Upon retrospect, Asuka found it very lucky that she wasn't killed right away. But then, she supposed, that the thin ninja wire digging into her skin paired with the severe nausea that came with a tag-along Body Flicker technique was almost comparable to death.

Well, maybe not death, but getting kidnapped a third time still sucked. At least she wasn't knocked out this time.

Wherever she was taken, it was dark, damp, and cold. When Asuka could pull together a coherent thought, she spent a couple seconds cursing herself for not thinking to scrutinize her surroundings properly both when she was getting taken and before. At least then she would have been able to form a very rough mental map as to where she was.

Asuka was really turning out to be some sorry excuse for a ninja. How disgusting. How infuriating.

She was not about to go down like this.

There were three of the ninja chakra signatures gathered inside what Asuka assumed was their base. When she expanded her senses, she found the other four still circling about. One of them seemed to be tailing Kushina's mass of chakra fairly closely, and judging by the flares from both it wouldn't be long before they engaged into battle. And if Asuka were to guess by their distance between the base, she assumed that she was still somewhere in the village.

The next step was to analyze her immediate situation. Ninja wire was wrapped around her wrists all the way up to her biceps, uncomfortable tight behind her back. The situation was the same with her legs. When she tried to move her arms she found that even with the slightest of movement, the wire would slice into her skin. But that alone was worth it when she found that her herbal pouch was still attached to her hips.

A very vague plan started to form in her head.

Ninja wire, above all things that made it very useful and lethal, was still a wire. And every wire was made from some sort of metal. Metal melts with heat. If she could heat the raw chakra around the wires high enough then she would be able to use whatever concoctions she had stocked up in her pouch.

The hardest thing, though, would be to do so without alerting the other three ninja. They were obviously more experienced –more dangerous– than those bandits had been. And while those bandits had high numbers, they also weren't as well trained. That didn't even count in the factor that these ninja had abducted Asuka for a reason.

Regardless, it was necessary for Asuka to get out of her bindings.

She resisted the urge to wince as a warm sticky liquid trickled down her arms as Asuka rotated her wrists to beckon the raw chakra in the air. The first thing she would do when she returned to Konoha was work on manipulating raw chakra without any arm movements. The familiar heat was comforting, though, especially when those two of the three chakra signatures started to approach Asuka. The dim light that it emitted, however, was not as welcomed.

Asuka pressed her back further against the wall in hopes to mask the raw chakra.

The two ninja kept a distance away from Asuka at first. The darkness of the room shadowed their forms, but she had managed to catch a glint of the foreign forehead protectors wrapped around their heads from the sliver of moonlight that escaped into the base.

The symbol looked to match Hidden Rock.

She quickly followed the trail of moonlight with her eyes, locating a window covered haphazardly with curtains.

"Where is it?" one of them –a male?– demanded.

She assumed they were talking about the package, but what could seven Iwa ninja need with a C-ranked package? Either way, she needed to keep them talking until the ninja wire melted so she could get back to Kushina. There was a mess of chakra secreting from her redheaded sensei's area, and it looked like the other three ninja were helping the third engage with Kushina. That essentially left Asuka on her own.

"Where is what?" she asked in her best confused-little-girl voice. Deception, as chancy it was with veteran ninjas, was the best she could try for at the moment. She knew from experience that her smart-assed mouth would most likely end up getting her killed.

But, what wouldn't get you killed in ninja-hood?

"Don't act stupid, you little shit," another voice hissed. It sounded a little more feminine, but she couldn't be too sure. "Do you think we're imbeciles? For all we know, you can be another Hatake brat."

Asuka resisted the urge to grimace. She never wanted to be compared to the likes of him.

And what the fuck was so great about that bastard anyways? She knew the kid was strong, but for some random Iwa ninja to know about him enough to completely disregard her attempt at a cover? She was going to kick him when she returned to Konoha.

The raw chakra was getting hot against the sensitive skin on her forearms. Asuka could feel the wire soften and bend easier with her movements. It would only take a couple more minutes for the metal to start melting. Then she would have to get started on the wire around her legs, which should take shorter since the energy was already heated.

The first ninja spoke again, taking a threatening step forward. A kunai was suddenly in his hand, and Asuka took a breath to calm her jumping heart. "We're not into games. Now, what is the package that Konoha deemed so important that it needed ninja escorts?"

Asuka could feel her skin burning from the heat. She slowly swallowed as the melted metal dripped onto her bare forearms. In a couple of seconds, she could start working on the wire against her legs.

"I don't know what the package is," Asuka admitted lowly. What was the trick to lying? Lie by telling the truth?

The kunai in the man's hand found a home into Asuka's right shoulder. She screamed, and her body convulsed. The heat from the raw chakra intensified briefly.

"Don't fuck with me, kid." There was another kunai in his hand.

"I –no one told me. It's just supposed to be a C-rank," she said. Kushina was only fighting two foreign chakras now, but seemed to have wandered farther away due to the battle. "Why –why does it matter? I don't understand."

The more feminine of the two sneered, but there wasn't another kunai in Asuka's shoulder yet. And then the feminine one barked out a laugh. "You're either a great liar, or you really don't know. Just how blind does Konoha send out its troops?"

What?

"And since you don't know anything beneficial," the Iwa ninja continued. Asuka reached one hand into her herbal pouch, feeling uneasy about what would come out next. "Your existence is no longer necessary."

Asuka pulled her hand out of her pouch and slammed the object onto the floor. It exploded into a cloud of red.

…

Ninja Deception

…

Her eyes absolutely stung. It was the downside to a chakra-enhanced chili pepper bomb –an idea spurred from the ammonia incident with Hige and Futaaimaru– that she was also affected. Asuka would have to rely on her heightened senses to get out of this mess.

She squeezed her eyes shut and rolled to the side, only moments before she heard a clang of what surely would have been a kunai into some important organ. Asuka could hear grunts of pain from the three Iwa ninja, but she couldn't assume that they were incapacitated from just the chili peppers.

Asuka supposed that she was fairly lucky that there was a kunai embedded into her shoulder, because it gave her a weapon.

"Where did that little bitch go?"

"Hibiki, guard the door!"

Hibiki must have been the third one that hadn't approached to interrogate her. It was just as well, because Asuka wasn't even aiming for the door.

She dashed towards the direction she remembered the window to be in, all thoughts to make her footsteps quiet forgone to the need to escape. Asuka managed to duck in time to avoid a punch to the head by one of the ninja who must have heard her footsteps, and stopped only long enough to jam and inject a needle of sedative into where Asuka presumed was the Iwa ninja's neck.

When Asuka managed to locate the window, the flat of her hand rammed into a pane of glass. She bit her tongue to avoid crying out as her hands pulled the kunai out of her shoulder, ignoring the fresh layer of warm blood on her clothing, and rammed the ring-end of the knife into the glass.

She didn't waste any time to leap out of the window.

The fall was longer than she assumed. Nerves in her legs flared from the shock impact, but Asuka kept running. She ran towards Kushina, who seemed to just be finishing up her last opponent.

The three Iwa ninja she had left in their base were moving around, surely to follow after her, but thankfully at a much slower pace. They must not have been sensory types.

What the hell was happening?

She had to find Kushina. Kushina had to know what this meant. Kushina had to know what the Iwa ninja meant by sending in troops blind.

The tears from the chili peppers had dried on Asuka's face –which had initially helped to sooth the burn– and felt cold against the wind as she ran. She didn't let herself think about how her entire body ransacked with pain with each step, she needed to get to Kushina, to safety.

Bandits were one thing, but fully trained ninja? Asuka couldn't even win in a spar against Kakashi or Gai. This was a fight she didn't want to only be equipped with chili bombs

Thankfully, Kushina had found Asuka fairly quickly. The sting from the chili pepper bomb was beginning to wear off somewhat. At that point, Asuka could open her eyes for a short amount of time –enough to catch Kushina's mixed expression that she couldn't quite care to dissect at the moment– before having to shut them again. At least that pain was starting to subside. Asuka hadn't had a chance to study all of the different burns from the raw chakra and melted metal, the cuts from the ninja wire, and her stab wound.

"There were three of them," Asuka rushed out as she felt Kushina's familiar and warm hands reassuringly hold onto her shoulders. "They…they don't seem to be coming towards us and –and I hit one with a sedative, but –"

Asuka paused, stretching her senses out.

"They're heading out of Fire Country, towards the border. I don't understand."

Kushina placed a hand on top of Asuka's head. "Then don't worry about it. They're gone now, Asuka-chan. We should tend to your injuries before they get infected."

"I –okay. Okay," Asuka slowly nodded. Kushina knows more in this context, she could trust Kushina.

So she let Kushina lead her back to their room at the inn. It felt somewhat like a blur from that point onward. Asuka could remember handing Kushina the emergency antibacterial ointment from her herbal pouch, and mechanically moving her body when Kushina needed a better angle to tend to her wounds, but she couldn't remember feeling any emotions or conversation that may have taken place. She let Kushina guide her to the unused bed after changing into fresh clothes, and be tucked in like a mother would to her child, or an older sister to the younger.

Everything felt so surreal.

Asuka couldn't remember falling asleep, but her body felt incredibly sore when she woke up. There were two trays of food set onto the table, both untouched, and Kushina's chakra was close.

It took a moment before the events from last night –or a couple hours ago, judging by the light from the window– returned into Asuka's mind.

Nothing had changed, really, since Asuka had decided to become a ninja. She had still been kidnapped, wounded, and essentially useless. She had inadvertently led those Iwa ninja to her by being so naïve.

But she didn't bother thinking over those facts too much. Frankly, Asuka felt too exhausted for an extended amount of self-loathing at this point. There was one thing, though, that had stuck into her mind.

What had that Iwa ninja meant by Konoha sending her in blind?

The mission was a C-rank –a simple take package to place, find person, and drop it off– so why had they been attacked like that? What had they known that Asuka hadn't?

"Asuka-chan? Do you want to sleep a little longer?" Kushina asked after Asuka had pushed herself out of bed. Concern was evident in the redhead's eyes.

Asuka shook her head as a reply. Honestly, the sooner they left this village the better she would feel.

Breakfast was a quiet affair. Kushina seemed to sense Asuka's mood and respected it well enough to keep silent. Asuka was grateful, because she wasn't sure how much more she would be able to handle before she snapped. So much had happened over the time span of a couple hours, and with what that Iwa ninja had said, she just had too much on her mind for conversation.

Kushina suggested that they go find Fujimoto Gorou, the man the package was intended for, and then head back to Konoha straight afterwards. Asuka definitely wasn't opposed to it.

They found his house fast enough. The address was on the mission information scroll Kushina was given at the Mission Assignment Desk, so Asuka followed quietly as Kushina weaved through the village towards the desired home.

The merchant seemed happy enough to get his package –a set of some sort of civilian advertised utility seals that Asuka wasn't too sure what they were useful for– and it wasn't long before the pair were heading back to Konoha.

Kushina insisted on running a little slower as to not bother Asuka's wounds too much until she could see a proper medic. As useful as the herbal ointment was for holding back infection and soothing small cuts, it wasn't necessarily intended for the larger injuries. It definitely didn't heal as fast as a Mystical Palm jutsu, either.

Despite the slower return, they made it back into Konoha within the last hour of daylight. The chūnin on guard at the gates had given Asuka a mildly concerned look at her mummified body, but she hardly gave him much of a reaction. She just wanted this mission to be shoved deep into the confines of her mind and never mentioned again.

"Maybe visit the hospital before the debrief?" the chūnin suggested as Kushina and Asuka passed through the gate.

Asuka merely shook her head at Kushina's questioning look. Hospitals were not something she was fond of, something derived from all those visits in her past life, so she would probably go see Taiki after they explain what happened on their mission to the Hokage. Hopefully she would find out why it went so wayward, too.

The wait to enter the Hokage's office didn't take too long. Asuka had quickly shuffled into the room after Kushina, and stopped next to the redhead. Funny, how it had only been about a day since she had last seen the old leader of Konoha, yet it had felt like a week.

Asuka let Kushina explain what happened from the point they left up until when Kushina and Asuka had met up again after being separated. Asuka wasn't too surprised with Kushina's side of the story after she was kidnapped –she had practically monitored the redhead's fights with the four enemy ninja– and was somewhat relieved when it was mentioned that those four were all dead. Asuka's attackers, however, had escaped.

After Kushina's debrief, the Hokage took a drag from his pipe before turning his jaded gaze onto Asuka.

"What happened after you were taken?" he inquired, although it felt more like a demand.

And so Asuka explained. She told him that she was taken to what she assumed was their base, and that the remaining three Iwa ninja had tied her up for interrogation. She mentioned how she had managed to escape by burning through the wires and using the chili bomb as a distraction, before finally talking about what she was interrogated about after the Hokage's insistence.

"All they really mentioned was that the package was something important," Asuka told him. She deliberately left out the 'going in blind' part. She still wasn't sure what to make out of it. "Why did they think that?"

The Hokage took another puff from his pipe. His eyes regarded her silently, he probably knew that Asuka hadn't told him everything they had said.

"There was another mission around that area," the old man finally confided. "The infiltrators must have confused your mission for theirs. It is unfortunate that those were the circumstances, but I am grateful that neither of you are harmed too irrevocably. I suppose that this mission will need an upgrade in rank. You will be compensated accordingly."

Asuka nodded along with Kushina. She picked up a foot, anticipating their dismissal.

"Is there anything else either of you forgot to mention?" the Hokage asked.

Kushina shook her head, but Asuka hesitated. Kakashi was a dick, but he deserved some forewarning that the enemy ninja knew about him, right?

"They mentioned Hatake Kakashi in passing –not any major context. Just that they knew of him," Asuka said. She shrugged her uninjured shoulder, nose scrunching up. "Not that I really care what happens to him, but probably best if someone knew."

The Hokage nodded, and then dismissed them.

"Hospital now," Kushina said when they exited the Hokage Tower. Asuka followed compliantly.

The sun had gone down by the time Kushina and Asuka had ventured into the streets. The village streets were fairly unpopulated by that time of night, so the walk was undisturbed.

"Asuka-chan, I'm sorry," Kushina blurted out a couple minutes into the silence. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

Asuka paused in her next step. Sent in blind. Had those two missions purposely coincided? Did the Hokage purposefully send them out into the same area as the more important mission as some form of decoy?

God, Asuka knew that ninja had be some kind of devious, but to deliberately send in an inexperienced genin onto a potential death mission? All for the purpose of what? To sneak something past those bastards that could have very well murdered her undetected? And to feel absolutely no remorse in doing so?

And Kushina…She didn't seem surprised during the debrief. Not about the kidnapping.

"You," Asuka managed out between her rushed and mangled thoughts. She looked up to Kushina with disbelief. "You knew."

There was a pause before Kushina said anything. "It was mentioned on the mission scroll, yes."

"And you didn't fucking think to tell me?" Asuka exploded. Everything that she had been suppressing since the attack came out in a mess of rage. "You fucking knew that we were being used as a decoy against enemy ninja and didn't think once to even mention to me that I was in danger?"

"We weren't supposed to be separated like that. There was a chance that nothing would happen, and I would be there if something did!" Kushina defended hotly.

"That doesn't mean anything!" Asuka spat. "I could have been prepared, Kushina! I was already weaponless, and I was about to take off my herbal pouch just before they had taken me. I would have fucking died." Again caught on her tongue before she could spew it out. Asuka definitely wasn't going to blurt out her biggest secret like that. Especially not to Kushina.

"I would have been there!"

"No, you wouldn't have because you were all the way on the other side of the village fighting off their comrades! You kept something this important to yourself and just let me talk off about our mission to turn their attention onto us!"

Kushina could have winced, but Asuka was too far deep into her anger to care or notice.

"I had the situation planned and handled! I'm your sensei, you're supposed to trust me!" Kushina shouted.

Asuka laughed. "Trust you?" she hissed. "How am I supposed to trust you if you don't trust me?"

Kushina fell silent. Asuka continued.

"The facts are: you deliberately left me blind in a life-threatening situation. There is nothing that can change that," she sneered. "You've tricked and lied to me. And who knows what else you've been keeping from me. Did I even have a choice about becoming a ninja or not? Were you using those bandits as an excuse to fucking recruit me into this shitty lifestyle?"

It probably wasn't the best idea to be having this debacle in the middle of the street, as deserted as it was. Who knows how many people are actually listening in?

"Do you even fucking care about being my teacher at all?" Asuka barreled on.

Kushina actually did wince at that. Good, Asuka thought vindictively.

"Of course I do, Asuka-chan," Kushina replied, her voice much calmer than before.

Asuka scoffed. "What a way of showing it, then. Shitty teaching suits a shitty person."

At this point, Asuka didn't care what she said. As long as it hurt Kushina, it was fine by her. This situation was not something she could let off so easily. After finally being able to live a healthy life, where she could do what she wanted, Kushina had to barge in and fuck it all up.

"Asuka-chan," Kushina's voice said softly, a definite layer of hurt in there. The redhead reached a hand out to Asuka, but she slapped it away before it could get too close.

"Don't fucking touch me," Asuka said, glaring up at her teacher –old teacher, shitty teacher, whatever– with venom. She took a step back, and another to get away from the redhead. "Don't talk to me. Leave me alone for once in your goddamn life."

And with that, Asuka swiveled on her heel and stalked off into Konoha's moonlit streets.

…

Should be studying. Oopsies.

SomeRandomPerson: thank you! College, while kind of fun, still takes a lot of work. I'll need that luck :P

Thanks to all those who reviewed! It means a lot, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. If anyone has any questions about character, plot, or little mistakes or confusing points in the story, feel free to ask. I would love to answer them the best I can without spoiling anything.

So what did you think about the mission's hidden purpose? About Asuka's reaction to it? Who do you want to see more within these next few chapters?