And to think that Katsuko had taken the mission because it'd looked easy. Intel needed the requisite Hunter to back up its team on a standard sweep of Grass. The offered pay was enough to keep her from seeing the inside of an instant ramen carton for at least a month. It didn't hurt that one of the Intel agents she would be escorting had tossed out a killer smile and an offer for a drink after the mission. Things were looking peachy.

Then they found the missing-nin.

The bunker wasn't much, just a little hole in a hill in the grasslands. The large number of hired thugs and low-level ninja surrounding it, though, had been enough of a concern that the fastest runner in the group--the agent who had asked her out for a drink--was sent sprinting at top speed back to Konoha. The other Intel agents followed when they'd finally gotten a glimpse of the leaders of the little band. Katsuko had been left with orders to keep an eye on things until reinforcements could arrive. She'd spent the night cold, wet, and hunkered down in a ditch (because stupid fucking Grass didn't have stupid fucking tall enough trees), keeping watch on the bunker. Her hands itched to draw her blades whenever the hired goons drew near.

To say that Katsuko was a bit frustrated by the time she arrived at the rendezvous point was a massive understatement. Her eyes narrowed as she saw Ryuichi--the body type and his pony-tail easily identified him from the others--get put in a not-so-friendly headlock by another Hunter. The way the others just...watched....left a bad taste in her mouth.

"What in all the bloody hells is going on here?" Voice snapping like a whip, Katsuko stalked forward. She let a little of her fury slip through. "Are you part of the backup?"

"Watch it, rookie," The only other female Hunter warned, her eyes narrowed behind her Tiger mask, "You don't know who you're--"

"Save the pissing contest." The rendezvous point was a safe enough distance away that the targets couldn't sense chakra; Katsuko let hers swell with killing intent, not bothering to tamp down the vicious sting of satisfaction when the other woman's eyes widened in schock.

If there was one thing her fucked-up chakra was good for besides causing death and destruction, it was getting loudmouthed idiots to shut the hell up and listen to her.

"I'm going to ask one more time. Are you people," she gestured to everyone in the clearing besides Ryuichi and herself, "part of my backup or not? Because if you've got another mission to complete, it's best that you don't waste anymore time."

“They’re not,” Ryuichi said quietly, before one of the others could speak for him and change the answer.

Ryozo’s expression was easy to imagine behind his badger mask. During the briefing, he’d been smiling, handsome and cold enough to make him quick when it came to talking. Despite his smile and casual way of annoying people, Ryozo was dangerous. Ryuichi knew the type, easy until they got mad, and then they kept their grudges for a long, long time.

Someone like that could sneer just as easily as they could smile, and mean it when they said they would make things difficult.

There would be trouble when the mission was over. Ryuichi supposed he’d brought it on himself. It would’ve been harder to keep his temper under wraps, but better in the long run.

It wasn’t good to pick fights with the veterans. Rookies never won those.

Ryuichi would deal with the outcome, one way or another. There was nothing he could do for it right now, except be very, very grateful that Katsuko wasn’t a crazy touchy-feely bitch like some other shinobi he knew.

“Nice talking to you, Ryuichi,” Ryozo said. His voice was as friendly as it could go—problem, what problem? No, of course I’m not pissed off--and Ryuichi knew the man’s revenge was going to be as nasty as Ryozo could make it.

“Excuse my colleges,” Yuya said, making a stiff gesture that might have been a salute. He didn’t give a shit about anything except getting paid and didn’t care who knew it. “We will take our leave now.”

Displaying about the exact amount of tact that one would expect, Ryozo waited until Katsuko wasn’t looking to tell Ryuichi exactly how dead he was in scout-sign.

Try it Ryuichi signed back. The flash of killing intent told him that maybe goading on an already pissed-off jounin wasn’t one of his better ideas.

Katsuko caught the tail end of the flash of killing intent and turned sharply, fingers curling around the hilt of her katana. She didn't know what would have happened (killing an asshole, even a fellow ANBU asshole, wouldn't count that badly against her on her record, right?) but then the woman in the Tiger mask stepped forward and grabbed the man in the Badger mask by the elbow. "Let's go," she growled in a voice that brooked no disobedience. "We're running out of time."

With one last glance at Ryuichi, the ANBU in the Badger mask nodded and turned to leave. The third member of the group--the tall, twitchy one in the Snake mask--sighed noisily and heaved himself to his feet, trotting after his mission partners.

Katsuko watched them leave in silence, only easing her hand off the hilt of her katana when she felt the last of the group's chakra signatures fade away.

"Well, that could have gone better," she said at last, turning to Ryuichi. "But nevermind them. You ready to go?"

It would be tempting fate to return the killing-intent Ryozo threw at him, but Ryuichi wanted to anyways. Wanted to, but didn't. They had a mission to complete, places to be and people to kill. Fighting with Hunters who were both older and higher ranked than him could wait until they were all back in Konoha and the mission report had been written. Maybe then he'd discover some sense and avoid Ryozo until they both forgot they ever hated each other. Ryuichi knew instantly that he wouldn't do that anymore than the other Hunter would. No, when the mission was over, they were going to fight and try to kill each other until someone pulled them apart

Ryuichi would lose. He wasn't happy about the fact, but accepted it anyways. One way or another, he'd survive the mission and then he'd survive whatever revenge Ryozo wanted to dish out. It was what shinobi did, and he might not have been a very good one, but Ryuichi was a soldier through and through. He had never been anything else and never would be.

"Maybe," he said. Probably not. "I'm good. How many of them are there? Intel wasn't clear."

Actually, Intel hadn't said anything useful at all. Two leaders--siblings, from the name they shared--and a group of hired fighters. Maybe chuunin level, maybe one or two jounin stung in the mix to keep things interesting. A whole lot of "maybe" and not much fact, in Ryuichi's mind.

"Thirty hired meat shields," Katsuko replied immediately. "The best fighter's mid-chuunin level."

She'd seen them practicing on each other. It'd been the lone highlight in an otherwise very grim day.

"Little to no unit cohesion. Laughable, really. I'd say wait and watch them kill each other, but we're running on a deadline. Pity. They move in groups of five, so there're six groups total. The groups are arrayed in a circle around the base, which is basically a bunker in a hill. It's hard to miss. Tallest thing for miles around."

She paused to lift her mask and scratched idly at her cheek. "They have no radios or communication devices--just a runner who makes sporadic visits.

"Right now, it'd be easy as killing sitting ducks. Best to stick together and take out one group at a time. Save the leaders for last."

She took out her kodachi and twirled it, testing the edge against her thumb.

That made things easier. No jounin meant less of a chance that one of them was going to die horribly. Fights with jounin tended to end that way for the mortals with lower rank. There was a jounin in ANBU—well, Ryuichi thought he was a jounin at any rate—who could rot your internal organs. Or maybe rot your face off. Or both. Ryuichi didn’t pay much attention to gossip.

It was good to assume jounin could do freaky things like that, else a person got dead. Ryuichi didn’t want to die at all, and fights with large numbers of jounin tended to end badly for the foolish chuunin who thought they could hack it.

Life had proven that he could hack it, most of the time. He wasn’t dead yet. Still had all his limbs, too. Only a few mental problems. Maybe an addiction or two. No one knew about those, though, and that was for the best—people would get ideas if they knew.

They would make him talk about it, when there wasn’t a goddamn thing to say.

Still, thirty was a big number. A whole lotta almost-shinobi that needed to get dead.

Ryuichi would deal. There had been worse missions. He’d deal with thirty odd fighters, too. Katsuko was there. She’d pull her weight. They’d make thirty ninja dead.

As it turned out, they didn’t have to.

The first hint they got that things weren’t going according to plan was the lightning jutsu they saw from clear two miles away. Katsuko and Ryuichi shared a look and decided together that it would probably be a really stupid idea not to check. And so they did.

What they found was six dead almost-shinobi and the remains of Yuya’s face stuck to his mask. Another ninjutsu attack echoed, and the ugly smell of burned grass followed, closer this time. Much closer. Ryuichi went for his swords at about the same time Katsuko did.

“Didn’t take long,” Ryuichi muttered. “But that”—he indicated what was left of the intel-agent—“took more than a meatshield. Maybe you were wrong.”

He didn’t say she was. He said maybe. There was a difference.

Luckily(?) for Ryuichi, Katsuko had a much higher tolerance for people who called her judgment into question than she did for people who were stupid. "I am wounded by your lack of faith in my ability. Horribly wounded." Katsuko told Ryuichi solemnly, skirting around the agent in the Snake mask's remains. "The leaders never came out of the bunker the whole time I was scouting. Their chakra signatures seemed pretty large, though. Could be them."

She wrinkled her nose at the smell in the clearing and readied her katana and kodachi, nerves humming with adrenaline.

"We'll head east, try to circle around and--"

A panicked scream sounded, cutting Katsuko off like a knife. Some basic survival instinct had her throwing herself to the side an instant before the lightning struck, searing the ground where she had been moments before. Three dark figures crashed to the ground, two of them fighting the third.

Smoke engulfed the clearing.

“You’ll survive,” Ryuichi said, right before things went from messed up to straight from fucking hell. When the fighting crashed into their midst, he did what any reasonable ninja would do and got clear of the danger zone.

Regroup, rethink this. That’s what they needed to do. Something had gone wrong—Ryuichi didn’t know when or how, only that it had. Then the smoke came and he couldn’t see a damn thing. He could hear just fine though, and knew suddenly when a shinobi suddenly screamed and a blast of hot chakra ripped through the air.

“Katsuko! Where the fuck are you?”

His eyesight was bad enough as it was. Much as he wanted to fight, Ryuichi couldn’t risk running in blind. Not now, when he thought he’d seen the white armor unique to ANBU. If he killed a fellow agent, no one would forgive him, least of all Ryuichi himself.

"Ow. Here, Arai." Katsuko rolled to her feet and blinked at the thick cloud of smoke surrounding her. The clash of steel against steel seemed to come from all sides, and chakra signatures flickered in and out around her.

This wouldn't do.

She crouched low to the ground and ran through a quick wind jutsu, expanding her chakra to fill the whole clearing. The jutsu, when she released it, brought the stink of blood and oiled steel to her nose. The miniature cyclone she triggered lifted the shroud of smoke around her slowly, solidifying the blurry shapes moving in the distance.


The first thing she saw when the smoke cleared was the agent in the Tiger mask lying in front of her.

Well, the upper part of the agent in the Tiger mask. The lower part was missing.

A crash and another scream dragged her eyes from the grisly sight in front of her to the battle still raging in the clearing. The agent in the Badger mask, the only survivor of the three-man team, was fighting tooth-and-nail against a slender woman in geisha make-up. The agent in the Badger mask held twin sai in his hands, the tips crackling with some sort of jutsu. The woman, chillingly, fought bare-handed, moving with the same vicious grace as a Hyuuga. It seemed at first that she was wearing red gloves, but a closer look confirmed that her hands and arms were dripping to the elbows with fresh blood.

Good, Katsuko wasn’t dead. The same couldn’t be said for Bachiko. Indeed, Bachiko was spread across the grass in multiple pieces, and gods, Ryuichi hadn’t liked her, but he hoped she had died fast. Coughing as the smoke was forced away by someone’s wind jutsu, Ryuichi shifted into stance, waiting for the chance to do something.

He couldn't just stand there and wait for somebody to kill him. Couldn't. It was against his fundamental nature, and yet. And yet he didn't know what he was supposed to do.

The mission had gone wrong. How much was debatable. It might turn into a massacre and not the kind where the good guys walked away to write about it and complain to the Intel agents after being forced through a psych-eval.

Ryuichi knew they weren’t going to come out of this uninjured. Maybe not even alive. Several others hadn’t, and they’d been better than Ryuichi. More experienced than Katsuko. Dead and in pieces on the grass, nothing left to say, and maybe they wouldn’t even write a mission report about it. They might die like the others. Ryozo’s scream as the little woman with bloody hands grabbed his neck only enforced the thought.

“Oh fuck,” he murmured as Ryozo’s skin turned black, hot chakra snapping across the clearing as the woman howled in triumph. And then his neck exploded, dark blood splattering on the grass. It wasn’t close enough to get on either of them, but Ryuichi smelled it even if Katsuko didn’t, sickly-sweet iron cloying at the back of his throat.

There was nothing to do but shift into a defensive stance as the woman with the painted face turned to them, baring her teeth. Ryuichi didn’t know how he could win, though perhaps Katsuko did. Maybe she could get them out of this. In one piece would be preferable. He’d settle for staying alive long enough to complete the mission.

At the same time that the agent in the Badger mask's neck exploded Katsuko shifted into high-gear, functioning on a level that no longer required conscious thought. Morishita Ayako--the woman in geisha make-up had to be Ayako, her chakra signature was the same as the one Katsuko had sensed in the bunker--had ambushed and killed three ANBU, each with more experience than Katsuko and Ryuichi combined, using some form of highly destructive Bloodline Limit that Intel had seen fit to leave them in the dark about. It wasn't hard to guess what they had to do next.

Her kunai whistled in the air as they sped toward the woman and landed at her feet.

At first, it looked like Katsuko's aim was off.

Then the explosion notes tied to the handles triggered.

In the blinding smoke that followed, Katsuko's twenty hastily created bunshin leapt into the fray, attacking the deceptively frail woman with everything they had. The real Katsuko landed in front of Ryuichi, who hadn't moved from his spot.

"Running now", she suggested calmly, "is a good idea." Adrenaline hummed in her veins.

Ryuichi didn’t argue. He really didn’t see the point in doing anything but running at the moment. Run and regroup. That sounded good.

Mostly focusing on the running part. The kunoichi screamed in anger as the clones rushed en-mass, covering their exit. Ryuichi didn’t waste it, turning and bolting. Fighting would result in a death, probably his. Probably Katsuko’s, too.

Ryuichi didn’t like the idea of dying. Not here, not now.

Running took most of his energy—he stopped thinking and just concentrated on moving. The grass snapped around his feet and eventually it stopped being grass and started being a respectably-sized forest. The trees weren’t as big as the ones surrounding Konoha, but they were trees. Probably better than grass. There was decent cover, at least. Katsuko led, but that was probably a good thing. She knew were she was going.

Well, Ryuichi hoped she did. He was operating on the assumption that she did.

“Please tell me you have a plan,” Ryuichi hissed, applying chakra to his feet and jumping to the nearest tree. He felt better about trees than he did about grass right now. “Because we’re fucked otherwise.”

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It was almost unnerving when Katsuko called on that monster of chakra. No one should have been that strong without feeling it, but Katsuko didn’t appear to. She just kept running as she explained the plan, clones listening in. Mostly they were silent, just creations of chakra that looked exactly like the original except for the fact that they were all business, and mindless business at that. One offered bad advice. It was ignored.

The plan involved a whole lot of explosive tags and light-stepping. First, the clones would rig the area around the bunker the Missing-nin were staying at, turning it into a minefield. Then Ryuichi and Katsuko would attempt to ambush the brother, Izo, killing him quickly. When the sister returned, they’d attempt to kill her, too, and whoever she brought with her.

Katsuko didn’t say ‘attempt to’. She said they would do so in no uncertain terms. Normally, Ryuichi would share her determination, would think of the mission in terms of black and white, success and death. Not now, though. Now he was too aware that he’d frozen up in the initial fight.

Freezing up would’ve gotten him a black eye from Kaede-sensei and probably something wore from Ise. It would’ve worked, too. Pain could shake him out of most anything. He couldn’t ask Katsuko to hit him, though. It would invite too many questions they didn’t have time to answer.

One way or another, Ryuichi knew he needed to snap out of it. He wasn’t afraid, not quite. Just…something.

Off, maybe. The wrong mentality.

Maybe. Maybe not.

The one thing he knew for sure was that he’d end up dead like the others if he didn’t fix it.

“I understand,” Ryuichi said when she finished explaining. If his voice sounded off, sounded distant, well, that was too bad.

They stood in the grass, behind a slight rise, and watched Katsuko’s clones work. Ryuichi couldn’t offer to help. He could only manage one doppelganger, and he needed the chakra it would take.

One of the clones signaled that the job was done. Katsuko nodded, eying the bunker that loomed large in the distance. To take Izo by surprise, she'd have to extinguish all jutsu that expended unnecessary chakra. That included her clones, who gave off a faint but unmistakable aura of secondhand energy. She made the the correct seal and concentrated fiercely on the nearest clone, holding its form in her mind's eye as she let the others pop out of existence.

"Lead us through the minefield," she ordered it. It nodded curtly and dashed off through the tall grass.

Ryuichi remained dead silent through the whole thing, grunting in response to her short inquiries and otherwise remaining deep in thought. The hard determination she'd grown used to seeing in him--had counted on for this cobbled-together spur of the moment plan--was noticeably absent.

Fuck. She needed him for this. Taking clones into the confined quarters of the bunker was just too risky--the smoke from dispelling them could too easily blind Katsuko and Ryuichi, giving Izo an opening he would be sure to exploit.

Deliberately, she swung around and planted herself in front of the younger man. Gloved hands came up and gripped him by the biceps, fast enough that he couldn't knock her away and hard enough to hurt.

"Snap out of it, Arai." Locking gazes with him, Katsuko leaned in and spoke through gritted teeth. "I need you for this. I can't risk clones in the bunker--the smoke would blind us. It'll be just me, you, and that Morishita bastard. We don't stand a chance if you're going to go all space cadet."

Their masked foreheads bumped together. "Do you understand me, soldier?"

Ryuichi looked at her mask, the dark lines swirling around the bone-white shade of death meant to keep their faces from breaking, to keep them alive long enough to stay useful to Konoha. It was too easy for them to fail, though. In the end, porcelain could only survive meeting steel a few times before it shattered and had to be replaced. The two of them were replaceable, too. If this mission failed, ANBU would send another team, a better team. That was how it worked. Katsuko was a good shinobi, though, a good jounin. If there was a way to survive this, then Katsuko would find it.

The grip she had on his arms didn’t hurt nearly as much as he needed it too.

What he needed was for Katsuko to hit him so damn hard he couldn’t see straight for a little, and then it would all be fine again. Ryuichi knew that and knew he couldn’t ask, couldn’t break the balance they trying to make. This mission hinged on it, the edge too thin for comfort. One wrong move and they’d all be dead…

No.

It wouldn’t be like that.

There were too many fallen Hunters already. There wouldn’t be two more. Not today.

Ryuichi jerked out of Katsuko’s grip. In his belt-pouch, there were the pills that would do what he couldn’t ask Katsuko to. He fingered the bottle silently, and then popped the lid off. “I won’t freeze up again,” he said softly, pulling his mask off so she could see his eyes, see for herself that he was telling the truth.

There wasn’t enough time to worry about overdosing. Ryuichi needed the adrenaline bad, needed to stop thinking so hard and start needing to fight as much as he needed the Speed now. He swallowed three pills that looked like fish oil tablets and pulled the fox mask back over his face.

Three might be too many, might be the magic number that finally made him crash and burn, but he wouldn't be responsible for his teammate's death. If he couldn't fight, they were fucked. And so there was an answer to the problem, and Ryuichi took it.

In the field, decisions had to be made. If he survived this fight, he'd survive the aftermath as well.

Katsuko was staring at him. Ryuichi looked at the bunker behind her. It was easier than trying to imagine her face then. “Don’t worry,” he said, not quite sure why.

It would take a moment, but he knew the drugs would work. They always did.

Ryuichi's gaze was dark and impenetrable behind the feral lines of his fox mask. Katsuko looked at the unlabeled bottle he was putting back into his belt pouch and swallowed the worry that rose like bile in her throat.

What were those pills? They didn't have the right shape and color to be Konoha-made, and the bottle they came in was unfamiliar. Amphetamines? Some home-brewed concoction of toxic chemicals?

Kami, she didn't need this right now. She needed to focus on getting them out of this alive and whole.

We'll talk about this later Katsuko promised Ryuichi silently, glaring at his obstinate profile. Out loud, she growled, "Then follow me."

Turning abruptly, she darted off into the tall grass where her clone waited, a dark silhouette in the distance. Her clone turned and started running again when it saw they were following, making a zigzagging path through the minefield that avoided rustling the tall grass as much as possible.

The bunker loomed in front of them, its steel door glinting in the sunlight like an insurmountable barrier.

It was a good thing they'd be going in through the back, then.

It took time to work, but the lines shifted. Sometimes Ryuichi could be patient. This time, he didn’t have to bother. The Speed hit him hard enough to make him misstep just once before he recovered. Around him, the lines sharpened. Adrenaline wasn’t there yet, but the mentality was.

His chakra didn’t change, but then, Ryuichi didn’t need it to. He didn’t need words to explain what happened. That was just one thing that happened, on a mission were a hundred things had already gone down and a thousand more would come before the ending.

Killing Izo changed from a task to something Ryuichi wanted to do, and he drew his swords without a word. Dented steel reflected the fox mask concealing his face. The blades were heavy, but they were his. He could take the weight.

He could take just about anything right now.

Katsuko seemed to glide through the grass, trusting in her clones. Ryuichi followed, stepping lightly only because the alternative would force them to run away again and lose the chance to fight. Speed twisting itself around his chakra and making its rounds through his head, Ryuichi thought he would like fighting Izo.

There was something about meeting someone else’s death. Ryozo couldn’t. The man was dead, and probably wouldn’t be buried either. Only so much you could do when somebody was in pieces.

“Could be good,” Ryuichi murmured, and dodged around a boulder, putting his back to the steel walls of the bunker. He nodded to Katsuko.

At her signal, they’d both go in and kill things.

Izo wasn’t even human anymore. Not to Ryuichi, at least. Neither were the others. Just targets. Things to cut. He liked that image. It made him twitch, but that wasn’t bad.

This bunker would be a grave by the end of the night, and it sure as hell wasn't going to be Katsuko's. Glancing only once over at Ryuichi, Katsuko dispelled her clone with a puff of displaced air. There were seals on the door that would warn whoever was inside if it was tampered with chakra--but nothing for forced manual entry. Sloppy. There were dozens of ways to get around things like that. Like the genjutsu she was going to use, for instance.

Katsuko quickly formed the correct seals--Rabbit-Tiger-Ox-Rabbit...--and spread the sound muffling genjutsu to encompass the entire bunker, spreading her chakra quietly to avoid attracting attention. That done, she padded up to the door and ran her hands over it, testing the quality of the locks.

Pathetic.

Kneeling down, she rummaged in her belt pouch for the folded leather packet with her lockpicks, choosing two suitable ones for the unwieldy bunker lock. A minute of concentrated effort later, there was a muted click and the door swung open with a creak that the genjutsu absorbed.

Time to go.

Tucking her lockpicks away, Katsuko signaled to Ryuichi. She drew her kodachi and ran into the cool earthy darkness of the bunker.

The door swung open with a whisper-groan, and Katsuko darted in. Blinking at her exit, wondering for a moment why his heart-rate was up and then dismissing the question when he remembered the answer, Ryuichi followed.

The objective was to finish the mission. It wasn’t so hard.

Steel walls closed in—scenery followed that Ryuichi ignored as it went. One door, two doors—all of them closed, sealed off from something scary—and there, target number one found and marked. Tall girl with gray eyes, and Ryuichi thought she might’ve been a chuunin the way she held herself, but a sword went into her throat--one down for the count--and then she wasn’t anything. Deadweight crashed down, and Ryuichi dodged away from the fall.

Could do this forever.

Another twist and two-strike, and Ryuichi came face to face with Morishita Izo.

Could also crash and burn.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that,” Izo murmured, poisoned chakra gathering in his hands. There was something wrong with Ryuichi’s eyes—he couldn’t focus, couldn’t see the details of Izo’s face. Couldn’t see if he looked like his sister or not.

The two chuunin she faced wore the many-pocketed jackets and protective masks of Grass poison specialists. Ryuichi managed to hit them as he ran past, but Katsuko was the one who held their attention.

"You're dead, bitch," The taller of them barked, shaking hands uncapping a little vial.

Katsuko snorted derisively. "Like I haven't heard that before." She turned as the shorter man lunged at her and snapped her chakra out. Neither chuunin expected the violent roar of the wind jutsu that flung them against the concrete walls and, from the sound of it, shattered more than a couple of their important bones.

She leapt forward, planted a foot on the tall one's throat and drove her kodachi in between his eyes, pushing until she felt the tip of her blade hit the concrete wall on the other side.

Someone murmured into the odd little silence that followed, someone with a gravelly voice like rocks scraping together. She looked over her shoulder to see Ryuichi locked face-to-face with a gangly leering man with black hands.

Morishita Izo. Fuck.

"Arai!" Katsuko wrenched her kodachi free with a sharp twist and drew her katana with a screech of steel. She had to make it over there before--

Cloth sandals scuffed against the concrete floor. Katsuko spun around, barely managing to bring her blades up in a x-block before someone slammed into her. The shorter chuunin snarled, glowing hands caught in the cross-trap of her blades.

Izo was smiling. Chakra snapped around his hands, and Ryuichi could see it this time. Black like crude oil and coiling around slender fingers that had never known any gloves except blood—yeah, it was dangerous alright.

A wind jutsu roared, too loud in such a small space. Katsuko’s. No one else was that good—Ryuichi would have known if they were. He would’ve been dead if they were. A collision came and bone smashing into steel, as expected. Also Katsuko. The only thing Ryuichi had to his credit was the dead girl with gray eyes. It wasn’t quite enough to compare.

Softly, someone moaned as they started to die. It was almost too quiet to hear over the echo bouncing off the bunker walls.

Katsuko shouted something. Her chakra flared—monster strength that would’ve been scary if she hadn’t been wearing the mask. Ryuichi didn’t hear her, didn’t want to hear her.

This was happening. This was happening now.

Izo shifted low, arms out at his sides. “Another fool. Can you dance, ANBU?”

There was no point in answering. Ryuichi just lunged, swords twirling.

Izo twisted—his hand slapped over the fox mask, smile saying somebody was dying. Black chakra twisted—for a moment, Ryuichi couldn’t see anything. He thought of fire and assumed he was dead.

Then his hand twitched, fingers closing around his weapons. Two edges into Izo’s neck—blood gushed down in a crimson river, splashing the floor and Ryuichi’s armor.

The dead man shook. A moment later, Ryuichi’s mask exploded in a whirlwind of stained porcelain.

The short chuunin had obviously lost his mind. "Bitch!" He howled, ignoring the lacerating cuts he inflicted on himself as he strained past the barrier of Katsuko's katana and kodachi, "You killed Inari! I'll tear you apart!."

"Is that what the glowing-handsy part of this rant is for?" she snapped, planting her feet firmly and pulling her arms in as scissoring motion that strained her chest muscles. A choked-off bloody gurgle, and Katsuko's blades scythed through the chuunin's arms and head like soft clay. Blood and gore exploded over her before she managed to leap away; she snarled in frustration as some of the mess got into the eyeholes of her mask and momentarily blinded her.

A shattering sound, like porcelain breaking in a storm.

Katsuko's heart stopped. "Arai!"

No, no, no, how could she have--Izo sprawled, discarded, on the floor, his head nearly separated from his neck. Shards of porcelain mask littered the ground, glistening crimson at the tips. Ryuichi--

Ryuichi--

She dropped her weapons with a careless rattle and pelted over to where Ryuichi had fallen, kneeling by his side. Gods, his face--she couldn't even see his eyes anymore, they were hidden in all the blood. Yanking her mask up, Katsuko stripped her gloves off and felt with bare fingers for the pulse at his neck.

"Arai? Arai? Ryuichi? Are you still with me?"

Izo didn’t look like his sister. His face was more box-like, rough lines transitioning into rougher angles. Once, he’d spent a lot of time outside. The sun had tanned his skin brown. Scruffy black hair was tucked under a green bandana.

Under the blood and glassy sheen all dead things got, Izo’s eyes were a bright, luminous purple.

Ryuichi’s swords slipped from his hands. They hit the ground with an angry clang, and he followed them down. What remained of his mask was lying on the ground in little pieces. He’d never broken it before. Broken bones and blades—Ryuichi'd broken hundreds of those, really—but never an ANBU mask.

No one had ever said they were indestructible. It’d just been implied for a little while, just enough to keep the insanity strong.

“Arai!”

Katsuko felt for his pulse, said his surname once, twice, and then his name, the only name he wanted to be remembered by. Blood ran down his face from ten different cuts—Ryuichi blinked it away when his vision started to warp.

“You’re not dead,” he muttered, and shoved Katsuko into the wall. The last target cried out, falling forward as his strike missed. Ryuichi’s hands closed around his throat.

The missing-nin thrashed, kicking hard. Through the damage of shock and Speed, Ryuichi felt something in his arm give way. The ninja under him was Katsuko’s age, skinny and dark-haired like her too. Ryuichi shook his head and choked the missing-nin until the man stopped thrashing.

Relief. Stark, blessed relief washed over Katsuko like a balm when Ryuichi opened his eyes, his gaze clear. Then he started talking and the worry crashed in all over again.

"You're not dead."

A brief moment of what the fuck are you talking about did you hit your head?, and then Ryuichi lunged up, planted both hands on her shoulders and shoved. Something skimmed past her ear, nicking the lobe, and she hit the wall hard enough to drive the air out of her lungs.

The missing-nin about to drive the kunai into the base of her skull overbalanced into Ryuichi's waiting grasp. Her mission partner pushed him onto the ground and started to throttle the life out of the man with single-minded intensity. The blood on Ryuichi's face made him look like some sort of savage, a madman. Katsuko could only gasp for air and watch.

At last, long after the man stopped thrashing, she managed to stagger to her feet. Ryuichi was still slumped over the man, hands on the dead ninja's throat.

Katsuko placed her hand on one muscled shoulder. "It's over," she said quietly, her voice rasping from the strain. "You saved my life."

Ryuichi started at the touch, still looking at the missing-nin. The man was dead. Had been for a little. The body was still hot, still bleeding. Still thinking it was alive. Still in denial. Now and again the face changed, and Ryuichi saw Katsuko dead, black marks on her neck and his hands that had put them there. Another turn, another heartbeat, and it was just the missing-nin again.

Just a trip, just a trip.

Katsuko’s voice almost snapped him out of it. It only took one look to remind him that she was still there, still alive. That the mission wasn’t a failure yet. It only took one survivor to make it back home, but Ryuichi wouldn’t be that one. He’d come back with Katsuko, or he wouldn’t come back at all.

“You saved my life,” she said. There was something wrong with her voice.

Ryuichi shrugged her hand away, standing up hesitantly. To his surprise, his legs didn’t fail him. “I didn’t,” Ryuichi said.

The bunker was spinning . He could see a whole lot of gray and dead things. Izo’s body was crumpled on the ground, Ryuichi’s swords and broken mask lying before the man whose sister had killed the rest of their team. Ryuichi bent down to retrieve the blades. The edges were dented, but they could be fixed.

The same couldn’t be said for his head. Ryuichi felt himself sway, and wondered if Katsuko would kill him for screwing this up. Somehow, it was his fault, or the fault of the drugs, which still made it Ryuichi’s mistake for taking them in the first place.

Whatever came next, he’d take it. They were getting home alive.