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It wasn’t long before she got to the site—it had seemed like ages, but she’d covered the ground pretty efficiently that day. Once she exited the thick cover of trees she had been walking through for most of the last several hours, a beautiful scene awaited her. There was a small rock formation coming down from a low cliff, and in the bit of moonlight that managed to peek through the clouds, Suzuka could see the shimmer of a steady flow of water running down the rocks and into the small pond below, tinted silver under the starry sky. The water looked unbelievably clean and clear, and honestly, Suzu sort of wished she could just dip her feet in for a bit and relax. Of course, what she actually came here to do was pretty much the exact opposite of relaxing.

She was excited, though, that the boring part of her mission was over. Or so she thought. She approached the waterfall, eyes scanning the area, ears alert, but she was not engaged. Don’t tell me nothing is even gonna happen now… Suzuka wasn’t entirely upset—she had collected some information and would likely still be paid for her mission—but this was the entire point. She wanted something fun to happen. She was too old to throw a tantrum at this point, but she damn sure didn’t feel ashamed about getting a little huffy.

She decided she would scope things out, though, in case she did end up in combat; she turned her tracker on, satisfied that the amount of light, though it wasn’t ideal, was sufficient. The actual pond—which was, honestly, pretty small—was about twenty meters ahead of her, and a thick carpet of grass turned into more swampy, slippery ground about halfway there. Of that, she would have to be careful. The pond itself was roughly circular and about twenty-five meters in diameter. There was a pretty steep grade inside the pond—about a foot in, it went from walkable to about three feet deep, and by the time you were a meter in, it was about six feet. At its deepest, near the center, it was about 10 meters deep—pretty shallow, but still worth noting. The small cliff face behind was about twenty feet high and only as wide as the pond, and next to its edges were steep hills that flattened out around its peak. What fed the waterfall was a small stream about five meters wide, around which there was more swampy land. About ten meters past the waterfall in that direction, the trees resumed, with a clear space of about ten meters between the trees and the stream.

Nearer to Suzuka, there was a small stream running away from the pond and through the thick cover of forest that was at the edge of the clearing, at about 3:00 looking at the cliff face as 12. Well… That would do as an initial assessment. She didn’t want to be running around scanning everything and get caught unawares. She approached the pond, standing at its edge, and held her position. Ready to engage, she looked around for a potential foe, eyes and ears alert.

The first thing Suzuka saw when she opened the folder was a tiny white piece of paper on which one word was neatly written, dead center. Watching. Suzuka’s heart rate accelerated. This wouldn’t be the first time she was watched without her consent. But then, she thought after she’d reached Chuunin rank that she was trusted now. There was a lot she didn’t know now, but one thing she did know was that she herself had done nothing wrong. And she would continue to do nothing wrong, out of pride and spite and the will to keep going.

She picked up the note, set it down gingerly on her bed, and opened the folder that had been placed in front of her. Hyuuga Hitomi… Let’s see. Suzuka leafed through the pages thoughtfully, somewhat surprised that her mission record wasn’t terribly long. Well, it looks like what she did do, she did thoroughly… Though her methods aren’t what I would expect from a Hyuuga clanswoman… Ah! Maybe that’s why… No taijutsu skill at all. Suzuka was puzzled by this. She thought that, for the most part, all Hyuuga learned their taijutsu through rigorous training—not necessarily natural skill. Then again, there were some people who couldn’t learn certain things to save their lives. Maybe she was one of them?

But it doesn’t seem like she had to do much before she was promoted to Chuunin… Ah! Here’s something interesting. Showed a highly abnormal chakra reserve at Chuunin examinations… Was able to far outperform even Chuunin-level execution of techniques. Huh… So she was basically a chakra tank. Well, work with what you’ve got, I guess… So we have a competent, if not odd, Hyuuga shinobi with massive amounts of chakra. Hmm. Okay… Suzuka continued to read, familiarizing herself with the girl’s abilities and history. Honestly, this girl might have outdone her in a fight—she would probably outlast her chakra-wise, that was for sure. Even more confused at this point, Suzuka set out for an initial assessment. Finally, she would be heading out to the approximate area of Hyuuga Hitomi’s disappearance.

Suzuka picked up the note, placed it back into the folder, and headed to her kitchen. She turned on her stove, lit the entire thing on fire, and let it burn in the sink. Watching. Well now, so was she. Watching closely. Suzuka double checked to make sure she had all her things, and after turning the water on in her sink to clear all the ashes away, she set out for the outskirts of Konoha.

Suzuka kept smiling. It seemed the girl had indeed been thinking about something. Lost in your thoughts with the whole world passing around you—that was something Suzuka could understand. The girl turned around, looking a bit confused, and looked this way and that trying to pinpoint the source of the voice. Suzu almost felt bad for interrupting her now—maybe she had somewhere important to be. Suzuka just looked straight at her, though, continuing to smile to signal that she had indeed been the one to say something. Suzu felt a bit awkward herself—some rando congratulating you wasn’t necessarily something the normal person was prepared for, she supposed—but decided that one awkward interaction wouldn’t kill her.

“What was that for?” The girl finally spoke up, and this confused Suzuka for a moment, but then she realized that the girl probably hadn’t been thinking about her graduation right at that moment, even though Suzuka’s thoughts were filled with memories of her own. Silly of her to assume the girl would know just because she was holding the box.

“You graduated recently, right?” Suzuka said, nodding down at the box. “Congratulations!” This time she said it with more enthusiasm. “Though, I don’t know how you have to patience to keep it in that box. I remember when I got mine… I put it on straight away. My hair looked ridiculous, but I was so excited! I’d waited so long for it. I didn’t graduate until I was 14—long story—so I was raring to go. But here you are, with all the patience in the world, just holding the box.” Suzuka realized here that she was babbling a little. She cleared her throat. “Um, yeah, but… Congrats.” Third time’s a charm. Suzuka smiled again, tilting her head so that her earrings swung just slightly. She hoped she wasn’t overdoing it. She probably was.

The trip to the Hokage’s residence went much more quickly than Suzu would have liked, but she was prepared. She walked in, folder under her arm, and looked around for Kazuo. It seemed, though, that he had either been relieved or left for a break. In his stead, an older man sat at the desk, his papers stacked neatly under a paperweight in the shape of the village insignia. Though he was the only person free at the moment, Suzuka hesitated—would he give her the information she needed? He saw her, however, and waved her over. She walked over slowly, steadily, taking a deep breath in and clearing her head.

“Business?” the man spoke up politely, looking at Suzuka over his thin frameless glasses. Suzuka cleared her throat, folded her hands neatly, and placed them on the desk in front of her. Suzuka wondered if the rumors were true—many of the supervisors here were former ANBU members. It would make sense, given the amount and nature of the information they had to handle—bureaucracy was one thing, as was administrative experience, but the sheer amount of national intel inside this building was astounding.

“I’m here to request supplementary information for my mission, please.” She spoke confidently, cordially, keeping eye contact. The man looked at her thoughtfully for a moment.

“Well, miss…”

“Hyoujikaze Suzuka.”

“Miss Hyoujikaze.” As the words left his lips, Suzuka could swear they pursed for just a split second. He paused for a moment. “We very carefully prepare the intel that is given to our shinobi for these missions. We generally expect them to be accepted and carried out, to the best of the shinobi’s ability, without further information. We have our very specific reasons for choosing the information to include—if you feel that the information you have does not accommodate the way that you are carrying out your mission, it is likely the case that you are attempting to move beyond the scope of your duties.”

Suzuka’s jaw clenched ever so slightly. Somehow, she was sure the man noticed, but he declined to change the benign facial expression he wore. The politeness was becoming more than grating. What bothered her more, though, that he was right—usually, a shinobi would go right into this, do the bare minimum, get paid, and then someone else would get sent out. Swapping control for efficiency, that’s what they were doing, and everyone just went with it, even when it wasn’t necessary. She hated it. Suzuka liked to know things. She’d been through enough in life to question everything. Fucking politics… Fine. I’ll play his game. “Well, sir…” Suzuka began slowly, calmly. “I’m sure you know that Hyuuga Hitomi’s disappearance was sort of an anomaly. That much is clear from the file.”

The man cocked an eyebrow, but was not shaken. “From the file, which contains all the information about her disappearance, it is not possible to conclude that her disappearance was strange. As her disappearance happened first, it is not possible to conclude whether or not the entity’s strategy changed as a result of her showing up. Further—”

“Forgive my naïveté, but I don’t see why that matters. Patterns are easy enough to find. Surely we have the manpower for that—and surely, my time and skills won’t be wasted for the sake of procuring one test case. I plan to see this through—you want a clue to his existence, you got that already. Something is out there. While I don’t plan to engage, I plan to get intel the proper way.” Suzuka’s hands unfolded, and she put her fingertips together, tapping them thoughtfully. “Of course, you not wanting to reveal clearly relevant information does raise some suspicion… While I’m sure this is all on the level, your reaction to this makes one think there’s something else at play. For example, I’ve noticed this level of secrecy only around missing ninja…” Here, the man’s eyebrows folded downward, but Suzuka pressed on. “In which case I’m led to believe you do, in fact, agree with my assessment that she is not, in fact, dead. In which case I’d like to know what I might be up against—unless I’m some sort of unknowing guinea pig for a suicide mission.” Her volume raised sharply on these last two words. While ninja were expected to give their lives, people being tricked into doing so would not be good for a village whose morale was already plummeting. A few people turned to look at the scene, but Suzuka’s eyes remained steadily, sharply on the man in front of her. He returned her gaze with a glare of his own, and Suzuka felt her insides freeze for a moment. Suddenly, she was more than a little bit sure about the ex-ANBU rumor. Maybe she’d pressed the wrong button?