A/N: HEADS UP for some ninja violence and more contemplation of ninja morality.

Also, update: I've finally finalized the outline for this story and thus have updated the tags a little on AO3. Some of you may want to check those out? Point is, I thought this was going to be funnier than it's actually turning out, and this has turned into a mystery-thriller. Hope you enjoy.

NOTE: This is UME's POV!

Noriko's news is… alarming, to say the least.

Because yeah. Over the years, I have wondered how we ended up here. And Noriko's never been wrong — we were always going to figure out how it happened, even if that mystery isn't at the top of my list.

I never thought someone would be actively hiding it, though.

"You trust Yuuto-san?" I ask, thinking hard.

We're sitting on a bench on a busy street. It's a Tuesday, which makes it Market Night in Konoha, and all around us civilians rush around, haggling and shouting.

"I trust him not to rip pages out of books," Noriko says, which is a fair assessment. The man's more loyal to the library than the village. He used to like me and Kazu before we stopped joining Nori on her research sprees. Now he just gives us slightly strained smiles and passive aggressive comments.

"Who would have reason to hide it?" Kazu asks lowly. "Do you think — do you think someone summoned us specifically? Is someone using us?"

"The kids did the ritual, though," I remind him. "We were standing in a circle and everything. It looked pretty deliberate."

"Doesn't mean that the kids did it willingly," he counters.

"I feel like we would have been approached if someone wanted us."

"Maybe they were making a wish, or something," Noriko muses. "Though I don't know how that results in this," she says, gesturing to all of us.

I blink, thinking hard. "If that were the case, maybe we stole the pages?" I suggest.

Kazu frowns in thought. "I guess that works," he decides, after a moment. "It would explain why that first page got left behind. Probably didn't need the whole entry, just the instructions or whatever."

Noriko latches onto that explanation. I can already see her loosening up, remembering to breathe. "Okay," she says. "We just gotta find out where they hid it then, right?"

"Oh boy," I mutter. Find the secret hiding places of three orphan nobodies that no one really knew? It'd be easier to get Kakashi's mask off.

"Assuming it's still there," Kazu mutters. "It's been — what, two and a half years?"

Nori makes a strangled noise and gets to her feet to walk around. I elbow Kazu in the side.

You're freaking her out.

He shoots me a wild eyed glare. Her? I'm freaking out, he mouths back.

Kazuki and his paranoia, and Noriko and her tunnel vision. It's a wonder we accomplish anything at all.

"Let's just — it's fine, we'll look for it tomorrow," I decide. "And we can rule some places out. It's definitely not in the orphanage."

We've turned over every inch of the place since arriving here. Plus, there's no privacy between preteen orphans. I hid a small bag of hair pins underneath the floorboards once, they were gone within the hour.

"We don't know anything about them," Kazu says, crossing his arms. "Three, quiet, friendless orphans. Where do we even start?"

Both Noriko and Kazuki look at me. I frown, thinking hard. There aren't a lot of resources at our disposal. But… we do have one big one. And it's about time he started pulling his weight.

"Maybe we can knock out two birds with one stone," I muse. "Let's ask sensei for tracking lessons."

The excuse goes to Kazuki. We decide that he wants to be able to rival Neji in all disciplines. Neji has a tracking advantage with the Byakugan: it's only natural that Kazu wants to train in that area as well.

"Sure, why not," comes Kakashi's reply.

The man pretends not to hear us when we ask him to come just one hour earlier than he usually does, but then caves for our dramatic requests like this. I'm so tired of trying to guess his reasons.

He leads us over a different training ground than our usual one, one without grass or plants. It's all dirt, and I can see scorch marks left behind from someone's training session. Kakashi has us sit down in the dirt, facing him.

On my right, Kazu leans forward, eager for our first actual lesson from the Copy-Nin.

"Tracking by scent is the first step," Kakashi says, pulling off one of his gloves. "Ume, catch."

I grab it out of the air. It's still warm from his body heat, and my face heats up. When I look back, his bare hand is tucked away into a pocket.

"There's your scent sample."

My eyes widen in realization. "Sensei, wait —"

His eye crinkles as he smiles at us. "See ya."

One puff of smoke later, and we're left staring at open air.

"Oh, you've gotta be shitting me," Kazu curses. "I can't believe I actually thought he was going to teach us something."

Nori grimaces. "I guess it's true. Smart people really don't know how to teach."

I lift up Kakashi's glove and sniff it tentatively. It smells like dirty cloth.

"Don't you like, channel chakra to your nose or something?" I say. "That's a thing, right?"

"Okay, but how does that work?" Kazu muses. "Throwing more energy at your olfactory receptors might amplify the signal to your brain, but tracking is more about isolating and recognizing a specific scent… so maybe what we should be doing is making a chakra filter? To cancel out the unnecessary information?"

Noriko rolls her eyes as Kazu rambles on about brain signals and neurons.

I frown at Kakashi's glove. Then I close my eyes and focus on my chakra, imagining it collecting in my nose. Scents filter in: dirty cloth, dry dust, charcoal, the bland soap that the orphanage provides —

"Ugh," I say, rubbing my nose. It feels like it's burning, like I'm about to sneeze but can't. I look around, at the bare dirt and the scorched training grounds, and at Noriko, who takes morning showers. I look back at the glove. "Okay, flooding your nose with chakra is unhelpful."

"Filter, then?" Kazu suggests.

"You're welcome to try," I offer, handing him Kakashi's glove.

He licks his lips before closing his eyes and holding the glove up to his face.

"Smells like dog, sumi ink and ozone," he says after a moment. "That's a good sign, right?"

The dog and the ozone makes sense to me, but — "Sumi ink?"

Nori shrugs, just as confused as I am. "Well, he does a lot of reading?"

Kazuki describes his filter as 'a thin sieve of chakra in front of your nostrils'. You have to narrow your focus: block out the general scents of the surroundings, and only let in the smaller, more distinct scents. Narrowing the window enough lets you isolate a direction, too. After a couple minutes, Kazu can reliably guess which one of us is holding Kakashi's glove. It takes Nori and I another half hour to figure it out, and by then we'd already corrupted our one pure scent sample.

"We did not think that one through," Noriko sighs.

Kazu scoffs. "No, really?"

Still, the scent of 'dog, sumi ink, and ozone' is a fairly distinctive combination. After a short discussion, we decide to start with the Memorial Stone.

"Because he's definitely been there," Kazu explains, "and if he didn't fly away or something insane like that, we should find a trail."

The trail starts off strong, leading away from the Stone and into the trees around us. As the forest gets thinner, the scent starts to fade away. At some point, it tapers off completely, and the three of us are standing in a clearing with no sign of our asshole sensei.

I sniff the glove again, though at this point, Kakashi's scent has blended in with mine. My face burns, and I quickly shove the glove back into my pocket. Kazuki gives me a curious look.

"He said tracking by scent is step one," I say aloud. "So what's step two?"

Kazuki takes in the question and frowns.

"... Maybe a visual trail?" He suggests. "We're in a forest now, there should be signs."

Noriko points to a broken twig near the forest floor, still green on the inside. "Like that?"

"Good eyes, Nori," I say.

Kazu presses his lips together and leads the way. Once again, the trail gradually gets harder and harder to follow. It takes us two hours, and twice we had to double back because of a false lead. Eventually, though, we end up getting deposited on the other side of the forest, close to the Eastern Gates.

"Huh," I say, seeing Kakashi leaning on a wall, reading his book. "We found him. I guess we can track, after all."

"No thanks to him," Noriko mutters, crossing her arms.

Together, we walk forward and join Kakashi by the wall.

"Hm," he says, his eye flicking up from his book to scan over the three of us. "Hello."

"You left us," Kazuki complains.

"You found me, didn't you?" He asks, tucking his book away into his vest. He stretches out his bare hand and shoots me an expectant look.

I take the glove out of my pocket and place it in his hand. Our fingertips brush, and I jerk my hand back at the contact.

"We'll get more practice on the road," Kakashi drawls, pulling his glove back onto his hand.

"On the road?" Nori asks. Her eyes widen. "You mean —"

"We're taking another C-rank," he confirms, his eye shifts between the three of us before settling on Kazuki. "You can thank Ume," he adds, the smirk implied in his tone.

I grimace — I don't find it as funny as he does — and look around. My eyes land on the four backpacks by Kakashi's feet.

"What's the mission?" I ask, unable to keep the slight waver out of my voice. Our previous C-rank, the successful one, was quiet, with no disturbances. But I still can't shake the memory of our first mission. My fingers curl as I recall the sticky warmth of the man's blood spilling over my skin. I clasp my hands together to keep them from shaking.

"We're picking up a package from one of our outposts," Kakashi says. "Non-essential, so getting targeted is unlikely."

I breathe.

Kazu looks up at sensei. "Which border?"

"Wind Country," Kakashi clarifies. "Grab a bag. They're standard issue. You can keep them, too."

I pick one up and swing it onto my back. It's light and sturdy, but the fabric isn't very breathable. Still, it's better than the ones we've been using. Noriko claimed she'd bought them from a swap meet a year ago, but there was something in her satisfied grin that made me wonder.

"Why?" Kazu asks, opening it up and skimming through the contents. "We could pack this ourselves."

Kakashi shrugs. "This is faster. We're leaving now."

I frown. "Sensei," I begin, slowly. "How late are we?"

"We were supposed to leave at ten this morning."

"At ten —" Kazu grimaces. "Sensei, it's one thirty."

Kakashi grins. "Then I guess we'd better get going," he says. As he turns away, he ruffles Noriko's hair, and she squawks in frustration.

"I swear, if we fail this C-rank because we were late, I'll — I'll scribble in his porn."

I look at Noriko and raise an eyebrow.

"I — I dunno how!" She grumbles in response. "When the new one comes out, I'll vandalize all the copies in the bookstore."

I wince.

She sighs. "...Still workshopping that plan."

"You know it takes two days to get to the border, right?" I ask. "We have some leeway with the schedule."

Noriko doesn't look comforted by the thought. Well, I tried.

Behind us, Kazu and Kakashi speak in low tones. I hear Kazu say the word 'tracking' and I tune them out; it's more training stuff.

"I wonder what the border's like," Noriko says. "Wind Country. That's where Suna is, isn't it?"

"Yep."

"I've never seen a desert," Nori says, wistfully. She looks around at the trees we've been living in for the past two years, and I think of our days from before, back in school. Even then, we were surrounded by trees.

Noriko snaps off a branch as we walk by a bush and swishes the leaves around. "I wanted to travel."

I look over at her and tilt my head. "Thought you wanted to 'find home'."

"It's not really 'travelling' if there's no home to go back to," she counters.

I laugh a little at that. "Poetic."

She grins back at me. I watch her toss the branch back into the bushes.

My smile drops as she looks away. If we pass this C-rank, we'd meet the minimum requirements for the Chuunin Exams. And I know Nori and Kazu are set on it. Based on how things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if Kakashi signs us up as a 'test' of some sort.

I know we can't go if I dig in my heels — I have the advantage in this argument. I just wish we all agreed on something.

"What would you do?" I ask, watching my words. "If we… make it?"

She doesn't look back, but I can see her shoulders tense up. "Live my life?"

"That's it? No plans?"

"You're the planning person."

"Yeah, but."

I don't know. I don't feel the same desperation Noriko does —I thought she knew what she wanted, and that was what fueled her desire.

"I just want home, Ume." She says. "That's all."

The words make me uncomfortable, but I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the memory of Noriko stabbing a guy in the face. It scares me that I don't know where she draws her lines. We keep walking. The silence seems tense, although maybe it's just me and my nerves.

It's nearly sunset when Kakashi-sensei asks us to start looking for places to camp in.

"Clear, level ground, with natural windbreaks and hidden from main roads," Kazu recites, channeling our Academy lessons.

We poke around and pick out an open clearing, surrounded by trees and with as few rocks as possible. Kakashi nods approvingly, and we roll out our new sleeping bags.

They're a lot warmer and a lot more comfortable than the ones we'd received for graduating. I look through the bag Kakashi got for us: camping supplies, weapons, first-aid.

I look over at Kakashi.

"These are standard-issue? For genin?" The backpack we were gifted from the Academy only had the bare basics. This pack was twice as full and three times higher quality.

He shrugs.

Smiling, I turn back to my sleeping bag. Guess he does care, after all.

Noriko is on my right. She's already snuggling into her bag, and judging by the vacant expression on her face, she's ready to knock out.

"I'll take the watch for tonight," Sensei offers. "But we're waking up early tomorrow to make up for lost time."

"And whose fault is that?" Noriko mutters, even as she closes her eyes.

Kazu chuckles from his sleeping bag.

"Are you sure you want to take the whole night, sensei?" I ask, looking at the masked man. I blink, reviewing my words. "I mean, not that I don't think you can, it's just, um —"

"It'll be fine, Ume," Kakashi waves it off. "Go to sleep."

I press my lips together. "If you say so..."

I lay back down in my bag. Noriko's soft breathing sounds from my right, rhythmic. She always goes on about going home, but she's adjusted so well, sleeps so peacefully. I hate it.

After a moment, I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

It's still dark when I jolt out of my dreams, sweating and restless, heart pounding in my chest. Panicked, I sit up and wipe my hands off on my sleeves, desperate to scrub off every last trace of blood.

"Ume."

I snap my eyes over to the source of the voice. Kakashi, kneeling in the dirt next to my sleeping bag.

When I look back at my hands, they're clean. Slick with sweat and nerves, but clean. Embarrassed, I shove them back under my bag and attempt to settle my breathing.

"Um, hi, sensei."

For a moment, we sit there, in the dark. I can barely make him out — can only catch a faint outline of his body. As the silence stretches, an air of awkwardness settles over us.

"Are you okay?" He finally asks.

Despite myself, I laugh at that. But I feel my stomach flip over inside. He's so out of his depth. How can he be so bad at this? One of his students has had regular nightmares for the past few months, and he's only approaching the subject now.

Kakashi stiffens as I giggle uncontrollably. I try to reassure him properly, but end up wheezing into a full-blown nervous laughter.

I want to say, no, I'm not okay, what does it fucking look like?

Instead, I choke down the laughter and call up a decent smile.

"It's fine," I finally manage, once the humor dies down. I stretch the corners of my mouth with careful deliberation. "It's… I'll get over it. I'm fine."

Kakashi nods, gets to his feet, and walks a short distance away. I watch him sit down on a small mound of earth, seemingly satisfied with our short and fruitless conversation.

I wish I'd stuck with Psych instead if switching to Sociology. Maybe I'd be better equipped to deal with… everything.

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. Maybe Kazu and Noriko are right. This is our world now, and none of it matters in the long run anyway.

As we get closer to the border, the trees begin to thin out and the air grows ever drier. My lips crack under the heat. Kazu chugs his water desperately. Noriko keeps her mouth resolutely shut and continues to trudge on, but I see her shirt grow wet with sweat.

The only one who appears unaffected is our sensei, which I suppose I should have seen coming.

We walk into the border camp early on our third morning. Nori's relieved to see that we haven't failed and happily accepts the scroll that is our cargo. We stock up on rations and rest for a couple hours, but it's clear that none of us want to stay for too long.

"Deserts are overrated," Nori murmurs as we leave after eating a light lunch. "Too hot. Too dry."

"There was a rating?" I mumble back.

She laughs at that.

Our pace is fast enough that we hit the familiar Fire Country forests by the evening. When we make camp, I volunteer for the night watch. Kakashi looks at me for a little bit, but concedes anyway.

I jump at sounds the whole night, but at least nothing happens.

The next day, after everyone is up and we continue on the journey home, Kakashi-sensei decides it's time to live up to his title and starts sharing his tracking tips.

I try my best to tune in, but my consistent lack of sleep is taking its toll. I zone in and out of the conversation.

"There's scrolls and seals you can use to keep scent samples pure during transport," Kakashi is saying to Kazu, when I manage to focus once more. "But generally, you want to minimize your contact with your samples."

"Do gloves help?" Kazu asks, eyeing Kakashi's gloved hands.

"Depends on the material," Kakashi says. "But my gloves are more for grip and for protecting my knuckles and hands. You'd want to use full gloves over fingerless for tracking, but most ninja don't bother since loss of dexterity is worse than losing a trail. It's usually not worth it."

Kazu flexes his own bare fingers. "Maybe I'll get fingerless gloves, then."

"You can start building up your badass look," Noriko pipes up. Kazu elbows her in the side, and she grins.

"What about the chakra parts of tracking?" Kazu asks eagerly. "You can sense chakra, right?"

"You either can or you can't," Kakashi says plainly. "Well — you can learn how, but that's more of a Chuunin skill, and it will never come naturally."

Well. That's an encouraging sentiment.

"How about hiding a trail?" Nori chimes in. "We learned all those 'step lightly and don't make noise' stuff in the Academy, but what about hiding your scent?"

"Wash your scent away, mask your scent with something stronger, or channel your chakra to your skin." Kakashi lists them off.

Kazu frowns. "Chakra to your skin?"

"Same principle as tree walking."

"So it's like… getting any loose particles that have your scent and having them stick to you so they don't float away," Kazu says slowly. He chews his lip. "I… suppose that makes sense. Okay, I can buy that."

"Being a human magnet. Sounds uncomfortable," Noriko offers.

I make a face. "That's how you want to think of it?"

"Am I wrong?"

"I didn't say that," I protest. "I'm just saying, why would you use that phrase? It sucks."

"But am I wrong."

I roll my eyes at her, and she grins back at me with zero regret.

"Noriko —"

"NORIKO!"

She yelps. A brown-haired blur knocks Nori to the ground — Kazuki, my mind registers. A small, silvery object darts through the air, narrowly missing my face.

Senbon, I think, and my heart races.

I fumble with my weapon pouch, scrambling for a kunai.

You or them, Ume, Kakashi's voice rings in my head, and I steel myself for the upcoming battle.

I can do this. I need to do this. If I'm going to keep my team together and alive, I need to commit. I curl my fingers around the hilt of my kunai and take in a deliberate breath. Then the phantom memory of blood spilling across my hands sends a chill down my spine, and I nearly drop the kunai.

Baby steps, then, I think to myself. Knock them out instead. Process this later.

Mind made up, I turn around, scanning our surroundings for assailants.

But then something stings the side of my neck, and the world tips sideways.

My eyes snap open, and I immediately try to sit up — only to find that I can't. My head spins at the mental effort, and I have to force the bile back down my throat. And everything hurts. It's then that I register the cold air and the scent of dirt.

I squint at the blurry figure hovering above me. Shades of forest green and muted blue, and a flash of silver.

"Kakashi-sensei?" I croak out, and I blink at the sound of my voice. The words are slurred and unclear, and vibrations seem to bounce around my skull.

"We were attacked. You've been hit with a mild paralytic," Kakashi tells me. "Unfortunately, you were hit in the windpipe, and it was fast-acting. Fortunately, you're breathing again."

Oh shit. I wasn't breathing?

"Nori? Kazu?" I ask. I try to look past sensei's shoulder, but all I see is trees.

Something squeezes my shoulder, and I realize that it's Kakashi's grip. When I look back at his face, his eye is cold and dark.

Oh, no.

I try to push myself up again, but either I'm too weak, or Kakashi's grip is too strong.

"I'll get them, Ume," he says, low and serious and angry, and it's the first time I've ever heard him like this. "Don't worry. I don't leave my team behind."

He shifts me around and picks me up, bridal-style. I wish I could enjoy the moment, but instead I throw up.

"Good," Kakashi's voice says. "Get it out of your system."

"I didn't eat it, so that's invalid," I slur, thinking of what Kazu would say. It probably went straight into my bloodstream, through a dart. Senbon. Whatever.

Kakashi holds me steady. I know when we start moving because my head rolls and bangs against his chest, and the sound that crawls out of my throat is the most painful, disgusting thing I've ever produced.

"I know, I know," he says quietly. "But I can't leave you here, and we have to move fast."

My tongue feels thick and chunky in my mouth. "How long was I…?"

"Four minutes."

I swallow nervously. Four minutes is a long time for two genin on their own.

"Who?"

"I intend to find out," he growls. Maybe it's the paralytic, but my blood runs cold at the low tone.

He jumps over something and lands particularly hard. My vision blacks out for a second; a buzz drowns out my hearing.

Once the haze clears, I squint up at Kakashi. My sight is a little clearer, now, less fuzzy at the edges, and I experimentally try to twitch my hand. It takes a second, but I get it to move.

I swallow. The action takes more focus than it should. Hopefully Nori and Kazu are safe — I can't imagine what might happen if one of them got hit by the same thing I did. Nori's fast, and Kazu's smart, and they're not a bad duo. But we've been genin for three months. This is why I didn't want to do the Chuunin Exams.

"Huh?"

I blink up at Kakashi-sensei, who is looking down at me with concern and confusion.

Oh. I didn't think I'd said that last part out loud.

"Um," I say. "I don't think we're ready for the Chuunin Exams?"

Kakashi doesn't break his stride, but he's definitely thinking through what I told him. "... You're not signed up for it," he says, after a pause.

"We could be, if we complete this mission," I point out. "And they want to."

"But you don't."

"We're not ready," I repeat, and I realize: this is my chance to close the door on the Exams without having to have this argument in front of Nori and Kazu. "I mean, we can't even handle our C-ranked missions —"

Kakashi's grip on me tightens, just for a split second, and I cut myself off.

"... What?" I ask, hesitant. His grip is back to normal, as though he'd never tightened it at all. Was that just a phantom feeling, an effect of the paralytic?

"You think the Exams will be like these missions?" Kakashi asks, and the tone is normal.

I bite my lip and stare at him. Somehow, I feel like I'm walking on a tightrope. "We'll be a long way from Konoha, in a foreign ninja village. And we're not the luckiest team."

"... No. We're not."

He leaps over another log and lands. The impact isn't as bad as that first jump, or maybe the effects of the paralytic are already starting to wear off.

"Are you going to sign us up?"

"I wouldn't sign you up for something you can't handle, Ume."

"That's not an answer."

He doesn't reply. Instead, he comes to an abrupt stop in the middle of an open clearing.

"Can you stand?" he asks me.

I twitch my foot and nod when I feel it shift. "I think so."

He gently sets me down. Pins and needles run up my legs, and I nearly fall over, but soon, I'm standing on my own. I lift my feet up and down a few times. It feels stiff, like I'm wearing three pairs of pants, but I can still move.

When I look back over at Kakashi, he's kneeling down next to a broken bush.

I walk over, trying not to stumble. Just as I get close, he stands up, face stone-cold.

"Sensei?"

"This is Kazu's blood," he says.

I freeze. Kazu's blood?

There's a few splotches of red on the ground, not a whole lot, but if he'd gotten hit with the same thing I did, then…

"Did they take him?" I ask. My own voice sounds strange in my ears — high pitched and squeaky, on the verge of breaking.

"No," Kakashi says, and he points out a branch. There's a torn scrap of dark green fabric, deliberately tied around it. "They left him here. He got up under his own power and left a trail."

I perk up, relieved. Kazu's alive. "So he shouldn't be too far."

"No. You think you can run?"

I take a couple wobbly steps. "Not as fast as I want to," I admit.

"I'll get them, then," Kakashi decides. "Wait here —"

"What? No!" I clutch his arm before he can disappear, and grimace when he shakes me off, the movement magnified by my own dizziness. "Sensei —"

"You'll be fine, Ume," he says, in the least consoling tone ever. "Get some sleep or something. You need it."

"What if they come back?" My fingernails dig into my palms. "I can't — I wouldn't. I can't."

"They won't come back for you. Noriko is carrying the scroll —"

"Don't leave me alone!"

I flinch at the volume of my voice, but I don't take it back. Kakashi's been taking the hands-off approach the whole time we've been assigned to him. Can't he see that I need more than just useless words?

Kakashi breathes in, then out, and looks to the sky. After a moment, he turns to me and places both of his hands on my trembling shoulders.

"You're going to be fine, Ume." He states, matter-of-fact. "The paralytic has almost worn off. You're a smart girl, and you're handy with a kunai. I will come back. I don't leave teammates behind."

I stare at him.

"And you won't be alone," he promises. "I'll leave you with a summon. He's a very good friend of mine. He'll keep you safe."

"Pakkun?"

He squeezes my shoulder. "... Pakkun."

Shakily, I let out a breath and relax my clenched fists. "Fine."

"Good girl," he says, and ruffles up my hair. He turns away, and bites his thumb, and with a puff of smoke, a small pug appears.

"Hey, Boss."

Kakashi pats Pakkun on the head before gesturing to me. "This is Ume. She's my student. Defend her."

With that, he takes off, leaving me alone with the ninken.

Pakkun pads his way over to me and looks me up and down with an appraising eye. "A student, huh? Well, I'm Pakkun. It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," I reply, almost on autopilot, but then the conversation starts to register in my head.

Pakkun introduced himself. To me. I'm not supposed to know him.

But I'd mentioned his name to Kakashi's face.

Oh shit, I think. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

There's no way sensei didn't notice. He may have had Kazu and Noriko to save, but he definitely noticed.

What am I going to say? My "crush" on Neji only explains so much. It's not going to explain why I know the name of his main summon.

My legs give out beneath me, numb, and my knees hit the dirt. Pakkun worriedly runs up and nudges my hand with his nose.

"You okay, kid?" He asks.

I fucked up, I think, mentally cursing every decision I've ever made. All that worry about Kazu and Noriko giving us away, and it's me that ruins it all.

I should have slept last night. I should have kept my mouth shut. I should've, should've, should've.

Pakkun shoves his nose under my hand. I try to blink away the panic.

"I'm fine," I manage to croak out. Maybe if I repeat it enough, the problem will go away. "Everything's gonna be fine."

A/N: akdlkjfadk;fl this could have been updated two weeks ago but then I fell HEADFIRST into The Magnus Archives and it's taken over my life, temporarily. Like, I literally wrote 15k for it in the span of like, two weeks. Which is not normal for me. Ume's been judging me so hard for not finishing her chapter. Would recommend TMA if you like eldritch horror. Would not recommend if you want a happy ending.

but ANYWAY. Shit's happening! The plot! She's kicking down the door and demanding things happen! Who's ready for this disaster rollercoaster?

You can find other D&D content on my tumblr (lazuliquetzal/./tumblr/./com)! I drew art of the trainwreck trio if you're curious about how I imagine them.

((let me know if you catch any weird formatting or typos? i'm trying out a new copy-paste workflow.))

thanks for the lovely reviews and comments, everyone! please know that i appreciate you all. *finger guns*

see ya next time!