Author's note: I can't believe I'm actually posting this without really knowing if the that damn muse of mine will stick with it, but so far I think I have enough ideas for it be turn out interesting :) Oh, and keep in mind that I have no Beta to read through this, so I'll apoligize in advance for grammatical errors and such.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, sadly.. I take full credit for Riye and Teruha though :D

Senbon Soulmates

- 1989 -

The first time Genma saw Hayashi Riye he didn't think much of her. It was the day he enrolled in Konoha's Academy and frankly the girl he had never seen around before didn't look like shinobi-material at all; she was too petite and pretty, reminding him of some fragile doll with her big green eyes, light skin and long silky black hair. Needless to say he didn't give her more than a passing glance, figuring she would drop out of his class fast anyway and besides, girls were annoying.

Riye didn't though and gradually he started noticing things about her that forced him to reconsider his initial assessment. For one she was smart and clearly much more serious about her studies than many of his classmates, plus she could already read when they started classes and actually did so. It wasn't children's books either as he found out when he snuck a peek out of boredom, but something he thought he might find at his doctor's judging by the complicated drawings of people's insides in it, which was kind of creepy. Still, it wasn't until he realized that she always had senbon with her and were good with them that his view of her really changed, shifting from uninteresting classmate to a rival of sorts, because senbon was his weapon of choice too. Of course Genma was too laid back to make a big fuss out of it and he was still enough of a boy that proclaiming a girl his rival would have been the height of embarrassment, but that didn't change the fact that that was how he thought of her. From then on he actually paid attention to her, discretely trying to figure his rival out and challenging her, which inevitably led to him discovering several other things about her over their academy years that in turn only strengthened her position as rival in his mind. First off there was something in Riye's eyes that was eerily reminiscent of many of the older shinobi and though he couldn't quite place it, he instinctually knew it was no laughing matter. Then there was that quiet inner strength and steely determination their classmates seemed completely blind to, enabling her to persevere despite the odds against her. And the odds really kind of were stacked against her; not only was she an orphan from a civilian family from somewhere outside Konoha, her petite build also put her at a severe disadvantage in taijutsu or anything requiring physical strength really. Finally her precision with senbon rivalled his own above average and she worked on it tirelessly, which in turn spurred him on in his own training to stay ahead.

Long story short: the moment Genma took a closer look was the moment it became impossible for him to remain indifferent to or unaffected by Riye, though he only truly realized this years on.

- 1993 -

Kneeling before the cenotaph, Riye placed a beautiful bouquet bound of anemones and bluebells in front of the memorial even as her eyes automatically sought out the name she was there for. In truth she had never even known the kunoichi in question, but that didn't keep her from truly feeling the sincere gratefulness that was the meaning the flowers she had chosen for the occasion.

After all, today was the three year anniversary of her family's death and also of that brave konoha kunoichi's, who had thrown away her life without any hesitation to save an unknown six-year old civilian girl from sharing her parents' fate. Before that she had even managed to take down two out of the three Iwa nin responsible for killing most of the villagers and weakened their sadist bastard of a leader enough that Riye herself had been able to land the finishing blow, unhindered by the rock-skin technique that had foiled her father's attempts at doing the exact same thing.

There was a certain poetic justice to that she supposed; killed by the weak little girl, using the knowledge of anatomy and precise application of senbon her father had prided himself on, and that the Iwa nin had mocked before ruthlessly killing him as he had killed his wife.

Still, it wasn't nearly enough to make up for having had her family painfully ripped from her and been made a killer, simply because the sadistic bastard had been in a bad mood after having failed to strike a crippling blow against Konoha. The Hayashi's were a civilian family making a living by running a small clinic specializing in curing people's aches using acupuncture and shiatsu, since her father was an expert at the former and her mother brilliant at the latter. Riye had practically grown up at that clinic and learned from both her parents for as long as she could remember, but that uncomplicated life was destroyed in one fell swoop for no good reason, along with most of the village she had grown up in.

In fact nothing probably ever would make up for it, but under the crushing weight of her grief and despair the blacknette had found out just how well her parents had named her, when the logic it claimed she was blessed with kicked in while she was being transported to Konoha by her saviour's comrades. What better way to honour her parents and the konoha kunoichi while paying back the bastard than to continue living? To become strong when he told her she was weak and turn the very things - gender, physique and her parents' skill sets - he mocked into her strengths? Also she felt she owed a life debt to that brave kunoichi who had cut her own life short to save hers, so it was only right that she do her very best to keep her saviour's home and precious people safe with the life that had been saved, now that she couldn't anymore.

By the time they reached Konoha's great gates Riye had found her resolve and she was going to become a konoha shinobi no matter what!

The blacknette couldn't help but smile fondly at the memory of her meeting with the Sandaime Hokage back then. Not only had the most powerful man in the hidden village taken the time to see a little civilian girl who wasn't even one of his citizens, he had also patiently listened to her request and her answers for his questions about why she wanted to join Konoha's ranks, even when her voice hitched or her tears escaped her control. In the end he had told her to go back to her village with the shinobi he was sending to make sure the dead there were at least burned and no Iwa nin were at large; if she was taken in by one of the surviving villagers and stayed that was fine, else they would see about getting her enrolled in the Academy and finding her somewhere to live when she came back. No matter what she should say her final goodbyes to her parents to get some sort of closure and get the things she needed from her home.

When Riye returned to Konoha carrying a scroll containing all her parents' medical books, senbon, important mementoes and whatever else she had been able to cram into the ingenious contraption, he had done exactly as promised. She stayed at the orphanage at first while a counsellor tried to help her along with the process of dealing with her grief, the traumatizing experience and her first kill, but when it became clear she wasn't going to fall to pieces despite the hellish nightmares, she instead moved into a small cosy apartment located at the first floor of a house owned by a nice elder lady she quickly came to call her Sasaki-obasan. Thankfully they had found that her parents hadn't left her without resources upon contacting their lawyer, so the rent wasn't a problem and Sasaki-obasan quickly went from simply being the nice landlady who got paid for preparing her meals, to something like a helpful aunt and guide of her new home.

That very summer she had enrolled into the Academy as if she was one of Konoha's own young, alongside children around her own age, and Riye would forever be grateful for the Sandaime Hokage's handling of her situation. No matter what she was going to prove him right in having faith enough in her to make it possible for her to follow her resolve.

Touching the name on the cenotaph one last time before lighting a stick of incense and saying a prayer for her parents, the now ten year old academy student rose and set out towards the area where she was bound to run into Genma. It was a small training field, perfect for practicing their aim with the senbon they both favoured and the two competed endlessly over who was better with them. In fact senbon was what had woken their interest in each other in the first place and paved the way for the weird rivalry-friendship thing they had had going for the past three and a half years. Not that Genma would ever admit out loud that he considered the girl even the other girls said was too exquisite and petite to be fit for the shinobi profession as his rival, no matter how smart she was and how fantastic a chakra-control she possessed.

Riye was well aware that many fully expected her to either quit or get killed in the war once serious missions and gruelling training became a reality in a year's time, when they would hopefully graduate and be assigned to a jounin-sensei. Other slightly more gracious people figured she would become a medic nin at the hospital before marrying into one of the prestigious clans, with the Uchiha being considered the most likely since quite a few of them were devilish handsome. Now the part about becoming a medic nin she could understand given her choice in reading material, though there was no way she would be tied down at the hospital when medics were so desperately needed out in the field, but the rest she resented and if all Uchiha were anything like that stuck up Inabi in their class, she resented that last bit even more. It was both unfair and completely idiotic to judge her by her looks alone, even if her physique admittedly meant she was at an disadvantage strengthwise, but she tried not to let it bother her; she would prove them wrong soon enough and being underestimated by opponents was actually the sort of advantage that could make all the difference in a battle between shinobi. Still, it was nice to know that at least one person in her own generation saw past her appearance and respected her skills, even if he true to his favourite phrase - Bugen Jikkō: no words, but action - didn't say it out loud.

Reaching her destination, the blacknette spied her rival who was already busy hurling senbon at multiple targets. She couldn't help the smile that crept over her lips at the sight, somehow managing to be both fond and mischievous at the same time. Riye had an altogether different reason for being grateful to Genma than to the Sandaime, but it was no less important to her. Dealing with her parents' murders and her own first kill had naturally changed her, to the point where she had initially been very withdrawn from the people around her, including her classmates. The brunette and their rivalry had changed that, gradually bringing out more of the girl she had been before, who enjoyed banter, challenges and who had a playfully mischievous streak a mile wide. Her happy naiveté was a thing of the past of course, but somehow it had proved impossible for her to remain unaffected once he took an interest in her in his own contradictive way. In fact she was the closest to her old self and consequently more open during the hours they spent together on their training field, so by now Riye could honestly say he was the one in Konoha who knew her the best, even though their behaviour around each other hardly invited long, deep conversations. In fact they only rarely talked to each other at all while at the Academy, but then it wasn't exactly necessary when they could so easily read each other's expressions and body language the times they were curious about the other's reaction to or opinion on something anyway, so the whole we-are-most-definitely-not-rivals-friends-or-anyth ing-like-that act wasn't really a hindrance. It was however kind of silly since they didn't truly care if people knew they saw each other outside the Academy, but well, old habits die hard.

Being grateful to him didn't mean she couldn't prank him however and with the weather as hot as it was she was really doing him a favour by cooling him down anyhow, so...

"Oi, Shiranui!" the blacknette called out, simultaneously sending a projectile quite unlike the senbon she usually threw sailing through the air. Yet again her favourite target didn't stand a chance, though he really should have known better than to not have his guard up by now, and the senbon she followed it up with made sure the water-balloon burst exactly where she wanted it to. It was beautifully executed if she might say so herself, but apparently Genma wasn't quite as satisfied with his new drowned-cat-look as her and though she knew it was just begging for swift retaliation, Riye simply couldn't help but voice the cheeky comment practically begging to roll of her tongue right then. "What? You looked too damn hot working out like that".

For all of three seconds Riye got to savour watching the brunette turn the most interesting shade of red yet. Then she was off, dodging out of the way of her sopping wet senbon-wielding pursuer.

What the hell happened to her? Genma wondered not for the first time and probably not the last either, eyes unconsciously seeking out the seat to the front of the classroom that should have held a certain black haired girl. The keyword being should; Riye hadn't attended any classes or even showed up at their training field for the past week and it made absolutely no sense to him. The instructor had told them she wasn't attending the Academy anymore and left it at that, but unlike his classmates who had all apparently been half expecting her to drop out any moment, he himself had been unable to just accept that explanation. Quitting a mere year before achieving her goal of joining Konoha's shinobi ranks simply didn't fit with what he knew of Riye, who had worked hard alongside himself to advance through the classes and graduate as fast as possible so they could help their village in the war.

Or what he thought he knew of her at least, because no matter how loath he was to admit it, it was starting to look a lot like his rival-friend had left Konoha to begin training to become a geisha of all things. He wouldn't even have considered the possibility if he hadn't heard it directly from the landlady she considered a sort of adopted aunt, when he had finally caved and gone to her apartment the day before to get some answers. According to Mrs. Sasaki a very pretty geisha named Raiha, who was apparently Riye's actual aunt, had come by to pick her up last week and would be overseeing her niece's training somewhere closer to the Fire Daimyo's court, which meant it was highly unlikely he would get to see her inside the foreseeable future, never mind hear her explanation.

Still some small part of him refused to believe she could really just throw away three years of hard work and her goal like she seemed to have done, but most of all he felt completely irrationally disappointed and even a bit betrayed. Which was ludicrous since it wasn't any of his business what she chose to do with her life and not everyone was cut out to be shinobi, but after spending a nearly sleepless night trying to identify the uncomfortable feeling in his gut, Genma was fairly certain he had it pinned down. It was only that morning he had realized why exactly he felt that way however; that somewhere along the line he had come to count on Riye being around as the mischievous rival-friend who drove him to do better and who had way too much fun teasing him. In his mind there hadn't been any doubt that they would both become proud shinobi of Konoha, kick some major enemy butt during missions and more than likely compete about who of them made jounin first, unless she decided to put to use all that knowledge of anatomy she had absorbed over the years and became a medic nin, in which case there would be less butt-kicking and more saving lives on her part.

So what had happened to her so suddenly and how had he completely missed it despite seeing her almost every damn day?

Groaning in frustration, the brunette rested his head on the desk in front of him while the instructor droned on about something he hadn't quite caught on to. He was way too tired for this and his thoughts seemed to run in never-ending frustrating circles in his attempt at trying to conjure up the answers to his questions, despite knowing it was an exercise in futility since he couldn't confirm or dismiss the validity of them anyway with her gone. Until he could, he resolved to not think anymore on it; Riye had made her choice, but he still had a graduation exam and then a shinobi-career to get ready for, with not even a full year to manage it.

...After he got some sleep...

Resting her head back on the wall she was leaning against as she sat on the balcony's railing, Riye absentmindedly scratched her shoulder while silently marvelling at how life had yet again managed to throw her for a loop. Two weeks ago everything had been going more or less according to plan and she had had a year's time left at the Academy before she would finally join Konoha's shinobi ranks after hopefully passing the Academy's graduation exam, though as it turned out said exam hadn't been all that difficult when it came down to it.

Then Teruha-sensei had pulled her aside after a kunoichi class and as a direct consequence she was now sitting here, looking out over the beautiful pleasure garden attached to the Fire Daimyo's favourite palace and still not quite sure her eyes weren't deceiving her whenever she spotted the ANBU-tattoo now decorating her right shoulder. Oh, and she was on a long term undercover mission serving as the Daimyo's hidden line of defence in case something got past his extremely capable Twelve Guardian Ninja and the rest of the veritable army that was standing in the way.

...Well, to be perfectly honest it was technically Teruha-sensei who had that mission - which was really more to keep the Daimyo happy with Konoha since his support was crucial with the war going on, and to have a well-placed loyal operative at court, than out of any real concern for his safety - while she was simply tagging along because said kunoichi had taken her on as her apprentice, but she was undercover and her name was in the mission scroll alongside her sensei's. Her real one mind you, not the one she had been answering to for the past two days since arriving at the palace or her designated ANBU-mask. Which was still confusing the hell out of her, but then how often did you gain two new names and inside such a short while too?

First there was Habu, a word she would normally associate with certain types of vipers and therefore take as a warning to get the hell away because one of the poisonous snakes were near her. Now it was her name and identity whenever she donned her snake-mask or was at ANBU-headquarters, which was incidentally where she had stayed in between her 'leaving' Konoha to become a geisha and actually leaving to travel to the Daimyo's court. That had been the most gruelling nine days of training, testing and instruction ever, but then they had had to make sure she wouldn't back out when the going got tough, ascertain her loyalty, confirm that she really had the potential her sensei had picked her out for and prepare her as best they could in such a short time.

To explain how exactly that had happened one had to go back three months in time, when their usual instructor in the kunoichi classes had introduced a very pretty kunoichi named Fuwa Teruha, who would be observing their lessons and even teach them a thing or two. Which she did, but as it recently turned out her real purpose was actually to get a good look at Konoha's future kunoichi and determine whether any of them would be suited to receive training from her as her apprentice. It couldn't just be any girl for the simple reason that besides being the tokubetsu jounin Fuwa Teruha, she was also the ANBU-operative Sasori and Raiha, one of the Fire Daimyo's favoured geisha, and any apprentice she took on would have to be prepared and suited for succeeding all three. Well, the two really, but since she was going to be spending the majority of her time by the Daimyo's court until her three-year assignment there was up, her apprentice would join her as Raiha's Imouto-chan - in other word as a maiko - and receive at least rudimentary geisha-training to keep up appearances. Posing as a geisha or maiko also happened to make for a very useful cover if one could pull it off right and Teruha had confessed that she had used it often to great effect, so she would undoubtedly have ended up teaching how to at one point either way.

But that was just an added bonus; what she really needed was a girl she could train to become one of Konoha's best at infiltration, assassination and to a certain degree seduction like she herself was. Because of especially men's tendency to stupidly judge women by their looks and quickly dismiss them as serious threats, there were many vital missions containing at least one of those three elements where sending in a kunoichi was the best solution, but very few specialized in the last two and even fewer were good enough at them to take on the higher ranking missions.

In the end she had chosen to approach Riye despite her youth, judging that she was ready to take the graduation exam and would be better served with having a sensei who would give her the training needed to draw out her potential as a kunoichi. Apparently Teruha-sensei had seen much of herself in her, knowing well the scepticism delicate-looking pretty girls were met with when wanting to become shinobi and how completely unsuited the taijutsu style taught at the Academy was for them. Moreover she had recognized her determination, drive, ability to consider things logically and the look in her eyes, then read her file and liked what she learned enough to make her decision.

Riye had been more than a little surprised upon hearing the reason Teruha-sensei wanted to talk to her alone after class, but it hadn't taken her more than one sleepless night to make her decision. Of course she hadn't been told about ANBU or the mission then, only what she would be trained to specialize in if she accepted, why these things were important and then they had talked a little about why she of all girls was being offered the chance and Teruha-sensei herself. Much of it had rung true to Riye and resonated with her own thoughts on many key points, so if she could help keep Konoha and her people safe like she had sworn to do by taking on those kinds of missions, then why wouldn't she? Logic dictated that someone would have to do them either way and if that someone who got sent instead wasn't as well-suited for the mission and as a result messed up, then who's responsibility was the lives unnecessary lost to clean up the mess afterwards? Getting the job done as discretely and efficiently as possible was actually like to save more lives, since the people targeted were usually the ringleaders stirring up the trouble; what was the queasiness and guilt from killing such persons compared to the trouble that followed if it wasn't done and done properly? The same applied to infiltration and seduction, both of which were softer options for procuring potentially vital information than for instance interrogation and indefinitely better than going in blind or not catching onto a troublesome situation in time.

The blacknette also hadn't forgotten her resolve from three years ago either; to become strong when her parents' murderer told her she was weak by turning the very things - gender, physique and the knowledge she had inherited from her parents - he mocked into her strengths and repay the life debt she owed to her saviour by keeping her new home safe as a Konoha shinobi, so how could she pass on an opportunity like the one she had been offered?

That very next morning Riye had sought out her future sensei to give her answer and not four hours later she had received her hitai-ate after passing the exam said sensei had taken the liberty of arranging, unsurprisingly receiving her highest marks in the theoretical portion along with ninjutsu and her lowest in taijutsu. They had only just gotten the picture for her newly filled-out ninja registration form taken when she had suddenly been whisked away to a room she later found out was located in ANBU Headquarters, where an ANBU operative with a bird mask she could swear used some type of genjutsu on her did an evaluation before dropping the whole 'Oh, and by the way, since you are now Sasori's apprentice you will be inducted into ANBU yourself'-thing on her.

Yeah, she had thought he was joking too...

It was only when an ANBU with a scorpion mask entered and turned out to be Teruha-sensei that it dawned on her he might not have been, but it wasn't until she heard the explanation that she comprehended why. It made a twisted kind of sense when one considered she was basically being prepped to handle the same missions that now fell to her ANBU-sensei and to that end would be joining her on the ones she took on while in-training, which she couldn't if she wasn't cleared and properly prepared for them. That didn't mean it didn't feel a lot like cheating that she had been allowed to join ANBU's ranks without having been handpicked by the Hokage for her skills like the rest of the members though. The Sandaime Hokage had actually laughed when she confessed that to him, softening the kind of grim expression on his face, though the sadness in his eyes remained even as he told her he had complete faith that it wouldn't take her long to prove that she belonged there as much as her sensei did. That had been just after she 'left' Konoha with her 'geisha aunt' Raiha, who was to be her Onee-sama and take her under her wing until she became a fully fledged 'geisha' herself - or in other words the day Habu had been born.

Slipping down from her perch on the railing, the blacknette lazily stretched and looked in the direction she knew Konoha to be in, wondering not for the first time if Genma had bought the going-off-to-become-a-geisha story. Sadly she hadn't had the opportunity to give him as much as a heads up that she was leaving, never mind been allowed to tell him and Sasaki-obasan the truth - not even the parts unrelated to ANBU - since the fewer people who knew about Hayashi Riye having made genin, the more authentic her decision to leave Konoha to begin geisha-training under the Fire Daimyo's well-established favourite, Raiha, seemed. That in turn lowered the risk of someone not in the know connecting the dots and as annoying as her being unable to share the news with the two was, Riye did know that it was standard procedure to keep on-going missions under wraps, especially ones even remotely connected to ANBU and with her own mission as Habu being to learn as much as possible from Sasori, there was no way anyone not directly involved would be told. So for better or worse she was now Shinrai to all but a select few, since maiko left their old names behind when beginning their training.

Shinrai - that was the second new name she had gained inside as many weeks, only this time it was Teruha-sensei who had picked it out specifically for her. She had had quite a bit of fun with it too, leading to Riye's discovery of her sensei's slightly morbid sense of humour during that last stretch of their journey where they had to ride in a carriage for appearances sake, though not so much in connecting with her student's name as with her own. If asked by anyone not in ANBU she would claim Raiha was written using the kanji for Trust and Flower because that was the pretty version, but personally she much preferred using those for Trust and Breaker or Induce and Defeat, since she found it hilarious considering her actual occupation and usual missions. Compared to that she had really held herself back when deciding on Shinrai for Raiha's Imouto-chan, which could be written using Pure and Trust, but also with the kanji for Needle and Lightning or Invading and Lightning. The irony in those last two versions was that they basically proclaimed not only her newly discovered chakra affinity, but also the ideas she had for applying it, which was simply so idiotic a thing to do for a shinobi that no one would believe it anyway. Riye honestly wasn't sure if she should commend her on a job well done or take it as lack of faith that she hadn't found a way to incorporate a kanji for healing too while she was at it, so she had opted to put it out of her mind and dived into that interesting scroll on the chakra scalpel the medic nins used during surgeries instead.

...which probably wasn't the right way to go about making her reconsider adding that kanji for healing, but it sounded like it could be really useful for someone with her knowledge on anatomy if she could somehow get it to work and the diagnosing technique she already knew, having put those oh-so-pretty green eyes of hers to good use along with every ounce of charm she possessed during a check-up at the hospital after a particularly rough sparring match some months ago - the medic nin knew her well from similar check-ups and questions on various finer point of the human body's functions by then, so it really hadn't been that difficult after she promised to only use it to check over herself until she got formal training. Sadly Teruha-sensei hadn't been able to wrangle acquiring the information on more than those two techniques after she had admitted that medical ninjutsu interested her because it seemed like the natural expansion of the skill sets she had inherited from her parents; Riye really would have liked to get a closer look at how exactly the Shousen no jutsu managed to speed up body's natural healing processes to such a degree, even if she would likely only ever get to use it on herself with the direction her shinobi-career had recently taken. That alone would have been extremely useful though so it was a real shame, but on the bright side her sensei had brought along her private collection of incredible interesting and comprehensive tomes on the human body, which she used in her own study of poisons, plus a scroll she had sniffed out to help her student master her affinity since her own was water.

Had they been heading out on any other mission or a less secure destination, bringing all that valuable information with them would have been the pinnacle of stupidity even if it was sealed into a small innocent-looking scroll keyed to their blood, but by necessity not only the Daimyo but also his Twelve Guardian Ninja knew about the hidden thirteenth kunoichi guard and now by extension her apprentice. In fact it was their knowing and the comparatively safe nature of the mission that had made it a good time for Teruha-sensei to take on an apprentice. That, and before returning to Konoha three months ago following her first year at court as Raiha, she had already been well on her way to going stir crazy from frustration at not actively doing something aside from keeping the Daimyo supportive of Konoha while her comrades fought the war, so she had more or less begged the Hokage to let her use the opportunity to take on an apprentice if she found a suitable candidate before resuming her mission. It was a win-win situation too; in return for giving up a newly graduated genin with little chance of surviving if she was thrown into the war as she was, Konoha would almost certainly gain a properly trained kunoichi and specialized operative in a few years, without even having to spare a jounin from the higher-ranking missions where most genin would only be a liability. With the war raging it was all about efficiency and since the sneaky woman had already presented her request to the Daimyo in such a way that the spoiled, but easily charmed man was both flattered and reassured that she considered his court so safe she wanted to bring her precious student there, it was no wonder Hokage gave his permission.

Riye had honestly thought that the Twelve Guardian Ninja would resent their Daimyo so easily giving an upstart genin permission to freely use the training areas set aside for them, but from what little she had seen of them they didn't appear that bothered. Bearing in mind that she still hadn't met all of them, they also seemed okay; not nice exactly since they were naturally on guard for foul play - they had to be since the Daimyo very obviously wasn't - but competent and surprisingly tolerant of Raiha-san's student considering she could theoretically have had a hidden agenda. In fact the blacknette rather suspected her sensei already had at least two of them more or less wrapped around her little finger, but then who could blame her for having distracted herself from her frustration by taking up the challenge of charming the otherwise highly professional guards, when it also just happened to be a tactically sound move?

Shaking her head to clear her wandering thoughts, Riye turned around and resolutely headed inside with every intention of catching as many hours of much needed sleep as she could with what felt like an army of butterflies in her stomach; Teruha-sensei had decided to essentially throw her head-first into the geisha lifestyle by having her attend her first banquet the very next evening, with only a crash course in the formal arts real geisha spent years training in to rely on. Thankfully she was only attending in the role of minerai, which essentially meant she would be dolled up until she resembled some colourful elaborate work of art and let her looks do the talking, while she learned everything she could from observing the spectacle. Shinrai would continue to participate in the banquets in that role for a month or so until 'graduating' to maiko, at which point she had to have at least sake-pouring, certain dances and melodies on the shamisen down to an art, along with how to move exactly right. Riye thanked the gods she only had to learn just enough to be passable instead of the full repertoire and would have preferred spending her days in one of the training areas, but Teruha-sensei was right in that it could come in very handy later on, so in a sense it was all part of her kunoichi-training.

And more importantly part of the mission the blacknette thought to herself, feeling the butterflies' fluttering die down as her resolve hardened and cold logic quelled the last of her nerves. She could - would - overcome and master anything her sensei threw at her as long as she kept a cool head, which she would because Hayashi Riye was a kunoichi and a damn good one at that, while Habu was an ANBU on a mission and would prove the Hokage right in his faith!

...God, I'm already well on my way towards creating a dissociated personality aren't I?