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Fandom Squad Shithead: A Naruto AU

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Both of the boys felt a wave of relief hearing Katsuro's plans.

Haruki, in particular, had been riling himself into an increasingly anxious state ever since the reality of their training had hit him. It had gotten to a point where, now that there was no risk of him misstepping and blowing his legs off for life, he didn't know what to do with those nerves.

The more he thought about it, the less he felt relieved and the more he felt angry. "Why did you make us train all night when we could've just done that?" he blurted. "Literally our first freakin' day and we traveled all this way and hiked through the woods to find nothing. We needed to rest!"

If Tetsuo had stopped glaring at his teammate earlier, it had not lasted long. Then again, Haruki could've said anything in that moment - that his favorite color was purple or that grass is green - and he would've gotten the same look.

Tetsuo did not take his eyes off of him once while he grabbed and slid meat and eggs onto a plate of his own.
 
Katsuro's expression stiffened, as his reddened eyes glared over at Haruki beneath his glasses. He expected this antagonizing whine from Tetsuo, but not Haruki. One complaint after the other - there was just no letting up between these two.

"Because I fucking said so, that's why." He snapped back.

"Last time I checked none of you knew shit about landmines. That's why we spent all night training. Now you all at least have a chance to get away from one."

"You think I like having to slow down and teach you these fucking things in the middle of a mission? Goin' around obstacles rather than through them? There's a little girl out there, and every hour wasted is another we can't get back. But I'd rather make sure that you all know what the fuck you're doing out there, so that you all don't come home in body bags!"

He sighed, irritated that he had already lost his temper this early in the morning.

"Just remember this: That girl's life is on the line. But I don't value her life over any of yours."
 
Haruki's cheeks reddened with emotion. He didn't like being yelled at. It was humiliating, and it was humiliating that he felt so humiliated. Whatever was being said to him, the phrases he would remember were being carefully cherry-picked.

Like how their sensei was bemoaning having to stop and teach them. He didn't teach him anything! He went off on some phone call, and left Mizu and stupid freakin' Tetsuo in charge of teaching him. Katsuro had to have known he was literally putting him through torture.

Nevertheless, he kept his mouth shut to sulk. Haruki slumped his arm and himself on the table so as to try to block Mizu's view of him. He stabbed his fork into the okonomiyaki and slid it into his mouth to nibble at.

Tetsuo, by contrast, did not miss what was the closest thing Katsuro came to admitting he cared for them. Well, to be exact, he said that they were on equal footing with the girl they were hired to care about. That level of prioritization had not occurred to him before. All he ever did was drink, yell at them and seem to say everything he could to remind them that he did not want to be around them. It felt weird to hear. It sounded sincere, but did he trust that to be the truth?

Tetsuo looked across the table to try to get a read on Mizu. He didn't look for long before looking back down and resuming his meal. Just as Katsuro said, they needed the meal if they were going to be out all day. They had to finish this today.

The thought of running into Genzo again made his skin crawl. Even if they found the girl and returned him home, would that do anything to guarantee her safety? He guessed anything that came after they found and returned her wasn't technically their responsibility, but... still.

He tried not to think about it too much.

Before long, the servant from earlier returned, setting the coffee before him. Tetsuo poked at the mug and yanked his fingers back quick. Too hot. Between bites of his meal, he took long moments to blow and try to cool it.
 
Mizu

Much like Haruki and Tetsuo, Mizu felt the weight of pressure taken off her shoulders upon hearing that they weren't going through the minefield. However, most of her attention was still on the events of yesterday. She stared at the table, trying to clear her head. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get that battle out of her head. Without training to occupy her thoughts, all she could think about were the pale blue eyes of Genzo piercing right through her as he tried to kill them. It didn't take a genius to realize they'd run into him again.

"Sensei...If I may?" Mizu's weary eyes finally looked up from the table, and at Katsuro.

Katsuro glanced over. Albeit irritated, he nodded toward Mizu. "Yes?"

"Just what exactly do we do when we run into Genzo again?"


Katsuro

"Well..." Katsuro replied, taking a moment to think.

"We'll have to fight. No doubt about it. But this time will be different. We'll be prepared, and will have a gameplan."

"As a rule of thumb: Let me handle Genzo. You three will take up defensive positions under cover. That way you're ready for anything."

Katsuro paused. Going into this now, and not at a proper training ground wasn't ideal. This was better than nothing though. Hopefully the team would learn a productive lesson from this.

"But. In the event that I'm not there...you'll all have to work as a team. Each of you will have a role to fill. I'm talking basic shock formation - offense."

"Mizu." Katsuro looked over to her, gesturing with his hands to help explain himself better.

"You're the pressure - with your clones and taijutsu, you pressure the opponent. As they play defense, make mistakes, or try to counter, that's where Tetsuo comes in."

He turned ot face Tetsuo.

"While Mizu is pressuring the opponent, get an angle, wait for an opening, then hit them with your ninjutsu, or equipment. Maybe both. At the very least you'll be harassing them and making openings for Mizu."

"Haruki." Katsuro turned to Haruki, the final piece of the strategy. "You're support. In other words, you're gonna sit back and react to what the other two need. If Mizu or Tetsuo get in a sticky situation, you rush in there and help. In the event one of them goes down, get them to safety. Otherwise you're the eyes and ears. Call out what the enemy is doing, and watch for any flanking. Make sure the enemy can't deceive the team"

"The three of you need to communicate, find the enemies weakness, and exploit it. Play to your strengths."

"Now, before I go any further I want to ask you three a question: Did you notice any weaknesses, or tendencies of Genzo? Think like you were fighting him right now. Right now is the time to talk about these things."
 
Tetsuo looked towards Haruki, who hadn't shifted from his pouting slump. He scowled.

"Hey." He planted his hand on the table and stood to lean forward and snap his fingers at Haruki's face. "Are you paying attention?"

Haruki turned his head to glower back over his forearm at him.

Tetsuo continued his scolding. "You were the only one who was there for the whole fight yesterday - you didn't get caught in that genjutsu so think of something. I'm not about to die today just because you decided today you wanna' act pissy. You're support."

Like he's one to talk, Haruki thought. He pressed his lips in agitation, but nevertheless sat up again, this time folding his arms over his chest.

Tetsuo rolled his eyes away from him and sat back down. He had to think for a moment if there was anything else to be said about Genzo. Last time Katsuro asked, it was moments after Tetsuo had nearly gotten ran through with a sword. Somehow he had forgotten about that until just then.

In order for Genzo to do that, he had gotten himself gliding in the air somehow. He remembered how he had been able to just sway side-to-side when Tetsuo had thrown those kunais. He remembered, too, that wind style attack that had pushed them also pulled them in. When he had still been rattled yesterday from his close brush with death, Tetsuo had said Genzo might be a long-range fighter, but now he thought there might be a little more to it than that.

"He spent a lot of his movements and ninjutsu to keep us away from him. The sword and any taijutsu were all just to counter and get us to back off. If we ever got close to him, he wanted to be the one controlling that."

The conversation having moved back to the battle, Haruki thought and after a moment said, "I think when he felt too many of us were on him, he would jump up every time." He frowned to himself. Maybe.
 
Mizu eyed over at Haruki while Tetsuo scolded him. For once, in this moment, she didn't bother to try and stand up for Haruki. Tetsuo was right, he needed to pay attention to the battle plans. Especially considering how their lives could once again be in Haruki's hands if things went south again.

Once Katsuro queried about Genzo's styles and weaknesses, Mizu listened carefully to Tetsuo's observations. She nodded her head slowly in agreement, looking between Katsuro and Tetsuo. Although she hated to admit it, Tetsuo seemed to do a pretty good job summing up Genzo's distinct fighting style. He had stronger observational skills than she had anticipated, but would he be able to use those observations to his advantage?

Haruki then chimed in observations relating to Genzo's evasive nature. While his notes weren't as detailed, Mizu was still glad that Haruki took something away from the battle. Maybe there was still hope for him after all.

Mizu then chimed in herself.

"He's unorthodox with his fighting style; being primarily a ranged fighter yet also being skilled up close. From the way he uses his ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu, he seems to like to be in control of things. He doesn't like to leave openings to be countered, and favors quick attacks over more powerful techniques that would leave himself vulnerable."

Katsuro's grim expression did not change on the outside, but he was satisfied. Learning about the enemy is an important skill a shinobi must use, even amidst the chaos of battle. It was clear to Katsuro that even though this squad was full of shitheads, they at least took something away from fighting Genzo.

"Good observations. Those sound pretty spot on to me. Genzo is not a blood and guts fighter. If he thinks he's in danger he's going to try to get to safety. Don't expect him to tough things out and go blow-to-blow with you. That's why he's adapted his entire style to fighting at a range, and sticking to counter attacks up close."

"Pay attention to what I tell you now, because it might just save your life." Katsuro announced, taking a moment to look at each of his students.

"If we fight him, you need to focus on pressuring him. Don't let him get comfortable and control the battlefield. Constantly flank him, and keep pushing forward on him. Since he will flee to the air if he feels danger, your best bet is to either accumulate small hits that will wear him down over time, or sneak a big attack on him. That style of his is dangerous in an open field, but he's actually at a disadvantage in the forest. Use the trees to break his line of sight. If he takes into the air, do whatever you can to hide from him. Split up, use smoke grenades, get under a tree, or whatever. Clones would be a good diversionary technique"

"Finally..." Katsuro stated. "If I'm not there, and you're fighting him: Escape at the first opportunity you get."

With that said, Katsuro ate the last few bites of his meal. He then stood up, and faced his students once more.

"If any of you have anymore questions or concerns, now's the time to tell me. Otherwise I'll meet you out in the courtyard when you're finished eating."
 
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Haruki shook his head mutely and returned to his meal. He did have a question in fact - a question that was really more of a concern. Did Katsuro seriously expect them to fight this man again? The man that almost spelled their certain death just the day before until Katsuro had showed up? He was the jounin there, he should be able to handle it on his own without putting them needlessly at risk.

He was still upset though, and refused to plead for their sensei's protection. In his head, somehow, this would undermine everything he just said, and that he couldn't have happen.

Tetsuo also gave no indication of needing to ask or bring anything up. Instead, he looked down at his plate in concentration. He tried imagining how the fight yesterday could've gone down differently if they'd had this insight before.

Their squad had been on the defense as soon as they knew Genzo had been on a different league than the hired swords. They had made almost completely isolated attempts at striking him. Genzo had enough time to back up and let loose on them that way, or counter the one of them. Yes Mizu had her clones, but even clones of her still could only think like Mizu could. If Genzo had to deal with offensive pressure a forest not just from her, but himself too, he could start imagine maybe, just maybe, they could back him into a corner.

Tetsuo glanced at her again.

How the hell had he ended up on a team with the Leaf Village's fox demon? Just seeing the whiskers that marred her face filled him with a disgust that made him grimace.

It wasn't just that though. He felt disgusted thinking of the way their employer had treated her, even though the nine-tailed fox had nothing to do with him.

There was another feeling there too just bubbling beneath the surface. He felt ashamed, thinking about how many times yesterday his actions had put her in harm's way. Maybe he hadn't explicitly meant to, but he had more than once completely disregarded that she had been there, and because of that he had put her in danger. She had gotten knocked unconscious. Certainly she would be dead now if Katsuro had not shown up in time.

All of these things he felt simultaneously, and it confused him. He hadn't known either of these two really until just two days before, and yet their very survival depended on what they could do for each other today. It was a kind of pressure and resolve he had never once felt with his old squad. It was strange, but he had made a resolve the night before, and he very well intended to keep it.

Tetsuo looked away to finally take a sip from his coffee. Once the flavor hit the back of his throat, he nearly gagged. Tetsuo tried to play this off and look composed, covering his mouth with his hand and turned his gagging into him clearing his throat.

Haruki didn't look back up from his food until Katsuro had accepted there was nothing more to say and left the room. Haruki sipped the last of his juice, watching the doorway their sensei exited through until he felt certain Katsuro would be out of earshot.

He turned to Mizu. "Do you really think we're going to run into Genzo again out there?"
 
"I do." Mizu replied bluntly, finishing up the last bites of her meal.

Whether they liked it or not, there was no way that Genzo would just leave them alone to continue their search uninterrupted. Both of them were after the same thing after all. Mizu couldn't help but wonder: who would find the girl first? There was no telling what leads Genzo and his team were working with. Plus, someone as experienced as him must have at least some experience in tracking.

Mizu couldn't help but shake the feeling that the next time they encountered Genzo, it would be even more intense than the last.

"And we need to be prepared for when we do run into him again. Trust me, the second time you fight someone is challenging. You both know what to expect from the other."

Mizu spoke her words from experience. As evident from the scar on her middle left whisker marking, she had been in plenty of brawls in the academy and on the streets. In hindsight however, these fights paled in comparison to the battle they had yesterday. Unlike the petty squabbles of the past, fighting with Genzo was a matter of life or death. This team of misfits had to follow the game plan Katsuro put in place if they wanted to survive. More importantly: They had to work together.
 
Haruki's face fell. He had been hoping for some solidarity with how uncertain he felt, then maybe the pep talk after, but it felt like Mizu, too, was starting to get stern with him.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he muttered, jabbing at his breakfast a few times before taking another bite.

It really wasn't anything he would know anything about, but he didn't want any more talk of how he needed to take this seriously, be prepared, or other nagging statements.

"What experience do you have with that?" Tetsuo asked Mizu. He felt jealous for a moment, thinking maybe she had seen more combat than he had, even though she had just graduated from the academy. Probably some special training she got on account of her being a jinchuuriki.
 
Mizu

Mizu fell silent for a moment at Tetsuo's question. She was taken back a bit, unsure if her toxic teammate was actually curious or if the statement was meant to antagonize her. Either way, she thought carefully in how to respond in a way that not only answered the question, but addressed the elephant in the room.

"I'm sure you've both seen how Sando treats me." The exhausted girl stated. "How he insults me, and sneers at me whenever we look at each other. It's not hard to tell he hates me, but I've never even met the guy."

Her teeth gritted together, and she leered off into the distance. "That's how most people in Konoha are. Everyone knows what these markings on my face mean because of Naruto Uzumaki, but I'm not an Uzumaki. People look at me like a monster, and I've been in a lot of fights because of it."

"That's why my uncle trained me growing up. I needed to know how to defend myself because of this thing inside me. I don't know much about what he does, but he's ANBU. That's where my fighting experience comes from."

She let out a sigh. Talking about her past wasn't something she liked doing, but she felt it necessary to tell her teammates. If they were going to be working together they might as well know such things.
 
Tetsuo was silent for a moment. He was sort of right in his assumption about getting special training, from an Anbu Black Ops member no less, but... he wondered if that was because of the fights she had gotten into, or if she would've had to be trained like that anyway. He also wasn't sure about how the fights she would get in started. Was it her getting jumped, or did she lose control?

Whatever sense of awe and envy he may have had for a moment was gone. The fights she had been getting into weren't from any special missions she'd been privileged to go out on. It seemed like it had just been from street or academy scraps, which wasn't very different from his own experience.

Haruki, as much as he wanted to sulk over his breakfast, couldn't ignore what had just been confided in them. It was true he had seen how Sando treated her, but he had just thought their client was being weird. Thinking that this was something she had to deal with constantly was beyond upsetting.

He sat up straighter and frowned at her. "That's awful. You shouldn't have to deal with that."

Tetsuo cut a look across to Haruki. "You're not even from our village. You have no idea what it's like. You and Sando should both just shut your mouths."

Haruki raised an eyebrow and scoffed incredulously, folding his arms and leaning back in his seat.

Tetsuo caught himself in that moment, remembering yet again that he was supposed to be playing nice. He tried again, looking between Haruki and Mizu this time.

"Countless people have died because of that monster. We probably wouldn't even have a village anymore if it wasn't for the Hokage, and even then, the Fourth lost his life anyway because of it. It's a curse that we all have to live with. And why should we? I mean, how can we even know if it's her or..." He gestured towards her. "That thing talking."

These weren't Tetsuo's words, not really. He was saying them, but these were just echoes of what his father had said before. His mother avoided any topic that she found too sad or political, but Tetsuo remembered his dad readily volunteering his thoughts about harboring a jinchuuriki any chance he got.
 
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Mizu

"What did you just say?!"

Mizu slammed her hands against the table and shoved herself to her feet. The entire table rattled as it was forced back, and a few cups and pitchers toppled from the sudden force. As hot coffee and tea settled across the table, a visibly reddened Mizu loomed over her seated teammates. She had had it.

After everything she just told them. After all they had endured the last few days. After she put her life on the line to protect them. After he almost got her killed. Tetsuo actually had the audacity to insult her. Not just his usual berating. The little bastard had actually implied she was a monster. He constantly nagged about how Katsuro and Sando treated them, yet he didn't even seem to think twice about talking down to her or Haruki. It was like they weren't even people in his eyes. She was tired of his insults, and of constantly trying to keep the peace in the group. Even the most patient of people have their limit, as Tetsuo was about to find out.

Blood boiling, her heart pounded like a drum. Her gaze reddened as she stared at Tetsuo.

"Just what the fuck is wrong with you?" She yelled abruptly. The entire manor was struck with silence.

She breathed heavily, trying to contain her anger. Every part of her wanted to leap across the table and rip him apart. Yet she couldn't, she was stuck with him, which only frustrated her more.

"I can-" She stammered, trying to hold back her emotions. "I can't believe I actually put my life on the line for you. Would the nine tailed fox have done that?! If I'm such a monster, then why have I put with all of your shit these past few days? Tip-toeing around you just to not set you off - just so that maybe, maybe, we can all work together as a unit! I'm done with you."

Mizu stomped off to collect her things. As she was leaving the room, she abruptly stopped at the doorway, and peered over her shoulder back at Tetsuo.

"You're no better than Sando."

She then marched into her room, and put on her gear from the day before. "Fuck him." She muttered to herself as she slipped on her violet gi long-sleeved gi over her protective mesh. Gathering her gear would help ease some of the stress from what just happened. Today she would make sure to wear shorts, to deal with the heat and allow some freedom of movement. Grabbing her staff and backpack, she slipped out into the courtyard.

Standing in the center was Katsuro. He no longer had his glasses on. For a moment his green eyes looked into Mizu's. Immediately she looked away, trying to hide her gaze as the shame set in from what she had just done. An all too familiar feeling of dreadful sinking overcame her whole body as she reflected on the situation. She waited anxiously for her sensei to yell and scold her for making a scene, like he did to Tetsuo the day before.

Minutes passed in Mizu's mind as she waited in silence for Katsuro to speak, but in reality no more than a minute had passed. Confused, she looked back up at her sensei. He was still gazing at her...but it wasn't in anger. For the first time since she had met Katsuro, the hardened jonin's eyes weren't filled with anger, but with pity. Katsuro let out a small sigh, looked away, and shook his head slightly. The grizzled man turned his attention away from Mizu and to the door where Tetsuo and Haruki would come out. They waited eagerly for the rest of the team.
 
Tetsuo looked at her with shock as Mizu slammed the table, shaking its contents. His own mug spilled over, and he had to scuttle to the side a little to avoid it spilling in his lap.

She wasn't done though.

He could only continue to stare at her in surprise as Mizu continued to sputter her frustrations, shouting him down on almost the exact same stuff that Katsuro had criticized him for the night before. He had called him hostile. She said she'd been tip-toeing around him. He had just started to think she was just a more quiet and passive person, but something in her had snapped. The only other time she had come close to being this angry with him was yesterday after the fight when she got pissed about the paperbomb, and even that was nowhere near her fury now.

His jaw dropped and he shot to his feet when she compared him to Sando. Tetsuo leaned forward with his knuckles on the table as though to say something, but all that happened was his mouth opening and closing like a guppy. He didn't get a single word out before she was gone down the hall.

Tetsuo grit his teeth and clutched the table's edge so hard his knuckles whitened, glaring hard at the spot in the hall where her body had just been.

Haruki, meanwhile, went from the same shock to absolute glee. He had never thought he would've wanted anything so badly that he didn't even know about until it happened. Mizu had finally gotten their teammate to shut up.

Haruki made somewhat of an effort to hide his tittering behind his fist, but there was no hiding the amused sparkle in his eyes. This was long overdue, and it was only a fraction of what Tetsuo deserved from all his loud, harassing comments.

Tetsuo looked at him, and Haruki lowered his hand to smile and shrug at him. You're in for it now, the gesture seemed to say.

Haruki took one final bite of his breakfast before practically skipping down the hall to gather the rest of his things, humming to himself all the while.

With only Tetsuo remaining of the three genin in the dining hall, the wait staff began to relax a little. Still throwing a few cautious looks his way, the staff brought out rags to start mopping up the mess left on the table.

Whatever appetite Tetsuo had before, he had none left he decided now. He waited just enough time to make sure he wouldn't run into neither Mizu nor Haruki in the hallway before retreating to his room.

By the time he got there, he wasn't even entirely sure what it was he was going to do in there. Tetsuo had already shown up to breakfast in his gear on account of Katsuro's nagging the first day, saying he expected him in his gear whenever the squad was in attendance. He thumbed through his gear to make sure all his tools were in place mindlessly, still thinking about Mizu's words.

No better than Sando. It was ridiculous! He was nothing like that rich asshole. He was living this lavish life he didn't have to do shit for. He had made dealings with black market thugs. He couldn't even be fucked to lift a finger of his own to help his daughter. She could be dead right now and all he did was sit back at his manor and have other people do his search for him just so he couldn't get any dirt under his nails.

He reeled over that over and over, but try as he might... he wasn't angry at Mizu, and the longer he spent alone in that room, the more he felt his stomach knot up.

He fucked up. He couldn't deny that anymore. The way she looked at him with such reproach, she would never, ever work with him again, and he was damn certain there was nothing Katsuro would be able to do or say that could convince her to do otherwise. Hell, after ruining the one thing that their sensei had been trying to build over the last however many hours of table talks and training, he was certainly going to put his head on a spike the moment he stepped out there.

This had been too important to mess up. A girl was in mortal danger and there was a missing-nin hellbent on having them dead and out of the way of his prize. Moments before Tetsuo saw how maybe they could've used their numbers to take Genzo down, if only Haruki could take them seriously, but now how was he supposed to play his role in bouncing off of Mizu's pressure if she didn't want anything to do with him? It was never going to work, and that girl was going to die because of it.

Tetsuo, at a loss for what else there was for him to prepare, grabbed his pack and began his exit from the room, but just before he grabbed the handle, he stopped.

If he joined them, the mission was going to fail. No one wanted to be around him. Everyone on his squad hated him. It would just throw everyone off if they had to be around him. He would never get to that point of teamwork they needed to be at. He already tried and just made things worse.

What else could he do? He could go off on his own. He always worked that way. It wouldn't take them long to realize he had left, then they could start looking on their own. It would be two parties looking for the same girl, and in a way, wouldn't they be able to cover more ground that way? He had some confidence that he could avoid the mines, and even if he couldn't, he had enough chakra control he could last the few seconds it would take to get off of one, right?

The thought of being on his own when Genzo showed up again sent a pang of cold, emptying fear into his being.

But even still... it was the only way he could see himself being useful now.

Tetsuo deliberated for only a moment longer before making up his mind.

His room overlooked the courtyard they were to be meeting in, so he exited, but instead of going back down the hall and down the stairs, he walked into the room right across from his.

It seemed to be yet another guest room. The layout was very similar to his own, with ornate railing hoisting up the thin white sheets of a bed canopy. He made straight for the side, where he pushed the curtains open, undid the latches, and strained to hoist the window up. It was well-oiled, gliding up easily - it was just a really tall window. Tetsuo bent low to slip out of it, one leg leading the other, and without bothering to try to close the window behind him, shimmied down the manor's wall. When he was low enough to the ground, Tetsuo hopped down, landing in front of the manor's face.

The servants posted around the perimeter looked baffled in his direction. Tetsuo didn't stop for them to ask any questions about why he was wandering about unaccompanied.

He took off running. He crossed the dirt path to the gate which was still shut. The guard only had only enough time to shout, "Hey!" before Tetsuo was focusing his chakra to run up the gate and slide back down the other side.

He knew the path. This he felt certain of. He would run down the hill, run through the village, run down the dirt path they'd searched, then head in that direction where the trail had split between the forest and the quarry. He wouldn't stop running until he got to that point at least.

Meanwhile, Haruki had already rearranged his belongings so he could travel lighter this day. He had set all of his clothes and hygiene equipment on the dresser, leaving just the first-aid his mother had packed for him and spare ninja tools he may need, as well as a freshly filled canteen.

He arrived in the courtyard in high spirits, ignoring the gloomy mood of his present squadmates, and waited like the rest of them for their last member who would never show up.
 
Katsuro and the group remained outside waiting for Tetsuo and Haruki to leave the manor. During that time, Katsuro thought about just what he would say. Although it would be the easiest option, he couldn't just lecture Tetsuo. He had heard enough of what had happened from outside to understand that the group dynamic was threatened. Mizu was clearly upset. Katsuro hadn't seen her get this upset before. She had been assigned to arguably the worst squad right out of the academy, her estranged father had been murdered just the day before, and to top it all off she was nearly killed on her first mission. Yet in spite of it all, she had managed to contain herself until just now. While he wasn't in the room with his students, he had heard enough of the yelling to have at least a decent understanding of what had occurred inside the room.

The veteran shinobi lit a cigarette as time passed outside. Although he dreaded it, he knew that he'd have to talk about the nine tails with the group. If he didn't, he knew how much more out of hand things could get. He eagerly inhaled its fumes in an attempt to cool his temper. It angered Katsuro that all of the hard work he had put in the get them to work together had been undone. His eyes narrowed to the doorway as he waited impatiently for his troublesome students to come out.

Mizu meanwhile was also waiting. At the moment, it's all she could do. Although she was anxious to see just how Katsuro sensei handled this situation, she was still cooling down from their previous encounter. She still couldn't get over how he spoke about her back there; it's like she wasn't in the room. People had treated her like that her entire life and she was sick of it. She glared over at Haruki while he wasn't looking. What did he think of all this? It didn't seem like it bothered hi mat all from the outside.

Roughly 15 minutes had passed, before Katsuro had enough. There was some commotion going on in the manor during that time, but he hcose to ignore it.

"What the fuck is taking that little shit so long?!"

He stomped into the manor, looking in all directions as he moved through the hallways toward Tetsuo's quarters. All of the servants were quick to move out of his way. Upon arriving to his room, Katsuro slammed the sliding door open, and took a deep breathe to confront his student.

But there was no one there.

"The fuck?" He audibly muttered, bewildered by where the brat could have gone.

"Hey!" He shouted at one of the staff. The individual jumped in shock, and immediately faced the Jonin.

"Y - Yes?"

"Have you seen Tetsuo anywhere?"

"Uh..." The servant awkwardly looked around. "Which...one...is...that?"

"The one that looks like a fucking dumbass!" Katsuro shouted.

"Oh....uhh...." Once again the man frantically searched around the room.

"Oh! There he is!" The servant exclaimed. "He's right out there!"

The man promptly pointed out to the courtyard, right at Haruki.

"What?" Katsuro spouted out. "No, not that dipshit! The other one! Really fucking short, and with a terrible attitude!"

.....

Tetsuo arrived at the split in the path without issue. The woods were hot and humid, just like yesterday. Barely any clouds sat above in the sky. On the left of Tetsuo sat the quarry. Scars of the previous day's battle had ripped whatever was left of the quarry apart. Many trees were torn down, and craters had been left behind by the explosives Katsuro had used.

To Tetsuo's right lay the path to the minefield. Unlike the quarry, it looked exactly the same as it did the previous day. Its path went down the hill, opposite to the quarry. Would Tetsuo choose to investigate the minefield, or go back to the Quarry?
 
During the wait, Haruki smiled to himself. He had seen part one of their teammate getting ripped into, and now he eagerly awaited part two, where he felt certain that for one reason or another, Katsuro would blow his lid and shout Tetsuo into a silence that would last at least a few hours.

But as the minutes passed, he started to become bored with the fantasy, then boredom became impatience. His mind started to wander back to their mission ahead as he stared vacantly ahead.

The instant Genzo's face popped up in his mind, Haruki jerked his head to look at something else. The fountain. He imagined it would feel nice to let his hand run under the water. He wondered if Katsuro would be okay with him trying it out, but instead of walking over to risk it, he started examining his fingers. He kept some length on his nails, but always made sure they were filed and smooth. He began rubbing at the small bits of dead skin he found peeling around them.

When Katsuro hit the limits of his patience, Haruki watched with great amusement as he stormed back into the manor. It wasn't long before he heard their sensei barking at the wait staff. He couldn't hear exactly what was being said, but the pattern of him yelling didn't exactly sound like the earful he'd come to expect whenever their sensei was angry at one of them. Haruki guessed he hadn't found him yet.

"He's going to be in sooo much trouble," Haruki said, laughing a little.

- - - - -

Tetsuo stopped when he came to the split in the path. It was probably adrenaline mixed with him sprinting as fast as he could to this point, but he actually found he had to catch his breath a little. He took big, gulping breaths, and turned to look behind him. There was no sign of his squad being anywhere near. Good.

He only spared a glance at the quarry. Now that the sun was up and he was at a higher vantage point, he could see the new patterns that shaped the forest surrounding where their battle was held yesterday. Being up close, the impact of everything felt massive. It felt bizarre to see it now as just small lanes and holes poked in the forest.

He looked away from it and down the hill on the other side. Tetsuo felt his heart pounding in his chest, but there was also a small rush of ecstasy that made him smile a little. He actually got away. He didn't know how much time or distance he had between them, but he felt sure of himself enough now that he could begin a casual jog down the path.

Up ahead, he could hear the distant trill of birds. He slowed for a moment to see if he could better hear make them out. One he picked up on was a low, long-sustaining sound that was almost a hoot. There was an abrasive squawk that repeated, overlapping with others of the same type to create an unsteady beat. One sounded like a small chirp, where it would cheep twice, pause, cheep again, then repeat. He could see why this place was called the Land of Birds. All of them together, further and further away from the sounds of the village, tuning into the rhythm of nature, everything felt... peaceful. For once, Tetsuo thought, he may actually be able to relax a little.

He allowed himself a moment to enjoy that feeling. Then he was jogging down the path again, staying mindful of the sharp rocks.

No more than five minutes passed before his mind began to fill the empty spaces the relative quiet of nature left.

He thought again about the fight - the whole reason down here by himself in the first place. Whatever cheerful looked he'd had bounding down the path soured when he remembered what Mizu had said to him.

She had yelled at him, but not in a way that he had been that he had expected. It was different from the way people usually got angry with him. It wasn't just anger, or annoyance, it was also... sadness?

When he thought about it, Mizu had subverted his expectations already, he wasn't sure how many times. When he'd first heard he would be in the academy with the fox demon, he had been relieved that they would be in different classes. What he imagined was someone brash and violent, but when he really thought about it, all the times Mizu could've been upset and angry, she was quiet and controlled. In a way, this even reflected in the way he'd seen her fight.

She annoyed him, that was for sure. He was still mad about how she threatened to rat him out when he had tailed Katsuro's fight away from the memorial. He didn't like her, but now that he thought about it, nothing about her... seemed monstrous at all. She just seemed like... a normal girl.

He frowned, slowing his jog down to a walk.

Mizu had risked her life for him. He wasn't sure how things had gone down exactly, but she had taken it upon herself to get face-to-face with a rogue ninja when he had been stuck in that genjutsu. That wasn't something the nine-tails would ever do for him.

That... didn't make sense to him. How could anyone that held such a deadly and destructive power be normal? In the academy, they had been taught about great heroic feats the Seventh had accomplished, but that was because Naruto had been able to conquer and tame the thing. There was no way that Mizu would be able to do that, otherwise he would've heard about it, right? Everyone would know and recognize that, wouldn't they? And yet... the only sign that she was a jinchuuriki at all was just the whisker markings on her face. Maybe the fox side of her was dormant for some reason, or maybe... it wasn't really her at all. But if that were true, then that would mean... that his dad had been wrong.

It wasn't nausea, but even the suggestion of that began to make him feel sick. He felt like he was committing a great betrayal by contradicting him.

When was the last time he had seen his father? It would've been when he had just graduated to becoming a genin, about one or two years ago. During that time, he had trained him, and also confided in him political takes and war insights that made him feel like a man to hear about. His father had said the recon mission he was going on would be dangerous... but the war was over now. There was no mission for him to be on still, he thought. He should've been home by now. He tried to picture his father's face, the feeling of his hand on his back, but suddenly, he couldn't remember whether his dad had a beard or not.

His vision became misty. The birds were singing, the air was stale, hot and dusty, he was alone, and Tetsuo realized he was crying.

His frown became angry now. This was ridiculous. He was in the middle of a mission, he was supposed to be finding this lost girl all on his own, yet his eyes wouldn't stop stinging, and his throat was closing in a way that made it hard to breathe normally. He fought it. He fought that his body wanted to cry so bad until he realized it was futile. Everything was too blurry for him to see further ahead of him anymore, so instead of continuing to fight, Tetsuo stopped in his tracks and finally gave up.

Tears rolled over the sweat on his cheeks. He crouched down to a squat, wrapping his arms around his legs, and rested his forehead on his knees. He tried to be quiet, but he had to switch between breathing out of his mouth and sniffing through his nose. He just let it out though. All of the burden of responsibility and grief of absence that he'd pent up inside him over the years was spilling out of him now that he was alone and there was nothing he could do to stop it anymore.

It seemed like ages before he came back down to a manageable level. He lifted his head to wipe his eyes over his arm. "Shit," he muttered to himself. "What the hell is wrong with me?" He wiped his eyes a few more times before looking at the streaks his tears left behind.

He realized in that moment he had been so busy and exhausted from everything yesterday and this morning that he had never checked his phone. Tetsuo stood up suddenly, took what was hopefully one final big sniff, and patted his pockets. He should've known already that, of course, he had left it back at the manor. He sighed and simply hoped that Soto was okay.

For now, he really needed to get a move on again, to find the other little girl he needed to help.

Tetsuo hurried down the path towards the glades, hoping he hadn't wasted too much time and he could reach the minefield soon.
 
The path in front of Tetsuo was unremarkable. Just a normal dirt path going downhill through the woods. For a few minutes, as Tetsuo followed the path there was nothing of note. Slowly the slope of the hill began to ease until the ground was flat, and suddenly it appeared: A clearing in the woods.

At first glance there was nothing strange about this opening in the woods. Just another glade in a forest full of them. However, after a moment or so it becomes very apparent this is no ordinary gap in the forest. Scattered all around this opening are white signs surrounded by a red trim, hammered into the ground. They read:

'STOP! MINEFIELD AHEAD!'

This was the area that Katsuro had been talking about all night. All of the landmines are buried beneath the ground, and cannot be seen from the surface. Enough time has passed that maybe some have been disabled, but it is unlikely.

Somewhere inside of here, could be the missing girl. Or at the very least, some indication of her fate. What would Tetsuo do?

..........

"Excuse me. You're looking for that boy, right? Darker haired?" A guard asked Katsuro, walking in through one of the many doors within the manor.

Katsuro immediately turned to face the guard. "Yeah, that's him. Have you seen him?"

"Pretty sure I saw him hop the fence and take off." The guard responded.

"What?" Katsuro stammered in disbelief. "He ran off?!"

The guard nodded, and walked out of the room to resume his normal duties. He likely wanted no part in what was about to happen.

Katsuro gritted his teeth as his breathing intensified. He couldn't believe it. "That little fuck!"

The kid had actually done it; he left them. Ran off into the woods. He had no idea where Tetsuo would go. There was no hidden village nearby, and he doubted the kid could afford a train ticket anytime soon. Katsuro rubbed the back of his head as he thought of what to do next: He'd never had a student do this before. In war he had witnessed people go AWOL, but that was an entirely different set of circumstances. In Katsuro's mind, Tetsuo was officially a coward. Just like his father...

Katsuro walked back into Tetsuo's room, trying to find any indicaiton of where he may have went. It didn't look like Tetsuo had packed for a long journey. Most of his items he had packed were still laying down in the room, including his cellphone. Why would he leave this here of all things? For someone abandoning his post, Tetsuo hadn't packed like he was going far. Maybe ther was a chance he planned on coming back later?

After taking another moment or so, Katsuro stormed out of Tetsuo's room. If they didn't have a missing girl, he would have dropped everything to find him. They didn't have time for that though. He walked back to the courtyard, visibly angered by the situation.

"Little shithead has gone AWOL!" Katsuro shouted to Mizu and Haruki. "It's just us, let's go! I've wasted enough time on that fucker!"

Marching straight past Mizu and Haruki, Katsuro walked up to the guards at the gate.

"If you see my student come back here without me, lock him up, and call me!"

With that said, Katsuro motioned for his remaining students to follow.

Mizu hastily followed behind, confused about the situation.

"Sensei - what do you mean he's gone AWOL? Like, he's abandoned us?"

"Yeah, looks like it."

She went silent once again, filled with disbelief. Mizu hated Tetsuo, probably more than anyone else in the squad, but she never figured he'd do this. As she followed behind Katsuro, she couldn't help but feel conflicted. On one hand she was happy he was gone. Tetsuo was the main source of conflict within the group, and he treated her like garbage. Yet on the other hand, they needed him. He was another set of eyes looking for their missing person. Not to mention, if Genzo attacked again they'd need his help.

"Come on." Katsuro called out to his students. "We're going down to the minefield. Worry about that brat Tetsuo later."
 
With all the yelling from inside the manor, Haruki had expected Katsuro to return dragging their bossy squadmate out by the ear. He raised his eyebrows, shocked, also, by the announcement that Tetsuo had ran off.

When he had last seen the jerk in the dining room, Tetsuo had seemed surprised, at a loss of words that Mizu had stood up to him. He wouldn't have guessed that he would be abandoning them in the next few moments.

Haruki followed their sensei close behind, hustling to match his storming pace.

He opened his mouth to slide in a comment towards Mizu, something along the lines of how he must've gotten scared witless about Katsuro coming down on him and what a chicken he turned out to be, but one look at her face told he she wasn't amused by this the same way he was. That, and with Katsuro as mad as he was now, Haruki quickly realized anything he said could hit the wrong way and accidentally get that anger directed at him.

So he kept his head down and followed quietly after.

The more he thought about it too, the more he began to feel frustrated by the situation. After Tetsuo's preaching about how he needed to pay attention so he could play his role in their squad, he just put them down one person in their plan. Not only that, but Katsuro saying they would "worry about him later" meant that even after they finished their mission, he bet Katsuro would make them help go look for him.

He couldn't help but groan a little upon that realization. Haruki didn't want to spend his time looking for him, especially with how hot it already was outside, then having to argue with Tetsuo over whatever bratty thing he would surely have to say once they found him.

Their sensei, hopefully, would be the one to take care of that part.

In the mean time, if he wanted to stay positive, then he had to just think about how they would be able to stay at least a little bit longer at Mr. Rich's mansion.

- - - - -

It was easy for Tetsuo to see once he had arrived at the minefield.

He stopped and squinted at it, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hands. Tetsuo scanned what was visible of the glade carefully from left to right. From his vantage point, he could see nothing remarkably of note.

Come to think of it, Katsuro had only seemed to find traces of her here, and that was yesterday. Wherever the girl went, she would've been long gone by now.

Tetsuo was stumped for a moment. He hadn't thought this far ahead, what he was going to do exactly once he got to the minefield. He had just taken off.

Katsuro had his bear summon yesterday, so he'd had that scent as a lead to follow easily. Tetsuo didn't have that.

The next best thing he could do was try to think of where the little girl might have gone, or what she might have done.

Sando had said she had gone to the forest to pick berries. She had on a green dress, which they had found some of the cloth on. Either she had a clumsy mistake, or something had scared her. He considered maybe she had gotten scared because she had ripped her dress, but Tetsuo just as soon snorted, dismissing the thought. There was no way that Sando as rich as he was would do anything to punish her. He would probably just buy her a whole new dress.

So if she had gotten scared by something, how did she end up in a minefield?

This spot was far from where they had originally searched. It wasn't Genzo and his goons that had scared her, because they hadn't said anything about her getting away from them, and at that point she wouldn't have been "missing" anyway.

Tetsuo tried to think as if this was Soto. It was hard to picture, because his little sister had never done anything like this before (though she did seem to be getting more defiant lately, so maybe it was something he should start worrying about now).

It would've helped to learn more of what kind of girl she was like. All they had gotten from Sando was that she was his "little angel" (he took everything that man said with a grain of salt) and that she was really clingy with her toy rabbit.

Soto wasn't really like this. She would have a new toy every two hours if she could. The closest to a favorite she had may have been a lavender rabbit plushie or her own, which she seemed to cuddle with at night more than any other. It was originally supposed to smell like lavender, too, when they had gotten it, but Tetsuo had just thought it smelled weird. Maybe two washes later and the scent had been gone altogether, though Soto still seems to think it's there. (He felt certain she didn't actually know what lavender smelled like.)

Surely within a few hours she would've gotten hungry and wanted to turn back. She must have a horrible sense of direction to come all the way out here. Where would she have even slept?

Tetsuo frowned, looking back and forth across the glade.

Maybe there would be a cave or a shack somewhere near here. This used to be a battlefield, and the quarry was over there. He wasn't sure if the quarry would've preceeded the war or not, but if something was going to be built to stay in... it would be closer that way, right?

His frown deepened. If Genzo was combing the forest, Tetsuo would probably be most likely to meet him in that midsection between the paths. Even still, maybe when Katsuro and everyone else got here, maybe that would be the exact reason he would go with Haruki and Mizu to the right to search for clues.

So Tetsuo leapt up into the branches of the tree nearest to his left.

He cut hastily across a few trees, eager to find a new vantage point where he would find any new clue, but once again stopped himself.

Tetsuo pinched his nose and took a breath, trying to reel in his impatience. The branches were rustling too much at that pace, and he needed to keep a low profile so he didn't get picked off by Genzo just as Katsuro had warned this morning.

He began to pace himself more carefully, walking between the tree branches where he could and hopping where their gaps were the smallest. He kept his head on a swivel, looking for a place of shelter, anything he could spot in the mine field, any unusual colors or anything else that could stand out to him as he picked his way through.
 
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As Tetsuo's eyes skimmed over the minefield, a small brown lump could be noticed near the center of the minefield. At first it seems seems insignificant, probably just a mound of dirt in the old battlefield. However, looking at the strange brown lump from different view points from the surrounding forest reveals that it is not just some mound of dirt. It is an object of some kind, and even at Tetsuo's distance one could tell that it's out of place. Whatever this thing was did not belong there.

At the same moment the object is spotted, the sounds of the forest slowly began to change. The trees, once full of life from the chirping of birds, and the movement of various critters grows eerily silent. Everything around Tetsuo was now vaguely quiet, except for the breeze slowly rustling through the tree branches. It was as if the entire forest had gone into hiding...

Nearby Tetsuo, a foul odor becomes apparent. The sound of something moving through the under-story of the forest could be heard nearby. With each step it took, the sound of branches breaking and leaves rustling could be heard; Whatever this thing was, it was big. The stench began to grow stronger, and the noises it made growing louder. It was coming near Tetsuo.

Sniff Sniff Sniff!

It audibly smelled the air around it as it searched the area. Tetsuo's efforts to conceal himself had definetely paid off for the moment. Whatever was nearby couldn't see Tetsuo, but it could definitely smell him.


...................

As the group entered the forest once again, Katsuro stopped the two and began his handsigns. Once again, their Sensei summoned the polar bear Toshio from yesterday. As Toshio emerged through the plume of smoke. He looked over Katsuro, Haruki, and Mizu. Then the white bear glanced around, somewhat confused.

"Where's the annoying one?" His deep baritone voice rang out.

"I don't know, and I don't fucking care about him right now." Katsuro retorted. "If that Girl Rei is out here another day she'll probably be dead."

"Hmph." Toshio nodded. "Follow me then."

Once again the team found themselves walking down the same path of the woods. They were moving at a decent pace, with the main goal of just getting down to the minefield.

Mizu did her best just to keep her head down and march despite everything that had occurred within the past 24 hours. Considering all of the drama going on within the team, she didn't want to stir things up anymore. Yet the girl just couldn't shake this uneasy feeling in her gut. She anxiously looked around at the surrounding forest. Yesterday she thought these woods would be filled with adventure and excitement. While she tried to be realistic, she was hoping that they would have found Rei and would be on the train by now. Obviously that was not the case. After the events of yesterday these woods now seemed like a hostile territory, with a potential threat looming around every corner.

Katsuro seemed to share some of Mizu's sentiment toward the woods. He was much more tense than the day before. As he marched behind Toshio, he kept his hands low and near his explosives, ready for anything. Occasionally he would break his posture to wipe the sweat from his forehead. For a forest, this land was forsakenly hot and humid.

Mizu glanced over at Haruki. What did he think of all this? Though he wasn't always pleasant to be around either, she still couldn't help but pity him. He was often the subject of both Katsuro and Tetsuo's scorn.

"Haruki." Mizu said quietly. "If I may ask, why did you want to become a shinobi if you didn't want to?"
 
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Once it became clear the lump was out of place in the minefield, Tetsuo came to a pause. Could this be the lead he needed?

Tetsuo stepped onto another, thinner branch that pointed directly to the minefield. He lowered himself to a crouch as he walked to the branch's tip. If he was lucky, that would be enough to make out more characteristics of the object. If that wasn't enough, he would have to decide whether he dared cutting a path across the minefield or not, risking both detonation and being out in the open for all to see.

Halfway across the branch, Tetsuo began to feel uneasy. He stopped in his tracks and frowned, unsure of where this feeling was coming from. Then he realized. He could hear his own heartbeat over any sounds the forest may have been making.

That was when the stench hit him.

His hands flew to cover his mouth as he held back a gag. This wasn't Katsuro's alcoholic breath or tobacco-stained clothes. This was something else entirely.

Wide-eyed, he looked side to side, up and down looking for the source. Nothing. Only the dusty minefield and the forest's trees just as before.

The first snapped twig made him stop altogether. Tetsuo forced his body to be as rigid as possible and focused on the noises.

Whatever it was, to begin, sounded like it was moving at a deliberate pace. It had to be something heavy-bodied.

Then he heard the sniffing, and something fell in the pit of his stomach.

It had to be some sort of beast, didn't it? A bear, maybe? He wouldn't have been afraid if it was just a bear, Tetsuo reasoned, but it was the stench that was triggering a panic response in him, and that smell was only getting stronger.

A thought occurred to him that elevated his alarm into terror. The lump in the minefield was brown. Rei had brown hair. That odor could be the rot of her carcass on this beast's maw, and he was completely alone in the woods.

The cacophony of paranoid thoughts froze him to that branch. Something like that could rip his spindly limbs off with ease. It could crush his head with one bite. His life could end with his half-eaten body rotting in dirt and leave and the sounds were getting closer and he was all alone.

Tetsuo squeezed his cheeks in his hand hard. He needed to focus. He couldn't just freak out every time he ran into something out here. It was only the smell that was making him crazy.

Focus. Whatever it was, he couldn't afford to fight it. Even if he could beat it, which surely he had the ability to stand his ground, he didn't want the noise to attract Genzo or anyone else. For that reason too, he couldn't just use a paper or flash bomb. Plus, he still hadn't seen whatever it was. All he knew was it must be on the forest floor to be making those kinds of noises. He couldn't risk just holding his breath and hoping it passed by without seeing or smelling him. He couldn't think of anything to mask his scent either. What he needed was a way to drive it off without drawing attention to himself. Something that would naturally deter it and make it want to look elsewhere.

An idea came to him. Tetsuo took one final, shaky breath beneath the cover of his hand, then slowly lowered his hand to his ninja pouch. Making as little noise as possible, he slipped his hand under the pouch's flap. There, he grabbed a handful of makibishi. With just as much care, he pulled his hand from the pouch. By now, he thought he had a good idea about the general direction the beast could be coming from, so with a carefully aimed flick of his wrist, he scattered the makibishi over the forest floor's path. All he could do was pray they didn't make too much noise on the way down, and some landed far enough that the beast would turn without spotting him.

- - - - -

When Katsuro stopped to summon Toshio, Haruki perked up a little, much the same way someone brightens at the sight of a dog out on a walk. He quickly remembered, with disappointment, that the polar bear was not for petting, or even riding even though he totally could carry he and Mizu both. Toshio seemed nothing if not business-minded.

Haruki's hopeful glimmer dulled to a pout, but still not wanting to bring about Katsuro's ire, the most he allowed for himself was a sigh through his nose.

Haruki was staring, fixated on the rise and fall of Toshio's haunches as the summon blazed their path onward, when Mizu spoke lowly to him. That was just enough to get him to look from the bear's rear to back at her.

He thought for just a moment on how he wanted to respond, if only because he had to recalibrate his thoughts from how he could dig his fingers into Toshio's pelt without Katsuro noticing to the topic at hand.

"Well... like I said last night, my parents wanted me to." When he told her this, he tried to match the volume she spoke with. He still was not sure how Katsuro would feel about them having a conversation, and he cut a look across at their sensei to see if there was any reaction he could see from him before continuing. "I mean, really wanted me to. I didn't grow up in a big village like the Hidden Leaf. We didn't really have shinobi of our own. There were only the Cloud ninjas, and when the war started, they were only there to use us." His tone darkened when he said this, but returned to something more conversational afterwards.

"At first, when my parents first told me that we were moving to the Leaf Village, they just tried talking me into joining the academy. I never really decided, though. One day my parents just... signed me up. I think when..."

He paused, knowing this was a different story in and of itself he would need to go into.

"Um... when I was eight, my sister disappeared," he started. "I mean, Cloud ninjas took her away. My parents never told me why, or how, but they did. I mean, she's back now that the war is over, but... she isn't the same." Haruki frowned, pausing for a moment, but then continued on. "But I think that was the final straw for them. I guess I didn't really mind too much, because I'd seen movies and I thought maybe it would be fun if I could do some of the cool stuff they'd done in the movies, but..." But he now thought that maybe he wasn't cut out for this type of work. He didn't entirely know what else he would be doing if he wasn't doing this, though, and after the big deal his parents made about his graduation, he wasn't sure if he could stand seeing the disappointment on their faces if he ever had to tell them he quit. Instead of saying all of this in front of Katsuro, though, Haruki just gave a shrug with a half-hearted grin.
 
"Fucking Cloud shinobi." Katsuro stated bitterly after listening to Haruki's story. "No honor...bunch of god-damn war criminals."

His fists tightened. For a few moments, Katuro's mind escaped him, and he could only think about the war. Faces of the dead, of his friends, and of innocent strangers whose lives were all stolen from them by the Hidden Cloud. Even now after all these years they still burned within him, igniting the same feelings from so long ago. Then there were the faces of all the Cloud shinobi he had killed...

Katsuro took a large drink from his flask. The alcohol burned at his throat, and cleared his mind. He couldn't afford to go down that rabbit hole, not now. There was too much at stake to afford distractions.

Mizu was taken back by both Haruki and Katsuro. She had no idea that Haruki was originally from the Village Hidden in the Clouds, or that her sister was taken from him...just what did they do to her? It was always mentioned in her classes that the Cloud had committed war crimes...but what were they? Then to hear Katsuro's reaction. Even from just a small statement she could sense his intense hatred toward the Cloud...it was unsettling. Both of them had been affected by the war in their own way it seemed.

"Haruki." Katsuro finally spoke after a long period of silence.

"I know what you're hiding. I've been there before. But we need you right now. When this is all over you can quit if you want to. But not until we've found that girl."

Katusro continued to lead the team through the forest. It wouldn't take nearly as long to pick up from yesterday, but they still had a good distance to travel through the forest.

----------------

From out of the brush a large brown bear emerged. Its ribs were clearly visible even at a distance. The creature probably hadn't eaten in well over a month. Immediately the bear darted in the direction of the makibishi, searching frantically for anything to sink its teeth into. Instead of finding a meal however, it found its front paw had painfully sank into one of the spikes. The starved bear roared in pain, jumping back while licking its wound. As the bear tended to its wounds, its breathing agitated and the enraged creature began to search its surroundings once again. It raised its nose to the air, and turned its body directly toward Tetsuo. At this distance it knew his scent was fresh, and the bear quickly limped toward Tetsuo.
 
Haruki looked with some surprise towards Katsuro. He saw the moment of tension pass through the man's body. Then a swig of alcohol seemed to loosen it.

He hadn't expected their sensei to care about what he was talking about, let alone share his unspoken resentment towards Cloud shinobi. Probably for the first time since meeting the grizzled veteran, Haruki felt... warm, towards Katsuro. Some sort of kinship.

Which was why when the jonin remarked, saying he understood his feelings but that they needed him right now, Haruki really listened. He was needed. It was the exact thing he had needed to be reminded of in that moment. That, and he was given an out for when this was all over. It was an amount of agency he hadn't expected to be given from their sensei, and it was all just enough to make him flush a little with emotion.

After a moment, Haruki asked, "What's your experience with Cloud ninja, Katsuro-sensei?"

- - - - -

Tetsuo watched the flurry of movement - the charging bear that, as he had hoped, stumbled immediately into the spikes he had littered on the ground.

It gave him time to slow his breathing. A bear. Not some ghoulish, otherworldly beast like his paranoid mind had tried to conjure up. It was just a bear, and a relatively scrawny one at that. He may have been in serious trouble if it was a heft, well-fed bear, but Tetsuo thought this beast would be much more manageable.

The stench still rattled him, but by the time the bear was limping towards him, Tetsuo had a new plan of action. He reached into his back pouch for the wire spool and hopped to another branch to better face his pursuer. He waited a beat for the bear to almost be upon him, then leapt down to forest floor behind it. As he did so, Tetsuo loosened the wire, and with a practiced flick of his wrist, sent the wire winding around and around the bear's hind legs. He reached and caught the end of the wire, then pulled it taut. The weight differential nearly tripped himself forward, but Tetsuo doubled down, and the bear caught itself in its own momentum and fell forward. Even knowing one of the two front paws was injured, the young genin wasted no time.

The wire's ends still in hand, Tetsuo raced to a tree, running to wrap the wire around its trunk once, then darted up the trunk to secure the wire to the branch. He knew, enraged as the bear was, he couldn't bet on this holding forever. So before he gave anymore time for the bear to recover, Tetsuo jumped back to his original tree. He dropped and grabbed onto the lowest branch with both hands, swung himself back, then shot himself forward with a kick to the head, hoping this would be enough to concuss it.
 
Katsuro gazed back for a moment to Haruki. Not many people asked Katsuro about his experiences in the war. It was a topic he didn't like to talk about. He wondered though if Haruki knew much about the war from Konoha's perspective. Haruki still seemed a foreigner in many ways to the village, despite living there for so long.

"Fought em' on the front lines for years." Katsuro replied. "I lost a lot of friends to those bastards. Holding the line to keep them away from the village."

"They did a lot of fucked up things to try and win the war. Things they should have been punished for..."

Mizu understood what their sensei was hinting at. Many hidden leaf shinobi criticized that the armistice that was signed to end the war favored the hidden cloud. Despite losing all of the territory they had conquered at the start of the great shinobi war, the Kumogakure had little if any punishments for starting the war in the first place. Even to this day, some cloud ninja hold the attitude that they were the true victors of the war, losing only to politics and a lucky offensive.


------

The bear's head recoiled back from the powerful kick, and it let out a painful roar. While in a wounded daze, the starved creature desperately lunged back to get away from the counter-attack. Although it was in a weakened state, it was still able to overpower Tetsuo's bindings and free itself. Once free, the bear fled away from Tetsuo and straight into the open minefield.

Frantically, the bear ran undisturbed for roughly 30 yards in the clearing before it was engulfed by the flash of an explosion!

BOOM!

The explosion rang through Tetsuo's ears, and echoed throughout the entire forest for miles. In the distance Tetsuo could see all that remained of the brown bear: A large, bloody lump of seared flesh next to a crater in the ground. Even after all of these years, there was no doubt that the minefield was still active.

For now Tetsuo was alone with whatever that object may have been in the center of the minefield. There was no telling who all heard that explosion, however....
 
Haruki, by contrast, did  not get the hint. He did not know the discourse over the armistice. If anything, he thought maybe Katsuro had been talking about punishment for what happened to Haruki's sister. Whenever his family did talk about the political aftermath of the war, which was not often, it was something Haruki quickly tried to tune out and find something more interesting to do.

It was quite similar to how he was quickly getting bored with this conversation now. He feigned interest by humming in response. Part of him had hoped for some epic tale of battle, but he should've known better. Katsuro didn't seem like the sort to have a knack for storytelling.

Before he could decide whether he wanted to push for more information or not, he heard a boom coming out of the forest, muffled only by the distance put between them. It was enough to bring him to a short halt in his tracks.

"Was that..."

- - - - -

Tetsuo inhaled sharply at the sound of the bear's roar. His plan had failed. Not only had he not had the strength to knock the bear out, but it took very little thrashing to set itself free.

Tetsuo grimace, stepped into a stronger position and raised his arms over his face, bracing himself for whatever impact the bear was going to throw at him now.

The impact never came. The boy lowered his arms and frowned in confusion, watching the bear flee into the minefield. Then the mine went off.

At first, Tetsuo tried to shield his eyes, but the ringing quickly became overbearing, and soon he was squeezing his hands over his ears as hard as he could in a desperate bid to mute the explosion. Perhaps it was an act of mercy, because between his vision and auditory faculties recovering, Tetsuo did not have to see the several pounds of flesh raining back down, nor did he have to hear the wet slap as they returned to the earth.

Tetsuo, nevertheless, gasped in horror when he could look again and saw what remained of the bear. He covered his mouth and stared, wide-eyed. It was... unrecognizable. Just blood and flesh and a gaping hole next to it

It was unclear how much of this was imagination and how much of it was reality, but he could swear when the breeze picked up, the smell of death and rot carried over to him. Tetsuo gagged involuntarily and covered his nose now too.

It took some time before he realized he was shaking. There was a bear just a moment ago, and now it was dead. All because of him. A pang of guilt hit him, too. That thing had been in a pitiful state. Compared to Toshio, this bear had been gaunt and sickly. Or maybe he was making some of that up because he felt sick. Maybe it had been a mother, too, desperately trying to get a rare meal in this dangerous place so that she may have something to bring back to a litter of starving cubs.

Another breeze pushed past him and it took everything in Tetsuo to hold down the contents of his breakfast. Slowly, he brought his hands from his mouth and back down to his sides. He couldn't keep doing this. There was no way he could make it out onto the minefield now after seeing what he had just saw. What's more, he was terrified, far more than he had been when the bear had just been an unpleasant odor and his imagination. He couldn't do this alone anymore.

Numbly, he picked up what makibishi he dared to step over and grab, then recovered the wire he'd used from the tree. Tetsuo, without fully realizing what he was doing, ambled through the trees once more, retracing his steps and heading back to the rocky path.
 
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Much like Haruki, Katsuro and the rest of the group stopped upon hearing the explosion. It wasn't directly next to them, but it was close. With the way sound traveled through the hills Katsuro figured it had to have been around a mile away...which would put it right next to the minefield. He knew he had recognized that explosion: It was an antipersonnel mine. But what set it off? Those landmines rarely ever self-detonated. The triggers would go bad before they could do that.

Haruki seemed to already have an idea of what had just happened. Katsuro reassured him, just to be safe.

"Yes Haruki. That was a landmine..."

Mizu's heart sank upon hearing Katsuro's observation. If that were true then they'd have to go down and figure out who set it off. Was it just a forest creature? Could it have been one of Genzo's goons? Rei? Who else would be down at the minefield right now?

"Sensei...?" Mizu asked.

"Yah Mizu, we're still going down there." Katsuro interrupted. "That's where we were going anyway. Now we gotta find out what the hell blew itself up."

"Now let's hustle, I don't want us wasting anymore time!" Katsuro ordered the group. He picked up his pace to a fast walk. It was clear they would not be talking the rest of the trip.

Roughly 8 minutes passed as the group marched through the forest, down to the minefield. During that time the group had nearly completely walked their previous path. Much like Tetsuo, Mizu couldn't help but notice the destroyed remains of the quarry as they passed by. She couldn't help but marvel at all of the destruction just two elite Jonin had caused, and she doubted the area would ever look the same. Katsuro eyed the area down as well, but only to look out for any enemies. Eventually the group turned for the minefield, walking down the rough path that Katsuro had gone down just the other day.

Halfway down the path toward the minefield, the group ran into an unexpected surprise. Toshio stopped walking, and smelled the air.

"There's someone nearby...just around the corner" The bear's low gravely voice called out. "This scent is familiar..."

Katsuro immediately dropped his bag into the trees nearby, hid behind a tree and readied his explosives.

"Ambush formation, now!" Katsuro ordered to his group quietly.

The path turned sharply ahead, but the brush was too thick to see who could possibly be coming up the path. Mizu quickly did the same, dropping her pack into a bush and taking cover on the opposite side of Katsuro behind her tree. The genin readied her staff. She could feel her heart beat pounding in her chest, anticipating just who was coming around the corner. Is it Genzo? Are we about to go through that hell all over again?!

Mizu steadied her breathing to try and get the anxiety under control, but she couldn't escape the dread of the situation. She looked over at Haruki, trying to reassure him to keep a calm head about this.

Toshio ducked down next to Katsuro.

"What's the scent?" he whispered through his teeth Toshio. Whoever was around the corner was getting closer; Katsuro could hear his footsteps.

The bear smelled the air a few more times "It's..."

Toshio paused, awkwardly turning his head to Katsuro.

"It's...... Tetsuo!"

"What?!" Katsuro whispered back loudly. The whisper was loud enough to catch Mizu's attention. "What's that little fuck doing out here?"

Katsuro gritted his teeth together, and his breathing intensified. He started looking back and forth between Toshio and the path as he debated what to do. Why the fuck was Tetsuo out here? Was he the one who set the landmine off?


------------


Minutes pass by as Tetsuo walks up the path. This trail is familiar to Tetsuo, and he has no problem with navigating the path. After walking around a tight turn on the trail, the path ahead would lead straight back to where this trail begun. As Tetsuo walks around the turn however, something odd occurred. The forest went silent. No birds could be heard, nor insects. It was as if the wilderness was aware of what was about to happen.

"Fuck this!" the familiar voice of Katsuro shouted out from the trees. Immediately Katsuro stomped out of cover and right in front of Tetsuo. Mizu visibly popped her head out from behind a tree to watch this safely. Her eyes shot open with surprise upon seeing Tetsuo standing in the middle of the path next to Katsuro. What was he doing here?

"You dipshit!" Katsuro roared at Tetsuo. "I thought you went fucking AWOL on me!"

He looked around, to see if anyone was with Tetsuo. "Just what the fuck are you doing out here by yourself? What were you thinking? Do you know how deep of shit you would have been in if I reported that you abandoned your post?"

Katsuro then grabbed Tetsuo by the shoulders, to make sure that he wouldn't run off again.

"You'd better start talking now shithead!"
 
As they made their way down the slope, Haruki kept his gaze fixed towards the minefield. The mystery of what caused the explosion made the genin look uncharacteristically pensive. Since Katsuro was pushing them to move faster than before, did that mean he was worried? And if something was worrying their jonin-sensei, that could only mean bad news.

His anxiety spiked with Katsuro jumped out of the path and into hiding. Ambush formation? In the moment, Haruki felt like he didn't know what in the world that even meant. He looked frantically between them, then saw Mizu dropping her bag and retreating into a tree. It took a beat or two before he made the connection that he should also be copying this.

Clumsy in his panic, Haruki dropped his pack to the floor then, after looking to the bush on either side of him, kicked his pack into the nearest one. He did not, however, kicked it hard enough, and half of his sack was still sticking out onto the path. He grunted under his breath, imagined swears coming either from his lost teammate or sensei at him, then skipped over to shove the sack the rest of the way in. When he finally got it, stricken with panic at precious seconds he had lost just trying to cover his bag, he leapt into the nearest tree without thought of proper cover or anything of that sort.

He gripped one of the branch's limbs with crushing force. The squeezing seemed to ease some of his anxiety. Haruki only looked up from the slope when he caught sight of Mizu looking directly at him. She had a strong stance, her staff readied. She looked so... professional, in that moment. Though she was using nothing more than her gaze to communicate with him, Haruki felt he understood exactly what she was thinking. It helped more of his tension unwind. If this was Genzo and his gang, then they had the jump on him now. Haruki grabbed a kunai from his pouch and held strong to it with his free hand, then nodded back at her, before looking to face the slope again.

- - - - -

Tetsuo had been dragging himself forward at a sluggish pace. He was thinking very little now, nothing more than the persistent nagging that he had to keep pressing forward.

So when the song of the birds decrescendoed to an eerie silence, Tetsuo didn't know what to do other than simply stop in his tracks. He didn't have much time to wonder, either, before Katsuro made a loud appearance. Tetsuo flinched only a little bit first at the sound of his sensei's voice, then the man stepping right in front of him.

He stared up at the jonin as Katsuro immediately launched into a lecture. Tetsuo frowned, squinting at him in confusion, at first. Katsuro had thought he had gone AWOL? It took a moment to process this. When he did think about it, he could kind of see how it might have looked like that. He was struggling to focus on anything that had happened before the bear, but Katsuro was demanding an explanation.

Tetsuo's gaze wandered, first spotting Toshio, who must've been summoned to pick up where they left off yesterday. Second, he saw Haruki, who was dropping back down from his tree to the path below, but still keeping some distance. Then he saw Mizu, who was still mostly concealed behind her own tree. He did not let his gaze rest on hers too long. Instinctively, he did not want to find out what was there. Then finally, he looked back at Katsuro, who was grabbing him now.

Tetsuo tensed his shoulders, but made no move to shake them off. He let the touch linger. He had found them.

That must've meant he was looking for them, he supposed. All of them.

But Katsuro, of course, was not going to take nothing for an answer. Tetsuo should've known this. So he tried to give an answer, but when his lips parted, he didn't really have anything to say for himself. Rather, he couldn't think of a good enough explanation. He couldn't think of where his mind had been when he had made the decision he'd made. He was stuck on the ringing, and then the mutilated figure of a creature that once was.

After a time, Tetsuo managed to get out, "You don't need to worry about the mine." It was all that he had the energy to communicate.

Haruki frowned now, too, in confusion. "What?" he said to no one in particular. Tetsuo's demeanor was completely different. Any other time, he and Katsuro were locked in an on and off screaming match. Surprising himself a little, he found this change unsettling. Not only that, but what he said barely made any sense. He looked between each member of his squad, trying to make sense of this.

Tetsuo did not respond to Haruki's slight interjection. All of his attention was on Katsuro.
 
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