FIVE
Naruto is born without any shortage of fanfare.
Ling is there when he's born.
"Breathe," she says, trying to soothe Kushina and trying, in vain, to keep said woman from breaking her hand.
"I'd like you to breathe when you have a fucking child, Ling!" she snarls. "Tell that bastard Minato I'll skin him as soon as I see him." She's delirious, not really realizing that her husband was right beside her.
Minato, trying in vain to hold the seal in place only laughs sheepishly.
"Push," Biwako-sama interrupts sternly.
Kushina screeches and screeches and screeches and the next thing Ling registers is a baby's cry.
"It's a boy!" Rin says as she hands the child to the Sandaime's wife.
Minato bursts past Biwako as soon as she moves, practically going onto the bed and agreeing to every death threat Kushina still has the strength and attention to unleash upon him until she's entranced with their child. Rin is right beside then, squealing indecipherably.
Kakashi, who comes in after the whole fiasco shares an exasperate smile with her as he stops by her side. He's close, so close that Ling can feel the warmth of him against her, his hand by her hip. "Ling—" he begins as out of the side of her eye, she sees a newly formed spiderweb on the window.
"What are you doing here?" she teases, cutting into his sentence. "Go and see him."
He rolls his eye and obeys, shuffling towards the excitement as Ling moves toward the window.
The spinner is long gone, but the message on the web is clear. mu nm od s. Summoned.
Ling departs quietly. Out the door and down the stairs, silent as a ghost. She can't help but be reminded of the quiet summer night eight years ago, where she'd slipped out of the door quietly and no one, not one person, went looking for her.
"Hello, Lynx," Koi says, a shadow in the heat of the darkness, mask barely illuminated by the flickers of fireflies flying amok in the tall grass of the field.
She watches him. "What is it?"
He can't possibly be here on Minato's orders. He doesn't know her existence as an ANBU operative and is barely a week into the reigns. Sarutobi's cast his last die, and mobilized his last pawns. It's evident that she is one of them.
"You are to be assigned outside the walls," his voice is neutral, monotone.
Her heart stops and she stops breathing. She doesn't know what she feels and she doesn't think of the loss, the loss. Doesn't dare think of not even be able to return, not be able to even tell them the truth. Loss is tearing her heart apart and tears sting the back of her eyes, throat thickening.
( What will they say? If they saw her, eyes cold and heart detached. With that cold, porcelain mask on her face and her katana stained with blood. What will they say? If they saw her slaughtering the innocent and children, if they saw her turn blind eye to suffering she could end, if she slaughtered teammates in pursuit of success?
Would it be better like this? )
But does it matter, in the end?
She is a soldier of Konohagakure. She left her first teammate to die at twelve, she killed the first at sixteen. She plays by the rules, and she plays to survive. Ling has always come first to herself, so why should it become any different now?
( Someone once said that shinobi are less healthy than drunkards on the streets. Because the drunkards and the homeless release their emotions freely, instead of bottling it up until the day that it explodes, a welting storm that destroys themselves and everyone around them. But it doesn't matter.
Ling can bend and look away for a thousand, a million times, but as long as she never breaks, it does not matter. )
A voice that sounds frighteningly like her own answers. "Understood." It's crisp, neutral and clear. There is no hesitation or fear even as her heart rages and the pressure behind her eyes builds. "Is there anything else?"
Koi shakes his head and his eyes are unreadable behind his mask as she turns, pulling her haori up around her shoulders as she prepares to shushin back towards the village.
Don't get attached. Distance yourself, his words, threads of whispers inside her mind. Koi's final warning and advice as a mentor. Ling wants to scoff, what was the use? You can't stay, so don't make false promises, don't make them wait for someone who isn't coming back.
She says nothing to him before leaving in a blur of white.
+
Packing begins the second Koi leaves her. This is the preliminary round— anything reconnaissance or regarded about her work needs to be gone before she decides any personal belongings to take. Kushina and Minato alongside the rest of her team are celebrating and in euphoria about Naruto. They'll realize her missing, but they'll also realize that she's just had a sixteen-hour shift at the Mission Desk and another eight hours was spent in labour with Kushina.
Ling takes the scrolls first — reports for ANBU missions, assignments and assessments. ANBU paperwork cannot be linked to her in any way. If she's exposed, her agents will be in contact with the same level of risk on their missions. They're hidden behind paintings and beneath flowerpots, tucked in books and coded carefully using haiku phrases.
Her katana is next, she burns the ANBU uniform and seals her mask with her katana in a storage seal she then applies to the seal tattooed onto her skin to cover her ANBU mark.
+
"Sensei," she greets, one morning in him and Kushina's apartment.
"Ling-kun," Minato smiles. "What's wrong?" His tone is cheerful and light, but his eyes are darkened with concern. Nowadays she rarely seeks him out alone. It's a sudden flash of guilt, because while she's forgiven Kakashi, she doesn't think that she'll ever regain the same blind trust she once had in him before Obito's death. Perhaps it could've been rebuilt if she had tried in the same way she did with Kakashi, but now, it would be impossible.
It takes a rush of courage before she finally opens her mouth again. "I would like to request for a position outside the village, sensei. Would you mind giving me a recommendation?"
Minato chokes on his tea, eyes wide. "Ling," he says, voice low. "What is the sudden interest to leave the village?" After Kannabi, she's been becoming more and more unstable. But she thinks he doubted that it would ever come to this, where she rejects the village entirely. "Is it Kakashi? Is... Is Shikaku bothering you too much with his gossiping? I can go talk to him if you want."
A pause, silence.
"I'm glad," she says, a rehearsed speech. Guilt, distance, just the smallest bit of sadness. "That you care so much about me. But, this isn't about me. I just want to expand my horizons. I want to see more of the world than I do serving at the mission desk. Also, I believe that I'm somewhat of a liability to Kakashi and Rin... And you. I don't exactly live up to the three of you and I believe that my abilities would be more useful elsewhere— Because I know all of you guys are trying your best to protect Konoha. And I am grateful, sensei, for all the work and hardships you've endured alongside us, for us, and for Konoha so, for once, please allow me to do the same. Allow me to serve you guys, to serve Konoha."
( There are times, there are days she thinks it would be a relief to no longer be surrounded by the village. By the people one once found as comforts. Ling is changing she's changing so quickly and she just wants to be able to change into someone that she can be proud of becoming. Because while she's laughed and laughed with her teacher, her teammates and her colleagues it has also been years of lying to herself that she's fine like this, that these past years weren't just a... A burst of smoke and illusions and... Fading fires and just her unable to settle, unable to find balance. Unwilling to find balance. )
His back is facing her now as he turns stares out the window. This softness, Ling thinks. This kindness. It strikes her in the heart. This is a sudden realization.
"Of course, Ling." Her sensei wants her to be happy.
The first and last teacher she ever adored, the first person she ever trusted her life with, her father figure and her idol, her hero. And she was repaying him for all those years with pain.
But ah, this was Minato Namikaze. The Yellow Flash. The Hero of the Third Shinobi War. The Yondaime Hokage. He is a man, a teacher, a lover— And human, so utterly loyal and devoted to those he saw fit. Koi wouldn't have cared to ask why, neither would Danzo. And it is only then, that she realizes why she has to be the one to do this. Why Sarutobi asked her all those years before. Because Konohagakure, the largest hidden village, (her village), the only hidden village where its shinobi laughs freely, the only village that is protected by their kindness. And the night sky would always need to darken in order for the stars (Minato, Kushina, Rin) and the moon (Kakashi) to shine (to live, to be happy).
And Ling wants— Wants so terribly to apologize, wants so terribly for him to insist that she stays in this nirvana, with his steady wisdom, Kushina's maternal temper, Kakashi, Rin—
"Arigato, sensei."
She's always been responsible, calm, ambitious and cold. But there is a moment that she isn't. Still silent, still freezing inside her living room.
Looking at the flowers, the pots and the light streaming through the half-closed blinders on her window. The well-loved countertop and the dog hairs still left on brightly coloured cushions.
This is home, how could she leave?
Tears prick the back of her eyes as her throat wells with loneliness. Ling cries, clutching herself inside her home, her safe haven, and at that moment, more than ever she wishes that she wasn't alone.
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