branches. “Hey, Rin. Would you want to be a ninja if your mom wasn’t one?”
Rin pursed her lips. “I don’t know,” she said slowly, “but maybe. I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.”
“What, you don’t want to run your dad’s clinic?” Sayaka teased.
“Don’t bring that up! That’s what I was trying to get away from!” Rin said with another laugh. “But I guess it doesn’t matter since I’m going to be a medic-nin. It’s almost karmic.”
“You believe in karma? That’s weird. You don’t seem like the type to.”
“I’d like to think that even if karma doesn’t exist, something close to it does,” Rin said.
“Like what?”
“I think the universe will give you what you deserve,” she said seriously. “It may not always work out, but it will.”
“So . . . destiny?”
“Not at all! Karma’s a result of your own actions. Destiny doesn’t care about you. It’s just, um—a rope pulling you along, I think.” Rin laughed again. “Sorry, I’m not making much sense.”
“You know what?” Sayaka said, waggling her fingers. “I bet it’s not the universe. It’s aliens controlling us via chakra strings.”
“What weird alien is controlling you, then?” Rin said slyly, and yelped as Sayaka launched to tickle her.
(Sometimes fairy tales did not end so kindly. Yes, good triumphed over evil, but sometimes girls dissolved into sea foam, and sometimes the wicked stepsisters had their eyes pecked out by blackbirds and the evil stepmother danced until she was nothing but a bone-white corpse.
It was common sense. Sayaka understood that for as long as she could remember. But it was better to pretend otherwise, to imagine those watercolor heroes were perfect, whole, immutable; that their way of justice was correct, that punishment was deserved despite the outcome.)
There could be nothing worse than having Obito as her genin teammate. Anybody but him, Sayaka had said to herself countless times. Now, she wondered if she had been too presumptuous. The two boys she ended up with certainly made it seem that way.
“Yusei!” Sayaka put her hands on her hips, staring up at the branches of a tree. “Get down here!”
No answer.
“We’re supposed to have a mission today! Mikoto-sensei’s waiting for us!”
There was a slight grumble. A hand poked out from between the leaves and waved vaguely. “You guys go ahead.”
“We’re a three-man team!” Sayaka pointed at herself, then to Hoheto Hyuuga, and then up at the drooping hand. “See? One—two—three!”
“So you can count,” Yusei drawled. “I was beginning to have doubts.”
“Hey!”
“This is pointless,” Hoheto said. He approached the tree trunk and formed a hand sign. “Catch him when he falls.”
“Wait, you can’t just—”
Hoheto didn’t listen. He almost never did.
Two minutes later, Sayaka dragged a considerably more frazzled Yusei Nara out of the westernmost training ground. Hoheto trailed behind, smoothing down his ponytail and straightening his hitai-ate.
“I should have dropped out,” Yusei mumbled, picking the twigs out of his hair.
“Indeed,” Hoheto said. “It would’ve saved us the trouble.”
“Three-man team,” Sayaka repeated through gritted teeth. She didn’t know who she was directing it at.
Better than Obito, she chanted. Better than Obito . . .
No better than Obito, in reality. They showed up at the meeting spot ten minutes late. Mikoto Uchiha raised an eyebrow as Sayaka hauled Yusei in, panting for breath.
“For every minute you’re tardy, you will have to run a lap around the commercial district after today’s missions,” Mikoto said without preamble. “And Yusei, you will have to run twice as many.” She withdrew a scroll from her pack and unrolled it. “Let’s get to it, shall we?”
Sayaka didn’t complain. Mikoto worked them to the bone, but she was an awe-inspiring kunoichi and a kenjutsu master. If she could grow up to be half the woman Mikoto was, then she’d have gotten somewhere in life. This Sayaka believed with absolute certainty.
So she threw herself into the D-Rank missions: finding lost pets, babysitting, and helping the elderly carry their groceries. It was, in a way, another duty of a hero. Turning a blind eye to small sufferings was as unjust as ignoring the bigger ones.
Really, though, Sayaka suspected the missions doubled as extra practice time. Under Mikoto’s supervision, she tree-walked to retrieve stray cats and stood atop water while helping rice farmers. Babysitting was a different war altogether. Her reflexes were tested by two mischievous toddlers known for disappearing on their sitters. Sayaka roped them into a long, changeable game of tag that ended when their mother came at sunset.
Not everybody shared her opinions. As they waved goodbye to the small family, Hoheto asked, “When is our first real mission?”
“These are missions,” Mikoto replied.
“This is busy work,” Hoheto said tightly. “Surely we have something better to do than to play games with children.”
Mikoto was silent. For a moment, Sayaka thought she was going to tell him off.
“Alright,” she said at last. “I will see what I can do.”
Hoheto nodded and turned to leave. As he walked away, Sayaka muttered, “Rude much?”
“Ignore it,” said Yusei. “He has a lot on his plate.”
“He’s had ‘a lot on his plate’ since he entered the Academy,” she retorted.
“He’s part of the branch family.”
“Okay, so he’s not a big shot like his cousins. What’s the problem?”
Yusei studied her, confounded. Then he sighed. “Right, you’re a civilian kid. Figures.”
“What?” Sayaka demanded, glancing between Mikoto and Yusei. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Mikoto wore a small, troubled expression. “It’s a sensitive matter. I shan’t put words in his mouth.”
That night, Sayaka burrowed underneath her blanket and clicked on a flashlight. The book was well-worn from days when she fell asleep on top of them. The familiar watercolor heroes stared up at her. She ran her finger down the page, frowning faintly, thinking about what lay underneath those frozen, placid smiles.
(Heroes from ancient epics were different from their fairytale counterparts. They may have wrestled three-headed dogs and persuaded death to hand over their true love, but they didn’t always win, nor were they always virtuous. The twelve labors came as a penance after Heracles slaughtered his family. Orpheus turned and saw the ghostly face of his Eurydice before she was ripped away from him forever. It went on and on and on. Pierced heels and melted wings and the broken keel of a ship.
Sayaka couldn’t be a watercolor hero, but she most definitely didn’t want to be a hero from myths of the old. It was them, always them. They were their own undoing.
Not like that, she thought. And yet.)
The new bokken weighed heavy at her side. Sayaka fingered the hilt as they were debriefed for their first C-rank mission. It was fairly straightforward: track down a group of bandits terrorizing a nearby village and arrest them.
“Nervous?” Rin said.
“Nope! Not at all!”
“Sayaka . . .”
“It’s totally fine.” Sayaka shifted into a form Mikoto taught her. “I’m feeling good, promise.”
Rin pursed her lips. “Did you tell your parents yet?”
The bokken wobbled, and Sayaka focused on her posture. “I’ll do it today.”
She was better off sneaking out of her bedroom window. Her mom fought back tears and had to leave the room, a hand pressed over her mouth. Her dad didn’t say a word. Sayaka escaped to her room and read manga until she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She thought that might have been the end of it. The morning of, however, a knock sounded at her door. Sayaka froze from where she was checking the med-kit, then reluctantly went to open it.
It was her dad; unshaven and slightly haggard, as if he pulled an all-nighter. In his hand was a slim whistle strung on a cord. There were, she noticed, tiny musical notes carved into the wood.
“Take this with you,” he said before Sayaka could say anything. “If something happens—or if you’re separated from the others—this will bring your sensei running.”
It would bring other things running as well, wolves and thieves and enemy shinobi. Sayaka didn’t care. Slowly, she picked up the whistle and put it on. Then she flung her arms around her dad. He caught her, stumbling a bit, but held on tight.
Sayaka played with the whistle often during the mission. The wood felt smooth and cool underneath her fingertips. She thought about the expression on her parents’ faces when she declared she wanted to be a shinobi, the lines of tension etched deep into their skin.
Physical problems were easier to deal with, Sayaka thought, studying her sleeping teammates. At least there was something to beat.
Mikoto woke up soon after, ready to relieve her of guard duty. Sayaka closed her hand around the whistle and tucked it underneath her mesh undershirt.
Tracking down their targets was far easier than they had anticipated. When they neared the village, the bandits practically fell upon them, believing they were easy targets. Even the sight of Konoha’s hitai-ate didn’t deter them. Sayaka couldn’t decide whether that made them brave or monumentally stupid.
An ax flew at them and forced them to scatter, and they jumped into the agreed-upon plan. Mikoto shot for the supposed leader. Sayaka whirled to find a ragged, foul-smelling bandit charging at her with a guttural roar. The tip of his knife glinted like a beacon. More out of instinct than technique, she parried. The knife left a long slash on the wooden blade but didn't come close to her. She knocked her opponent unconscious with a vicious roundhouse kick to the chin, then deflected somebody trying to sneak up on her.
Was this what a hero felt like? Sayaka wondered. Her bokken cracked hard against bare skin, leaving a nasty welt behind. The man bellowed in pain and swiped at her with meaty fists. She weaved between the punches before attacking with reckless abandon.
It worked—at a price. Sayaka caught a hard blow to the sternum as she whacked her blade against the man’s temple. He staggered away, dazed, while Sayaka wheezed profusely for breath.
“You little bitch,” the man said, swaying dangerously. “I’ll fucking—”
He choked on the word. From up above, Hoheto came crashing down on him. A body flicker. They fell in a tangle of limbs, Hoheto on top and the man struggling to get free.
A kunai came flashing up. Hoheto twisted the man’s arm behind his back, pinning him to the ground. Sayaka caught a glimpse of his face. His Byakugan was activated. For once, he didn’t seem composed or stoic. His teeth were bared in a rage so visceral it took her breath away.
He wouldn’t—but that wasn’t true. They were trained for this. This was part of a shinobi’s duty.
Somebody was shouting. Yusei never raised his voice; Mikoto, maybe? Sayaka didn’t quite process it. Instead, she lurched forward and screamed, “Stop it! Stop!”
Hoheto’s pale gaze flickered towards her. The man seized the advantage and threw him off, reversing their positions. Hoheto’s head slammed on a tree root with a sickening crack.
“Stupid brat,” the man hissed. “Don’t fuck with me—”
Sayaka did the only thing she could think of. She flung her bokken. The wooden blade caught the man across the face, knocking him off balance. Instantly, she was upon him, hand balled into a fist. She struck hard and struck true. A crunch sounded. The man reared back, tumbling off of Hoheto, a stream of blood following him.
“Fuck!” he was hollering. “My nose! My nose!”
He twitched in place, veins bulging. It took a second for Sayaka to realize that he wasn’t moving because he wanted to; something was restraining him. She craned her neck, searching the treetops. Standing on a branch, a few meters above their heads, was Yusei. He sported a bruised cheek but was otherwise uninjured.
“Tie him up,” he ordered. “Can’t hold this for long.”
Sayaka could do him one better. More out of spite than actual caution, she knocked the man out with her bokken, taking great satisfaction in how his eyes rolled back into his head. Yusei dropped the shadow possession jutsu, letting the man crumple to the ground, before leaping from his perch to check on Hoheto.
“Is that it?” said Sayaka. She glanced around and sucked in a breath. There were some guys dangling from the snare traps Yusei had set, while others lay bloody on the ground. Hoheto’s work, probably. He preferred the kunai over any other weapon.
“They’re not dead, but they will be if they don’t get treatment.” Yusei steadied Hoheto, helping him sit up. “Are you good? Is your vision blurry?”
Hoheto shrugged him off. “Do not touch me.”
“Not like I wanted to,” said Yusei. “I’m not a medic.”
“Crap!” Sayaka hurried over to examine him. “Uh, you might have a concussion . . . do you know who the current Hokage is?”
Hoheto’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Sayaka Miki.”
“Nope, it’s Hiruzen Sarutobi. Yusei, get Mikoto-sensei, I think it’s pretty serious—”
“You distracted me,” he spat, grabbing her arm. “I had it under control. How dare you interfere with my fight?”
Sayaka tried to shake out of his iron-tight grip. “Let go.”
“Answer me!”
“Calm down, Hoheto,” a voice said. Mikoto landed next to them, her Sharingan burning bright. “Sayaka is not your enemy. Release her immediately.”
Hoheto obviously wanted to argue with her but thought better at the last minute. He yanked his hand away and glared at the tree roots.
Concussion or not, Sayaka wanted to throttle him. Before she could, Yusei pulled her to the side.
“Don’t,” he warned. “It’s not worth it.”
“Whose side are you on?” Sayaka said, almost hysterically. Being manhandled twice in a minute took its toll; she wanted to hit both of them now.
Yusei sighed. “Neither. There are no sides.”
“Yusei, I swear—”
“Save it for later. The mission’s not over yet.”
Furious, Sayaka snapped her mouth shut. She brushed off Mikoto’s quiet inquiries and steadfastly refused to acknowledge her teammates unless it was life or death. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. They escorted the bound bandits to a nearby prison, and after accepting the village’s gratitude, set back for Konoha.
To her chagrin, Mikoto didn’t let the matter be. That evening, as they stopped to rest, she said: “Would anybody like to explain themselves?”
They were arranged around the campfire, Sayaka a careful distance away from the boys. She winced. Mikoto’s tone made her think, quite uncomfortably, of the times she was scolded for misbehaving.
“I’m not involved,” Yusei said, flopping onto the grass. “It’s them.”
“You’ll listen,” Mikoto said. She glanced at Sayaka. “Would you like to go first?”
She crossed her arms. “He was going to kill the guy I was fighting.”
“He was the scum of the earth,” Hoheto said at once. “If you are so against killing, then you aren’t fit to be a shinobi.”
“They were thugs! They weren’t even trained properly! Nobody went as overboard as you did!”
The fire crackled, casting Hoheto’s strained expression in a warm, inviting light. Sayaka barreled on.
“Just because you have issues doesn’t mean you get to take it out on everybody else. Sure, maybe I’m emotional and irrational or whatever—but you’re just as bad!”
“You do not understand,” Hoheto said softly. “You’re an outsider.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Sayaka jabbed a finger at him. “I’m a genin, the same as you! Stop acting like you’re better than me because you were born with a fancy dojutsu! I get it, okay? Not everybody can be as cool as a Hyuuga!”
“Sayaka, enough,” Mikoto said. She didn’t often interfere, but when she did, her word was law.
Sayaka wasn’t cowed. “But it’s the truth!”
“The truth?” Hoheto echoed. He turned to Mikoto. “Does she not know? Did you not tell her?”
Gently, Mikoto said, “It wasn’t my life to share.”
“Ridiculous,” Hoheto muttered. “She’s not merely an outsider—she’s ignorant as well.”
“I’m only ignorant ‘cause people don’t tell me anything!” Sayaka seethed. “And stop calling me an outsider!”
“All of you are outsiders. That is the truth.” He started to untie his hitai-ate. “I will not entertain her delusions for any longer. This is not some tawdry secret that needs to be hidden; it is my lineage.”
Now Yusei was upright again, gray eyes wide open. “Hey, seriously?”
“I don’t require sympathy from you, Nara. Nor do I need the Uchiha’s discretion. They are both useless to me.”
Hoheto pulled off the band and set it on his lap. Silence settled over them again, broken by the incessant cicada song and crackling fire. A mark was emblazoned on his forehead—a green manji surrounded by two horizontal lines.
Baffled, Sayaka said, “Your big secret is a tattoo?”
“It is a brand,” he said. Nobody contradicted him. “And it is my curse.”
(The less known about fairy-tale heroes, the better. Unlike heroes from epics and myths, they were caricatures. Black and white. Light and dark. Here stood the hero, there lay the villain. Rarely were they given depth.
A shinobi lived in a world of gray. Their objectives were clear also: kill the enemy and protect the village. But what a contradiction they were! Fairy-tale characters were almost preferable in comparison, Sayaka believed. Almost.)
The injured fish flopped pathetically underneath her hands, beating its tail on the board. Then it began to smoke.
“Watch your chakra output!” her supervisor scolded. “Do not burn it again, Miki!”
“I’m not trying to,” Sayaka said, resisting the urge to sulk. A table over, Rin gave an encouraging smile. Her fish was very much dead. Why they kept giving Sayaka the live ones, she wasn’t sure, but healing a wound would be easier if the patient stopped constantly squirming around.
Being a medic was a half-step off from being a doctor. Their instructors had placed them into a specialized program the Konoha hospital offered, where they were taught advanced biological processes, forced to memorize the human body, and given mountains of medical texts to read. Sayaka’s head spun from the workload. She wasn’t the best in school—even when she tried hard, she couldn’t get perfect scores—but that wasn’t going to stop her. It might kill her, though. She also had to go on higher-ranking missions and keep up with her kenjutsu.
“Man, my back hurts,” Sayaka groaned. “And I have to wake up early tomorrow for training . . .”
“I might stay up late,” said Rin. “I haven’t finished the reading yet.”
“Is that chapter seven or chapter eight?”
“Both, I think.”
“I didn’t do either,” Sayaka said in dismay. “Crap. I can’t even pronounce half the things we’re learning, and they expect us to memorize them?”
“You have to form good study habits. Flashcards helped me a lot. Do you want to borrow them?”
Sayaka could drop to her knees and cry. “You’re a freakin’ angel,” she said fervently, seizing Rin’s hands. “Everybody should worship the ground you walk on! Kakashi doesn’t deserve somebody as nice as you.”
“You’re being dramatic,” Rin said, laughing. “He’s just focused on being a good ninja, that’s all.”
They exited the hospital together. It was as peaceful as it could get, not too hot, and the clouds were pink in the dusky sky. It was the kind of day where happiness could come easily, without too much thought or effort.
“We’re going on our first major mission next week,” said Rin. “Obito’s excited, but I’m not too sure about it . . . Sayaka? Are you alright?”
She forced a smile. “Got distracted for a second. Uh, what’s your mission objective again?”
Rin kept up the stream of lighthearted chatter. They walked through Konoha, re-treading the paths they played and fought on. When they separated at a crossroad, Sayaka dawdled, taking in the storefronts and passersby. Several Academy students ran past, tossing a ball back and forth. A dark flock of birds rose up against the twilight.
The scene was so mundane. Somehow, that made it worse.
Sayaka trudged back home and went straight to her textbooks, though she didn’t absorb a single word. She flipped through the pages at random and stopped at a drawing of a cell. It was colored a light shade of green.
How was it, she thought with a sudden, fiery abandon, that everything could be so wrong in the world? She’ll never be able to walk past another Hyuuga without wondering if they hid a manji symbol underneath their hitai-ate. She’ll probably never look at a pet shop the same either, with the parakeets trapped in their wire cages.
Sometimes, she wished nuance didn’t exist. It wouldn't be better, but it would have been easier. Cleaner.
Maybe Obito had the right idea. Being a Hokage was a measurable goal. Being a hero, however . . .
She traced the drawn cells with a finger. Then she straightened up, cracked her knuckles, and got back to work.
(What kind of hero will she become, rather than the one she aspired to be?)
Itachi Uchiha was the calmest toddler Sayaka had ever met. He sat quietly in the yard, playing with wooden shuriken, and hardly bothered them. She propped her chin up with a hand and hid a yawn.
“Isn’t this against the rules?” she asked Mikoto.
“Nonsense,” said Mikoto, setting down a tea tray. “This is part of your training.”
Yusei, half-sprawled on the engawa, nudged her with a foot. Sayaka swatted him. “You stink. Don’t make me tickle you.”
“Don’t make me shadow-bind you.”
“Juvenile,” Hoheto mumbled.
“Shut up,” they chorused in unison.
“Watch your language,” said Mikoto in a pleasant, terrifying way. She went back into the house and returned with a plate of sliced watermelon.
Sayaka thanked her and took a piece. Yusei turned over to his side, keeping a casual watch on Itachi. Hoheto settled into some sort of meditative trance over his tea. The only noise was the occasional slurp from Sayaka and the dull thuds of Itachi’s shuriken.
It was the closest they had ever gotten to peace.
“I still don’t like you,” Sayaka had declared a week prior, right to Hoheto’s face. “You suck majorly as a person. I won’t go any easier on you just ‘cause your family sucks, too.” She had tilted her head. “So fight me.”
“Pardon?”
“Fight. Me.” She’d enunciated each word. “If you feel like you’re gonna burst, come and find me. Go all out. I can take it. You can’t even do the chakra-blocking thing.”
Sayaka had thought long and hard about a solution. That was the best she could come up with to curb Hoheto’s simmering rage. Short of bursting into the Hyuuga's leader's house and demanding that he take the brand off, what else could she do?
Hoheto hadn’t taken her up on the offer yet, but his surprise-turned-poorly-supressed-fury had been worth it. They were civil for the time being. Bullying Yusei into doing work probably helped.
Sayaka set aside the watermelon rind. Before she could take another slice, a distant bang resonated through the house. “Mikoto!” somebody called. “You there?!”
“Ah, that will be our guest,” Mikoto said, rising to her feet. “Excuse me.”
When she left, Yusei cracked open one eye and beckoned. “Pay up.”
Sayaka grumbled, then fished out the money and tossed it to him. Stupid Yusei and his abnormally spot-on predictions. “I’m never gambling with you again.”
“Shame,” he drawled. “Banking on your goodwill turned a profit.”
Heavy footsteps interrupted them. A woman with long red hair appeared at the opened shoji door and stopped short. She drew in a sharp, captivated breath, then squealed. The boys visibly winced.
“Mikoto! They’re adorable!”
Kushina Uzumaki was the polar opposite of Mikoto. Bright, excitable, and short-tempered, she managed to put stiff Hoheto and disrespectful Yusei into place with a single frown. Mikoto visibly stifled a laugh as Hoheto quelled and Yusei attached the appropriate honorific to her name. Satisfied, Kushina turned to Sayaka and smiled.
“Look at us!” she said, fluffing her hair. “We’re a set, y’know? Yin and yang!”
Sayaka broke into a grin.
As it turned out, Kushina was there to help them with fuuinjutsu. Itachi wandered over, attracted to the chaos, as she gestured theatrically and espoused its virtues.
“You never know what you’re gonna need!” she said. “Sure, we all have our specialties, but it doesn’t hurt to branch out once in a while, y’know!” She clapped her hands together. “D’you wanna see how to make explosions bigger?”
By the time they left the compound, Sayaka’s hands were stained black, and she carried a set of seals that would erupt into fireworks when activated. She rifled through her collection, then looked over to Hoheto. There had been an idea forming at the back of her mind since Kushina produced the first explosive tag.
“Hey,” she said awkwardly. “Kushina’s pretty good at this, huh?”
“Her personality belies her skills.”
Sayaka chewed the inside of her cheek, ignoring the look Yusei gave her. “Then maybe . . . I mean, if you ask . . .”
“It’s impossible,” Hoheto said flatly.
“What—I didn’t even finish!”
“Your intentions are obvious,” he said. “I am telling you it’s impossible.”
“How do you know that? You haven’t tried yet!”
“She won’t be able to undo it without killing me,” he said, “and I will not betray my clan.”
Sayaka wanted to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and tell him that his clan was backward and cruel. She didn’t understand. Why did it matter if he betrayed the people who did something terrible to him?
“He may hate it, but he’s a Hyuuga,” Yusei said later, when it was just the two of them. “Clan pride runs deep.”
“That makes no sense!”
He shrugged. “Does to me.”
The implications were not lost on her. She wanted to throw her textbook at something, preferably Hoheto or his distant ancestors.
There was no justice in any of it, she was starting to realize. Maybe that was what Hoheto meant. From the outside, the waters were too muddied, with tradition mistaken for reason and loyalty taken for acceptance. They were bound not only by the seal, but also by some other invisible force—a force so powerful that it made heads bend and eyes close.
It would take something like a miracle for that to change, Sayaka thought. That sounded about right. A miracle.
(When fairies came and asked the would-be princess, What do you wish for, what did they think of before they opened their mouths? Did they always know? Did they flounder for the correct answer—what they should want rather than what they actually want?
Heroes don’t get wishes in the ways heroines do. They were given their dues at the end of the story, be it fair or foul. Sometimes, they hardly had a choice. Was that better than indecision, than the realization a wish may have been wrong?)
One strike. Two. A change in position; he was open on his left side. She went for it. As she shifted her center of gravity, Kakashi swept her legs out from underneath and sent her sprawling to the ground.
Sayaka considered the cloud-spotted sky, wheezing. A feint. Right. With what dignity she had left, she pretended to wave an imaginary white flag in the air. “Uncle, uncle. You win.”
“Good job, Kakashi!” Rin said. Obito mumbled the same thing. Sayaka’s teammates were noticeably quiet, which was par for the course. She groaned and propped herself up on a forearm.
A shadow fell over. Without a word, Kakashi helped her up and held out his hand to form the seal of reconciliation. Sayaka returned the gesture without hesitation. Then they walked off the field to make room for Obito and Yusei.
“Well done,” said Mikoto, handing her a water bottle.
Sayaka grinned. “Sensei, you can’t mean that. I lasted a minute tops.”
“Close to two minutes,” Minato Namikaze corrected. “Not bad at all, especially against Kakashi.” He pressed a button to reset the stopwatch. “Alright, Obito, Yusei. Form the sign. If you’re ready . . . begin!”
Without a second to waste, Obito rocketed towards Yusei.
“Go get him, Yusei!” Sayaka shouted, accidentally spraying water everywhere.
“He shouldn’t have done that,” Kakashi said at the same time. “Distance is key with him—”
Rin’s voice rose above his. “You can do it, Obito!”
A searingly hot fireball blinded them. Sayaka winced and stepped further into the shade. “I was hoping he wouldn’t do that,” she said. “It’s already so hot out.”
“If Yusei does not improve his taijutsu,” Hoheto said, “we might fail the chunin exams.”
“It can’t be that bad.” Sayaka picked up a leaf. Out of an old, impish habit, she stuck it to her temple and reached for another. “I’ve got my kenjutsu and med-kit, you’ve got the Byakugan and kunai, and Yusei has brains. We can definitely make it work.”
Hoheto was quiet, watching as Obito tried to corner Yusei. “Will you have a katana?”
“Huh?”
“Your bokken is getting rather worn.”
Sayaka glanced at her weapon. The bokken was made of sturdy material, but it was, in the end, just wood. Dents, notches, and scratches marked the blade from hilt to tip.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll replace it.”
“Will you not buy a real sword?”
“Nope. Not my thing.” Sayaka shot up indignantly as Yusei raised his hands in the air. “Oh, come on! Don’t give up, you’re so close—”
“I’m tired,” he said. “I wanna get this over with.”
“What the heck, man?” Obito squawked, stopping a few feet short. “You always do this!”
Yusei shrugged. Swiftly, his hands came together to form the ram sign. The shadow underneath his feet shot out towards Obito. Rin gasped. Kakashi leaned forward, frowning intensely underneath his mask.
“I win,” said Yusei.
“Hey, that’s cheating!” Obito strained to banish the jutsu. “You just forfeited!”
“Technically speaking, he said he wanted to get it over with. Not exactly a forfeit.”
“Be quiet, Bakashi! Quit actin’ like you know everything!”
“He is right,” Minato said somewhat apologetically. “This is Yusei’s win, Obito.”
Obito cursed as Yusei dropped the jutsu and shuffled to the sidelines. “Still can’t hold it for long, huh?” Sayaka said, high-fiving him.
“Thirty seconds isn’t bad. I’ll take it.”
Mikoto passed him a towel. “Your taijutsu improved, as well as your reflexes. We’ll practice your earth-style tomorrow.”
Besides them, Kakashi lectured an aggravated Obito. “I told you distance was important,” he said. “We’re surrounded by shade, but there’s a limit to how far his shadow can travel—”
“How was I supposed to know that?!”
“If you had used your brain, you would have figured it out.”
Rin broke in and said brightly, “You did great, Obito. Your fireball was bigger than last time!”
Obito blushed. Sayaka whispered to Mikoto, “He should be thanking you.”
“He will,” Mikoto said serenely. “Oh, and there’s Kushina. What timing.”
They spread out underneath the canopy in an informal picnic. Sayaka continued to add more leaves until they covered every inch of skin. Rin, laughing, mimicked her. Obito tried and somehow got three to stick.
“Try tree-walking,” Yusei suggested.
“Don’t feed her bad ideas, Nara,” Hoheto said. “She cannot afford to lose any more brain cells.”
“Oh, yeah. Good point.”
“Please, I can do that in my sleep,” Sayaka said. She walked up a nearby tree trunk. When the leaves didn’t fall off and she stayed stuck to the trunk, she held out her arms, triumphant. “See? Easy!”
There was a crash. Sayaka steadied herself on a nearby branch; Obito had fallen spread-eagle on the ground. The three leaves were scattered around him in a forlorn circle.
“I can do it,” he said, springing to his feet. “Just watch!”
Sayaka grinned. “I’ll race you to the top.”
“Ha! You’re on!”
“Did you not learn your lesson, Obito?” Kushina said, folding her arms. “That’s how you get a concussion, y’know! Sayaka shouldn’t be doing that, either!”
Sayaka only half-heard her warning. She ran upwards, scaring the birds and squirrels off their perch, pushing past the thin twigs. Her body felt light and formless. Breathlessly, ecstatically, she burst out to greet the blinding white sunlight.
(It loomed in the background, the same that a thorn-covered palace did. She would have to brave its spiny recesses eventually. She had been raring for it, even. But every once in a while, she wanted to lay down her armor and sheathe her blade. Surely, to the princess, another stray minute would make no difference in the face of the past century spent asleep.
Just a minute. A minute longer was all she asked for.)
It was supposed to be easy. C-rank, an escort mission, the client being some merchant or another. Getting to their destination hadn’t been a problem; their journey home was.
Mikoto landed on a tree branch and held a hand out, signaling them to stop. They did so. Sayaka said, “What is it?”
“A fight,” she said. She touched a gouge on the tree. For the first time, Sayaka noticed the red splatter on the trunks. “A recent one. I don’t recall any other teams being deployed in this direction . . .”
Sayaka looked down. They weren’t too high up, so she could vaguely see a silhouette on the forest floor. A thin streak of sunlight flickered off their hitai-ate. Her stomach twisted into a tight knot.
“A shinobi from Kusa,” Mikoto noted. Her Sharingan came alive, the three tomoes chasing each other like koi in a bloody pond. “Get into formation. Keep your guard up.”
They continued more cautiously, and Sayaka spotted a few more bodies scattered on the ground. The further they went, the heavier the metallic scent became. She fingered her bokken and tried not to think too hard about it. She was a shinobi, and an aspiring medic at that. She couldn’t let it get to her.
They hit a clearing, and Mikoto halted again. Some twenty meters away, lying on the grass, was another corpse. A girl with long red hair was bent over it, seemingly patting down the body. The spear propped on her shoulder and the hitai-ate around her neck both gleamed in the pale sunlight.
Hoheto activated his Byakugan without prompt. The veins in his temples bulged. “Sunagakure,” he murmured.
Mikoto exhaled. Yusei grimaced. Sayaka wasn’t up-to-date with wartime politics, but she was sure that even though Suna was allied with Konoha, they hadn't been getting along recently. The specifics eluded her—she needed to ask Rin later.
There was a sudden whirlwind of movement; something slammed into Mikoto. Instinctively, Sayaka seized Yusei’s arm and pulled him to another tree with a safer vantage point, stumbling into a half-kneeling position. When the dust cleared, she saw Mikoto leaping between the branches. Shuriken flashed between each knuckle of her hand. The Sunagakure girl gave chase, her spear collapsing into chained segments.
“C’mon, you can do better than that!” she taunted. “At least put up a fight instead of running away!”
She dodged a barrage of kunai thrown at her, twisting so she faced the direction of the clearing. Then a great fireball came at her from the side. Sayaka could feel the heat singing her eyebrows; she was half-afraid that Mikoto set the entire forest on fire. But no, the flames were perfectly controlled. It hardly even touched the trees or the grass below.
“A warning,” Yusei muttered.
She understood what he meant a beat later. The girl skidded out of the smoke with little more than scorched clothing, canines bared in a savage smile and long hair tossing in the breeze.
“An Uchiha, huh?” she said. “So you're from Konoha. I’ve heard about you guys. Ain’t the Sharingan valuable?”
“This is a violation of our truce,” Mikoto said coldly. “Sunagakure shinobi aren’t allowed past the borders without a permit.”
“Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud,” the girl said. She walked over to the fallen Kusa-nin. “It’s between Suna, Konoha, Kusa, and Iwa. Shouldn’t you be on my side? They’ve been on your ass too, so really, you owe me one.”
In a calculated, careless move, she kneeled and patted down the dead man. From his neck, she took a thin golden chain. Then she pulled a ration bar from his breast pocket and ripped the wrapper open with her teeth.
Sayaka saw red. She shot upright and said, “What are you doing?”
The girl spun around. “Aw, is this your baby genin, Uchiha? Are they squeamish or somethin’?”
“You stole that! Put it back!”
“What, this?” The girl held up the half-eaten ration bar. “Not like he can swallow it.”
Sayaka drew her bokken, but Yusei’s hand latched onto her wrist. “Don’t be reckless,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Think. Why hasn’t Mikoto-sensei captured her yet?”
She didn’t know, and frankly, she didn’t care. Sayaka’s nails cut into the flesh of her palm.
“That guy didn’t die by a spear,” Yusei muttered. “No visible wounds.”
“So what?” she snapped.
“We don’t have enough information on the enemy. Attacking prematurely would be dangerous.” Yusei shook her. “You shouldn’t be on the front lines either, medic. Stay back. We need you alive.”
Sometimes, logic was Sayaka’s worst enemy. The girl caught her eye and sneered.
“Kyoko.”
A boy with a delicate face and flaming red hair emerged from the other side of the woods. He swept past the dead Kusa-nin to stand by the girl, arms folded across his flak jacket. Yusei drew in a sharp breath.
“Sasori of the Red Sands,” said Mikoto. Sayaka blinked. The name sounded familiar; wasn’t he in the bingo book? “You must be the vanguard.”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Sasori. “I’m an instructor, the same as you, supervising a mission.”
“A mission involving Iwagakure and Kusagakure?”
He smirked but didn’t answer. A bead of sweat trickled down Sayaka’s neck.
“Leave,” Mikoto finally said. “Unless it is a sanctioned visit, do not come back.”
Sasori nodded, then spun on his heel. Kyoko balanced the spear across her shoulders and swaggered off without so much as a second glance.
“You have beautiful eyes, Uchiha,” Sasori called over his shoulder. “You’ll do well to take care of them.”
Sayaka cringed on Mikoto’s behalf. Once they were out of sight, she and Yusei joined everyone on the ground. Hoheto was gripping his kunai so hard that his knuckles were white. His Byakugan was gone, but their teacher’s Sharingan continued to spin as she gazed after the pair.
“Why—why did you let him go?” Sayaka said, unnerved.
“Some fights,” Mikoto said, “aren’t worth the cost.” Her Sharingan faded. “Let’s hurry back. The Hokage needs to be informed at once.”
Unbidden, Sayaka glanced at Kusa-nin lying on the grass. She didn’t ask if they should bury their bodies. But something in her expression must have tipped her off, because Mikoto softened.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We cannot risk it.”
Mikoto sounded genuinely remorseful. And she was right. Sayaka exhaled, her throat raw. “Yeah. I get it.”
She could feel the weight of Yusei and Hoheto’s stare. Did they know? Maybe. They had been there on the first day of the Academy, after all.
It had been so simple when she was five and stupid. Now, she could feel how vast the earth was below her feet, how thin the fabric of the sky stretched from one end to another. That, too, seemed unfair to her. Where was the justice in seeing the sun set, day after day, knowing that night would come no matter how hard you tried to push it back?
(She wished and she dreamed and she shouted it for the world to hear. Then the years creeping by forced her awake. Disillusion was not a wave. It was a slow-rising tide, and Sayaka hadn’t realized she was submerged until the water had closed overhead.
There was no difference, sometimes, between the witch with the poisoned apple and the prince who made her dance in burning iron slippers.)
The park was unchanged from all those years ago. Sayaka scaled the jungle gym and stared up at the sky. Fat puffs of white clouds drifted by. It was beautiful, and it made her beyond frustrated.
She’d thought it had been enough. Kenjutsu training with Mikoto. Meditation with Rin and extra practice sessions with her supervisor. She even forced Yusei to give her strategy tips, dammit. She had been so sure, so confident, that even if she lost the first round, her self-healing abilities would impress the proctors. They would have to pass her.
She was wrong. Only Yusei got promoted, because of course he did, for all that he’d threatened to forfeit.
Hoheto lost in the first match, like her. Sayaka winced thinking about it. He had been pale, and inadvertently activated his Byakugan before he made his escape. She had been ready to go off after him when Yusei stopped her.
“Give him some time,” he had said.
It had been two days since then. Hoheto hadn’t shown neither hide nor hair of himself. Sayaka pressed her hands to her face and groaned.
How could everything go wrong? She had just gotten into an argument with her mother this morning, which was more demoralizing than her failing the exams. Her mother had suggested, unsubtly, that it was better she remained a genin. Sayaka might have blown up, said some things that she regretted . . . and now she couldn't look her mom in the eye without feeling guilty.
Some hero I’m turning out to be, Sayaka reflected morosely, playing with her whistle.
The wind blew through the trees. When it died, Sayaka suddenly lifted her head. She’d heard something. It came from underneath the folded climbing wall, and it sounded awfully familiar.
She hopped down from the jungle gym and went to investigate. She had to duck when entering the climbing wall—since when was the play equipment this small?—and found a teary Obito sitting in the darkness, his legs folded up to his chest.
“You,” they said at the same time. Obito turned away and wiped his face furiously, then snapped his goggles back on.
“Still a crybaby, huh?” Sayaka said, sitting down next to him. It was far more cramped than she remembered. “You haven’t changed a bit since we were kids.”
“Something got in my eye!” Obito said unconvincingly.
“Uh-huh. Sure.” She leaned back. “You too, huh?”
“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Obito mumbled.
“You didn’t get promoted either, right? Tough luck.”
“What, you gonna brag about how you lasted longer than me?”
“I’m not heartless,” Sayaka said, offended that he would even think that. “By the way, I got beat up by Guy too. At least you didn’t get knocked out.”
“You impressed the entire stadium when you healed yourself,” Obito said. “You should’ve heard Rin. She was so excited for you.”
He sounded glum. Sayaka felt a pang of pity. He was loud, clumsy, and kind of hopeless, but he had liked Rin since . . . forever, really. At least he was good to her, which was more than she could say for Kakashi's studied indifference.
“There’s always next time,” Sayaka offered. “Six months. We’ll get way better. Maybe you’ll get your Sharingan then.”
Obito scowled and shrugged. The Sharingan was a touchy subject with him, as the Gentle Fist was with Hoheto. Grudgingly, he said, “If we’re up against each other, I won’t hold back.”
“Trust me, I won't either,” Sayaka said. “I can totally beat you.”
“No way! We’re not five anymore! I can kick your ass, easy!”
“You’ll have to,” Sayaka countered. “Who ever heard of a genin becoming Hokage?”
“I’ll be so awesome that they’ll hafta make me Hokage!” Obito pointed at her. “And you shouldn’t be talking! What kinda hero are you if you’re chasing after cats all day?!”
Sayaka was about to give him a piece of her mind when a shadow fell over them. Obito jumped up and slammed his head against the slanted walls. Over his wild cursing, Sayaka let loose a sigh of relief when she saw who it was.
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” she said to Hoheto. “We’ve all been worried sick about you. What’s going on? Why didn’t you—”
“Sayaka Miki.” Her name fell like a stone from his lips. “I’m taking you up on your offer.”
“What?” Sayaka stood up slowly. “Hoheto, are you alright?”
He didn’t elaborate. But he took a step back and assumed a stance that Sayaka was all too familiar with, which was the warning she needed. She reversed her course, stumbling over Obito as she shot out from the other end of the climbing wall.
“Shouldn’t we go to the training ground for this?” Sayaka shouted. “This is a civilian’s playground—woah!”
Hoheto body-flickered before her and slammed a palm into her chest. Sayaka twisted, barely managing to dodge the hit. She thanked her lucky stars Mikoto made them spar so often. During their training sessions, Hoheto often fell back on the tried-and-true technique of knocking her off-balance, and she grew accustomed to fending him off. Usually, though, he relied on a kunai.
He didn’t use a kunai during the tournament, either, Sayaka recalled dimly. Just the Gentle Fist. And Asuma Sarutobi, the Hokage’s son, had beaten him.
“What’s goin’ on?!” Obito said, scrambling from underneath the climbing wall. “Why the hell are you attacking her?”
“Stay out of this, Uchiha failure,” Hoheto snarled. “This doesn’t concern you.”
Obito drew himself up in sharp rage, but it was Sayaka who said, “Hey, apologize! He’s not a part of this!”
Hoheto wasn’t listening. He came at her again, his temples bulging from the Byakugan. Sayaka ducked and went low, catching him in the torso. She shoved him back. This time, it was Hoheto’s turn to stumble. He let out a low hiss and launched himself at her.
Block. Punch. Block, kick. The best defense against the Gentle Fist, Sayaka found, was to redirect the attacks. It was easy to do with Hoheto; he was filled with openings. She knocked his wrists away, using the tricks Rin had taught her in practice.
But Hoheto knew her just as well as she knew him. He feinted to the left. When Sayaka threw up her forearm to deflect, his other hand drove into her right shoulder. Her entire arm went numb.
It was a strange, sickening feeling, not being able to access chakra. Any thoughts of playing fair flew out of Sayaka’s head. She swung a fist at him. Hoheto narrowly avoided it and jabbed her chest in a swift one-two. Sayaka choked. Then anger rose up in her, and with a guttural shout, she charged forward like a bull.
Hoheto slipped out of his stance to brace himself—but Sayaka had the element of force and surprise on her side. She threw him to the ground, using her entire body weight against him.
Hoheto snarled, more animal than boy, as he jabbed angrily at her side. That started to go numb too, but Sayaka held fast. Her good arm pressed against his carotid artery; give or take a few minutes and he’ll pass out.
But she wasn’t going to let him off that easily. Between pants, Sayaka managed to get out, “Why don’t you ever—tell us anything?”
Hoheto let out an angry, wheezing noise, and punched her. Sayaka yelped. Her grip loosened. She had the good sense to roll away as Hoheto attacked again, barely missing her head by a scant few centimeters.
Sayaka came up on one knee, gaping at him. “Are you trying to kill me?!”
“If you can’t handle this, then perhaps you should have minded your own business,” Hoheto snarled.
“You’re one to talk!” Sayaka said defensively. “You’re holding back, big time! If you came at me with a kunai, you could’ve ended it already!”
“What are you insinuating?” Hoheto demanded.
“I’m saying you suck at the Gentle Fist! You’re only making yourself look bad!”
Sayaka had a talent for shoving her foot in her mouth at the worst times. If Hoheto was angry before, he was downright murderous now. He body-flickered—he was good at body-flickering, a technique that Sayaka never quite mastered—and literally went for the throat. Then, failing that, he aimed for her ribs, where her heart was.
Sayaka barely evaded. If nothing else, her reflexes were better than his. Then she put him on the offense, favoring hard, direct hits. Her method of brute force did seem to confuse him and offend the rest of the Hyuuga clan. They were, like the Uchihas, prideful of their fighting style, of their dojutsu, and of their old, stupid traditions.
“We want to help!” Sayaka cried, between the flurry of punches. “But you never—you never—”
“How can you help?!” Hoheto shouted. “You, a middling civilian-born?! What can you ever do?!”
Soon they were on the ground again, grappling like they were still little kids ignorant of Academy-taught techniques. The corner of Hoheto’s mouth was bleeding from where he’d accidentally bitten it. Sayaka’s hair was ruffled and matted with dirt, and half of her body was unresponsive.
“You never let anybody in!” she was yelling. She seized Hoheto’s ponytail, and he knocked her hand away swiftly. “You’re so conceited and rude and I don’t know why I have to feel bad for you! You’re a horrible person!”
“You are childish”—Hoheto fought to pin her flailing limbs—“and immature! Filled with pipe dreams! An absolute failure of a shinobi!”
“I know that! But you don’t! One day you’ll get yourself killed or kill someone because you’re an idiot!”
“What else are shinobi supposed to do?” Hoheto bit out. “We live for our village! Die for them! And we will kill for them!”
His hand sailed past Sayaka’s head and into the dirt. She grabbed his wrist. Held it tight. They regarded each other, battered and bruised, with the kind of rage only children were capable of.
“Screw that,” Sayaka panted. “Screw all of it. I’ll do it my way. I won’t kill anyone. And I won’t let anybody kill me, either. I’ll live ‘til I’m ninety. I’ll save people.” She lifted her chin. “I’ll be a hero.”
“Impossible.”
“Too bad,” Sayaka said. “I’ll make it possible.”
Then, because throwing him off did no good, she headbutted him in the face. Hoheto let out a surprisingly high-pitched squeal. There was another crack. He clapped a hand over his nose, but it was no use; it was already starting to bleed profusely. That was when somebody grabbed Sayaka and dragged her away from Hoheto.
“I leave you alone for two days,” a dry voice said, in the way that Yusei Nara could only be. Sayaka twisted around defiantly until his narrow expression and unkempt black hair came into view. He didn’t bother putting it up today. It was longer than hers, she realized hazily. It nearly swept his collarbone.
Yusei looked between the two of them and heaved a sigh. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s do this.”
Ten minutes later, Sayaka’s chakra pathways were unblocked, and she was healing Hoheto’s broken nose. The bleeding had mostly stopped. His shirt, however, was unsalvageable. And probably his nose will be a bit crooked for the rest of his life. Obito hovered in the background, watching them warily, hesitating on who to assist.
“I was gonna get Mikoto,” he had explained, “but I ran into Yusei. He said not to bother her. She’s busy or something.”
Now Yusei was considering Sayaka and Hoheto with faint exasperation. “Did you sort your problems out yet?” he asked.
They didn’t answer. Hoheto’s glare could drill a hole into the ground.
“Is this going to remain a problem?” he continued.
“If Hoheto lets it,” Sayaka said. “And stop that, Yusei. Seriously. It’s me and him. You wanted to stay out of it.”
Yusei shrugged, unconcerned. “It became my problem over time. Kinda grew on me. Like mold.”
“Mold,” Hoheto murmured, not quite hiding his disdain.
“Hyuuga, you have problems,” Yusei said dryly. “Stop denying it.”
Hoheto glowered. “I have duties as a shinobi—”
“Like the rest of us!” Sayaka snapped. “Stop rambling about duty! You’re like a beta version of Kakashi!”
“Do not compare me to him.”
“Kakashi’s more anal, actually,” said Obito, scowling.
“Kakashi knows how to control his temper,” added Yusei.
“He’s unworthy,” Hoheto spat. “The Hatake name is sullied—after what his father did—”
Sayaka was at the end of her rope. Most of everyone in their year knew what happened to Kakashi’s father, even if he had died when they were quite young. Those sort of stories get around in a village like Konoha. And, despite what the adults said, Sayaka had always thought Sakumo Hatake was in the right.
She was so angry that it boiled over into dead calm. Sayaka considered Hoheto, shifted to get a better angle, and slapped him across the face.
That stunned the boys into silence. It had been so forceful that it turned Hoheto’s head around, and a red mark bloomed across his fine-boned cheek. He touched it gingerly, as if he couldn’t believe it was there.
“You’re scum,” Sayaka told him. “You’re worse than scum. You have no right to insult anybody.”
Hoheto worked his jaw. “You slapped me.”
“I’ll do it again,” Sayaka threatened, lifting her hand.
Slapping was quite a different story from punching. It simply wasn’t heard of in the shinobi world. One of Sayaka’s many teachers had said, long ago, if they’ve resorted to slapping somebody, then the situation was too far gone.
“Apologize,” Sayaka said fiercely.
“And who,” he said with impressive coldness, “should I be apologizing to?”
There was another sharp thwack. This time, Sayaka went for the other cheek.
“Holy shit!” Obito said, and Hoheto lunged for her. Or, at least, he attempted to. His arms twitched like mad, but he didn’t budge an inch. When Sayaka instinctively tried to scramble backward, she found that she, too, was unable to move.
She knew why, though. He had gotten both of them at once. “Yusei!”
“You’re both overwrought,” said Yusei. “Sayaka, stop slapping him. Hoheto, stop being an ass.”
“But he—”
“I will not—”
Yusei took their protests in stride. Five minutes later, he had them strung up by their ankles and dangling from the monkey bars. Obito had gotten over his shock and was cackling to himself near the swing set, the traitor.
“This is torture!” Sayaka protested. Yusei had planned it well; they hung several inches from the ground, and there was no way to catch themselves safely without somebody else’s help.
Hoheto was pale from rage. “Nara, let me down this instance.”
Yusei dusted his hands off. His eyes, a strange, lake-on-a-cloudy-day gray, were surprisingly intent, especially when he bothered to open them all the way. “You’re not going anywhere until we’ve figured this out.”
“It was all Hoheto’s fault,” Sayaka declared.
“Noted,” Yusei said dryly. “Hoheto?”
He didn’t respond. The more they tried to make him talk, the more he seemed to clam up.
Yusei sighed and plopped down before them, cross-legged. “I can guess what’s eating you,” he said. “C’mon. Spit it out.”
Hoheto harrumphed like an old man. “Has Miki rubbed off on you as well? You were never this intolerable.”
“Funny. I thought it was the opposite.”
“In fact,” Hoheto said, warming to the idea, “I would rather gouge my eyes out than spend an hour alone with her.”
“We’ve gone on entire missions together!” Sayaka grounded out.
“My point stands.”
“Contrarian,” Yusei said.
“I am not— ” Hoheto stopped short and took a breath. “I did nothing wrong. I simply took up Miki’s offer. She bit off more than she could chew.”
“I was winning!”
“If you believe that, then you are truly beyond help.”
“She had the upper hand when I found you,” Yusei said.
“She hits harder than Kakashi,” Obito grumbled.
“Face it, man,” Yusei said, when Hoheto opened his mouth to object. “If you took her seriously, you would’ve won.”
Sayaka frowned at the implied slight. Hoheto said, “I was not holding back. I was—”
He stopped, his mouth thinning. Something odd flickered over Yusei’s face. It took a moment for Sayaka to place it—being upside-down added to the difficulty—but it was the same expression that he had when Obito stumbled into his trap during their joint sparring session before the exams.
“‘S not like you to rely on one style,” he said. “What changed?”
“A Hyuuga,” Hoheto said, “needs no tools except for their bare hands.”
“That’s a bad mindset for any shinobi to have.”
“I do not need to rely on a kunai to win!” Hoheto said viciously. His topknot bobbed with vigor. “Do not patronize me, Nara!”
“I wasn’t. Just pointing out something interesting.” Yusei paused. “You only used the Gentle Fist during your match with Asuma. That’s why you lost.”
Hoheto went even paler. Sayaka didn’t understand how that was physically possible. She was getting flushed from all the blood rushing to her head.
“I am a Hyuuga,” Hoheto said. “I should be able to pass relying on the Gentle Fist alone.”
“Will you shut up about the Hyuuga stuff?” Sayaka blurted out. “Not even Mikoto-sensei or Obito talk about the Uchiha that much!”
“Obito doesn’t count. He does not have the Sharingan.”
“Hey!”
“Don’t even go there,” Sayaka said to him.
“I don’t need you to defend my honor!” Obito hollered.
Yusei broke up the incipient squabble by saying, “You’re deflecting and projecting, Hoheto.”
“I am not.” Hoheto visibly struggled to align his thoughts, then said at last, “It is our heritage that makes us who we are.”
Before anybody else could get a word in edgewise, Sayaka cut in. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“As said by a clanless girl,” Hoheto muttered.
Sayaka refused to let it get to her. “Are you seriously gonna let that stop you from being a chunin? Did those old geezers tell you that you’re not a real shinobi if you can’t use the Gentle Fist?”
“They said nothing of the sort!”
“If they don’t care, then why are you putting so much pressure on yourself?”
“Yes. They don’t care. That’s why—” Hoheto swayed unsteadily. “They won’t look at me unless I have mastered it. If they don’t, I will never—”
He stopped again, white from shame and humiliation. Sayaka had an abrupt flash of insight.
“You want to get the brand off,” she realized. “This is your way of doing it.”
Yusei’s gaze flickered over to Hoheto. Quietly, he said, “Is that true?”
Hoheto couldn’t say anything besides, “You two have no part in Hyuuga business.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Sayaka said indignantly. “You can’t expect us not to care. We’re teammates.”
She had said something similar once before, but it held more weight now. Despite their feuds and petty grievances, they worked together in tandem in the past year until they settled into a strange camaraderie. She’d woken up with Yusei’s leg flung over her bedroll and Hoheto huddled near them for warmth. They ate together. They fought and trained together. She had bandaged, splinted, and cleaned their injuries. She healed Hoheto’s nose after she broke it, dammit.
If that wasn’t a true bond, then what was?
“It is . . . a pipe dream,” Hoheto said slowly. “I am . . .”
“You can do it,” Sayaka said fiercely. “I made you an offer, didn’t I? I’ll kick your ass over and over again until you can manage the Gentle Fist. Then you’ll impress the elders and everybody that matters. And you can get the seal off. Easy.”
To everybody’s surprise, Hoheto let out a weak, derisive chuckle. “I envy how your mind works, Miki.”
“She’s right, though,” said Obito.
“That does not reassure me. You two are cut from the same cloth.”
“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“He means you’re two kinds of the same idiot,” Yusei drawled.
There was an outcry. Obito pummeled the air while Sayaka wriggled to and fro, trying to swing herself upright. Then she said: “I bet none of your relatives know you sleep talk!”
Hoheto finally blushed. “You’re mistaken, Miki.”
“You do,” said Yusei, purveyor of chaos. “Is Kiku the girl you’re crushing on?”
It was impressive how quickly human skin can change. Hoheto was rapidly turning a fascinating shade of purple. Sayaka snickered and said, “I bet it’s his favorite kunai!”
“It is not!”
Obito snorted. “You name your kunai?”
“I DO NOT.” Hoheto twisted around desperately. “Nara! LET ME DOWN!”
“Nah. We’re not done yet.”
“Wait, hey, what about me?” Sayaka said. “I’ve been on my best behavior, Yusei! Untie me first!”
Yusei’s head lolled back. “One through a hundred, Obito. Pick a number.”
“Uh, sixty-seven!”
“Sixty-seven more minutes,” said Yusei.
“Yusei!” Sayaka screeched. The startled birds rose from the trees in a dark, great mass, blotting out the midday sun.
(Her hands had been fisted in his shirt as she made her vow. And she swore to keep it, so it became a promise two-fold. In this world, where violence became senseless and muddied the waters red with blood, she had to keep true to herself. Even now, she held herself to the highest ideal. She didn’t care how high the fall would be.
That was what a hero did.)
He whispered it so that it sounded like leaves rustling in the breeze. Sayaka, rubbing the rope burns on her wrists ruefully, glanced over at him. He didn’t look her way.
“Did you say something?” she asked. She wasn’t trying to needle him, but Hoheto drew himself up like she had.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said. He still didn’t make eye contact. “About the White Fang. I . . . admire him greatly.” There was another pause. “I’m sorry.”
Sayaka took a moment. Then she reached out and put a hand on his cheek.
“Just so you know, I’m doing this ‘cause I don’t want your clan to come after me,” she said. Her palm began to glow. When one side healed, she switched to the other cheek. “Contusions look worse than they actually are.” She gazed at him defiantly. “We good?”
“For now,” Hoheto said.
“Suck it,” Sayaka informed him, and almost unwillingly, Hoheto’s stony, anger-lined demeanor softened.
(Not quite a hero. But in this world, wasn’t being an imitation enough?)