A quick note: A link to the full author's note can be found in my profile. In short, this was and is being written for NaNoWriMo. It's rough, it's occasionally cracky, but it's fun. And if you decide to skip the real author's note, what you need to know is this: FMA and Naruto don't belong to me, and this is not for profit. There are spoilers for a lot of stuff up to the last episode of FMA, and plenty of minor spoilers for Naruto up to the middle of the series. Most of this takes place in the middle of the manga time-jump and I don't consider most of the Naruto spoilers to be major. But if you're not caught up, you might want to be careful anyway. It is the end of the month, and I'm having a bit of an existential crisis over finishing this, so if you'd be kind enough to review I'd love you forever. Thanks, and enjoy!
There was not a sound as they made their way through the trees, closing in on their target. It was not his first assassination mission, but he was hardly used to the way of life he'd had to adopt in the past few months. He thanked whatever deity may have been listening, whether he believed in them or not, that he was an adaptable person, and listened for the signal. He adjusted the sword strapped to his back: a kodachi. It was one thing he'd never quite gotten used to. He knew small weapons and loved his knives, but a sword was a whole different matter, and for him it was rarely anything more than a part of his uniform. It was far too large to be useful for throwing, and he hated close-range fighting more than anything.
There was the sound of a twig snapping off to this left – the signal. Directing the adrenaline in his system to give him more energy than it already was, he jumped from the tree into the clearing, along with the other two members of his team. The leader stood squarely in front of their target, a missing-nin who had been caught spying in the village a few days earlier. He warned him of what was going to happen, but it was no matter. They all had the same reaction. Any shinobi who had done something to warrant having a squad of Anbu after him knew he was fated to fight for his survival when they caught up with him. A battle was inevitable, though three against one was rarely a fair fight. It was only fair to the village that the odds be unbalanced, though. They couldn't afford to have their secrets escape easily.
The fight, if it could even be called that, was over quickly. A flash of kunai, two drawn swords, knives and shuriken colliding in the air, a few poofs of chakra and it was done. This particular man hadn't been terribly skilled. He'd probably just been tricked away from his village to do spying for some more powerful shinobi. One who knew he wouldn't stand a chance if he was caught. A pawn. It was sad, really. There were people like this all the time, working under evil people because they were desperate or happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, ending up under their power with no way to escape, only ever knowing one side of the story – a twisted, skewed one that painted the evil men as the only ones in the world that had it right.
This time, he was the one left to clean up the aftermath. He took off his porcelain mask so he could concentrate and breathe more easily. Hiding his identity now wasn't important. The job now was to eliminate all trace of the man. It was not a pretty job. The other two shinobi leapt back up into the trees to search for anyone who may have been following the man as he set to work. He was sure they'd find no one. Anyone who had been with him would have been included in the order for assassination, and the spies were rarely wrong on the information they collected. He wished that he could learn the required skills faster so he could leave this messy job. It reminded him too much of the wars he'd been in before, though at least now there were no guns. The villages weren't in an all-out war yet, but it was obvious by the increase in spies lately that they were shoring up their data networks, collecting what they'd need to know to attack, or maybe just see if what they wanted was still within the village. There were many people who wanted what they had.
There was a crash in the trees to his right. He looked up, startled. How could someone have escaped their notice? The other two ninjas were no doubt far off by now, on the outer parts of their surveillance radius. It would still be a while before they got back. It was far from a brilliant idea, but the man decided to investigate the problem himself. Though he'd only started his training a few months ago, he was a very skilled ninja. Not many became Anbu, even after years of training. He imagined his skill with knives had helped him in that case. Long before he had found himself outside of Konoha village, he'd been good with his knives. From there, he'd only had to learn how to control chakra. It reminded him of home for some reason, of the people he knew that could control energy to create things as well as destroy them. Though he did not understand the ideas of home, where it was a science, here it was taught as something you had a feel for, and he'd taken quickly to it, almost like a new part of his mind had been awakened by coming here.
He pushed aside a stand of low-lying brambles with his gloved hand, a small knife palmed in the opposite, just in case. He looked up to where the branches were broken, like something had fallen from the sky. A few feet over, lying on the ground, he saw what had caused the noise. A small but strong man with vaguely messy black hair stared up at him. He was wearing a brown suit, ripped and stained with blood. Though the colours blended in with the surroundings, its style was meant for a place that was far from the forest. If the ninja was having trouble hiding the shock on his face, the man in the suit wasn't even trying to. They stared at each other for almost an entire minute before speaking at the same time.
"What the… Roy?"
"Hughes?"
Behind him, Hughes sensed the chakra of the other two ninjas approaching. Since they were no longer attempting to conceal their presence, he knew the coast was clear of immediate danger. However, there was one small problem.
"Roy, this is weird, but don't think about it now. What's important is if they find you in those clothes they are going to be immediately suspicious. It was hard enough for me to explain my uniform away. We have to do something."
Roy eyed him warily but proceeded to take off his jacket and shirt. Hughes' eyes immediately fell on the spots underneath where the tears and red stains on Roy's shirt had been. There were cuts and scratches all over him, and the large wound near his left shoulder was still bleeding.
"My God, what did you let them do to you? What were you trying to do, overthrow the government?"
Roy's small smirk was all the answer he needed.
"I can't leave you alone at all, can I?"
"Can I at least keep the pants?"
"Sure… but hold still."
Hughes pulled one of his kunai from the pouch at his waist and cut the pants off at the knees. He used the fabric to bandage the wound on Roy's shoulder, constantly looking behind him to make sure his two partners hadn't returned yet. At least he had been quick about disposing of the spy's body. He should have met them on the way back to the village by now, and they were surely coming back to see what was taking him so long. He stuffed the jacket and shirt behind the tree, then pulled off Roy's shoes and threw them on top. The socks were pulled off, and quickly disappeared into an unseen pocket in Hughes' clothes. He eyed Roy.
"There's still something missing…" Hughes looked him up and down, then whipped off Roy's belt and fastened it over one shoulder so it hung down across his stomach. Taking the bag of shuriken from his own belt, he attached it at Roy's waist. "I suppose that's as ninja as you're going to get," he smiled. Roy continued to stare at him in disbelief. Too many thoughts were jostling around in his mind for him to form any sort of coherent sentence, so he did his best to play along. If Hughes was just messing with him, he could kill him later - after he finished wondering why his friend, that until a minute ago he'd thought was dead, would be messing with him. Hughes could be a bit irreverent and glib at times, but this was a little far for a joke, even for him.
Mere seconds later, Hughes' partners arrived in the trees above them. He silently hoped that they hadn't been watching the entire time. He looked up towards them as they stood in the branches. Though he could do the same himself now, he still couldn't help being amazed at how they could stand and balance on such small branches. The sun shone down through the opening where Roy had fallen through the trees. Hughes chose not to worry about how exactly his friend had ended up here, assuming it had been the same as how he'd found himself here. He'd found a way to get himself killed. Well, the least he could do now was keep him safe. Fate was an amazing thing, and had luckily dropped his friend where he'd be the one to find him.
The shorter and less imposing of the two ninjas looked down.
"When the sun glints off your glasses like that you look evil, you know?"
"Just doing my best to look suspicious."
"Well, good job," the leader replied. Almost his entire face was covered by a black mask. Only his left eye peeked out and, as always, it looked vaguely bored. Hughes knew though, that the owner of that eye only looked bored because he'd already figured out exactly what was going on. "Who's behind you?"
"Well, Kakashi, sir…" Hughes tried not to treat the man like a military superior, but it was often hard. He quickly thought through all the different excuses he could use to explain Roy's presence. None of them seemed believable in the least, though. There was "Well sir, he just fell from the trees and I found him here." The truth… but hardly believable. "He was following the guy we just killed"? No, too dangerous. "He was fighting him"? Not likely, though he did look beat up enough. Finally, he settled on a sort of compromise. "He says he came from one of the cities. He was tired of working for the lords and merchants, and decided to try to find one of the hidden villages and become a shinobi. It looks like he's gotten pretty beat up along the way, though. I think he tried to fight that guy…"
Kakashi gave Hughes a very sceptical look that was echoed to a lesser degree by the ninja beside him. Slowly though, his glare turned into a smirk. Kakashi turned to him.
"What now, Yatsu?"
"No wonder! Look at how he's dressed! He probably thinks he's a ninja already!" He stifled a snicker, and the creases in Kakashi's mask showed that he was smiling too. "City-boy, do you really think you can make it out here?"
Roy glared up at the two ninjas, now laughing outright at him from the trees. It was obviously just a release of post-battle stress, but he rubbed his fingers together out of habit, wishing his gloves hadn't been destroyed. No hurt in teaching them a lesson, anyway. Unexpectedly, he felt the energy he usually concentrated there growing without the array. He did his best to hide his confusion, and later the evil grin that would have crossed his face under any other circumstances. He quickly calculated the materials he had at hand. Plenty of dry kindling… perfect. Now, sparks. With his left hand he reached into the bag of shuriken at his waist. Pulling out two, he slid them against each other, creating the faintest of sparks. It was enough. He concentrated a little, directing the fire upwards at the two men in the tree. He let a satisfied smirk cross his face, as two charred objects fell from the tree.
"Impressive."
Two logs hit the ground where two ninjas should have been and Roy turned around, startled to see Kakashi and Yatsu hanging upside down from a branch behind him, arms crossed over their white vests.
"Of course, now that you've tried to kill us we're going to have to take you back to the village." Yatsu swung down from the tree and landed next to Roy. "You really tried to fight that guy, eh?"
Roy managed a nod, then turned to Hughes and fell forward. Hughes leaned forward and caught him before he hit the ground.
"We should really get him back; he's lost a lot of blood from his shoulder. And you guys taunting him was no help." He pulled Roy carefully up over his shoulder, trying not to tear open any of his wounds. He hopped into the tree next to Kakashi and Yatsu.
"You know, he might just make a good ninja. If he survived that guy by himself and still managed to attack us, I've got to give him a lot of credit." Yatsu watched Hughes carry the man along, somehow managing to keep up with the two despite his burden. Kakashi remained silent, keeping his concentration on the surrounding area. "You're always looking after the underdogs, aren't you?"
"I can't help it, it's a habit," Hughes mused. "Anyway, it's only fair. After all, people were nice enough to do it for me." He smiled, and added "It's equivalent trade."