A strange new life

2.18

“That headband, are you a ninja?”

The question came out of nowhere. I guess the novelty of music ended and it was ninja business time. Time to see who learned more about the other. I didn’t deny. I had used seals already. I nodded.

“Isn’t it too early to be out?” They asked.

I wrote: “I was trying to relax before the day began.” When Haku read, I flipped the board with the second part of the message. “Aren’t you working early as well?”

“The medicinal leaves are more effective if you pluck them still covered in dew.” They demurred.

That was an interesting tidbit. It was the first time I heard that, but I wasn’t sure if I was just being led on.

“Why are you a ninja? Is that for yourself? Or someone else?”

That was a simple question to answer. I was a ninja because I knew things, horrible, terrible things, and didn’t want to be at mercy of those stronger than me. I puffed my chest on with my non-existent pride. I wrote. “For myself!”

Haku giggled. Damn they looked cute. “Do you have someone who is important to you?”

I shrugged. I had myself. “What about you, do you have a special someone?” I sent the question back.

They nodded, looked away. “There’s someone.” Haku started, “I owe him my life. I want to make his plans come true. I’d give my life to make his plans come true.”

Haku was talking about Zabuza, right? They had this weird master-disciple relationship. I remember how it made me uncomfortable the first time I read the story. Haku was willing to die for Zabuza. At the time, I thought it was unrequited love: Haku was a boy, Zabuza was a man. Forbidden love and all. But this Haku in front of me didn’t sounded like they were enamored with Zabuza, Haku sounded like a religious fanatic. It fascinated me, just a bit.

I asked another question. Intentionally misinterpreting the situation. “Does he love you back?” I expected Haku to get angry, maybe defensive. Goes to show how little I understood them.

Haku giggled. A dainty hand covering their smile. “It’s not like that. He…” Haku stopped, had a faraway look, “…was the first to look at me and tell me I wasn’t a monster. Tell me I was useful. The first to give me purpose. I’m happy as long as I can be of any use to him.”

And wasn’t that the sadness of the shinobi world? Children thinking they were tools, to be used and discarded. Not that I could say anything about that, I hadn’t escaped a spot of indoctrination myself. Not with how readily I put myself in danger to protect the client in the fight against Zabuza, not with how I just exploded the enemy and all I thought about that was that how I had done a good job protecting the client.

“Thank you for the tea and music.” Haku got up, bowed. “Let’s meet again somewhere.” They said, walked away from the clearing.

I plucked a few strings.

You've got your mother in a whirl

She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl

That meeting with Haku got me thinking. How could we avoid fighting Zabuza? Another tidbit of info filled my brain: Never get to know your enemy. I understood it now. I didn’t want to fight Haku, I didn’t want them to die, and I knew that was the direction events would lead to.

Tension was high inside the house, with expected incoming attack any day. I approached Kakashi-sensei during breakfast, we had this talk a few days back, about how Zabuza didn’t had anything against us personally, that he was just a ninja on a mission, much to Naruto’s consternation. “Sensei, what would take to make Zabuza not fight us?”

Sasuke read the words, scoffed. “What, are you afraid?” The jerk!

I ignored him, focused on Kakashi. The man considered my words. “Zabuza has a reputation of never abandoning a contract once he accepts it.” I nodded. That was fair. “It would need Gato to somehow make the contract invalid to stop Zabuza.”

“What if we kill Gato, wouldn’t that make the contract invalid?”

“W-what are you asking? Hinata-chan?” Naruto gasped. The rest of the room went quiet.

“Not really,” Kakashi-sensei answered without skipping a beat. “We don’t know the terms of the contract. And besides, that is not our mission. We are here to protect Tazuna-san and his family.”

I nodded. I could read between the lines. We’re already operating out of mission bounds. We’re not taking unpaid for assassination jobs. There were also other things to consider. What if we failed the attempt? How would Gato retaliate?

That same night, after another boring day of guard duty, there were surprising developments. Sasuke walked inside the house supporting Naruto. Both looked satisfied. Naruto looked utterly exhausted. “We did it!” Naruto called out. “We reached the very top!”

Kakashi-sensei nodded. Smiled. “Very good. Starting from tomorrow, you’ll also help protect Tazuna-san.”

Finally, I could share the boredom.

“I’m also tired from all the days hard work,” Tazuna said, “anyway, the bridge is almost complete.”

“Father, Naruto-kun, don’t overdo it, okay?” Tsunami engaged Oka-san mode and fussed over the workaholics.

That should have been the end, but there was family drama abound. Brat Inari didn’t seem happy that Naruto looked satisfied with his progress and training, and their hard work. No one had seen the boy’s tears until the yelling started.

“Why do you guys even bother to work so hard?” The crying brat yelled, slammed both hands on the table. “No matter how hard you train, you’re still no match for Gato’s men!”

That triggered Naruto something fierce, who to my surprise didn’t also started yelling. He waited until the boy had spilled his grievances out. Inari had stopped to take a breath when Naruto’s voice hung out.

“So, it’s ok for you to pose as the star of a tragedy and cry about I all day long?” Inari looked up, surprised. “Just keep on crying forever, you little sissy!”

Silence filled the room again. Oppressive silence. Naruto got up, left the house. Inari started crying even more, also fled. In the awkward silence, Kakashi also got up, followed Inari.

I got up, bowed to our host. According to Kakashi, tomorrow was the day. I wanted to get a good night’s rest. I couldn't really deal with the crying kid, I had no words to comfort the family. I was a horrible person. At least I wasn’t pretending I wasn’t.

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