The next morning I awoke to the smell of breakfast and hints of small talk between one of the teammates and Sensei. I got out of bed, slipped on my shoes and grabbed my headband before heading to the stairs. I scanned down the hall finding that only 4 doors were open, meaning 1, Sensei, Minato-sensei plus I was up. Minato-sensei was in the washroom, taking a morning shower so I decided not to wait for him and head downstairs by myself.
Traveling down the stairs I heard 1 scolding her Sensei, “Wait.” She paused. “One of them is awake. And would you please put a shirt on when people are over. Oh and don’t think you’re off the hook, dear Sensei.” She hissed his name in warning.
She knew I was on the stairs, the others treat her like a plague, but I see her as a well-trained kunoichi. I continued my descent down the stairs passing a topless Sensei. He smiled and nodded, addressing me by name before continuing his ascent. Suddenly the carefree Sensei seemed much more dangerous, his chest and back were riddled with scars, burns and marks of torture but there were fresher marks. His chest was covered in one giant bruise, smaller ones littered his back. It was as though he had been beaten brutally by ten men or more, were they from a previous mission? Was this team even deployed this week, aside from now?
I didn’t have time to ask any more questions as 1 entered my field of vision. We each nodded to each other as she continued to cook, well more like, tried to not let anything burn until it was ash. I was sitting at the table nearby watching her. She wasn’t graceful, she moved about the kitchen spastically. One minute she would be looking for something, the next she’d be trying to keep eggs from burning. At first she kept an emotionless mask but as more and more things went wrong her facial expressions became more open and I could see that she had never really cooked before. When flipping the eggs she would bite her lip, while running about she kept a nervous eye on the stove, when faced with burnt food she would crinkle her nose before pursing her lips upset at herself for letting it happen.
I rolled my eyes finally taking pity on her, I can’t believe she’s never cooked, don’t they rotate the chores around here? “Here let me cook, you get the ingredients prepared.”
She glanced at me, eyes holding surprise and a certain happiness. Odd thing was, her happiness wasn’t from me taking the burden it seemed to come from me just talking to her, being kind. She nodded bowing slightly, “Thank you.”
We continued to work together until our sensei’s walked in. Minato smiled pleasantly at the two of us while Sensei glanced a concerned look at 1. She shrugged and Sensei’s glance floated to me, as though analyzing me, finally he grinned before closing his eyes peacefully.
“Well, it’s good to see you two getting along.” Minato said grabbing a chair at the table.
“Yes it’s rare that someone gets close to 1, let alone cook beside her.” Sensei said earning a quick ‘Shut up’ from 1.
I just ignored the comments and continued to cook, but a nagging thought stayed with me. Why do people avoid her? Is she just closed off, hard to get to know or do they avoid her for another reason?
I was beginning to hate how many unanswered questions this girl was giving me. I was normally good at reading people, their intentions, how they act, reasoning’s and motives but she was different. While everyone was an open book she was a locked journal. The only people I wasn’t able to read were Minato-sensei and other high ranking nin, it was quite frustrating not being able to read one my own age.
Soon breakfast was ready and less burnt than it would have been had 1 cooked it all, so the others began trickling into the kitchen. 2, 3 and Rin were getting along famously, discussing usual girl things like hair or something, whereas Obito looked barely awake. Conversation flowed easily between everyone except 1 and I. We ate our food in silence and I only took a bite when no one was watching.
1 seemed to sense my discomfort at lowering my mask so whenever I looked about to eat she would cast her eyes towards Obito, she eventually seemed to sink into a method of looking to make sure the coast was clear for me. She even began dragging attention to herself if the others were about to look my way when she assumed I would be eating.
At first I thought it was my imagination but soon I found amusement in watching her antics, it was quite fun to pretend to eat in order to watch her frantically grasp at each new idea. They ranged from choking, hitting her knee off the table, to more dramatic things like knocking over her glass or, at one point, sending it smashing to the ground.
After finishing our antic ridden meal we packed our weapons and moved out to the location one town over. It was an industrial town and according to 2 it was where the majority of her town will go to seek jobs.
Once there, we decided to split up. All the genin would wander aimlessly, looking lost while the sensei’s kept track of our coordinates using a GPS system in our radios. It wasn’t the best plan but it was all we had. We spent an entire day just wandering around before reconvening at the village entrance. Seeing as we all showed up we assumed no one had been taken. Our search would resume tomorrow.
Everyone was rather irritable afterwards, any exchange of words was usually a small insult directed at another. 1 remained silent concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other. Half way back home and she was asleep while walking. Sensei would poke her in the right direction every now and then but aside from that she was on her own. Obito eventually stood beside her, a hand on her elbow. I decided it was better than listening to catty girls throw verbal punches at one another and walked alongside her as well. Obito guided and I was there for whenever one of the two tripped, grabbing the one who was falling and keeping them steady.
For three days we repeated this until the sensei’s decided it was a failed plan. So we were once again sitting around the fire place drinking hot chocolate, or coffee, as we thought up a new plan. Everyone was quietly contemplating ideas and even 1 had joined us this time.
“Alright,” Minato said placing his mug on the table. “Anyone got any ideas? Even some crazier ones may help us out.”
We all shook our heads but 1’s eyes remained closed she hadn’t moved. I thought she was asleep but as I went to shake her arm, her eyes reopened. “What if…what if we could find a kid that actually lives in the village one that is a suspected target. If we could track or maybe swap the kid out for one of us then we could reach the base. That or make ourselves more susceptible to kidnapping.”
Minato’s eyebrows rose a fraction, “That could work. But there are no common factors aside from being seen in the village recently and the kids ages. What do you propose we do about that?”
“I think that it would be easier with a common link but if we look at the averages…” She trailed off flipping through a file. “No nevermind it’s too sporadic, nothing to gain from this. Well what if we look for a location big enough to house that many kids, under guard, secluded, maybe a place the villagers themselves fear to go?”
Now that sparked my interest, it was intelligent if a little shaky. But it could narrow our options down. “If we can narrow it down to places like that then it would be simple to investigate further. Then we could find the base in a shorter amount of time, also increasing the chance of success.” I said polishing her idea and hopefully gaining better approval for her. She nodded in thanks or just as an agreement, I’m not sure which but either way the sensei’s liked the idea.
“Well then, now that we have an idea,” Minato paused standing and stretching. “I think tomorrow would be a good time to enact it, so until then we all deserve a good rest. Off to bed, all of you.”
The next morning I woke up and travelled downstairs, I expected to see 1 in the kitchen again or at least awake but there was no sign of her.
“Looking for teammate #1?” Sensei said appearing behind me. I turned quickly to face him.
“She doesn’t appear to be up yet.”
“Ah, no she’s come down with a few symptoms and won’t be with us this morning.” He said waltzing further into the kitchen to prepare food.
“She was fine yesterday.” I said as Minato walked into the room with a yawn and his usual grin.
“Who was?” He asked.
“1,” I answered. “She’s sick today.”
“It’s odd that you’ve given her a nickname so quickly.” Sensei said sitting down at the table to wait for the food to cook.
Minato shook his head, “No, I think Kakashi has shortened it because of its abnormal length and, well it’s a little odd to call a kid by a number isn’t it?”
Sensei looked up genuinely surprised. “It is? But then what do I call them?”
Yep, he’s a lunatic alright. I thought. “You’d normally call them by their given names.” I said.
“Given names? Hm, I never thought of that. So you’re given name is Kakashi?”
I nodded throwing my sensei a look, he just shrugged and continued to carry an amused look in his eyes.
“Hm, that’s interesting.” Sensei mused calmly as the rest of the genins entered the room.
Obito rubbed his eye looking around, “Hey where’s 1?”
“She’s sick.” Sensei stated.
2 and 3 exchanged worried looks and as the morning progressed they kept a wary distance from Sensei, what is going on here? I wanted to ask them what was really going on but we were rushed out the door and into the mission.
We spent all day out there and narrowed it down to three locations. One was a warehouse near the docks, another was an abandoned farm on the hills and the last was a warehouse in the abandoned district of town.
We had gathered as much information as possible on all the locations even getting quotes from the townspeople. We all stepped inside Sensei’s house and we’re just getting our shoes off when a very pale 1 shuffled her way down the stairs leaning heavily on the wall.
“Teammate 1, what are you doing? You should be resting.” Sensei dropped the files leaving 2 and 3 to clean up the scattered papers. He picked 1 up gently and carried her down the stairs into the kitchen. We all followed, I was hoping to get answers and unlike the others had barely any concern for her.
“Speak up, what do you want?” Sensei said staring at 1 critically.
She motioned to the taps and strained to vocalize but nothing but a breath of air was audible. Sensei’s eyes widened. “You can’t speak?” She shook her head, pointing once more to the taps. “Alright, water it is.”
He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water before handing it to her. She drank it in gulps before handing it back. “Another.” She said softly.
Sensei nodded and a relieved look crossed his face, “You had me worried I thought you wouldn’t be able to talk ever again. I thought you had gone mute.”
She smiled taking small sips of her water, “When I woke up, I thought so too. But I’m okay now.” She turned her head to us. “So what did you find?”
Obito filled her in on the three locations as we walked back to the living room. She nodded slowly, still pale, still fragile looking. I was surprised Sensei was able to pick her up without breaking her.
We sat down as Sensei began to carry her up the stairs, “No. I want to see the files. Put me down.” Her voice was stronger now, it didn’t match with the rest of her though. Sensei sighed before making his way back down the stairs and placing her gently into a chair. She thanked him before scanning the files, picking each one up in turn. No one spoke as she examined them, which gave me time to study her a bit more in her sickness now that she was closer.
Her eyes were half-glazed, dark bags sat beneath them indicating a sleepless night, she probably didn’t get much rest during the day either. Her skin was pale, unlike usual there was no pink tint no indication she had seen the sun in years. Not a day ago, she had gotten a tan from walking around in the sun; it shouldn’t have disappeared so quickly. Her lips were dry and cracked, her hair was unkempt and her clothes were unchanged from yesterday.
Hang on, why hadn’t she changed clothes, did she sleep in her mission outfits? This was her house so shouldn’t she have pajamas or another outfit to wear. I looked at 2 and 3 who were watching 1 with a look of expectation, they were both wearing different outfits from yesterday and I remember they wore their pajamas to breakfast that morning as well.
Was her sleep deprivation from two nights ago? It would explain why she could hardly walk yesterday, maybe that was a sign of her sickness… she must have known, how could she not have?
She glanced up meeting my eyes, it was as though she read through my mind in that instant. She smiled softly and nodded once before shaking her head as though calling me foolish.
“So what do you think?” Sensei asked.
“I think that I need to see these places close up, and I wouldn’t mind speaking to this Oburo Tanaka person.”
“Why him?” 2 asked taking the file hesitantly from 1.
“His answer was the most generic. He could have been talking about anything really.” She said as 2 scanned through the notes.
“She’s right.” I said. “I questioned him myself but he gave only that answer before leaving in a rush. Tomorrow we’ll ask him again.”
I made sure her eyes met mine and a single connection was made, it would be her and her alone that would question the guy. I would go as back up and stay hidden just in case. We both nodded before returning to the conversation.
“So tomorrow, we’ll send a group of you out to find this man and analyze the locations. I suggest we send a four man team.” Minato suggested.
For once though I thought it would be best if it was a smaller more mobile group, being near the possible locations it’d be best for cover and retreats, a large group of children would also alert the man to possible hostilities. I was about to state my thoughts when 1 spoke up.
“I disagree, a smaller two-person team would be more adaptable. I suggest Kakashi and I go to the village and locations while the rest of you take a day off.”
Minato eyes glanced to me, “Is that alright Kakashi?” He knew of my tendencies to avoid people and idiots on missions.
“That’s fine with me.” I said closing my eyes, resigning myself to a day with her.
“Then it’s settled tomorrow, you’ll both find the information you want and we will stay here.” Sensei said standing and picking 1 up. “So, off to bed with everyone. Especially you, teammate #1, can’t have you collapsing on the way back again now can we?”
She nodded raising her arms to be picked up like a young child, he then carried her up the stairs with us in toe.
Obito caught up to me, “It’s kinda nice, isn’t it?” I gave him a questioning glance. “How they’re like family. My family’s not even that close and we’re related by blood.”
I had to agree, my family was strict and distant, Obito’s was the same being an Uchiha and all.
“Don’t believe anything you see.” 3 whispered behind us. “Those two may seem close but…it’s all on the surface. At least that’s what we think after living here for so many years. Sensei adopted her when she was really young, he’s never called her anything but teammate #1 and she never complains. Even after the experiments…”
“Shut up, you know were not allowed to talk about those.” 2 elbowed 3 in the side.
“What do you mean by experiments?” I asked.
“Didn’t you find it weird, how she suddenly became ill?” 2 asked. I was about to answer when their sensei told them to go to sleep.
They scurried off like scared mice as Sensei left 1’s room after putting her down and going to his own.
Experiments? Crazy Sensei’s, weird girls without real names, all orphans. Sounds like I’ve gotten myself into a horror novel, I thought getting into bed. I didn’t fall asleep for a few hours that night, as I ran over the facts about this team, even as I fell asleep I felt that I was missing a rather large piece to this intricate mystery.”
“Did you ever figure it out?” Sakura interrupted.
I glanced at Chaos in my peripheral, “No I don’t think I have yet.”
The kids pouted, “So we’re never going to find out…” Naruto crossed his arms.
Asuma ruffled Naruto’s hair, “I don’t think it’s really a mystery. Kakashi, I’m surprised you haven’t put two and two together.”
“What do you mean?”
“She seems pretty straight forward to us.” Asuma gestured to Kurenai and Gai. “Her upbringing may seem a bit unorthodox but whose isn’t? She’s only a mystery to you.”
Chaos smiled deviously beside the kids, something was giving her amusement and I didn’t care to continue this conversation. “You haven’t gotten to know her yet. The story should shed some light on that.”
“Whatever you say Kakashi, whatever you say.”Asuma shrugged winking at Kurenai.
Why did the Hokage send both of them… he must have known that be like this the entire time… This mission is punishment, isn’t it? Maybe I’ll try to be on time after this.