Note: The final installment of Postscript - again, apologies if it raises more questions than it resolves, haha.Sequel is already in the works, but it probably won't be up by Tuesday because I'd like to finish it before putting it up, and life is going to get very busy very soon. Thanks for reading, and do drop a review if you have the time! ^^

We're a man down

And I had him, but we lost him coming out

Kabuto ran his hand along a bumpy-looking root virtually indistinguishable from the hundreds others tangled in the tree's root system. Seconds later, a section of the landscape caved inwards. Prior to that, they had been striding up a gentle slope for the better part of ten minutes, moving through dense, prickly bushes and not particularly cooperative twigs, and part of Hana felt glad that they had reached the entrance. She wasn't thrilled about the threat of surrogate motherhood or the slippery, unsettling aura given off by her deceptively mild-mannered kidnapper, but this just didn't seem to be happening to her personally.

And the man had just opened a hidden passageway.

"Would you happen to know anything about the new mold species that's got the city up in arms?" she asked conversationally.

"It's unfortunate," was the calm response. "Ladies first?"

She knew the probability of coming out alive dropped significantly after one entered a closed space with an unknown, potentially violent kidnapper.

"I'd rather not have to carry you down," added Kabuto with a slight frown. The gloved fingers on Hana's elbow tightened. All he had to do was straighten his arm to use the weapon strapped to his wrist.

"I'm heavier than I look, too," Hana said. "Is your employer waiting downstairs?" Irritation flashed through the soot-black eyes behind the glasses. A strong shove forced her ahead of Kabuto in the passageway. She played up her stumble, so that he had to follow quickly or lose his grip. "That was not necessary – I was going to –"

Sliding out of his temporarily loosened grasp, she yanked him forward by the hand that had formerly been on her elbow as soon as her feet were firmly planted on the ground. Before the rest of Kabuto's body could catch up, she braced the elbow of his overextended arm against her shoulder. But Hana didn't get to complete the motion as Kabuto's other fist hit her spine. A lancing pain radiated out from where he had stabbed her; she spun on her heel, driving her elbow backward. It struck him full in the throat.

Kabuto gagged, and Hana followed with an uppercut to the jaw. She landed a glancing blow instead, bringing up her knee while the man tried to recover his balance. His left arm arced around to stab her again with the sharp weapon, but this time she blocked his arm with the inside of her own. Kabuto kicked her sharply in the knee and she fell, making sure to pin down the arm with the sharp weapon. Her body seemed to slow down, moving with half her usual speed. Meanwhile, Kabuto's right fist punched her in the side repeatedly. He was already starting to rise, turning onto his side so that her weight was only on his left arm. A frighteningly calm smile widened his mouth. His hair had come free of its ponytail and strands of it hung over Hana's shoulder. Irrationally, the fact that his bangs were obscuring her vision infuriated Hana even more than her body's unusual sluggishness. The lower half of her body had gone entirely numb and unresponsive.

She heard his harsh breathing overlay her own and realized that if he could get himself over her, his weight alone would end the fight. "Why – couldn't – you – make things – easier – for – yourself?" gasped Kabuto.

F – this, she was so done talking.

Kabuto's current position bared his bruised neck to Hana, and, bracing her weight on the hand she was using to pin down his left arm, she surged up and twisted around at the same time, ignoring the spasm of pain to sink her teeth in his throat.

Whatever condescending words the man had been saying disintegrated into a tortured snarl. His glasses tumbled off the bridge of his nose and clattered to the ground. A coppery taste spread over Hana's tongue as her teeth broke through his skin. With renewed vigor or desperation, Kabuto resumed hitting her in the side with his free arm. Despite the increasing numbness, Hana felt it the instant one of her ribs fractured. Gasping, she lost her grip on his throat, at which he seized her by the hair and turned her head to smash it into the ground.

The impact cut her lip on the edge of her incisors. Something else broke with a loud crack – her right cheekbone. The fingers digging into her scalp lifted her head again, and she heard someone whimper in dread. She knew she should hold on to the earlier anger and fear that had fueled her resistance – dread was only a half-step up from despair and passivity. Worse, her vision had started to go in and out. Kabuto was nothing more than a dark blur hovering above the body that had become dead weight.

If she had ever had a chance of fighting him off by sheer speed and strength, that ship had sailed.

So Hana let herself go limp. As soon as Kabuto sat back, he'd notice what he might have missed earlier when she had cut off circulation to his left arm, but that was the only opportunity she had to bring her hand up between them.

Her captor's grip shifted as he moved back for more leverage.

It was Hana who screamed the next second, but Kabuto who slumped onto his back with a syringe fully depressed into the side of his neck.

For the space of several heartbeats, Hana lay where she was, completely exhausted. Her eyes started to close.

If she fell unconscious, that would undo all the good that stabbing Kabuto had done.

Hana grunted and managed to wriggle out from under the lower half of Kabuto's body. Her legs still responded to her brain's commands, if reluctantly. Her hands were shaking as she pulled herself upright. Her rib chose to reassert itself then; bright, burning agony washed over Hana.

Her hands hit something hard and bruising on the ground. She picked it up slowly and turned it around with incomprehension until her mind finally caught up. Kabuto's glasses. She hurled them as hard as she could at the white-washed wall six meters away from the entrance, but didn't hear them break. Maybe she should have crushed the lenses underfoot.

A cautious glance told her that Kabuto was out cold, having received the drug much more violently and immediately through a tear in his neck. Even so, Hana didn't remember how much of it had been left in the syringe after he had pummeled her with it. At least the needle hadn't bent so far out of shape that it was useless.

Even crawling on all fours toward the unconscious man took an alarming amount of effort. Hana successfully rolled him onto his back on her second attempt and started to go through the pockets of his clothes with clumsy fingers. Oh, good – a blank card with a stripe on the back to swipe into a door of some kind, a pen… no, that was a covered scalpel, never mind; an actual pen, an identification card that said he was Yakushi Kabuto and part of the forensic support service of the Konoha Police – fake, Hana decided after squinting briefly at the faintly smudged ink, probably meant for a one-time use and not close scrutiny… and a wallet with some cash, a subway pass, quite ordinary. She felt around in the pockets of his slacks and found only a small pack of tissue. It looked like this was it. Where was his g – damn phone, for crying out loud? She would have snarled in frustration, except that she lacked the energy.

Kabuto looked very peaceful, but Hana had no idea how long he would remain inert. Nor, for that matter, how little time she had before she also lost consciousness. Hana had grown up in a rougher neighborhood than the one where she currently lived, and that had forced her to toughen up. Still, that had been years ago, before Papa Inuzuka ran out on the family and they had relocated to a very different district… practically ages since she had to deal with this level of pain.

She was definitely going to look up some old friends for a refresher on self-defense…

Staggering to her feet – none of that was feigned anymore – Hana began to shuffle to the exit, one step at a time. The walls were unhelpfully blank. She could see where the hidden door would sink towards her and slide back at the opening, but not how to activate it. It probably operated on a simple mechanism.

Hana slumped to the ground, telling herself it was so that she could examine the bottom of the door more closely.

It seemed like only had seconds had passed since she leaned back against the wall and her eyes had somehow closed of their own accord when she heard – or rather, felt – someone walking over the concealed door.

"Here!" she shouted. Her voice came out as a feeble croak. Her face throbbed, and she'd only barely moved her mouth. Shit, how long had she been out? Was Kabuto still out cold or coming to his senses? She stared at the body lying just five meters away, where their earlier struggle had taken them. She couldn't remember if he had lain there in that exact position.

Now she didn't dare take her eyes off him.

Forcing herself into action, Hana changed her position against the wall so that she could give the door a solid kick. An answering thump came from the other side. She cleared her throat, turning her head slightly so that her voice would transmit better. She only wanted to do this once. "There's a switch somewhere! Try the roots of the tree to your left!" That had to be loud enough.

Whoever it was didn't reply but moved away, perhaps to take her advice. Hana shuddered, apprehensive despite her exhaustion. Bizarrely enough, it reminded her of how she felt just before a deadline or arranging a face-to-face meeting with an important source – the last hour of adrenaline that her body could take.

It could have just been a dog pawing around. Or a compatriot of Kabuto's – Hana just didn't want to wait any longer. Speaking of Kabuto – her head whipped around, fast enough to make everything spin and throb and induce massive regret on her part –

And oh, f - , she should have slashed that scalpel across his throat –

He had disappeared, syringe and all.

Itachi could have followed the trail even without the tracking device. He guessed that either Hana had trampled through the terrain like that on purpose, or it indicated that the kidnapper was not managing the weight of an extra body that skillfully.

They had followed a relatively straightforward path, so if Hana had been conscious for the journey, Itachi doubted that the kidnapper intended for her to ever leave their destination. Only at the end of the trail, partway up a steadily rising slope, did he have to slow down and pull out the tracking device again. The signal pulsed directly under his feet, which meant that he was standing over a recess or a hidden chamber.

Then there had been a faint sound, followed by a thud muffled by the earthen barrier. He ran his hand over the rough, natural-looking surface, looking for an artificial smoothness that would betray a way in. The second time Hana spoke, he recognized her voice with something akin to relief: "There's a switch somewhere! Try the roots of the tree to your left!"

It had taken him half a second to narrow down the section of the root system likely to conceal a switch, a fraction longer to conduct a tactile search, and a mere instant to snap the tiny lever.

A patch of twig and grass-covered dirt the size of a modest doorway indented into the hillside.

Before he could do more than recognize the person slumped beside the opening, Hana's scream assaulted his ears.

"He was right there!"

Hana felt like a mess and knew that she probably looked like one. About fifteen minutes had passed since she had greeted Itachi with, sad to say, hysterical, incoherent variations of "I saw him right there" and "Leave me alone and go find him and destroy him" – well, maybe not that last part. She hoped. Her head hurt. That was her excuse.

She could tell that Itachi was ruing his decision to come without backup from the way he had paused before helping her out of the hidden passageway and propping her against one of the many trees nearby prior to going back down to investigate. She suspected that this was somewhat against protocol as well. It didn't surprise her that he played so fast and loose with the official rules at critical moments.

It didn't bother Hana that he had gone ahead and left her behind – she'd practically yelled at him to do it. But the waiting – that had been trying.

He had reemerged without a hair out of place, not even breathing hard nor needing to straighten any part of his uniform, except for the heightened intensity in his eyes.

No Kabuto. Hana wanted to cry. She was going to revisit that decision for days, if not weeks and months. She should have hamstrung the man with that scalpel. Permanently incapacitated him. Something.

He could have any number of exits throughout or even beyond the arboretum, and Itachi alone, no matter how brilliant and amazing a policeman, had no means of securing all of them even if he discovered every single one.

That was why she figured he had come back to keep her company. He had already called the emergency number, his superior officer, and his partner, and all they had to do was more waiting.

"Twenty minutes, give or take five," he said quietly. Hana couldn't see his face because Itachi was still on his feet. Standing was a much better way to meet any danger; she wished she could match his alertness and perceptiveness, as he'd anticipated her question about when reinforcements would arrive.

"How did you find me? He took my phone and I tried to find his to call for help, but he didn't have one…" The answers to her questions didn't seem to matter very much right then, but Hana knew she would care about them later.

"I planted a bug on you," Itachi said, neither acting nor looking particularly ashamed.

"Thanks for telling me," she said sourly, pulling the hem of her sleeve over her battered knuckles. She should have nailed that punch. If she had, Kabuto would have been laid out for hours. At the very least, she could be comforted by the fact that, somewhere out there, he'd be suffering a dislocated jaw.

Her sullen silence lasted for all of one minute. "He told me he was part of the forensics team," she said, barely above a mumble because one of her cheekbones was feeling a little pulverized. "Lie, of course – his ID card was a fake... but do you think he's connected at all to the case?"

Itachi's response came after a short delay. He returned from pacing around the tree, reentering her peripheral vision. "It's difficult to judge whether he or the employer he told you about would be the type to commit ritualistic murder. Most of the doors underground were locked."

"You mentioned that he wasn't carrying a phone," Itachi said. When Hana said nothing, nonplussed, he elaborated, "You had time to search him. Did you find anything else on him?"

At this, Hana's fingers curled around her jacket pocket, where the items she had lifted from Kabuto still were.

"You can't withhold evidence from –"

Hana flushed. "Stop threatening me; I wasn't planning to." She had intended to hold on to the items for a bit longer to decide if she could learn anything else by them independently, but with every intention of turning them over. They wouldn't find Kabuto's fingerprints, anyway – the man had kept his gloves on. If they had been on his person for a while, though, he could have left something for DNA analysis.

"Oh," she recalled aloud while staring at the pretty bush directly across from her and in her line of vision, "I also should have a little of his blood on me."

Mixed in with hers, probably… though there could be a usable sample on the ground back there. Her eyelids began to flutter shut. She snapped them back open with willpower alone. "Shouldn't you try to help me stay awake? I might have a concussion…"

"It's a myth that someone with a concussion shouldn't fall asleep. Your pupils aren't dilated, and the reason you have trouble walking is because of the other injuries you've sustained. However," he added before Hana could respond to that, "you could answer another question. Why not Ebisu?"

Hana genuinely hated him for a second. Immediately afterwards, she laughed softly. He was taking advantage of her weakened state to find out what he wanted. So what? She understood the impulse. Feeling personally wronged would just be hypocritical.

"Ebisu… Gekkou and Shiranui's newest client. You want to know why he's a dead-end for the investigation?" she asked slowly. "It's because of me, really… I was looking for some information and his name came up." The Assistant Professor of Education at Konoha University had gotten alarmed by an injudicious action by Hana's contact, who had been proceeding on the strength of a fake government inquiry. Hana eventually decided that he was useless for her purposes, since he only had a passing connection to the subject. "I looked into it and found out that the most exciting transgression he'd ever committed was using up university bandwidth to download porn. After Danzou and BDSM, that kind of news wouldn't even make a ripple." Ebisu, however, wanted to sue over a breach of privacy.

A tiny noise left Itachi's throat. She glanced up, but by then, whatever expression of amusement had crossed his face had already faded.

She started to drift off again when another question occurred, separate from their current predicament but loosely related to the last subject of their stilted conversation. "Hey, Itachi… why didn't you ever ask why… why Haimaru wrote about the Uchiha?"

"I realized that you would tell me when you wanted to." In her addled state, Hana stood no chance of interpreting his tone of voice. Facetiousness or deep-seated bitterness?

"You could've tried asking. People give you surprisingly much to go on when you ask."

"Is that how you get your sources to talk?"

A part of Hana knew that she was babbling, but the filter between brain and mouth had broken down somewhere between the fractured rib and the fractured cheekbone. "Some people are more talkative than others. But… everyone talks."

"You don't believe that anyone can carry a secret to the grave."

She started to shake her head and stopped, regretting it swiftly. "In this world, there are no true secrets."

"The motto of Konoha Exclusive."

Hana snorted, then started to giggle. "You read that rubbish?"

"Just an educated guess."

"Education and Konoha Exclusive are basically mutually exclusive."

"Not," said Itachi, "while Haimaru is still writing for them."

Hana turned that over in her head. "If Haimaru hadn't been writing for K.E.," she pointed out, "you wouldn't even know I existed."

The silence she received in answer made her just a little sad.

Once Kisame and the rest of the team had arrived, Itachi could leave Hana's side to make other phone calls. He moved out of reasonable hearing range but remained close enough to keep her in sight before dialing.

The first call went to Commissioner Pein again, who was unable to answer at that point because he had gone to see about a suspicious incident in Shukuba, the pleasure district that still fell under the jurisdiction of the Konoha Police. Deputy Konan reiterated his displeasure.

"Inspector, however things were done in Otafuku, in Konoha proper, you are expected to travel with your partner at all times for a variety of very good reasons. I also expect you to disclose all your sources with the rest of the department so that they can be verified and enable us to coordinate teams in the future. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, more intent on keeping an eye on the ambulatory staff who were supporting Hana to her feet. Kisame smirked widely as he lowered the phone; Konan had already hung up.

"I still can't get over that."

"What?" Itachi gave him a bland look. "Showing respect to a superior officer?"

Putting his hands in his pockets, Kisame chuckled. "This is the most concern I've ever seen you express. You watch her like a hawk, Itachi."

He felt responsible, that was why. In some ways, he was glad that Hana had chosen to write about trash and topics that were more inflammatory than significant – though if she continued down that road, she'd eventually find a target painted on her back. People weren't happy with Haimaru, but those articles were confined to a rag like Konoha Exclusive. Hana's anonymity was her best defense, and by bringing her into a serious investigation, he had jeopardized her safety. Now he felt obliged to keep everyone off her trail.

Not that attaching a bug to Hana's jacket hadn't been a fortuitous decision…

Invasive, yes. Presumptuous, most likely. Necessary… he could argue as much, based on what had just happened.

Besides, no matter how sick of him Hana deserved to be, he needed to see her again at least one more time to retrieve Kabuto's small items.

Aloud, he told Kisame, "Her kidnapper, Kabuto, didn't keep a phone on him."

"He wasn't planning to travel very far," speculated his partner. "He knew where he was going and headed directly there with no detours. It's possible that he planned it all before setting out for the Naka River Bridge." Nor had the individual witnesses interviewed on site formed any useful impressions of the man apart from the fact that he was light-haired and possessed an innocuous smile.

"Perhaps. Or he did not intend to keep anything genuinely personal or useful on himself."

Kisame's eyes narrowed. "Do you really think… he let himself get knocked out and intended for us to discover this place? But why?"

"At this point, it's only speculation." Itachi turned and started the walk back to the cars. Kisame fell in step. "I'm visiting Hana at the hospital tomorrow if she isn't discharged by then."

"All right… why are you telling me this?"

"Because I am expected to travel with my partner at all times… according to Deputy Konan."

And having Kisame around would prevent him or Hana from saying stupid things. He had almost retorted in response to one of Hana's comments that she had never attempted to contact him in over seven years, and that would have made it sound as though their lack of communication meant much more than it truly did. The less said about the past by either of them – accusations, hypotheticals, or otherwise – the better.

Kisame only grinned. "Now you'll actually follow that order? I'm keeping track of how long this will last."

"On Sunday morning," Itachi went on, ignoring irrelevant comments as was his general practice, "I'm revisiting the six sites."

"Fine by me, Inspector."

Her brother rushed into the room, looking devastated. She hated that. "What the f – happened?"

"Kiba," Hana warned, "Can you not make a big deal about this?"

"Working with the police got you beat up?"

Too late; her mother had rushed in as well. "How can you be surprised?" Tsume shoved open the window beside the bed and whirled around, looking in vain for some other way to make Hana more comfortable, or maybe just an outlet for her agitation. "The law only protects government stooges. When you come down to it, we're all in danger and need to fend for ourselves. Trusting in law enforcement is pure delusion!"

Kiba's brows squished together in a massive frown. Hana knew he was wrestling with what he had grown up believing and what their mother was ranting about – preconceptions rooted firmly in an old life on the scrappier side of Konoha. "But –"

"Anyway, I'll be out of here soon. How are the…" A newfound caution stopped Hana from saying the Haimaru brothers. "How are my dogs doing?"

"They're fine, I've told you," said Kiba, now frowning in slight annoyance. "I fed them, changed their water, walked them, just like you asked. I left Akamaru with them before coming over – that's okay, right?"

"Thanks, Kiba." Hana ruffled his hair and laughed at his grimace. "Knew I could count on you."

"Anko left a message on your voicemail machine."

"Oh, shoot. What?"

"Asked you how your date went." Kiba tilted his head, an expression of deep skepticism crossing his face. "This… was your date? With the police?"

"Don't…"

"Well, of course, that's what happens when you associate with the police," interjected Tsume, sitting down and getting back up from the bedside chair within the span of a sentence.

Hana considered how to explain the situation. "Less date, more police, to tell the truth…"

Kabuto's actions had deeply disturbed her – not necessarily at the arboretum, but the previous night at the hospital, when her thoughts kept jumping back to what had happened. It wasn't anything specific. It was just that reviewing the whole event had prevented her from getting any rest. But therapy would only take up precious time that could be spent investigating.

If she had interpreted Itachi's microexpressions correctly, he had very much repented of inviting her on board as a bogus civilian consultant. He'd probably start shutting her out of the investigation. Not that Hana would let him.

She still had to share her pseudo-epiphany about looking into Gekkou Hayate's surgeon, for one. The preliminary research she had done before Friday had uncovered a couple of promising minutiae on Senju Tsunade…

Not to mention, they still had to hit up the murder sites and drop by the Springtime of Youth karaoke club.

And then it would be about time for her to start drafting up her next article for Konoha Exclusive…

All three of the Inuzuka family glanced up when they heard the knock on the door. The nurse looked in. "Miss Hana, you have another visitor. Would you like to see him now?"

Hana caught sight of another tall, imposingly built man in uniform through the glass beside the door. The man gave her a rather toothy smirk before presenting his back to her to sit in one of the hallway chairs. "Let him in."

Itachi walked in, seemingly impervious to Tsume's glare or Kiba's wary appraisal. "Good afternoon. May I talk with Hana for a minute?"

Hana turned her snort of laughter into a … less obviously amused noise. Not two seconds in the room and Itachi nonchalantly pulled the policeman card. If he was pressed for time, that was probably for the best; Tsume was already prejudiced against men in uniform, anyway, and Kiba would take his cue from her.

"If you must," said Hana's mother.

When she and Kiba had eventually left the room and closed the door behind them, Itachi drew closer.

"Did you sleep well?" He asked in a low voice. Hana appreciated his consideration; her own mother's voice tended to rise when she got started on any topic that loosely held her interest, and handling it while suffering from a headache didn't quite make it onto Hana's personal List of Fun Things.

"Better than you, apparently." Hana had noticed the dark circles under his eyes – the unfortunate tear troughs that marred his otherwise decently good looks only augmented the effect – but at this distance, she even saw how bloodshot his sclera had become.

His gaze left hers to give the room a once-over – hers was the only occupied bed here, so the bed curtains had been pushed back, and everything could be taken at a glance, like the sink and the counter with her own clothes folded over them while she sat awkwardly in the hospital set. Hana bit the inside of her cheek. Somehow, she always ended up at a disadvantage whenever she encountered Uchiha Itachi. Couldn't she be clever or insightful for once?

"I don't have Kabuto's things on me right now," she said. That was probably why he had come. "I can get them to you later."

"The sooner the better," said Itachi.

"Right."

"There was just enough of his blood on the ground for us to take a sample."

Hana raised her head. "Were there any matches?"

"None have been found yet."

Another lull ensued.

"Have you –"

"I brought –"

Both of them fell silent, startled.

"I, um, was going to ask if you had thought of looking up Senju Tsunade," said Hana into the uncomfortable quiet.

"Gekkou Hayate's surgeon… She's the granddaughter of a billionaire and former casino owner in Shukuba."

"Oh, you already know about that?" Hana pulled her hair out of her face, wishing she had an elastic. She ended up pushing it over her shoulder. "Did you also know that she has a serious gambling problem?"

Itachi raised an eyebrow. "That's just a rumor."

"Rumors often start with a little truth. Any luck with the investigation since yesterday?"

Itachi stood by the window, looking out at Konoha basked in the lazy afternoon sunlight. "We have one more week."

"Until my birthday?"

He didn't respond to her weak joke, true though it was. "Until the murderer acts again."

Hana sobered. "I'm sorry I diverted resources yesterday."

"You couldn't have predicted –"

'I shouldn't have gone alone!" She stared at him fiercely, daring him to lie to reassure her. That wasn't his style, but Itachi also evinced occasional kindness that ended up hurting her pride more than it soothed. "Kabuto could have taken anyone, but it would have been anyone at that site, since he was lurking around… he wanted someone to see him and send people to follow him. So maybe he would have distracted the Konoha Police regardless, but since I was there that time, I'm the one who ended up being the cause."

Itachi looked at her for a long moment.

"You agree, then," he said. "Kabuto wanted to be found and followed."

"He probably let me stab him with the syringe, too, to be convincing." Hana tried not to sound bitter. It was silly and childish to feel bitter about that.

But Itachi shook his head. "It's more likely that he didn't expect to be beaten in a fight. That would have been a silly risk to take, even if he did prepare himself for the possibility." He reached into his pocket and handed her the small object that he had retrieved. It was her phone.

"Thanks. I didn't think I'd get it back." She wasn't dumb enough to put sensitive numbers in her contact list, but not having the phone had bothered her nonetheless. There was a troubling backlog of emails.

Itachi took her preoccupation as his cue to leave. Tsume and Kiba reentered briefly to say that they'd be back in the evening to bring her home. After that, Hana was free to catch up on her email.

She skipped the ones with frivolous subject headings and nearly deleted the one sent from a throwaway email composed of a string of random numbers and letters, sure that her email provider had missed a piece of spam. However, her fingers – still clumsy from the bruising they had taken yesterday – touched the wrong button and opened the email instead.

It read,

The Hokage would like to pass on to you

the Will of Fire

in the event that you accept, show us

Signed,

(you may have guessed)

The Hokage

P.S.:

Hana's hand was shaking stupidly after she finished reading the short message, including the name in the postscript, so she rested her phone on top of the covers as she gathered her thoughts.

The international hacking organization that had released the Bingo Book online last month was known as the Kage. Some said that they had different branches in various major cities – Iwa, Kumo, Kiri, Suna, and Konoha – to target different epicenters of crime.

The email might have caught her in a gullible state of mind, but Hana couldn't help wondering what it would mean if a branch of the Kage did stand behind that cryptic invitation. In terms of getting at digital information, she doubted she could contribute all that much to the organization's goals.

Her methods were much more active and involved talking to people, overhearing snippets, creating situations where the information she wanted would be more likely to surface… and in that respect, Hana knew she might be able to provide a valuable service.

But who had sent that email, really? Whether or not it had genuinely come from the Kage, it confirmed one thing – she had caught someone's attention.

For whatever reason, Hana felt that by challenging her to "show" this so-called Hokage that she was with them, they really intended for her to write about the person whose name they had given her. It could have just been a helpful hint, but Haimaru had begun to feel increasingly inadequate and fallible as a pseudonym; given all of that, she didn't hide the fact that she deliberately alternated the gender of her article's subjects, and this name would appear to accommodate that pattern.

Very rarely did Hana write about someone whom she knew virtually nothing to start with. She didn't even recognize the name at first, though as she turned it over in her head and said it aloud a few times, she wondered if she hadn't heard or read it before.

U – zu- ma – ki – Ku – shi – na.

Itachi knew, by the end of Sunday.

The sun's glare sheeted the cordoned-off crime scene in a golden haze. The light was coming in through the small, high windows of the second floor of the parking garage; it would only grow stronger as the day wore on.

Kisame had followed him without any verbal cajoling, merely walking around the circular stain on the ground as if that would give him a different perspective.

Itachi checked the compass in his hand as he stood directly opposite the vertex of the triangle where the victim's head had formerly been set up. East.

Four of the ritual arrangements had been oriented precisely to the east – Nii Yugito, Akado Yoroi, the unidentified teen simply named "Sai", and Gekkou Hayate, the last two of which had also been killed on the same night in March. The remaining two out of six victims were curiously haphazard in terms of direction. Those two had been the third and sixth victims discovered, and they had appeared to follow the pattern so closely that forensics only recently confessed that they hadn't been as thorough or careful with every single crime scene. They would retest all of them to make sure none of the samples got switched up this time.

Later that evening, as he retrieved his umbrella from the bucket by the Ichiraku Ramen stand, Itachi would read another message tucked inside its folds: not all human blood; good catch.

So three and six were the odd ones out.

Walking back to the police station, Itachi came to an unpleasant but clearly long overdue conclusion: There was more than one killer, and one of them was piggy-backing on the other's work.

On the bright side, he made the walk back without once needing to open the umbrella. Sometimes, the forecast could be wrong.