A/N:

to start - I am so sorry for leaving this for as long as I did. There were many reasons why - stress being a big one, but also the sudden surge in followers I've seen that put a lot of pressure on me (in my mind) to write the 'perfect' chapter. I also really, really disliked the early chapters, and they all mounted on each other until it got to the point where I couldn't bring myself to read my own story.

yep.

fun times.

ALSO: I have edited all previous chapters with what are (hopefully) new and improved ones, so check that out if you want to.

either way, I'll save everything else for the bottom AN (for those who read it lmao) and put a recap here:

Satoko has issues with family and leaves for Konoha.

There, she thinks she passes off as mediocre in the Academy, and wishes for a genin corps life so she doesn't suffer a painful death via Orochimaru/invasions/Pein/various other disasters. She really doesn't pass off as mediocre.

She is put in a team with Shirai Norio (civilian) and Shoda Katsu (ninja family) under Yamanaka Inoichi. He fully expects to fail them with a difficult test, only then they pass.

[put training break and bonding (?) with teams 7 and 10 here]

They leave for their first C-rank, which is to eliminate some bandits around Hanran Hara village. They go into a bar, where they keep records on the bandit attacks, only then the meeting of local business owners happens and they decide to sit in.

...

"So, this… anti-bandit group…" Shirai looked doubtfully at one of the civilians, who was sweating nervously. "What do you do?"

"W-well, we try to avoid bandits by rerouting supply wagons." A general hum of consensus went around the members of the group. "And we record where attacks have been coming from, to try and predict where the bandits will be…" his lips thinned, and I smirked a little bit, already predicting what he was going to say. "…well, that hasn't been working out so well."

"We'll be sitting in on this meeting, team." Of course we were. Sighing a little, I pulled over a chair – unlike the Academy, I'd actually have to listen and process whatever they were talking about.

Hopefully, though, it'd be a little more amusing than an hour-long drone on the Nidaime.

Once we'd all settled down – well, two of the civilians were awkwardly perched on the edges of their seats, looking warily at us, so perhaps not 'settled' per say, but it was good enough – Kobayashi rose and awkwardly coughed.

"Well, our bar have had 2 out of 3 shipments of alcohol attacked…" Giving a tight-lipped smile – the atmosphere was almost unbearably heavy – he gestured towards one of the other men. "Erm, Modegi-san, what about you?"

It proceeded in a similarly monotonous fashion, and the air was still quite tense when the meeting seemed to be relatively 'wrapped up', having discussed how they were, once again, going to instruct their suppliers to use different routes to avoid the bandits.

Scratch that lecture on the properties of Hashirama trees – this was some of the most boring drivel I'd ever listened to.

However, there was something I needed answered. "Excuse me, can I ask when we were called?" Balancing my head on one of my hands, I slightly rephrased the question. "As in, when were the forms filled out for our team to come?"

"Oh, around… three weeks ago?" Frowning slightly, Kobayashi seemed to be thinking rather hard about something that happened only a few weeks ago. "Tansho-san still had a form from a while ago, and we sent it with one of the farmers that regularly go up there."

"Thank you, Kobayashi-san." Giving a quick glance at my teammates – they both made vaguely dismissive gestures, while Inoichi was an unreadable statue – I simply shrugged and decided to ask another question. "How many times do you meet up?"

"Every fortnight, for the past few months." Scratching his chin, he then gave me a strange look. "Why?"

I shrugged again. "Figured this might be valuable information. Ah, just one more question," Kobayashi sent me an impatient look. "Do you change the routes every meeting?"

"Yeah. You done?" Innocently, I put my hands up in false surrender at his irritated look.

"Certainly, Kobayashi-san. Thank you for being so helpful."

"Sure, just do your job." Waving me off, he quickly ushered all the other shop owners out while I thought.

So, they changed routes every meeting, meaning it was almost certainly someone within this group who was the 'traitor' in question. And we'd already confirmed that the group were pretty low on the IQ scale.

So, if we assume that once they heard ninja were coming, they did the typically stupid thing and tried to make themselves look as innocent as possible… it was tenuous at best, and its chance of success was negligible.

But, still…

"Can we check whenever any of those guys had their homes 'attacked' precisely three weeks ago?" Reaching a lazy hand over to the relevant pile of documents, Shoda whipped them up right at my fingertips. "Oh, okay. You do that, then."

"So you think…" In a pose of intense deduction, Shirai massaged his temples with his thumbs. "…you asked whether they changed routes every time, and they did, and there's a traitor. There was also a question about when we were requested, and all of them, including the traitor, would know that."

Suddenly, Shirai sprang up. "So, you think that he might have tried to make himself look super innocent by having his home falsely attacked!"

Briefly, I paused. "Okay, so, that's what I was kind of aiming at." My lips twisted into a grimace as Shirai jumped up and cheered. The idiot. "But there's a really low chance of that actually finding the traitor, so…" Now frowning a little, my teammate sat back down, thinking hard.

I resisted the urge to take a snarky jab at that.

What else could identify who was collaborating, and who was not? Presumably, it started with one group trying to avoid the bandits as they became a serious threat.

"No one." Unceremoniously dropping all the documents on the floor, Shoda looked just about done with everything that had transpired. "No one has. The closest is an attack 4 weeks ago on the butcher's neighbour."

Scowling, I went back to my thoughts.

At the start, I could see Kobayashi's plan wasn't going too badly. So then, more business owners joined, and then they were avoiding all the bandits. Then we can assume the bandits bribed someone to join that group, so they could continue to sabotage Hanran Hara village.

Then it'll be one of the later additions. Though, how late?

"Hey, wait." Blinking, I looked up at Shirai. "Like, two of them looked really well-off compared to the others." At my questioning look, he explained. "See, they looked about the same as normal, however they had some new stitching around the cuffs that make me think they had some kind of nice padding inside? Like, put in recently."

An obvious conclusion to make from that – they had seen a rather out-of-sorts increase of wealth recently.

Hence they were the traitors.

Though, being bested by Shirai put a dampener on my own celebrations. Of course, I'd given them all a cursory look – specifically, for jewellery or expensive fabrics – however I hadn't bothered to look closely enough to see stitches for padding or anything detailed like that.

My performance had been sloppy.

"And you couldn't have mentioned this five minutes ago?" drawled Shoda, looking supremely unimpressed. "Okay, okay. So who were they?"

Shirai shrugged, and I hit my face with my palm.

"What the fuck, Satoko-chan? Why did you just slap yourself?" Glaring at Shirai (who was slightly panicking, not that he'd ever admit it), I then nearly hit myself again as I realised that was a mannerism not found in Konoha.

"It means you're an idiot, Norio-kun. And let's leave that be." Another glare was directed at Shirai. "Okay, so, where were they sitting?"

Giving a hum, he skirted the table, seemingly clawing memories up. "Here," pointing to one of the far chairs, "and there." Stretching across the table, he gestured to another random chair.

"So… Sakurai Yasutake and Tsujimoto Toru?" Shoda was already digging through the papers, throwing a few relevant pieces in front of us.

"Wait, you remembered their names?" Taking a few moments to blink dumbly, Shirai then waved it off. "Yeah, sure. Not that big of a thing, after all."

"Actually, it is." Jumping a little – Inoichi had been there the whole time, damn – I turned towards our team leader. "Your performance during that meeting was subpar."

Ouch.

Well, okay, so we might have done kind of badly. Yet he was a T+I interrogator and a Yamanaka to boot – surely he must know of the existence of sugar-coating words, just a little bit.

"Satoko-chan was the only one who attempted to seek information. Katsu-kun was the only one who remembered their names. And Norio-kun was the only one who analysed the civilian's appearances." Giving us a harsh look, I resisted the urge to shrink into my chair.

Next to me, though, Shirai was hardly making a secret of it.

"It worked out fairly well for you this time, having all looked at different aspects, however you shouldn't make such basic mistakes as missing out entire sections of standard interrogation." Another sharp look passed over us, and then it was over, and I felt like I could freely breathe again.

(Internally, I was fuming - I just got intimidated by someone probably the same age as me. Like hell that was happening again.)

"So, how do we get to the bandits through them?" Giving a quick look at Inoichi, Shoda quickly amended his words. "Provided those are the right people, after all."

"Yes, they were the right people." Conceded Inoichi. "And how do you think?"

Next to me, Shoda gave a sideways glance, as if expecting me to have all the answers. Meanwhile, Shirai did the exact opposite, massaging the temples of his forehead as if trying to coax the information straight through his skull. Sighing a little – didn't I deserve a nap after all this? – I thought about it myself.

"Well, presumably they need to be paid their bribes and give the information." Absently, I leaned back. "There will be a delay of about a day before the message to the supplier arrives, telling them the altered route they need to take, meaning the informants in this little council have to meet the bandits within the next few hours to ensure they are aware of the new plan. So, if we follow them, they'll eventually meet up with the bandits."

Inoichi gave me a nod. "A good plan. Though, to save time, I will tell you that both of them are traitors, however it is Tsujimoto Toru that will be handing over the information to the bandits today. I could tell as the notes he was taking were far more in detail, and listed all route changes, as opposed to just route changes that applied to his suppliers." Another judging glance was sent at us, and Shoda visibly shrank under his gaze.

Of course, then Shirai chose to demonstrate his rather proficient selective hearing skills, as he jumped up, scattering papers everywhere. "Well, then we need to go now!" There was genuine delight in his eyes from the prospect of doing something other than searching through endless stacks of paper.

Of course, he wouldn't realise that trailing a civilian for hours would be just as bad.

Well, at least I'd be able to get out of the bar's backroom – if I stayed for much longer, my clothes would almost certainly pick up a permanent stink of cheap alcohol.

Uncomfortably, I clung to the rafters of the roof as I watched Tsujimoto Toru's family eat dinner. Their food had doubtlessly been some of what the bandits had robbed, judging by how fresh and plentiful it was.

"Yeah, there were some ninja in our meeting." There was a fond smile on his face as he watched his daughter wave a spoonful of some variety of mashed vegetable in the air.

"Ooh, were they wearing all black?" Gently, the spoon was eased out of her hand by her mother as her movements grew steadily wilder, excitement written clearly across her features. "Did they have masks? Did they do any of their ninja magic? Did they-"

"One question at a time, Kaori." Came the reminder from the kindly looking lady at the table, presumably Kaori's mother and Toru's wife. "And, besides, I thought they were only trainee ninja…?"

"Something like that." Dismissal was clear in his tone, and I felt my hackles rise. It was already bad enough having to eavesdrop on people talking about me – worse that they were insulting me, and all I could do was awkwardly perch over them like an oversized bird and mutely listen to them dragging my name through the dirt.

"Oh." There was clear disappointment in Kaori's eyes – by contrast of her mother's relieved expression, likely from the fact that she thought her husband would be safe.

Something about this felt like spying on something intensely private.

I resisted the urge to fidget. This was a new low, encroaching on a family meal - although, I did have to note that it was far more civil than any family dinner that had ever occurred in the Koike household. Usually, by this point, at least one argument would've broken out.

Maybe I was setting my bar too low for 'civil meal'.

"Anyway, I have to go now." A significant look at his now slightly ashen-face family. "You know why." As he pushed away from the table and moved towards the front door, I took great joy in stretching out aching muscles as I slipped back out through an unfastened window, shadowing Toru as he stalked down the street.

Honestly – he couldn't make it any more obvious that he was delivering secret information to the bandits. Everything about him screamed 'guilty', right from the pale sheen of sweat across his temple to his hands, fixed in bone-white fists at his sides. Even his walk was strange – stiff and unnatural, head whipping around occasionally, as if I'd be stupid enough to just be standing there behind him.

We didn't even need to go to all the trouble of working out who was in cohorts with the bandits – one look at this guy's face said it all.

Briefly, I took a moment to pull out the tracker seal I'd tucked into my pouch that Inoichi had given me, pushing chakra into it to signal that he was moving to contact the bandits, and after another few minutes of creeping along rooftops, the rest of my team joined me.

"-still don't see why we couldn't have just baited the bandits to attack us." Apparently Shirai had finally realised that this part of the plan was just as interesting as the rest of the mission so far – as in, about as interesting as watching grass grow.

"Because that mightn't have been the whole bandit group." Came Shoda's reply through clenched teeth, barely clinging to some semblance of calm.

This conversation had apparently been going on for a while.

"Quieten down." Inoichi gave off a sense of being rather unamused, even if he was outwardly about as emotional as a brick wall – which was a rather telling sign that he was currently in a rather poor mood. "See, there's one of the bandits there. Satoko-chan, if you would get a little closer." At my glare, a small smile ghosted over his features. "Stealth training."

"Hey, how come she-"

At the sudden silence, I assumed Shoda had forcibly shut him up – a wise decision, considering Shirai's inability to read the mood or regulate the volume of his speech. Or volume of anything, really. However, my focus was on getting close enough to our two target's hushed conversation to eavesdrop, and so all I could hope for was that Shoda's chosen method didn't include knocking Shirai unconscious.

After all, then we'd have to carry him.

For someone so weak and obviously lacking in muscle mass, he was extremely heavy.

"…need a pay rise for this." Seemed like Toru was unhappy with the terms of their agreement. Then again, I would be too, if someone hired ninja to specifically hunt me down. "Ninja, Koyanagi. Ninja."

"Baby ninja." Corrected the bandit – well, Koyanagi, apparently, though I would bet that was a fake name. A convincing fake name, however if I were a bandit I certainly wouldn't give an unknown and potentially disloyal outsider my actual name. "Besides, you knew what you were signing up for."

"Yeah, and it was you who drew attention to the fact that we were passing information-"

"Orders." From my position – stretched out across a tree branch like some kind of overgrown sloth – I watched carefully as a trail of sweat beaded on his forehead. Whose orders, I wonder? Those of your bandit leader? Or an external organisation? "Those were our orders – to increase the number of deliveries intercepted – and you're gonna have to fucking deal with it because I'm not paying any more money."

At that, the bandit stormed off, while I fluidly swerved around tree branches and rooftops to stay within hearing distance of him.

Under his breath, many… ah, creative and rather unflattering terms were being used to describe Toru.

Might borrow them, actually.

Very creative.

Eventually, we left the confines of what could be considered Hanran Hara, going further into the wilderness with every step further. In their defense, they'd done a fair job in disguising their route – seemed like they alternated between using a few different routes to ensure there wasn't a particularly noticeable trail leading straight to their base.

Nevertheless, now that it had been pointed out to me, it seemed so shamefully obvious that it made me wonder how we'd passed by it in the first place. No wonder Inoichi had seemed so unimpressed throughout the course of this entire mission.

Grass stalks that had grown bent over. Twigs mysteriously snapped and no branches left to grow below what could reasonably be considered 'an average adult's ducking height'.

Make 'observation of the environment' just another thing on a shopping list of skills that I needed to improve, then.

As their base came into view – an abandoned farmhouse, apparently, I re-joined the rest of the team as they collected around a particularly gnarled oak tree from which we could observe the farmhouse.

"Well, he had some choice words to share about Tsujimoto Toru, at the very least." Idly, I stretched out my limbs, suddenly acutely aware of the aches and pains that had accumulated over a few hours of awkwardly perching on various trees and rooves. "Toru wanted a pay rise, apparently, for the hassle of having ninja around. The bandit refused. Then Toru went on about how the bandits were drawing attention to him and the other guy-"

"Sakurai Yasutake." Interjected Shoda, looking distinctly displeased at how informal my report was.

"-yeah, the other guy," and I soldiered on, because if I went through the standard form they might just fall asleep on the spot from how little of note actually happened, "and then the bandit said they were operating on orders and had to increase the number of supplies intercepted."

"Anything on the bandit's appearance?" Inoichi had an eyebrow raised, as if it were a challenge.

Did he really think so lowly of me?

"Brown hair, cropped short. Horizontal scar just over his right eyebrow from some kind of knife. Prominent cheekbones. Wears a black bandana over the bottom half of his face, however I doubt he's a poisons user – it seemed to be a vanity thing. Above average muscle for a civilian, but still poses a relatively low risk. A knife seemed to be his only weapon." For a moment, I paused. "He also told Toru that his name was Koyanagi, though I thought that might just be a fake name."

"A decent observation." Wow, Inoichi was really laying on the praise thick. How complimentary. "Now, Katsu-kun, what defences do you see on their base?"

Squinting a little, Shoda glared down the base, as if the angrier he made his gaze, the more he'd be able to see. "None, apparently." A pause. "One of the bandits looks out of one of the ground floor windows on the left every now and again, however there's no organised defence."

Nodding, Inoichi gave his verdict. "Good observation." Shoda shot a triumphant look at me, which I ignored. I wasn't being dragged into a petty competition of 'who can get the best compliment' with a twelve-year-old.

I also chose to ignore the number of times I had been dragged into petty competitions with my teammates over things like that.

Besides, I was pretty certain he was questioning us about the areas of intelligence gathering that we were weakest at – in other words, a question on anything else, and I would've clearly trumped him.

"Norio-kun, what do you think we should do now?" Immediately, Shirai's gaze slid over to me.

Now – that was flattering.

However, this could only be a positive experience. Perhaps learning a little more about tactics would actually give him some brains to speak of, and stop making me want to smash my own brain onto the nearest hard surface.

"I –uh, well, we need to go in?" Or maybe not. "So, uh, we can get in through an unlocked window somewhere, and then look around to see how many bandits there are?"

"Hmm." Leaving that single syllable hang in the air, it was clear Inoichi wasn't impressed.

"Well, there's also a hole in the roof we can get in through." Regaining confidence, Shirai began speaking in statements, rather than questions and mumbles. I restrained the urge to sarcastically congratulate him on that. "And then we can knock any bandits we come across unconscious."

"Very well, we'll go with that plan." Shirai's face lit up like a lightbulb, something which Inoichi summarily dismissed, returning to questioning us on our not-quite-stable plan for entering and seizing the bandit base. "How do we know that's all the bandits?" This was posed to all of us, judging by how his gaze swept all of us.

"That bandit with the route information only arrived a few minutes ago, and the meeting to decide routes only occurred a few hours ago. This means several things." I began counting them off my fingers. "One: the suppliers are not yet moving, since the information hasn't reached them. Two: this means no bandits are out and about, because the suppliers are not travelling. Three: the bandits themselves will be assembled in one small area to listen to the information they just received."

Hastily, Shirai covered over his slightly blank and dazed expression with some kind of imitation of a wise guru – or, at least, that was what I guessed, since he was failing quite horrendously. "Yes, of course."

Inoichi's expressions had been wiped off his face again.

"I have some sleeping agent that might help with knocking the bandits out." Out of Shoda's pack came a small drawstring bag of what was presumably some kind of mystery tranquilising powder. Next to me, Shirai visibly shifted away a little – not that the inch of space he put between him and the bag would actually matter if it were getting out into the air. "If we put it in their drink, they'll be out in about five minutes."

"Alright, here's the plan." Instantly drawing attention back to him, Inoichi lightly cleared his throat before explaining whatever master plan he'd concocted in the last few minutes. "I can confirm there are four civilians inside the building, all in that ground-floor lit room. Satoko-chan will enter in through the hole in the roof, and spike the drinks they're having right now. We will stay outside the room, hidden in that bush by the window." Then his gaze flitted to me. "If anything goes wrong, flare your chakra and I'll get you out as quickly as possible."

Really?

He expected me to be caught by a bunch of what were essentially civilians with knives?

Nevertheless, it was likely a necessary security protocol – always have a back-up or retreat of some kind – and so I nodded, though my pride still stung a little.

"Any questions?" Silence. From the 'abandoned' farmhouse, a cheer rose up, accompanied by the distant, tinny sound of clinking glasses. Their celebrations were, unfortunately, just a tad too early. "Alright then, let's go."

Braking away from the group, I swiftly ran up the side of the building to the second-storey roof, fitting through the gaping hole easily and landing whisper-silent on a pile of rubble – presumably from said collapsed roof.

Putting all the practice I had over the years in maintaining silence to good use, I stuck to the shadows all the way down to the ground floor, standing outside the doorframe to the bandits with a pounding heart.

They were hostile.

That thought hammered its way home – yet, for all that weighed heavily on me (they would not hesitate to maim me, to kill me, if I were to slip up even in the tiniest), I felt lighter than the air.

Keeping my breathing steady (more difficult than usual, what with the heady rush of adrenaline making my heartbeats seem louder than gunshots) I slipped into the shadows, pouch in hand – always darting around their line of sight, ducking behind crates of seized goods that littered the room.

Thankfully, they already seemed rather inebriated.

So much so that none of them noticed me successfully slipping pinches of mystery powder into their drinks, even as I felt so certain one of them was going to whip around and see my hand snaking around a crate, spiking their glass of premier Rice Country sake.

It would be so easy to be caught.

But I wasn't.

There was one rather hairy near-miss just as I slipped around a crate, when one of the bleary-eyed bandits ('Koyanagi', if I wasn't mistaken) caught the vanishing trail of my shadow. Realising my mistake as he gazed confusedly at the spot I'd just occupied, I held my breath, hands shaking from the stress and risk and the giddiness of the whole thing - yet he just as quickly dismissed it, taking a long gulp from his glass.

Only once I'd gotten back to the roof did I allow myself a breathy laugh.

I could… definitely see how this career would be attractive.

Damn.

Watching as Satoko handed back Shoda his mystery drugs, he slumped further against the farmhouse walls. This mission just kept on getting progressively worse, with no upside in sight.

Catching bandits? Great!

Oh, but we can't just go hunt them down, of course not. That might not catch all the bandits. Besides, one of the neighbouring villages tried that already, and they just came back, like a particularly tenacious weed.

So, tracking down their base. That might be cool.

Except that turned into reading through page after page of tiny handwriting, squinting through possibly the dullest thing he'd ever read in his life – including the Academy textbook. Not only that, but then he had to sit through the shittiest meeting of his life, leap though trees at civilian pace for hours following some dumb bandit through the forest, and now was cold, damp, and miserable, crouched outside a partially abandoned farmhouse.

Worst part?

He didn't even get to do the cool stuff. No, Satoko-chan got all the chasing, spying, ninja stuff. He got 'sit right there Norio-kun' and 'stop fidgeting Norio-kun' and literally hadn't done a thing.

This was even worse than those weed pulling D-ranks.

Or 'catch Tora'.

Shivering a little at the reminder, he froze as the joint stares of the rest of his team fixed on him. Probably thought he was 'fidgeting' again, as if he were a child. Sometimes he felt as if they didn't care about him at all.

Every time he helped, they seemed so surprised.

Well, not Inoichi-sensei.

He could have a debate about whether anything could actually surprise Inoichi-sensei. If it did, he definitely didn't show it, which was impressive and terrifying in equal mixes. Someday, he aspired to have that level of control.

"Norio-kun, come on, they're unconscious." Blinking dazedly for a moment, he scrambled up, taking great joy in brushing off wet grass off him before jumping through the wide-open window into the bandit's base and immediately cringing.

"That's some alcohol."

"Rice Country." Briefly turning from where she was rifling through desks, she read the label on the sake bottles. "Pretty sure this is the really expensive stuff."

"Cool." Idly, he wandered around, looking at the labels on crates and occasionally peering inside – mostly vegetables. Lying on top of some stacks were handwritten notes about which route suppliers were taking for the next fortnight.

Damn.

Even the part where they were inside the enemy base was as dull as everything else.

Being a ninja involved a lot more boring stuff than what he'd been led to believe when he signed up.

"Oh, I found something." Among the sounds of paper shuffling and muffled footsteps, Satoko's voice was sharp. Monotone, but sharp. Discerning. "An agreement between the governing body of Funagata Village and four people. Those said people agree to hijack supplies to neighbouring villages, and in return are rewarded monetarily, with weaponry and with 40% of what they seize."

"Guess we have who Koyanagi's orders came from, then." Shoda was painstakingly searching one of the bandits slumped over a table for weaponry, and had already removed several knives of a variety of makes and sizes off the unconscious man.

More rifling through paper, all the while Inoichi watched on with those pupil-less eyes of his.

Weird.

Hey, maybe he should ask about why Yamanaka eyes-

"Another agreement. This time a joint agreement between Funagata, the bandits, Sakurai Yasutake and Tsujimoto Toru." Squinting, Satoko tried to make out what looked just like squiggly lines from where he was standing. "Tsujimoto and Sakurai pass information to the bandits, and in return they are given property in Funagata, 10% of what's seized and once again, an unknown monetary reward."

"What else do we need to find, Inoichi-sensei?" Huffing, he propped himself up on the table in the centre of the room, muffling a yawn. "That's everyone accounted for, right?"

"Any documents that suggest them being part of a larger crime syndicate, for one." His reply came smoothly, as if he'd been prepared for that question. Probably had been. "Anything hinting at a larger organisation also taking part in this." A pause. "Or you could keep looking in crates. There might be something."

"Or more likely not, sensei." Picking up on Satoko's raised eyebrow in his direction, a white-hot flash of anger raced through his veins. "Look, you're always so surprised whenever I do anything-"

A spray of blood spotted his clothing in red, and behind him there was the unmistakable sound of something (someone) collapsing.

Feeling himself shake, he turned around to look down at the now-corpse of one of the bandits on the floor, two kunai through his neck and spine – and looking up, he saw Satoko's outstretched arm, and her wide eyes as they stared blankly at the body on the ground.

A/N:

originally this chapter and the next were supposed to be just 1 chapter but apparently that isn't happening.

oops.

anyway, here is the catch-up with you guys:

1. I LOVE ALL 968 (at the time of writing, add or subtract as necessary) OF MY FOLLOWERS.

Seriously.

I mean it when I first wrote this that I thought it'd be a flop - like, I'd write 10k of it and get bored, and it would get like 10 followers. This is truly amazing. Also stressful. But mostly amazing.

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2. Thank you so much to all of the reviewers who helped me regain my confidence and helped to encourage me to finish this chapter. You're the reason I came back to this.

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3. I lost my memory stick with the plan for this story on it, so consider anything I had 'planned' in earlier chapters now null and void because I can't remember a thing that was in that plan oops

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4. I have removed review replies from the bottom of the chapters and will now (try to) reply using the (previously unused) PM function. I still have the replies saved, but it was getting a bit cluttered lol

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5. This story is no longer a guaranteed Shikamaru x OC ending. For now, consider it GEN. Probably won't stay that way, but I felt it was just a bit sad going through Satoko's whole (second) life just to end up with a predictable result.

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6. New posting schedule (since I am genuinely having my heart and soul ripped out by School) - once a month as a minimum, with additional updates if I feel particularly inspired.

Just a note - if I were a betting man, I would bet on me breaking this schedule 2 months along the line.

Sorry.

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Anyway, I will be starting fic reccomendations at the end of each chapter from this day forth! (1-2 per chapter)

- nine point eight by XxZuiliu

Uchiha Itachi chose his village over his clan, steeled his heart and chose peace over his own blood. Izumi did not. (By the natural order of things, one day a young girl would willingly lay down her life for her love, and along with it, the lives of all her kinsmen. But I was not that girl; I was not that Izumi.) [SI/OC, Uchiha!OC, AU]

also can I add literally anything by XxZuiliu as reccomended

- Kill Your Heroes by Evil Is A Relative Term

Because, sometimes, we are what our adversaries make of us. Because Gatō only needed Zabuza to neutralize Kakashi. He isn't afraid of one little pink-haired genin. But even mice will bite when cornered. A story of where fear drives the most vulnerable member of Team Seven, from Wave and beyond.

I vote for best Sakura AU

also add any of above author's works as reccomended too lol

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- rosinban