Their first mission was happily uneventful.

As was their second. And third. And fourth. And fifth.

It was at the sixth mission that Shiki got fed up. Sayaka had to hand it to him though, he'd really reeled in his impatience and frustration for a long while. She and the other boy weren't really happy with how things were either, but they knew that they didn't have a choice in the matter.

"You need to start small for everything," Nanao reasoned easily, dismissing the redhead's indignant cries. "Look, Shinobi don't just go out into the field with the best jobs from the get-go — you're just Genin, you're stuck with this for now."

Apparently, Team Seven's Uzumaki Naruto had already caused a ruckus about it in front of the Hokage and, much to Shiki's displeasure, had been granted a C-Ranked mission.

Meanwhile, they were still stuck with D-Ranks.

So went on their daily missions, uneventful as ever.

They'd just finished cleaning up a river that the people had changed into a dump yard, and Nanao decided they'd done enough for that day. It was just after noon, since they'd started on the job in the early hours of the morning, and the last day of a tiresome week of stupid jobs.

Sayaka wanted nothing more than to hide in her room for the rest of the day, and maybe visit her mother again.

"Hey, Sayaka!"

The blonde glanced back as she heard one of the boys call her name. She'd been the first to walk away when their Sensei had dismissed them, and would've gone the whole way without looking back even once if he hadn't yelled to her.

"What?" A frown slipped onto her face. Shiki was the one who'd called, oddly enough. He never did seem to bother to talk to her, almost as if he was intentionally ignoring her presence. Not that she minded, of course — he did have a tendency to be astonishingly loud.

Both boys were standing just ahead of her, the last member of their squadron nowhere to be seen. "Well," he started, glancing back at Kazuto for a moment with a smirk playing on his lips, "we're heading down to the ramen place later. You want to come?"

She blinked. Once, twice, thrice.

They were inviting her to join them?

. . . well.

"I don't see why not," she responded with a shrug.

It should prove to be a calming distraction, and she needed something like that. The inner conflict hadn't exactly died down yet, although it had been subdued by their simple missions.

The redhead seemed to grin at that, much to the other boy's annoyance and the girl's confusion. "Great! See you in an hour, then! Ichiraku's Ramen!" With a wave, he turned and tugged Kazuto after him.

She stared after them, unmoving.

What the heck was that?

•

It turned out that Team Seven had had the same idea.

And Uzumaki Naruto could sure give Shiki a run for his money with that impossibly loud voice.

"Like peas in a pod . . ." Sayaka grumbled, fighting off the urge to cover her ears with her hands at their yelling. It was a miracle they hadn't been thrown out.

The pink-haired girl who'd sat down beside her sheepishly scratched the back of her head. "Ahah . . . sure looks like it."

Groaning, the blonde turned her attention to the bowl in front of her, eating quickly so that she could just leave. She'd agreed without giving it much thought, and now she was regretting it.

"Hey, Sayaka-chan," Sakura spoke up again. When the blonde glanced over and tilted her head in question, she continued, "Um, from what I remember, you're Ino's sister, aren't you?"

This seemed to catch the interest of Kazuto, who was sitting on Sayaka's other side. He'd been completely silent the whole while, something that felt rather . . . off.

"Huh? You are?" he asked.

"Gee, I wonder why I could do the Mind Body Switch technique," she answered dryly with a roll of her eyes. "We're not exactly sisters, per se. She's my second cousin, twice removed." She paused for a second, frowning. "Or so I think. I'm not sure."

The black-haired boy frowned. "So your mother is from the Yamanaka clan?"

Persistent idiot.

"Was, yeah," she answered nonchalantly, ignoring the way both of their eyes widened. She gestured at his untouched bowl of ramen with her chopsticks. "Would you happen to be planning on eating anytime soon?"

Strangely enough, his face flushed and he quickly looked away, picking up his chopsticks and training his attention on the food before him. The look of bemusement on the Haruno girl's face most likely mirrored her own — at least until it turned into a smirk.

"Looks like somebody has a crush~!" Sakura sang, grinning at Kazuto. The other girl simply gave her a blank stare. Leaning over Sayaka, the pink-haired female whispered indiscreetly to the boy. "Good luck, Kazuto-kun!"

His face seemed to get even redder, right to the tips of his ears.

But of course, Sayaka paid it no mind, focusing on her food that was quickly being emptied out of the bowl and writing it off as a weird . . . thing.

Shiki had shut up for the moment, observing the situation with a surprisingly blank face. His new best friend was seated on the other side of Sakura, with the third member of Team Seven — that boy Ino was obsessed with, wasn't it? — sitting farther off to the side and probably silently judging them all.

With a sigh, Sayaka dropped her chopsticks on the now empty bowl and lifted herself out of her seat. Leaving the payment to her teammates — because she was nice like that, and also because she hadn't brought any money with her — she turned and left the establishment after offering a short goodbye to Sakura.

She didn't bother saying anything to her own teammates, mostly because Kazuto wasn't even looking at her — or anywhere near her — and Shiki . . . well, he was Shiki. This time, she went straight home, leaving off the grave visit for later.

•

It was the very next day that Sayaka came upon a new dilemma.

After a long training session with Nanao-sensei and the rest of the team, she'd gone home to rest, shower and eat. Once all that was done, she was off to the gravesite.

But first, she needed flowers.

And that meant visiting Ino.

The young girl internally cringed as she stood outside the Yamanaka's flower shop, steeling herself to enter and praying that her second-cousin-twice-removed-or-something wasn't home.

Yamanaka Ino was very lively and excitable — her least favourite type of person. Her luck seemed to be not nearly as good as she'd have hoped, because just then, the familiar figure of the girl she wanted so badly to avoid stepped out from the house.

A bright grin was on the Yamanaka's face as Sayaka was quickly noticed and trapped in a suffocating embrace. "Saya-chan! I haven't seen you in so long!" she exclaimed, her grip of her growing only tighter.

"Ino," 'Saya-chan' replied in a strained voice, "please get off me."

A pout was visible on the girl's face as she grudgingly detached herself from her cousin, who simply rolled her eyes at her. "Hey! What kind of way is that to treat your older sister?!"

"If I remember right, I'm the older one," Sayaka retorted, "and we're extremely distant cousins."

"Same thing!"

No, not the same thing.

"Can we just get this done with? I was hoping to be back before nightfall."

Ino rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath. "The usual, right?" she asked, despite already knowing. "Wait here, I'll get it for you."

She was out of that place as soon as the flowers had entered her hands and the money left them.

And she was so not sorry.

•

For once, she found herself speaking to the grave.

Sayaka had never done that before. She had never understood how her father was able to address the mound of earth as if he were addressing her mother still. Yes, it was her safe place, but her mother wasn't there.

All it was was an excuse, and she knew that.

But the words left her anyway.

"I'm so confused," she whispered. "So confused."

What do I do?

"Should I run and hide?"

Why stick around?

"Or stay and try?"

But is it even worth it?

"I—I just . . ." She took a deep breath, feeling tears well up in her eyes. "I just don't know. I love my team, I really do! I've barely known them a few weeks and they seem even closer to me than even Ino's ever been, and we practically grew up together, even if we're not so close anymore. And—and I've learned so much from them, with them . . . but that doesn't really change anything, does it?

"I'm still the same person I was when I came into this. I'm still afraid. Nothing's going to change that fear. And I don't think I can manage with it — out there, in the real world, in the face of real danger. As long as I'm in the village, I know I'm safe. No one'll touch me. Nothing can happen. But . . . as soon as I'm out of these borders, I don't know what'll happen.

"I don't know if I'll be able to hold it in. I—I don't know if they'll be able to help. I don't know what'll happen. I don't want to think about it, b—but with each day, I—I'm coming closer to that moment. So much closer, and just . . ." She swallowed thickly, tears that she didn't have the heart to suppress rolling down her cheeks.

"I don't want to end up like you."

•

Nanao was more than a little annoyed by the current state of affairs.

She wasn't sure if she should be proud of her new team like her colleagues kept insisting — she had the Mizumoto genius and two unknown but talented graduates, after all — or despairing of the fact that she had to be reminded of her own shortcomings every time she saw them.

Yamanaka Miyuki had been the Jounin assigned to oversee the team on which Hyuuga Nanao had been placed — before she took on the name of Mizumoto from her marriage with Mizumoto Kouji. As far as Nanao knew of her old teammates, they were still working in the informations sector, one of them having joined the Torture & Interrogation Sector under the infamous Morino Ibiki. But that wasn't the point.

The point was that Miyuki had died shortly after Nanao had been awarded the rank of Jounin, when her two teammates had still been Chuunin. She had died protecting them when Nanao couldn't.

Effectively, she had killed her.

It took everything she had to regain her composure as she knocked on the door to the Hokage's office, having been called there by one of the ANBU. The familiar voice of Sarutobi Hiruzen granted her permission to enter, at which she opened the door, stepping in and bowing.

"I would appreciate it if we could skip the pleasantries. I have a mission for your team." He obviously didn't really seem eager to waste time. "It's quite important, although not very difficult or demanding."

"Outside of Konoha, then?"

The old man nodded, passing over a slip with the mission details. The Hyuuga woman frowned down at the piece of paper.

"It's simple, really," the Hokage continued. "A delivery mission. Your team just has to take these scrolls over to the Sand." He gestured at the two scrolls laid on the table in front of him.

"The Sand?" The frown was still written across her face. "What for? We're not exactly on great terms with them."

He hesitated slightly, sighing. "An invitation to the Kazekage to come and spectate the third round of the Chuunin exams. In order to strengthen relations with the Sand, the Council decided this was an appropriate step to take."

She nodded in understanding, a blank look now upon her features. "Oh, right. That time's coming again, huh?"

•

It was whole lot of complaints later — most of them from a certain redhead — that Team Eleven set out for the Hidden Sand Village of the Wind Country in the early hours of the next day.

Kazuto and Shiki — despite the latter's grumbles for being woken up so early — were both quite excited with the new mission. It was to be expected, of course — all they'd been doing so far was cleaning up around the village and hunting down lost possessions.

Yet an eerie sense of déjà vu was upon the brunette as she found herself continually glancing at the blonde girl, noting the hastily built mask that seemed so close to breaking.

It might have been because of the fact that she'd already been thinking on it not so long ago. She'd already established that the only similarity Mizumoto Sayaka had to her mother was her appearance. Really, it shouldn't have been so reminiscent of that day.

But the strange sense of foreboding wouldn't leave, no matter how much she insisted that she wouldn't end up the same way.

She wouldn't let it happen again.

•••

Word Count: 2,213
First Posted: 09/03/2016
Rewritten: 18/06/2016
Last Edited: 29/07/2016