As the Chief of the Konohagakure Military Police Force, Fugaku’s mother had done all in her power to keep her son out of such a grisly mission. She’d even attempted to hide it in her stack of papers and pawn it off on Yashiro. There were reasons, of course; the main one being that Yashiro was an older shinobi with five years more experience than Fugaku. Shortly after that, Kazusa-taichou knew from personal experience that Uchiha Yashiro had no qualms about following orders, even if it meant—
‘We’re going to kidnap and murder a child,’ Fugaku realized, privately wishing he was old enough to buy and consume alcohol. The briefing hadn’t come from his mother, but from a masked ANBU figure passing along the mission with the Sandaime Hokage’s stamp for sanctioned confidential missions.
‘No…that’s incorrect. In cases like these, they call it an assassination or a means to an end. Murder implies our lives have equal worth, which they don’t. This child is going to make or break our relationship with a lesser nation.’
Their target, Nikkō, was the six-year-old son of the Daimyo in the Land of Rice Fields: a poor and uncooperative neighboring nation that had not only done nothing to aid any Land of Whirlpools refugees after the great disaster, but was threatening to sign agreements that would place Kumogakure and Kirigakure bases right in Konohagakure’s back yard. That couldn’t be permitted to happen.
So in came Fugaku and his mission partner. They were to abduct the child and hold him hostage in an attempt to strong-arming the Daimyo into changing his mind. However, it was very clear that the child needed to die either way because witnesses could be dangerous. The only way that father would get his son’s body back would be to cooperate.
Although he had participated in two-man hit squads before—a “nice” throwback to his father’s old Search & Destroy days—this would be his first time leading. More than that, it was his second A-Rank. These often went to more experienced shinobi: not greenhorn jōnin.
And they especially didn’t go to young chūnin.
The most Kazusa was able to convince the Hokage to do was make sure Fugaku’s partner was a fellow Uchiha rather than a total stranger. In her paranoid, anxious mind, that meant he’d at least be alongside someone who could be trusted not to turn on him.
‘Still, A Ranks are reserved for jōnin. It’s rare to place a chūnin on such a team, even rarer to make up half the team.’ But it was critical to only go as two people. Four-man cells would attract too much attention.
‘Please,’ the seventeen-year-old thought as he sat at the meeting point. Everything they would need was neatly packed within his backpack and a couple of small pocket pouches for weapons. His aunt had even gifted him with a few accelerants in case arson needed to be added to the agenda.
‘Be someone who can fend for yourself if things go wrong…’
Mikoto had been receiving seveal words of recognition from their jounin senseis of the last missions, three different sensei’s as of lately it seemed that there was a slight shortage. Definitely not enough to keep the same one for every three-man team. She had managed to talk one of them letting her genin team apply for the chuunin exams last year and now she wore the vest herself.
It hadn’t been easy, there had been a few Uchiha members at the exam but only one other aside from her was accepted even though there was a good hand full that had definitely performed better than the new chuunins of other clans and non-clan members. It was just like her mother had said: do your best, you’re an Uchiha, they want to see twice the effort at minimum.
She hadn’t stopped after, threw herself into work with her best effort to manage everyone around her. Make sure the rules are strictly followed, make sure your teammates are safe and contained and make wise with your decisions, factor in people’s personalities, don’t fuss, don’t hesitate. And the work seemed to have paid off.
She hadn’t expected it to bear fruits this fast however and once the ANBU turned up out of nowhere, she nearly impaled his mask with a kunai. Thankfully the ANBU had the skills he should have and avoided it with a mere nick on the white mask. Save to say she was a little more then flustered afterwards. But at the same time: That was totally his fault for sneaking up while she was practising.
It would be her first A-Rank mission and once she had received the details it had required a tremendous amount of control not to swallow hard as long as that ANBU member was still present.
One couldn’t say Mikoto had not killed before, despite her young age. It was a time of war, she had seen a battle field and thus she had seen the corpses, she had seen death and she had been the cause of it as well. When it came down to your life or mine, her survival instincts were trimmed on fighting without hesitation. She was small, she was a girl, she was easy to underestimate. Once people saw her eyes, recognized her clan, it was too late.
The first time she had seen death, she had cried hours before going to sleep at night, barely even caring that her sharingan had been activated by that sight. The first time she had caused death... it had been even harder to wait until she was back home tucked away safely in her bed, before she let herself cry, wondering if her eyes truly were a gift and not a curse.
And eventually she had learned: They were neither. They just were, but whether it was an asset or a liability was depending entirely on her. They could cause destruction, they could aid death, but they may as well protect her friends and everything dear to her. It was just like a kunai, you could slit a throat with it or you could use it to secure a wire and prevent a body from falling to death.
It was the same concept she was now trying to percieve her mission with. If that kill was going to safe a hundred others - it would never make it fair, but the consequences of not doing it would be causing more damage, more... guilt.
She wasn’t a saint, she was a ninja.
Her parents had been proud and a little scared. Mikoto had never explained the details of the mission though, she only disclosed its rank. It was a two man-cell, inflitration and assassination were rarely done in a larger group, lowering the risk of discovery. She hoped however that her partner, most definitely a jounin, wouldn’t be a complete stranger. It wasn’t easy to get along with new people, if luck would be absent, she would end up with one of the more power hungry, concieited people, who were going to look at her as a liability rather than back up for her rank, age or her gender.
So it wasn’t surprising that she froze once she turned the last corner. Sitting there, ready with a bag at his feet wasn’t a stranger. Fugaku! The only older boy in the clan she had some sort of a connection with, he was nice, so that was a relief... Yet, at the same time it caused her to feel pressure. What if he couldn’t accept her? What if she would disappoint him?
Shoving away the conflicting feelings with a shake of her head, messing up her bangs and sending the ponytail flying, she got herself out of the stupor and marched over, face determined and ready to confront whatever was going to come her way.
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