Runner

Warnings: Spoilers!, angst muffins, Danzo, child abuse, Ramen, allusions to squicky underage stuff, suicide, YOUTH, character deaths, some co-dependence

Mint is extremely invasive. This fast growing plant sends out runners that will overtake a plant bed. Plant them in containers or beds separate so they do not spread. Mint grows and survives, even when starved and poisoned.

Better not to plant it at all.

I.

The baby cried a lot.

She just kept crying and crying, and everyone at the orphanage had given up on trying to sooth her out of her fits. Even the kindest hearted and dedicated individuals constantly needed respite from the child's squalls. The best part of everyone's day was when she finally fell asleep, too tired to continue being upset.

It was at a time like that that Saori, one of the newer girls hired there, was told to go in and check on the infant. Cursing Kiyo for managing to snag making breakfast before she had, she let herself into the room and approached the fitfully sleeping child. Carefully, so as not to wake it, she lifted the child from its crib and sniffed. Diaper was still clean, she determined somewhat gratefully. She went to put the child back down, but froze when she noticed that its eyes were open and watching her.

Old, haunted eyes on children was not something Saori was unfamiliar with. There were a few children at the orphanage brought to them by the Uchiha Military Police, victims of unspeakable things, and those were the eyes they carried with them. But that didn't explain why this child had those eyes. She'd only just been left with them a couple months ago, cut out of the mother who had died during the birth. Months old, and already like this.

"What's made you so wrong?" she murmured to the baby.

The baby didn't answer. She just continued to stare with those bleak eyes.

Saori sighed. It would be best to just get the thing fed and put back to bed before the wailing commenced once more. Tucking the child into her arm, she moved as quickly as she dared to find a bottle in the kitchen.

II.

"Children!" the orphanage matron called. "Children!"

The girl standing at her side watched as children of various ages poured into the room, followed closely by other employees the orphanage. Even as she contrived a look of affability about her person, the girl's eyes catalogued each of the children very closely. In her head, she'd drawn a chart with three categories and began sorting them.

No. Nin. Ne.

Already, she'd caught three of them taking her measure as well, their eyes having darted straight to the hitae-ate she'd purposefully strapped to her hip. Not noticeably visible. Unless you were looking for it.

One of those children was immediately dismissed when they loudly began barraging her with questions about her being a ninja. The girl continued watching the entire group, but she kept a special eye on the two, the boy and the girl, who had caught it before.

"Children, please, settle down so I can introduce our guest," the matron called out. Once they had quieted, she spoke once more. "Everyone, this is Yakushi Nonou-chan, and she used to live here with us before became a successful kunoichi and got her own place!"

All of those tiny faces swiveled over to look up at her in pure adoration. Nonou gave an embarrassed chuckle and reached up to fiddle with her glasses. As she did so, she surreptitiously glanced at the girl child.

Had she imagined the girl flinching during her introduction?

III.

Sounds of pants, flesh hitting flesh, and pained whimpers filled the room.

There was a boy facing a girl, crouched several feet away from one another. They breathed heavily, a kunai held by each of them.

He took in her appearance, noting that she looked terrible. Both of them had been fighting for so long, he'd lost track of time. His only measure of time now was the cuts he had managed to carve into her skin with his kunai. For a second, he caught himself remembering a moment long ago. Back before either of them had been brought to this place.

A time when they had both had simply been children at the orphanage, and their greatest concern was whether they would be adopted. Or whether they would go to the civilian or ninja academy. It wasn't weird for there to be kids who didn't want to be ninja, but he remembered how the one time someone had asked her if she wanted to be a ninja, she had yelled and screamed. It was really strange, someone who hated ninja as much as she did.

He wondered now if maybe she had been the only one of them thinking straight back then.

Pulled out of the orphanage, promised a new and happy life, and then put into this pit of suffering.

This was hell.

And he felt sorry for this girl, just as he felt sorry for himself. Neither of them had wanted this. Neither of them deserved this.

However, after today, one of them would no longer have to be here.

It all came down to this fight today. He knew he was a better fighter than she was. He was stalling. This fight would've been over much sooner if he had been more serious from the start. A fight to the death was a terrible time to make decisions about the future, but it was an important decision, it needed time to be thought over. They weren't really children anymore and this wasn't a game, and he couldn't make a mistake and regret it forever.

Only children were allowed to make mistakes.

His mind made up, he raised his kunai and prepared to charge. He saw her do the same, and asked her for her forgiveness. It was time for him to leave.

.

A moment later, as his eyelids became heavier than lead and wetness dribbled from the corner of his lips, he offered the girl a smile as he hovered over her. The first he had given anyone in a very long time. Though her expression never betrayed her, the liquid leaking from her eyes into her hair did. His rusty smile creaked a little wider.

Was she crying for him? Or for herself?

Probably both, he thought, as he finally collapsed on top of her, his eyes closing for the last time.

IV.

"Dismissed. Operative Hakka, stay."

All of the other operatives shunshined out, leaving the lone operative he had called out behind. She had just returned from a mission in which she was team captain for the first time. What she likely had not realized was that there had been two other senior operatives with her evaluating her performance.

Her success at the information gathering/infiltration turned assassination mission had been expected. If she had underperformed in any way, he would have been severely disappointed. He only wanted the best on the mission he would now be sending the girl on, and if she had failed now, he would have had to scrap it. She was the only operative he had of appropriate age with the necessary skill set to send on this.

"Mask," he ordered.

The girl complied, and soon he was staring at the face of his youngest operative. Almost nine years old, and the best he had at information gathering and infiltration. Her age played a part in that, but it was her high intelligence and talent at slipping into whatever role was required of her that set her apart. Child operatives were both ideal and disastrous to train. Their youth made them malleable, but ultimately they were too weak and dependent to be truly useful. Operative Hakka was not the first child operative he had trained. She was simply the first who was able to survive long past activation thanks to her consistent ability to take initiative and improvise when the mission called for it.

That was why most child operatives had a shelf life of a year or less once they were put into the field.

(What he would have given to pick Hatake Sakumo's brain for training methods before the fool had taken his own life.)

"Operative Hakka," he said softly, his lips forming into something that could be considered a warm, fatherly smile, "You did well on this last mission."

"Arigatou, Danzo-sama," she said with a bow.

"So well in fact that I have decided to give you a solo mission."

"It is an honor." She sunk even deeper into her bow.

He handed her a scroll and began speaking as she started looking through it.

"As I said, it is a solo mission of indefinite length. You will be gathering intelligence on your targets, a potential political threat and his ward, and reporting directly back to me with it. No detail is insignificant. For the duration of this mission, you will not receive any other assignments unless there is an emergency."

She nodded.

"Who should I be?"

"Anyone, as long as you do not make your targets suspicious of you."

"Necessity of assassination?"

"Low."

"Necessity of seduction?"

"At your discretion."

The girl rolled the scroll back up, handed it back, and bowed lowly once more.

"I am pleased to have this opportunity."

AN: Bad, bad author-san. Re-caught the writing bug, but it dragged me towards another damn SI instead of my other works. Luckily for all of you, it held my attention long enough that I actual wrote all of it out. All of it. So I will be posting chapters of this once a week until it is done. (Isn't that a change of pace?) Unlike my other SI fic which is likely to be epic length, this will be short, only about 10 bitsy chapters depending on how I mix and match segments. Finally, this fic is also unbeta'd. I just scratched it out between work breaks for the last two weeks, so I apologize for that.

This fic is inspired heavily by Lang Noi's "Catch Your Breath" and Beemera's "Forethought," who have nailed Kakashi Gaiden into my brain. Their fics are awesome (from what I've read so far). Please go read their work.

AN2 (6-26-2015): I originally had this all written out, and then half way through, Kishimoto finished canon and I wanted to crawl in into hole and pretend it never happened. It basically wrecked my plot, and I've been re-writing. The story's a little twistier and turnier than originally intended, but with all hopes still good. The warnings at the beginning have also been updated.