Chapter Text
PART ONE:
You'll never make me leave
I wear this on my sleeve
You want to follow something
Give me a better cause to lead
Just give me what I need
Give me a reason to believe
“Baki-kun. Fancy meetin’ you here.”
“Akano-san.” He replies, voice flat.
“Aw, don’t be like that.” She teases.
Baki’s eyes slide up and down her body, lingering on her hair before narrowing in apparent distaste. The younger boy sneers before turning back to his teammates.
She sticks out her tongue at his back. Their two squads had been assigned to the same stretch of border patrol, the least he could do is be civil. At fifteen and a jonin to his twelve and chunin, she deserved a bit more respect.
Sighing, Shiho pulls her cowboy hat lower over her eyes to ward off the unrelenting sun. It was gonna be a long four weeks.
-
Akano Shiho was born in a small village just outside Sunagakure, the daughter of a whore in a house of whores. Apparently her mother’s birth control failed, a fact she was repeatedly reminded of. Everyone loved to remind the village outcast how much she wasn’t wanted.
Her skin, a soft brown, was several shades lighter than her mother’s, but it was her hair that marked her as Other, even before she showed the spark of unnatural intelligence that didn’t belong to a child. Silver, bright silver, and softer than her mother’s more textured hair, it didn’t take very long for Shiho to realize it was the reason behind the scorn. Now, at first she couldn’t understand why it was silver of all colors that did it. Her neighbor’s hair was a light green for fucks sake. Surely that was weirder.
It wasn’t until she heard one of the girls muttering about a Konoha-nin that she began to wonder. Was her father a foreign shinobi? Why should that matter? She was a citizen of the Land of Wind, the same as them. Besides, Tsuna’s mom was from Kumo, and old man Hide was from the Land of Iron, so clearly immigrants weren’t the problem.
She only found out her likely-father’s identity when she was four.
It took several failed attempts, but she had finally found a bingo book. Well. She stole it off an inattentive chuunin while he was fucked by a prostitute, but she prefers the term found. Anyways, she quickly located the only likely candidate that would warrant the hate thrown a toddler’s way.
Hatake Sakumo, the White Fang, scourge of Suna. Apparently even S-rank legends got horny enough to visit a foreign brothel… ew. That had been fucking gross to think about.
But it had explained why everyone took one look at her and frowned. The White Fang was one of the most despised shinobi in the Land of Wind, despite being relatively young. Just a few years ago he had killed an entire field of Suna-nin, including many respected jonin. There was only one clan in the entire elemental nations with hair like spun silver. Oh, there were grays, and whites, and the occasional ashy blond. But only Hatake’s had silver.
And so, in a small village outside Sunagakure, Akano Shiho bore the brunt of a town’s fear and hate, and hated and feared them in turn. Until she decided enough was enough and channeled all that rage and crackling energy into getting stronger.
She left the brothel at five, and made her way to Suna proper by hitching a ride on a caravan. Ignoring the stares, she then marched right up to the nearest gate guard and demanded entrance to the hidden village’s academy. Rough clothes, course country accent, silver hair and all.
And eight years later she’s clawed her way kicking and screaming to jonin, grudgingly seen as more than her father’s bastard.
—
“I’m home.” She calls softly to the dim apartment. Dust floating in the air is illuminated in the light of the midday sun behind her before she fully shuts the door.
Padding on silent feet to her kitchen, Shiho smiles faintly when she sees her succulents are still alive. Picking up her favorite, one with green that fades to pale pink tips, she rubs her fingers over the terra cotta. It’s blessedly cool to the touch.
“Okay darlins. Let’s get you fed.”
The ritual is calming, and soon the face of the young chuunin she killed is shoved out of her mind. Shifts on border patrol are mentally exhausting, even if they aren’t always physically. Keeping alert for weeks isn’t pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. She remembers when it didn’t have to be this way. When child soldiers were frowned upon. A different time in a different world in a different life. When she had softer hands and drove a car and went to university. When she didn’t have to kill to survive.
And then she died and woke up here and now she’s Akano Shiho, and it’s all a moot point, really. It doesn’t matter who she was. That girl is dead and gone.
Shiho looks up in her empty apartment and nods once.
“I’m bored.”
And Suna, which has learned to fear her boredom, shudders.
Somewhere, a young teen sneezes.
—
“SASORIIIIIII”
“Don’t you fucking dare I’m holding-” he’s cut off as she throws herself bodily at his arms. Like she knew he would, he drops the cup and catches her.
“-tea.” He sighs. She smiles sweetly up at his face. He immediately drops her.
She sticks the landing, because she’s a fucking kunoichi, and shoves lightly at his shoulder. Around them civilian patrons are rapidly clearing the tea shop.
“C’mon!” She grins at him, sharp canines flashing, and holds out her hand in invitation.
A shout echoes behind them and her expression tightens.
Sasori sighs and looks mournfully at his tea, but he takes her hand and pulls her towards the back of the shop and out the back door instead of the window she was eyeing up.
“What’d you do this time?”
“I’m pleading the fifth.”
“... what?”
—
Later, as they lie on the roof of one of the many domed buildings under the stars, Shiho feels his eyes on her and glances over.
“What did they say this time?”
She’s quiet for a long time.
“... they said I was nothing more than a mongrel bitch. That I probably spread my legs like my ‘whore mother’ to get my rank.”
“I’ll kill them.”
“Sasori… no.”
Suddenly he turns, face pinched in anger.
“What has this village ever done to deserve the loyalty you’ve consistently shown it? Huh? They kick you like a dog and you just roll over and take it.” He rants.
Shiho feels a flash of indignant anger before it’s muffled by sadness.
“Out of everyone…” she whispers, “you have the most reason to hate me.”
Sasori’s anger deflates and instead he just looks exhausted.
“I don’t blame you for what your father did. Hatake Sakumo killed my parents. Akano Shiho has only ever been my friend.” He says softly.
Embarrassingly, Shiho feels tears well up in her eyes.
Uncomfortable, Sasori glances back to the stars.
“This village doesn’t deserve us.” He whispers, voice barely audible over the wind. The next words are so quiet she has to strain to hear them as they’re swallowed by the night. “We could just leave.”
She doesn’t reply, just scoots closer so that their arms brush together.
—
When the second war ended, Shiho had waited and watched. She knew that another war was inevitable. She could remember history classes, weeks spent analyzing the causes and contributing factors of a series of different world wars.
Disatisfaction, the sting of unfair reparations, blurred borders. The allure of revenge. She could read the cards. So when the third war officially broke out, Shiho was ready.
Suna has never been kind to her, but it is her home. She loves her country. She loves the way sunlight strikes the sand and paints it gold, the spicy food, the beautiful mosaics artisans make of glazed terra cotta tiles. She even loves the people, even if they don’t love her.
So while Sasori dyes the sand red with blood, she is right beside him.
Grinning, Shiho twirls her whip and then let’s it crack across the knuckles of a boy starting a jutsu. With a curse his hand seals are interrupted and he gets a kunai to his throat.
Suddenly, she feels more than sees a kunai whiz past her ear, and quick as a snake she snatches it out of the air and launches it back. Her body is a rhythm of block sidestep parry stab , the steps to a dance she learned through blood and sweat and tears.
She’s brought down a good chunk of the invading force, but there’s still so many more. Mostly chuunin with a handful of jonin, her and Sasori are more than enough to match them. But even a genin can get a lucky hit in, especially when they have greater numbers.
Fuck, this needs to end.
Across the dunes she sees a huge man with thick armor slide a sword into a kid’s back and she sees red.
Palming some kunai, Shiho lets her lightning chakra coat the blades until they burn white hot. The middle of battle might not be the time to experiment with jutsu, it’s more likely than not to blow up in her face but… she needs this. She can feel her palms blistering but they need just a touch more…
There. She launches the now white blades at the armored nin and watches as he brings up an arm to knock them aside when instead they pierce straight through. One slams into his chest and out the other side, blood sizzling in an arc through the air.
She twists under a fireball and feels it singe her back. Grimacing, Shiho flares her chakra. It crackles and rages deep under her skin until suddenly it’s all she can do not to fall under the weight of it. And then- she lets it go.
Wild arcs of lightning streak across the sand, leaping from enemy shinobi to enemy shinobi. It seeks out the metal on their bodies and she sees one poor bitch seize as it collides with her sword. The ones that she hit fall, twitching, and Shiho dispatches who she can. But she only deliberately goes for the adults, and even lets a couple shivering genin drop their blades and sprint away.
And then there is silence, as nearby Sasori’s puppet slides a sword through the final nin’s back. She signs mission complete, affirmative?
And at Sasori's ever impatient affirmative, quickly she begins carefully picking her way across the sand to check the bodies.
Where the electricity had hit the ground, chunks of glass lay glinting in the hot sun. She kicks one of the twisting formations and it breaks with a satisfying crunch. Picking up an abandoned sword, Shiho glares enviously as Sasori simply uses a puppet to confirm kills. She has to get all up close and personal to slit throats.
Once they’ve checked and looted the last corpse, Shiho glances over the red soaked battlefield and begins wrapping her blistered fingers. She has a cut on her bicep that she didn’t even notice getting and her right ear is ringing from an explosion but- her and her best friend are alive and victorious and that’s all that matters.
She steps over three bodies and brushes a hand across Sasori’s wrist and feels his pulse thrum steady and strong.
It’s all that matters.
—
He leaves Suna three weeks later.
—
Shiho lines her eyes with black kohl to hide the bruises that darken them. A week spent under the tender care of T&I has left her exhausted… but at least she can pretend to herself a little longer that the tears and lack of sleep are from interrogation alone.
Sunagakure didn’t take kindly to one of their strongest shinobi just up and leaving, and as his closest friend she was apparently clearly suspect. As if she hasn’t been anything but loyal.
As if Sasori didn’t leave her behind too.
Her interrogator had been a chunin she used to run missions with. Mitsuo had grinned as he snapped her fingers, had smiled as she bit her lip and drew blood. He knew that she didn’t know anything. He just enjoyed her pain. The only comfort she drew was how he flinched away from eye contact. A couple years ago she had been chosen for promotion instead of him, despite him, and he never forgave her that ( and he never forgave himself ). As if she didn’t have to work three times harder to prove herself. As if he hadn’t intentionally tried to sabotage her efforts and screwed up his own instead. As if, as if, as if.
“What? Did the puppy get left behind? You couldn’t hide behind his skirts forever, slut. Maybe now the kazekage will see how much of a worthless bitch you are.” He spat as he broke another finger. The other nin on duty had pointedly turned his back.
A low rumble built deep in her chest, a sound human vocal cords shouldn’t be able to reach. She felt deep satisfaction as Mitsuo paled and stumbled away, reeking of fear. They should have remembered that dogs were descended from wolves.
They left her alone after that.
Finally the kazekage’s advisor, Sasori’s grandmother Chiyo, had come to see her in the pits of T&I. Her eyes were harder than stone, but whatever she saw on Shiho’s face had softened them. Maybe it was the same Sasori shaped hole left behind in both of their lives.
She was released soon after.
So before she even leaves the building, Shiho finds ( steals ) some makeup from a desk and makes her eyes big and dark and bold. She paints a shield and a sword in one stroke as she thinks, look me in the eyes as you spit on my name. The people of Suna have always hated her, but now they distrust her, so Shiho lines her eyes in black and pulls her silver hair into two sloppy buns and forces them to look at what they love to hate.
And if back in the safety of her apartment she breaks down and cries, well, no one needs to know.
The worst part? She can’t even say she was surprised he left.
—
They say time heals all wounds. It certainly dulls them, at least a little.
The citizens of Sunagakure slowly lose their hate and anger. It’s hard to hold an irrational grudge for so long, so they learn to set all of her perceived faults aside and actually begin to see her.
They see her train, endlessly, day after day after day, and walk back to her apartment stumbling. The women at the market stalls are there as she tries octopus okonomiyaki for the first time, and they laugh as she spits out the expensive import. Her favorite bar keeps sweet potato shochu ready for her.
It’s better. She would even call it nice.
But her kage has been sending her on increasingly difficult missions lately. An idiot would be flattered, honored with the responsibility. She knows the truth. It’s a death sentence. She’ll be slowly run into the ground at this rate.
Shiho decides to become stronger instead.
After her fourteenth solo A-rank, she comes home bleeding after almost losing a leg and decides fuck it.
The next day she marches up to Chiyo and stares her in the eye.
“Train me.”
“And why should I, Shiho of the White Sand ? You’re making a name for yourself among our jonin well enough.”
Ah yes, her moniker. They started calling her that after the white glass chunks her lightning left in the sand. The fact that it mirrors Sasori’s, her best friend’s Suna’s most famous missing nin? Well that’s just adding insult to injury.
“It’s not about becoming well known. It’s about surviving, Chiyo-sama.”
The elder kunoichi’s gaze is piercing, assessing. Once again her fate is determined by whatever this woman sees in her. The weight of her stare hangs heavy for several seconds before Chiyo finally nods once.
Her new teacher is brutally efficient. Together, they train long before the sun rises until long after, when Chiyo is called away for administrative duties.
Shiho had never bothered to learn chakra strings, deeming her steel whip and lightning jutsu to be enough. But against harder and harder opponents? She needs to add to her arsenal.
She’ll never be good enough for puppetry. But picking up and controlling multiple kunai? That she channels lightning through? That’s all she needs. And if she closes her eyes, she can pretend she’s a Jedi, like in that story from before. Although, she supposes the lightning would make her a Sith .
Well, with ten white hot kunai fanned out behind her head, she certainly feels badass. She’s beginning to understand why Chiyo and Sasori enjoy using them so much.
—
Shiho’s running through some drills when Chiyo tosses her a yellowed scroll and grunts. Confused, Shiho twists it in her hands before carefully rolling open the aged parchment.
“Chiyo-shishou… I cannot accept this.”
“Nonsense girl. It’s been sitting on my shelf for years. I’m incompatible, and my brother doesn’t want it and has no children to pass it on to. They should go to a good home… if they accept you that is.”
Held delicately in her grasp is an old summoning contract. One that’s been in Chiyo’s family for generations. Jackals. Sunagakure’s enemies still tell stories of them, despite the fact that the last summoner was reportedly almost four decades ago, when the village was still nothing more than a loose collection of wandering tribes.
“Normally I would have told the proper channels that you’re attempting a contract.” Chiyo pauses, and Shiho hears what’s unsaid- that she should have but didn’t- and she leans forward.
“It would give you a month to sign it and get the details sorted out. Mostly your end of the contract, along with time to practice with the summons.”
Shiho nods.
Chiyo speaks slowly and deliberately, continuing, “It also alerts the village that if you survive first contact with the clan then you’re ready for a jump in mission complexity. But you’ve been getting hard enough missions, haven’t you?” She murmurs the last bit.
Shocked, she realizes that Chiyo knows what the village is doing. And if she can’t stop it as an advisor then it runs even higher than her. Shiho’s kage is trying to exhaust her to death and she doesn’t even know why. At least her teacher is giving her another tool to survive without giving the village an excuse to send her on even more difficult missions… because gaining a summoning contract automatically bumps you up a letter grade in mission eligibility.
“I… thank you.”
“Thank me when you make it through this alive, girl.” Chiyo chuckles, waving a hand. “I’ll cover for you. Go on.”
Of course.
Running through a quick check of her chakra and supplies, Shiho decides she’s as ready as she’ll ever be. She has no idea how these summons will test her, but there’s no use waiting and agonizing over it. All she can do is jump right in.
—
Her new summons are assholes.
She loves them.
After forcing her to hunt them down all across their realm, chasing after shadows, they throw her into a pit and make her fight several of them, tournament style.
The eccentric band of canines make her work for it, almost tearing her apart with their sharp teeth and even sharper wit, but by the end of a grueling week Shiho has the approval of the last clan of Jackals and a contract signed in blood.
The wild dogs are a jovial bunch with a carefree demeanor that covers a mean streak a mile wide. They get along perfectly.
The first thing she noticed was their names- every jackal is named after a musical instrument, with some of them even incorporating instruments into their fighting style. Their boss is a giant matriarch named Benten. One, a larger girl named Biwa, wields a bachi like a blade. She strikes her opponents with the same gusto she strikes her instrument.
Their world is similar to the home she just left- a series of caves nestled in cliffs surrounded by seemingly endless desert. The only thing that marks this place as other is the strange purple tint to the sky no matter the time of day. It’s… peaceful.
Three of the wild dogs agree to oversee her training, a small yellow jackal named Koto, a larger blue one named Taiko, and the youngest, Sho. The three of them nip at her heels when she messes up, but she grows fond of them over the course of her stay there.
Of course, she can’t stay forever. So when her time is up she reluctantly leaves for the human realm and all the pain that comes with it.
—
When the council summons you, you drop everything and answer.
Shiho does exactly that, quite literally dropping the shirt she was considering and apologizing to the clerk on her way out of the shop. He waves a hand dismissively, clearly used to shinobi ducking out unexpectedly.
Bounding across the roofs, she looks at the blood red sunset, rays of light bleeding across the horizon, and she feels a twinge of unease. The last time she got called before the council, she was sent on a mission deep into the very heart of Iwa.
Arriving at the council’s chambers, Shiho sees the full group spread before her and her unease deepens to dread. And after a glance at Chiyo’s grim expression, she debates the merits of turning right back around and walking out the door.
“Akano-san. Close the door.”
There goes that option.
—
Whatever else people say about her, she’s good at her job, attacking her missions with a tenacity that always carries her through.
Shiho just wishes that she was a tad less stubborn.
Because otherwise she would be three countries away starting her life as a missing-nin, and not currently heading deep into the heart of Kiri on a fool's run to her own death. She clenches a fist and keeps moving. Her foolish pride will carry her straight to hell, but maybe she can drag as many as possible down with her.
She has no more fucks to give.
The towering cliffs that surround Kirigakure loom ever closer and Shiho drops all pretense of stealth. It would never work in the first place. Her best bet is speaking the same language as the crazy fuckers who produce ninja the likes of the seven swordsmen- recklessness and impulsivity. She’s going to be known as either the bravest or stupidest motherfucker in the elemental nations.
Silhouettes flicker in her periphery, keeping pace as she nears the village. But like she thought, they simply wait and watch, curious. Only Kiri nin are absurd enough to wait and watch as someone infiltrates their village. Granted. Is it infiltration if she walks straight through the front door?
Kiri’s black ops flicker into sight. A warning. Their white masks look on as she takes one pointed step through the gates, past the guards who are gaping at her. They bristle, but, point made, Shiho simply stands and waits. Her heart threatens to burst right out of her chest, but outwardly she shows no signs of distress, only a cool indifference.
“What is your intention, stranger?” A man flash-steps into view, a huge blade on his back. She glances at it, curious, but it doesn’t match the descriptions of one of the legendary blades. Aw.
Shiho clears her throat, suddenly nervous, and speaks as clearly as she can.
“I’m here to kill the Mizukage.”
Laughter. It breaks the stunned silence until almost every shinobi nearby is shaking with it. A civilian sticks their head outside a building and immediately pulls back inside with a squeak.
“You?” The man laughs even harder.
Shiho frowns. Well that’s just rude. Just because she knows she doesn’t have a chance doesn't mean they had to be mean about it.
A woman stumbles up to the man with the sword, clutching her side, wheezing, sharp teeth bared in a grin so wide it looks painful. She taps a bingo book against his arm repeatedly, finger marking a page, and he finally takes it.
Oh boy...
He takes one look at what she presumes is her entry and begins a new round of great heaving laughter. There are tears on his face. She knows what’s written there, she’s seen her own bounty, but c'mon. This is getting ridiculous. An A-ranking was respectable, dammit!
Granted, the difference between an A-rank jonin and an S-rank Kage is like the distance between an academy student and a chunin. All of a sudden the weight of her situation hits her, and it takes all she has not to stumble where she stands.
What the fuck is she even doing?
She’s deep in enemy territory, blatantly challenging their leader, surrounded by a whole squad of ninja who are howling with unrestrained glee. 19 years old and about to die in the armpit village of the Elemental Nations. Well. In for a penny, in for a pound…
“What? Is he scared?” She taunts, voice steady despite the pounding of her pulse.
The ninja around her immediately sober up, expressions flat.
“You shouldn’t speak so freely, tree hugger. Mind your tone.” The woman says.
Wait a second. Tree hugger?
“I’m from Suna,” She says slowly, “ Suna.”
“Yeah right, Hatake. And I’m from Iwa.”
“You literally have my bingo book entry right there!” Shiho stomps her foot.
Shark teeth lady holds the book out, and Shiho squints to see her page is listed under the unaffiliated or unknown section. What the fuck.
“Suna hasn’t claimed you, so nice try.”
Shiho suddenly understands why they make her cover her hair as much as possible when she leaves the village. They didn’t want to associate her obvious lineage with them.
Just as she’s about to start throttling someone, an immense aura bears down on all of them. Everyone shuts the fuck up immediately, even shark lady.
“And why is the intruder still here?” A voice calls from the mist. The Mizukage has arrived.
A bead of sweat rolls down Shiho’s face. She’s petty enough to be glad that the Mist nin are sweating as well.
“I’m here to challenge you to a duel.” Shiho speaks up.
The third Mizukage is a serious looking man, with the glint of pearls in his long black hair. He stares at her, face unreadable for a long moment.
“And what is stopping me from just ordering my men to kill you?” He asks softly.
Shiho watches his face carefully as she speaks. “If you win, I’ll defect to Kirigakure. I’ll tell you everything I know about my village- including who the jinchuriki is. You can’t torture the information out of me- but I will give it willingly if you win.”
Whispers break out around them but they’re silenced at a flicker of his chakra.
“I won’t entertain this fool any longer. Kill her.”
Shit. Her chances at a 1v1 plummeting, Shiho decides it’s time for plan B- B for Bad Fucking Idea.
Shiho leaps away from the arc of a giant sword and flashes through hand signs.
“Summoning jutsu!”
A decent chunk of her chakra vanishes as four jackals of varying sizes burst from the smoke, snarling. Dearest Biwa slices a throat with her bachi and then immediately begins setting up a barrier jutsu.
The mizukage blows bubbles, which shrink as they’re pressurized with chakra until they resemble pearls. Several whiz past her face, but Shiho has trained with Suna’s two best puppet masters- projectiles are child’s play to dodge.
Utakata Kuroda, even as a shimmering barrier separates him from the rest of his forces, regards her calmly. Pearls float in a halo around him.
“You’re sure about doing this, then.”
Shiho scoffs, “I’m dead either way. The only way out is through.”
“Alright then. Come.”
They fight.
She unwinds her newest whip with a crack and makes an exploratory snap at his ankles. A beast of a weapon composed of segmented steel sections. He barely even looks as he sidesteps the notched tip and she scowls. She’s racing against the clock of the barrier, and he knows it. She doesn’t have time for a prolonged fight, and he has all of the time in the world.
As she shunshins to avoid more pearls, she notices that they speed up exponentially as they move away from his body. The further away they move, the faster they speed up.
Great.
She’s a firmly mid to long range fighter, and even if she summons a jackal to join her on the inside of the barrier, she’s still at a severe disadvantage. She needs to get in close, where his pearls are the slowest.
Shiho twists and dodges under a hail of chakra bullets, ducks under a blade of water, and tosses a series of exploding tags at the older man.
The smoke from the bombs gives her enough cover to rush in and deliver a swift kick to the back of his knees. He staggers, and she rams an electrified kunai into his hip. She hears flesh sizzle and knows she scored a hit, but he doesn’t even falter as he retaliates with a vicious swipe at her chest. A red hot line of pain scores across the front of her torso as he drags a kunai through it.
Shiho ignores the wound as best she can and leaps back.
This is going to be a nightmare.
—
After an hour of straight combat inside a chakra barrier against a fucking kage , where she made liberal use of poisons, explosions, and her summons, she finally managed to kill the guy to the horror and outrage of the surrounding shinobi.
As soon as the deed is done, Biwa drops the barrier and whisks her away in a reverse summoning.
With two broken arms, a huge cut across her torso, and massive bruising littering her body, Shiho collapses face first into the sand of her summon’s realm. Her chakra is barely there- nothing but a threadbare pulse in her core.
The sand eagerly soaks up her blood and she passes out with the taste of iron and salt on her tongue.
—