Temper [Naruto]

[enthalpy]

Without the heat of the forge, even the strongest steel will chip and shatter.​

=====​

A thin pall of smoke hung over Konoha. By now, most of the fires that had burned through her residential districts had been extinguished, but that light gray haze still clung tenaciously to existence, serving as a stark reminder of what had just transpired. From where Hiruzen stood in the Hokage's – no, his – office, he could clearly see the devastation that had ravaged his village. Entire districts had been razed to the ground, only burnt-out shells of buildings remaining where vibrant communities had once stood.

Not even the great city walls that surrounded the village had been left unscathed – an entire section in the north had been almost entirely destroyed, rent asunder by truly monstrous degrees of force. Dozens of large stone blocks lay scattered across the village, the dark trails of earth and splintered debris they left behind a clear marker of just how hard they had been thrown.

It was disheartening to look over his village and see what it had once been. Restoring Konoha to her former glory would be no small task.

He sighed, and turned to face his most recent appointment. The young kunoichi standing at attention in front of his desk looked a little dazed, Hiruzen noted. After the events of the past few days, it was understandable. After losing her parents, the other members of her genin team, and her jounin sensei all in one fell swoop, no doubt she would need some time to herself, time to mourn and overcome her grief.

A shame that it was time she could not have.

"Your father," Hiruzen said gravely, "made many enemies in his lifetime."

The girl sniffed a little, nodding dumbly.

"With the... the recent disaster that has befallen our village," he continued, "Konoha finds itself at her weakest state since the end of the last war. While your parents were still alive, their reputation acted as a shield against any attempts at retribution on Iwa's part. But now… if Iwa were to make an attempt on your life as revenge, we would be hard-pressed to muster any sort of resistance. Konoha can ill-afford the losses that such a thing would bring about." He grimaced.

To have to do this to such a young child – his successor's child, at that – was regretful. But no matter how much he disliked what he had to do, no matter how much he would have preferred to be able to preserve this young girl's childhood, his duties to Konoha came first and foremost.

"You were with your team when the Kyuubi attacked, correct?"

She nodded stiffly. "Yes, sir."

"It is a shame," Hiruzen mused softly, "that all three members of Team 12 were killed in action yesterday."

The girl visibly swallowed. "I... I don't understand, Sandaime-sama."

"Namikaze Akiha was a promising young kunoichi, well on her way to a promotion. Unfortunately, her career and her life were abruptly ended before their time. We shall mourn her passing." He paused for a moment and handed her a small scroll, which she accepted morosely. "Welcome to Anbu, agent Crow."

"I... Yes, sir." Akiha sounded close to tears, now. "What about..." She trailed off into silence, unable or unwilling to voice the rest of her question.

It was obvious, though, as to what she was asking after. "Uzumaki Kushina's unborn child did not survive the attack." He paused for a moment to harden his resolve. "You have the rest of the day to set your affairs in order, Crow. Report to headquarters by midnight. Dismissed."

With those words, Crow all but fled from the room.

And in this way, Sarutobi Hiruzen traded away the childhood of one young genin for the safety of his village and her infant brother.

=====​

The streets were completely deserted as Akiha ran home. Most civilians were still in the underground shelters, waiting for someone to give them the all-clear signal, while all available shinobi had been assigned to making temporary repairs to critical infrastructure that had been damaged during the Kyuubi attack. Since all of the damage had occurred to the north, there was no one to see her sprint through Konoha's southern districts.

When she finally reached the modest building she called home, Akiha slumped against the door, gasping quietly for air, her heart thudding dully in her chest. She was exhausted. From the very moment that the alert had sounded almost two days ago, she'd been busy. While genin like herself had, in general, been kept away from the front lines, there had still been work to do – evacuating civilians to the various shelters, keeping watch in place of the Chuunin called up to hold the line, or dousing fires and constructing firebreaks throughout the village – all relatively lighter work.

Not that it had helped, in the end. She and the two other members of her team had been trapped inside a collapsing building, the structure buckling under the stress of the fiery gale-force winds driven by the firestorm that the Kyuubi had ignited. In the end, it had only been due to luck that she'd survived. She'd been trapped by the falling debris, nearly suffocating in the process, and when she'd dug herself out, it had only been to discover that both her teammates had been crushed by the crumbling masonry.

Her home was exactly as she'd left it when she'd been called away by her duties. A bowl of half-eaten food sat forgotten on the table where she'd left it in the frenzied moments when the alert had sounded. Akiha sniffed at it for a moment and grimaced at the putrid smell of rotting food, moving to dump the bowl into the trash before thinking better of the idea and setting the whole thing back on the table. She roughly tossed the scroll the Hokage had given her onto the table where the bowl had been a moment before and collapsed onto the floor with a muffled thump.

For a long time, Akiha simply sat there, staring dully at that damnable scroll on the table. She wanted nothing more than to completely ignore it and everything it stood for, wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and pretend that this nightmare had never come to pass. But no, wishful thinking wouldn't change reality, wouldn't change what the Hokage had asked for her, wouldn't bring back her team or her pa-

Akiha shook her head violently. No, she wouldn't think about that. She wouldn't. The Hokage's words had been clear. As a ninja of Konoha, she had no time for grief or sorrow – her own tenuous position would not permit it. No, it would be for the best if she ignored everything that had come to pass.

The mission scroll opened with a snap, disgorging a small bundle of papers that she slowly looked through. 'Crow' had a background that she was expected to conform to, and so, a copy of her new identity's official profile had been included along with the other papers denoting her rank and mission history. It was, Akiha noted, a decomposition of an entire life into a few sentences.

Okada Inoue. Chuunin. Child of two conveniently deceased merchant parents. Enrolled in the Academy in lieu of studying at a state trade school, and was subsequently pressed into service during the last war. Acquired a field promotion over the course of the war, and was only recently recruited into Anbu. Primary specialties in stealth and intelligence work.

As a matter of standard procedure, Konoha kept a number of profiles on hand at all times for a number of purposes, though, for the most part, they were used as pre-made identities for ninja who, for one reason or another, could not use their own true identity. Sometimes, depending on how carefully the profile had been individually tailored before being assigned, it was possible to end up with something completely unsuitable for the mission it was intended for. Thankfully, this profile's background was close enough to her own that she could use it as was without any undue difficulties, but she'd heard stories.

Not that the profile's suitability really mattered. For better or for worse, she'd be spending the foreseeable future as one Okada Inoue, chuunin of Konoha, veteran kunoichi.

For all his faults, her father had always been a very thorough planner. He'd had a procedure set down for every conceivable circumstance – even one such as this. Not that his strategizing had done him much good, in the end. Still, that meant that she at least had a concrete course of action to fall back upon.

Death in the line of duty was something that every shinobi had to learn to expect. It was a painful lesson that she had learned during her very first mission as a fully fledged genin, during the dying says of the last war.

Three whole teams had been sent to relieve a beleaguered outpost deep in enemy territory. The team of chuunin they had been sent to rescue has already been killed by the time they reached the rendezvous point, and they had only made it back home after three days of heavy fighting, minus four genin and one jounin-sensei, killed in the line of duty.

It had only been through luck and some last-minute assistance that her own team had gone through that ordeal mostly unscathed.

That luck had been nowhere to be found this time.

According to her father's contingency planning, she was to avoid taking combat missions until such time that she was proficient enough to at least escape from whatever situations she found herself in. As the last living member of a major bloodline, it was imperative that she remain alive long enough to be able to either pass on her blood to another generation or protect any siblings who could do so. As part of that, she was to call upon any remaining family resources at her disposal.

The Hokage's orders, however, complicated her tasks quite a bit. There was very little she could do if she was meant to hide in plain sight. For one, it would be very suspicious if someone were to remove all items of interest from the Hokage's residence the day after his entire family supposedly perished.

As it was, she was essentially limited to taking things that were unlikely to fall under the public eye - copies of her parents' research notes into sealing and as much of her mother's personal library of various heirloom techniques that she could remove without arousing suspicion. Not that she could see any way to practice any of them without violating the Hokage's orders, but at least she'd be able to give herself a thorough grounding on the underlying theory.

She took some trinkets as well, a few pieces of jewelry that had been gifts from friends and family, and, after a moment of hesitation, a small framed picture of herself with her parents, smiling for the camera in happier times. One by one, she laid the items down on the kitchen table, forming a pathetic little pile that she carefully stored into a small bag that she slung over her shoulder. Her life, all in one neat bundle.

With her business concluded, she reluctantly turned towards and stepped outside. Just as she stepped through the threshold, she turned around, sparing one last desperate look towards the interior. Akiha stood there for a long moment, trying to burn the image into her mind. She bowed deeply to the empty home.

"Mother, father… I'll be back. Someday. I promise."

With that she turned away. The door shut behind her, and Namikaze Akiha left her home for the last time.

 

[Biigoh]

Auuuuuu.... the feels....

A tanuki falls over from feels.

 

[TotalAbsolutism]

... hm. That was nice. Bii is right about the feels. The premise is not what I expected to be from the initial description, and I like it as a result. I'll be watching for more with a wary, but also curious, eye. Otherwise, it's too early to tell.

 

[StackedDeck]

Well, this was interesting. The feels are there, but why did the Third Hokage tell her that Naruto died (Unless he did, but I don't think that happened). This dosen't strike me as something he would do.

 

[macdjord]

Well, this was interesting. The feels are there, but why did the Third Hokage tell her that Naruto died (Unless he did, but I don't think that happened). This dosen't strike me as something he would do.

Click to shrink...

I read that bit as "Of course, your little brother also has to have not survived. So when a familiar-looking new Jinchūriki shows up, remember you are not related to him in any way."

 

[StackedDeck]

I read that bit as "Of course, your little brother also has to have not survived. So when a familiar-looking new Jinchūriki shows up, remember you are not related to him in any way."

Click to shrink...

I'd say her going into ANBU says otherwise.

 

[macdjord]

I'd say her going into ANBU says otherwise.

Click to shrink...

What? Why?

 

[StackedDeck]

What? Why?

Click to shrink...

ANBU doesn't exactly stay in the village to patrol it, they are usually out of it completing missions.

 

[alethiophile]

Doesn't mean she won't eventually hear about Naruto hanging around being Naruto.

I could honestly read that either way. Either Sarutobi is straight-up lying to her, or he's ninja-like reminding her of the official line.

Or, potentially, he's telling the truth, and this is an AU in which Kushina went through with her plan to temp-kill Kyuubi and Naruto doesn't exist. That opens up various avenues, though it decreases my personal interest.

 

[enthalpy]

The best way to keep a secret is to make sure that no one else knows what the secret is in the first place.

Here, both of the Fourth Hokage's children need to be dead, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. The fewer people know that either is alive, the better, which means that, in the best interests of keeping Naruto's existence secret, Akiha cannot know of her brother's survival.

In this case, enlisting Akiha into the Anbu is part of keeping that secrecy. It gives Hiruzen somewhere to put her where he can be guaranteed that she will be out of the public eye, while also keeping her out of the village, which means that she'll have less opportunities to stumble across Naruto somewhere in the village.

 

[enthalpy]

The sun had already begun to set by the time that Akiha finally made her way to her new home. Konoha maintained housing in various places across the village for the use of shinobi who expected to be away from home more often than not, off on some long-term mission or another, but the low cost of that housing came with correspondingly low quality. It had been one of these low-cost units to which she had been assigned.

There was no feeling of familiarity in the spartan studio apartment, no sense of personality to that tiny box just barely large enough to fit her person and the bag that held what few things she could call her own. Not that she really lived in the place to begin with. With her training consuming nearly all of her time, she barely had the time to to do anything other than crawl home and collapse at the end of each day.

It was, Akiha supposed, functional. Just the bare necessities required to support life, with no room for the creature comforts and luxuries that she'd taken for granted before. Everything that could possibly have been considered excess had been stripped away with an almost brutal efficiency, and the end result was something that could not even be called a home in the most generous sense of the word. This apartment was not a place to live. For her, at least, it was just an austere, sterile environment with no purpose other than as a place to sleep.

Life in the Anbu was much the same way. Efficiency was prized above all else – the fewer resources expended in eliminating the mark, the greater the profits gained from the mission – and what little training she'd received had revolved around that concept.

There were no points awarded for flashy displays of martial prowess or explosive jutsu that levelled the landscape, not, at least, in the business that the Anbu conducted. In the end, the only thing that mattered as an assassin was whether or not she finished her mission within the parameters, and to that end, it was economy of motion, of time, of materiel that her training focused on.

It was a paradigm utterly foreign to her past experiences. Akiha's parents had never been known for their subtlety, and her own practice had always focused on maximizing effect first and foremost.

The Chuunin Exams, the very tests that were supposed to judge her suitability for promotion, often rewarded candidates for showboating, even if it was unnecessary. Konoha's ninja corps were its ambassadors to the rest of the world, after all, and what better way to cow their enemies into submission than through a demonstration of overwhelming superiority?

Even during wartime, there was no great need to keep conservation of resources in mind, not when she expected to fight pitched battles, spaced far enough apart to rest and resupply in the lulls between the fighting. Why bother conserving chakra when she could just withdraw to friendly lines and recover before the fighting resumed?

As an assassin, though, conservation of resources was very much a major concern. She needed to be able to travel days, weeks, perhaps even months at a time with no supplies other than what she could carry on her person, before killing her target and returning alive. With every bit of wasted energy, every drop of poison spent without effect, every single senbon thrown that did not pierce its target, her ability to get herself back home safely was correspondingly diminished.

Which was why she had just returned from a week long survival mission within the training ground colloquially called 'The Forest of Death.' Her objective going in had been simple: kill her target and escape undetected, without leaving any identifying traces of her presence. It was the final test presented to all new Anbu recruits to complete their initiation into the ranks of Konoha's assassin corps.

Admittedly, the test she had taken was nothing more than a formality, but even though her acceptance into the Anbu was all but guaranteed, she'd still put forth her best effort at completing the examination. It had been a grueling ordeal, and she'd almost failed to finish the exercise in time, she'd still managed to pass on her own merit in the end.

The pale porcelain mask that marked her official acceptance into the Anbu felt oddly heavy in her hands. It had been issued to her almost as soon as her completion of the exam had been recorded, along with a few complete sets of carefully nondescript equipment.

Akiha hefted it a few times in her hands before dropping it back on top of the clothing she'd been given to use, letting out a deep sigh. She looked guiltily at the small pile of paper piled beneath the singular window in her apartment.

With training eating up so much of her time, Akiha had barely had the time or energy to devote to anything else. She'd made a few cursory attempts at studying the material that she'd managed to salvage from her home over the past few months, but each time, she'd found herself simply staring listlessly at the text, dazedly reading the words inscribed on the paper over and over again without really understanding any of it. After a month of fruitless study, she'd pushed it aside to focus on her other training.

It didn't help, of course, that she'd been explicitly disallowed from using any sort of personalized techniques during her exercises. Anything unique that could possibly be used to tie her actions to her identity as Crow and thus Konoha itself was strictly forbidden, both in training and in the field, and her instructors had all but ordered her to pick a few signature taijutsu styles used by shinobi from other hidden villages and train herself in those.

Not that they'd bothered personally teaching her any of them. It had been made quite clear to her from the very beginning that she was expected to be able to pick up new styles and techniques on her own. Her instructors were there to teach her the general principles that formed the foundation of her future work - in the end, filling in the fine details was up to her.

But now, all that was over. She'd passed the tests that had been laid out before her with flying colors. Now, she would finally have the time to follow in her parents' footsteps, to learn the techniques that they'd passed down to her, to try to grow strong enough to stand on her own.

The first scroll she picked up felt oddly heavy as it unfurled in her hands.

The Uzumaki clan had always been known for their prowess in the sealing arts. When her mother had been sent to Konoha as part of an exchange program, she'd been allowed to bring a small portion of the clan archives with her. That knowledge that she'd brought with her to Konoha had been the only portion of that great library to survive Uzushio's destruction.

And now the only surviving part of that once-great trove of knowledge was in her hands. Sometimes, she wondered if her mother had felt similarly to her - the last scion of a once-great clan, trying to preserve the knowledge so painstakingly gathered by her ancestors.

But even if only fragments of the Uzumaki clan's sealing arts had survived the passage of time, that small part that remained to her was still enough to make her an expert at the sealing arts. Or it would, if she could find the time to study it.

Seals were unique among the ninja arts in that their creation required hours and hours of study. Whereas finding new applications of elemental chakra was often a matter of experimentation, devising a new seal array was a far more complicated process. Without a fundamental understanding of how the individual components of a seal fit together, any attempts at haphazardly assembling a new seal were likely to end in explosive – often lethal – results.

Which was why she had yet to even attempt to activate any of the few seals she'd traced since she'd started her self-study. Without a teacher to check her work for flaws, it was simply too risky. She could not, after all, be certain of the correctness of her work, and when any mistake could potentially be fatal… No, it was better to wait until she found someone to act as a mentor. Her father's old teacher, perhaps.

Akiha leaned back against against the wall, letting the scroll pool in her lap, and sighed.

Balancing the Hokage's orders with her own duties was proving to be increasingly difficult. Many things would be simpler if she could simply ignore the Hokage's dictate and simply act as Namikaze Akiha, the Fourth Hokage's only surviving child. Unfortunately, it had been made clear to her that that option was out of the question.

No, she would have to act within the bounds of the persona assigned to her. But what resources would one Okada Inoue, unknown orphan and newly-minted Anbu agent have at her disposal?

She grimaced and jerked to her feet, tossing the scroll back onto the pile underneath the window. There was, it seemed, nothing she could do for now except to wait.

Not that she really had the time to ruminate on these things. The Hokage had 'requested' a meeting with her, no doubt to present her with the first assignment of her tenure in Anbu. It would be expected of her to show up in her new uniform.

One piece at a time, Akiha slipped herself into the Anbu off-duty outfit that she had been given, greaves first, then vest, gloves and cloak, until finally only the mask remained. She hefted it again, feeling the weight of her dreams in her hands.

The cold porcelain settled over her face with an air of finality.

 

[kokuenDG]

I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop with this one.

She'll most likely be doing long term missions until a point comes where she's allowed to interact with him in some manner. But still, it doesn't take much for her to find out that her brother is still alive...

I mean, this is called temper for a reason. And methinks that that's not a good sign for things to come. She already had to abandon her life and identity, so leaving her younger brother isolated like that, however unintentional it may have been, will undoubtedly piss her off something fierce.

 

[macdjord]

I mean, this is called temper for a reason. And methinks that that's not a good sign for things to come. She already had to abandon her life and identity, so leaving her younger brother isolated like that, however unintentional it may have been, will undoubtedly piss her off something fierce.

Click to shrink...

Huh. I'd assumed it was referring to 'temper' in the metal-working sense of the term: heating, working, and cooling a blade in order to strengthen it.

 

[kokuenDG]

Huh. I'd assumed it was referring to 'temper' in the metal-working sense of the term: heating, working, and cooling a blade in order to strengthen it.

Click to shrink...

Well, temper has more than one meaning so...

 

[alethiophile]

Given the line at the start of the first chapter, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the metallurgical definition is the primary one intended. (Also I'm pretty sure that's the original one, with "tendency to rage" being derived.)

 

[enthalpy]

Saikyo. The western capital. A city of broad streets and grand buildings, seat of power of the Fire Daimyo's court.

Saikyo. The western capital. A city of winding alleys and sprawling slums, a veritable hive of human activity.

Saikyo, a city with two faces.

Unlike Konoha, whose existence had been planned from its very conception, Saikyo had grown organically, slowly expanding outwards in fits and starts as more and more people flocked to the capital. It had lead to a marked divide between the old city, that portion that had existed before Hi no Kuni's meteoric rise into global prominence, and the new city, brimming with those immigrants that sought a new life.

It was in the old city, in the heart of the Fire Daimyo's domain, that Akiha found herself tracking her target.

Her first mission was an assassination. Normally, new recruits were assigned a mentor for their first few missions to ease their transition to performing the kinds of missions that Anbu did, but her assigned mentor for the mission, Hawk, had made it clear that he was there to watch over her for one mission only.

With the regular forces still reeling from the losses they had sustained, the Anbu had been called upon to take up some of the slack, which lead to a corresponding shortage of manpower when it came to Anbu's own missions. In the end, it meant that she had less time to get up to speed, less opportunities to learn from her mistakes.

It was not a situation Akiha was unaccustomed to. Towards the end of the last war, when Konoha had started running short on manpower as the slow grinding attrition made its presence painfully felt, the Academy curriculum had gradually become more and more abbreviated as each year passed, with two full classes graduating in the time that one would have before. She herself had been shoved onto the frontlines at a time when having warm bodies to hold the line mattered far more than having skilled fighters.

She'd had all of a month of training with her genin team to prepare for the rigors and hardships of war. It had not been nearly enough time. It had taken a great deal of natural skill and no small amount of luck, but her team had survived intact to the very end, only to–

Akiha shook her head violently, trying to clear her thoughts. No, now was not the time to think about those things, not with a task still at hand. She could feel sorry for herself later when she didn't have a mission to complete. Feeling morose would do nothing to improve her situation, and she'd just have to bear with it like she had with all the other recent events.

Deal with one thing at a time. The mission came first.

Her target was one Ishihara Shinzo, scion of a minor noble house, wealthy merchant, and outspoken political opponent of the Fire Daimyo.

Perhaps he'd opposed one too many of the daimyo's attempts to raise taxes on the merchant class. Or maybe he'd gravely insulted the daimyo's person. Not that the reasoning mattered – regardless of what indiscretions the man may or may not have made, the Fire Daimyo wanted Ishihara Shinzo dead, and it was up to her to ensure that it happened, one way or another.

It was also a safe, low-risk mission, the kind typically assigned to new recruits like her to evaluate their performance in the field. She had near-perfect information: the Daimyo's request had come with a remarkably complete report on the target, complete with the man's habits and typical itinerary. And, of course, her target could be found squarely within the heart of Konoha's influence.

She'd briefly toyed with the idea of simply walking into the man's mansion at night and killing him face to face. The guards would be a non-issue, not when she had full knowledge of their patrol schedules, and even if she was discovered, within the boundaries of Hi no Kuni, her Anbu uniform meant that she acted under the auspices of the Fire Daimyo's authority, effectively making her immune from any kind of reprisal. Her assignment, however, had been quite clear in that the killing was not to be connected to the daimyo in any way. No doubt there were circumstances that prevented him from acting publicly against Ishihara, and her acting publicly as an agent of Konoha would be counterproductive, to say the least.

So she would just have to use a more subtle approach.

From her vantage point on the third floor of one of the upper-class teahouses that lined the central road cutting its way through the very heart of the city, Akiha could see all the way to the old fortifications that marked the divide between the old and new districts. It was a magnificent view, one that she might have spent the time to savor had she been there under different circumstances.

For now, though, she was far too focused on the traffic below to spare any attention to the scenery. From the dossier she'd been given, it seemed that her target, an avid horseman, habitually rode along this road as he travelled from his estate outside of the city to court. Any minute, now, her target would pass by below, and then…

"Lighten up, Inoue-chan," Hawk said admonishingly. "It's no good to be serious all the time, you know."

"Of course, father," Akiha said dutifully. By now, her response had become almost automatic. Starting from the very moment she'd chosen to wait at the teahouse for her target's appearance, her minder had been continuously pestering her with unwanted attempts at making conversation. At first, it had been a welcome reprieve from the tedium of watching for her target's appearance, but over the course of the hour or so that she'd spent idly waiting, it had slowly become more and more irritating.

It was his own way of being helpful, no doubt.

"Father," she asked after a moment. "Why are we here?"

Hawk raised an eyebrow. "Do I need a reason to wish to spend time with my family?" He smiled. "Business has kept me away from home for far too long, and I wish to spend as much time as I can with you before having to leave once again."

Akiha sighed. Today, she was Nakamura Inoue, eldest – and only – daughter of a minor functionary serving the Fire Daimyo's court. Evidently, her 'father' had decided that he hadn't been spending enough time with his family, much to her own dismay.

"If you care so much about spending time with me so much," she said bitterly, "then you should've chosen a job that you don't need to travel so much for." Her current foul mood wasn't Hawk's fault. Not entirely, at least. There was no way for him to know about the circumstances surrounding her admission into Anbu, after all, but that didn't the subject of their conversation any less painful.

Her parents had spent the little free time they had with her, but the nature of their positions had given them all too little time together, especially after her own graduation from the Academy.

During the war, as Konoha's pool of manpower steadily shrank, leave time had become almost impossible to acquire, and on the rare occasion she'd managed to secure herself a week away from the rigors of life on the frontline, it had been spent in an empty home, her parents both away on some mission or another.

Almost immediately after the war had ended, Sarutobi Hiruzen had appointed her father as his successor, and his new position as the Fourth Hokage had, if anything, decreased the amount of time he'd had for his family. And then, that fateful October night…

Akiha looked down into her cup, blinking back tears. She couldn't cry. Not here, not when she'd promised to herself...

"I try," Hawk said slowly. "You know I can't take you to court with me." If he'd noticed her little fit, he made no comment of it. "Once you're older, perhaps."

She nodded glumly, not trusting herself to speak. "It's not fair," she said finally, already knowing what Hawk's response would be.

"Very few things are, Inoue," Hawk said gently.

Akiha nodded glumly, slumping slightly against the table and turning her gaze back down to the street below. She didn't want to talk about family, real or imagined, but Hawk hadn't exactly given her a choice in the matter.

Her introspection was interrupted by a flurry of movement in the edge of her vision.

At long last, her target had made his appearance, passing by at the head of a mounted procession. Just after the train of riders passed by the teahouse, Akiha twitched her fingers underneath the table, and Shinzo's horse suddenly reared up and bolted, dashing down the central thoroughfare before abruptly turning and pitching its rider, who flew up into the air and slammed head first into a wall with a sickening crunch.

Akiha rose to her feet as the first screams began, trying to peer over the railing of the balcony, trying to see past the other patrons crowding at the edge, but almost as soon as she had risen, her 'father' yanked her back into her seat. "Stay here, Inoue," Hawk said sternly, his voice lacking all of its previous levity.

She waited nervously for a few minutes before he returned, his lips pulled into a grim line across his face.

"What happened?" Akiha asked.

"We need to go," Hawk said simply. "It seems like we'll have to have this outing another day."

And with that, Akiha's first mission in Anbu was at an end.