It was pure luck that Genma happened to be near the power station at that moment. Whose luck, and what kind of luck that was, was debatable. It certainly wasn't Aburame Sadayo's luck. She was dead. Her throat was slit, her body cooling, blood turning sticky and gelatinous where it had fountained over her clothes and skin. She lay in an undignified sprawl, with only one or two of her kikai companions still buzzing near her corpse.

Genma found her when he stopped by her quarters just outside the power station at Morioka Falls. He'd been by there on his way outbound on his mission--a simple courier job, but the documents he was conveying were high-level enough that they merited a special-jounin as errand boy. Fine with him, really. It was nice to have a cushy solo mission once in a while, and they'd fed him well at the northern daimyou's residence. And there was Sadayo, who was expecting him on the way back.

She'd had a shitty job, really. Guarding a power station was certainly chuunin's work, but usually there'd be a pair of them. All she'd had for company, though, was a lifer of a genin who had neither the skill nor ambition to rise higher. Sadayo had had greater aspirations.

Genma stared at her body and found a prayer and a curse in the same breath.

Her subordinate was nowhere to be seen. The signs of a struggle were minimal--clearly she'd been ambushed. And clearly by ninja. Which meant the power station was the target. It had to mean that, Genma told himself, as he crept towards it. His hands flashed through seals--rabbit, ox, boar, tiger, horse--and he became a wisp of shadow, barely rustling the thick summer grass.

When he found the second corpse--one of the power station workers in his distinctive baggy overalls--the curse was clearer, the prayer less distinct. Genma slid as close to a steam pipe as he dared, and started scaling the side of the building. Some asshole ninja from somewhere or other were about to be very, very surprised.

Nori could hear one of the other ninja coming up to meet him, and worked faster. He was tying the last smoke bomb to the cables when Akira came over the edge.

"Making pretty bows, rookie?"

"I told you, I'm not--" It was only his twist as he snapped at Akira that made him catch sight of the shadow. The barest glint of moonlight off a hitai-ate. He threw himself out of the way. A senbon pinned the knot in place against the cables.

"Son of a bitch," Akira snarled, whipping his katana out of the scabbard across his back.

Yanagi froze. The hitai-ate was clear, now. A swirl across the man's forehead, with a dagger's point on one end. A stylized leaf he'd always thought looked more like a weapon. Konoha ninja. His ninja.

But not Nori's ninja.

He flung himself at Akira, shoving the larger man out of the way and nearly severing his own face on the edge of that deadly blade. Luck made the next senbon thunk harmlessly against his flak vest, and he knocked it away with the back of his gloved hand.

"We've got company!" Akira bellowed, shoving Nori off and leaping to his feet.

There was the sound of scrambling below, and Nori drew himself up behind Akira, keeping both his teammate and his countryman in view.

Damn it, he wasn't looking to kill any more ninja. Especially not one that had snuck up on him -- no chuunin, this. Konoha needed all the high ranked ninja it could get. He glared at the man dressed in shadows, as if he could force his thoughts into the other's skull.

Akira wasn't so subtle. He attacked, blades whirling.

Genma disappeared from his perch at the roof's edge, left a bundle of sticks to fall in his place, and reappeared on the other side, flanked by a dozen ghostly versions of himself. Kawarimi was a basic genin skill, and so was a clone. Used together, they were perhaps approaching chuunin level. It was the addition of a multi-source lightning jutsu that made it hard to anticipate. Hard to dodge. Genma felt a thrown blade nick his temple, slicing through the bandana fabric of his hatai-ate and into his scalp. He was already moving away from it, dodging the big ninja's katana. The other one--taller, thinner, and obviously not the meat-shield in this operation--hung back. His hands were moving, preparing a jutsu.

Genma didn't wait to find out what it was going to be. He cast his electrical jutsu, raining stinging sparks down on both ninja and lighting up the powerstation rooftop with an eerie glow. The raw electricity crackled and arced, drawing surges from the powerstation's transformers and condensers, setting up a ladder of jagged white racing between two of the high tension lines. It made his hair stand on end all over his body. He grabbed a handful of shuriken from his thigh holster and flung the energized blades straight at the jutsu caster.

The meat shield, unsurprisingly, got in the way. The water jutsu he sent racing towards Genma made it clear he wasn't just muscle after all.

Lighting and water mixed very, very poorly, Genma thought, as he leapt out of the way.

"C'mon, kid," Akira laughed. "Time to earn your keep!"

Nori was already moving, zigzagging in an attempt to avoid the lightning. "It'd be a lot easier to do anything if you weren't flinging electrified water all over the place!"

The leaf ninja landed on a platform and leaped again, and Nori jumped after him, trying to get there before his teammates did.

He put on a burst of speed, slapping a silver-jeweled hook out of his way as Sachi shot it. Genjutsu spilled across his senses, but he kept running, whipping through a kai at the same time.

The leaf ninja was a fast son of a bitch. If Yanagi could get over there, he could tap out a code. If he couldn't...

Konoha was down one more ninja. Possibly two, if they were very unlucky.

Sachi was moving, swinging her grapple around again, preparing to throw.

"This one's mine," Nori snarled, and transported directly in front of the leaf ninja. He dropped, barely avoiding a blade in the eye, and swept his legs under the other man's. Sachi's hooks flew past, where the ninja's head would have been if he hadn't stopped to dodge Nori.

"Damn it, Nori!" Sachi shouted. The line the grapple was attached to went bright white, nearly blinding him. He closed his eyes, already rolling, and reached for the ninja's calf. If he could tap a message while the man couldn't see --

No calf. The ninja had already moved. Which meant Yanagi might very well end up with his throat cut in another breath. He summoned chakra and shaped seals.

Electric wires snapped free from their moorings, spitting raw, deadly energy with a banshee's scream. A flash of light seared Genma's retinas, obliterating all sight. He jumped blindly away from the attack.

Genjutsu. Maybe it was genjutsu. He poured chakra into his own chest, breaking the illusion. The sound died, and the crackle of unleashed electric wires vanished. The pain and blindness remained.

He felt a blade rake his vest, another bite into his thigh, and there was that damned tall ninja again, just in striking range. A shadowy purple afterimage against a halo of darkness. Genma struck fast, but the other man was faster, leaving Genma's blade to slice through nothing but a few wisps of smoke.

There was a shout from behind him, another surge of chakra, and he felt himself thrown through the air, hit by a pelting rain of senbon. Genma ducked, rolled, skidded on the gravel roof, and dodged behind a ventilation chimney. He was breathing hard, still trying to blink the sight back into his eyes, when he felt a blade at his throat.

Two thoughts collided: He was going to die. Why didn't the bastard strike the death blow already? They engendered a third: Fight, you idiot! Genma drove his elbow back against the other ninja as hard as he could.

Yanagi -- Nori -- Yanagi grunted and stepped back, twisting before the leaf ninja hit him again. Quick fingers wrapped around the man's elbow, dancing out a code. One pattern, that meant more than one word could. Undercover and ANBU and friend, all wrapped into a sequence of three taps and carefully shaped chakra --

But the ninja was already swinging, and Yanagi barely had time to duck under the attack. He stayed close, hidden from his teammate's view for a few precious moments as he didn't press and willed the other ninja to hear him.

Undercover and ANBU and friend, and any kind of fight here would bring them back into view and he'd have to make it a good show. He didn't want to kill this man, but he would if forced.

Or he'd step aside and let his teammates kill the ninja -- and he'd rather avoid that, too.

There were a number of secrets entrusted to senior ninja. Special jounin and jounin, in particular, learned code words, signs and countersigns, methods for revealing hidden information, methods for identifying covert operatives in the field. The signal Genma was getting now, a tight, syncopated rhythm coupled with a chakra surge that blistered under his skin, was one of the most important.

And one a ninja hoped never, ever, to receive. Especially not in the middle of a fight.

Genma went slack in the man's grasp, just long enough to give him the idea he'd gotten the message. Undercover. ANBU. Friend. He heard the sound of a bladed weapon being drawn, and mentally added a Motherfucker! to it.

Now he had to throw this fight. And throw it good. Meatshield and genjutsu bitch back there, whoever they were, didn't seem likely to be Konoha undercover agents, meaning ANBU-boy here was going to have to make it look like Genma was a neutralized threat.

The only neutralized jounin was a dead jounin. That was a truism that crossed national and village boundaries.

But the guy hadn't killed him, and he'd had an opportunity. Dying for a mission was always a possibility, but dying for someone else's mission was a sucky way to go.

It probably was a bad idea to think of Sadayo.

There was a fresh flash of light, not so searing this time. Just enough to illuminate them. They were being watched, and Genma needed to make it look good.

Seeing an opportunity and letting it go was hard enough. Giving your opponent a deliberate opening, when you were pretty sure you knew exactly how hard he could hit--ANBU, holy mother of the Buddha--that took real self control.

Genma got a glimpse of the edge of the roof, and beyond it the falls that powered the turbines that this ANBU and his temporary buddies had been trying to sabotage. OK, off the roof was not a life-compatible solution. Probably. He caught the ANBU's eye, grit his teeth, and dropped his guard.

From the corner of his eye, Yanagi saw Akira launch a blade. He grabbed the leaf ninja in a lock, one arm around a vulnerable neck, the other twisting the ninja's wrist up behind a slim, wiry spine, and moved.

The spattering of shuriken missed them as he swung the ninja out of the path and around, turning to bellow at his teammates.

"Akira! What the fuck is your problem? I said he was mine!" The leaf ninja struggled briefly. Yanagi yanked the arm up harder, trying not to think about rupturing shoulder ligaments. He didn't think he was pulling that hard. He hoped he wasn't pulling that hard.

He took two big steps toward the edge of the rooftop, glancing down and over. It wasn't an easy fall. Certainly not one he'd wish on any teammate. But the other option was presenting his current teammates with a body -- and that definitely wasn't survivable.

"Nori, wait--"

He shoved before Sachi could finish the order, snapping his hand up and wrenching the teenager's chin around, spinning the ninja's body with his other hand. Enough to keep from shattering the slender neck, even as it looked like that was exactly what he had done.

The ninja fell bonelessly, head seemingly twisted at an impossible angle before he vanished into the mists. Yanagi really hoped that was a genjutsu, but he didn't throw a kai to find out.

"Damn it! Now we have to find his body and make sure he's dead!" Sachi snarled.

Nori stepped away from the edge. "Body? What--"

"You moron." She stalked close to him, and he backed up a step. "No witnesses."

"He's not a witness! He's dead! Besides, even if he were a witness -- we wanted Konoha to know it was us, anyway!"

Sachi shook her head in disgust. "Akira, go see if you can find the body."

Nori didn't offer to do it. He folded his arms, sullen and angry. Now there would be questions, and he wasn't a damned traitor. He'd killed the ninja, hadn't he? "You people are all fucking paranoid," he muttered.

Akira smiled toothily. "Welcome to the club." He plowed by, slamming his shoulder into Nori's, sending Nori staggering to one side. Closer to the edge.

Nori peered over, but there was no sign of anyone through the heavy mist of the waterfall.

Genma cast three very important jutsu, flying through hand seals and chakra-shaping faster and with more skill than he'd ever done in his life. There was something about plunging from the roof of a building towards the moonlit spray of a cataract hundreds of feet below that was astonishingly focusing.

First an illusion. It made his neck appear as broken as it felt. More broken than it felt. He could move all his limbs, which the illusion now neatly hid. Second a wind jutsu. Not his strongest element, but nothing else would slow his fall so effectively. Or be so easy to hide in the spray. And third, a translocation closer to the bottom. Less time to fall, less speed to build up, less energy with which to hit

the

ground.

Or water.

He went under, pushed down by thousands of pounds of pressure from the waterfall. Knocked senseless by the impact. Animal instinct to hold his breath saved him from drowning in the several seconds he was tumbled beneath the surface. Then the turbulent water pushed him up, shooting him into an eddy near the base of the cliff. He gasped in half a mouthful of water, choked it back out, and flung an arm around a fallen lightning-struck tree stripped bare of bark and jutting into the spray.

Looking up, all he could see was boiling mist.

If he was lucky, they couldn't see him either. And wouldn't come looking for him.

He reached up for a better handhold, felt his much abused shoulder pop out of socket, and gritted out a curse that was swallowed by the pounding water.

Fucking ANBU. That bastard better be on one hell of a critical mission.

Not like Genma would ever know.

Groaning, he hauled himself out of the water, curled up on the rocky shore, and started mentally composing his mission report.

At approximately 2300 I encountered enemy ninja, one of whom turned out to be on our own fucking side...