Fuuka exchanged uneasy glances with her new teammates.

“They could just be running late, right?” Fuuka ventured first. Jonin were people too, they could run late as easily as anybody else surely? Although Fuuka had never known Yoritomo sensei to run late without alerting them via messenger rat that something had come up.

“Yeah maybe,” said Nagisa, jerking her thumb over at the house behind them. “But that’s their house right? Would a jonin really be ten minutes late getting down to their front door?”

“That does seem improbable,” admitted Kaoru. “For the time being, shall we try knocking?”

Oh gosh, what if they were waiting for us to knock and they think that we’re the late ones? Fuuka thought, swallowing nervously. She decided to keep this thought to herself, there was nothing they could really do about it if they were already late so she might as well not unnerve her teammates.

When nobody else seemed to have anything else to say, Nagisa shrugged and walked up to the front door of the townhouse, rapping against the cheap looking wood with the back of a loose fist.

None of the three were expecting the door to swing open partially, its hinges creaking gently.

Nagisa turned back to the other two, her expression serious as she held up a finger to her lips and then tucked a bandaged hand into the pouch on her belt and drew out a kunai knife, its blackened metal glinting dully in the morning light.

Fuuka swallowed again and nodded back, reaching for a kunai of her own. Soru ward wasn’t dangerous compared to the outer wards, but it still wasn’t the kind of place where people left their doors unlocked.Fuuka had trouble imagining a jonin would leave their door unlocked no matter what neighbourhood they lived in. Something was wrong.

Kaoru looked to be on the same page as well, his playful smile having receded. The boy didn’t ready a weapon like she and Nagisa had, but he did raise his hands and Fuuka noticed the subtle bulges created by his rats as they rearranged themselves, settling in his sleeves. Perhaps they were getting ready to leap out at an opponent? That certainly seemed like it would be surprising but ultimately not that effective, there was probably more to it than that.

Unwilling to raise their voices to plan out anything elaborate, the three genin fell into a loose single file based on their relative positions to the open doorway: Nagisa in the lead, Kaoru bringing up the rear and Fuuka herself in the middle; then the three of them entered a hallway dimly lit by the sunlight filtering in through the open doorway.

The interior was old fashioned, with polished wooden floors and open entryways. There was little in the way of decoration and a faint layer of dust on some of the surfaces gave the whole house an air of disuse. Nagisa lead the trio further in and cautiously poked her head around the side of the closest entryway. Standing right behind the other girl, Fuuka could see the exact moment Nagisa saw something and stiffened.

“Fuck,” Nagisa whispered under her breath as Fuuka steeled herself and pushed up to see around the corner herself.

The room was a plain looking living room, with a low little table and tatami mat floors being slowly stained red by the pool of blood spreading out from the body lying face down in the centre of the room.

She, the body belonged to a woman Fuuka noticed through the icy terror clamping down on her, was wearing a greyGgunshugakure coat and loose fitting, black pants. Right in the middle of the dead woman’s back was a blood stained tanto, standing straight up like a grave marker.

“Is that…” Kaoru had moved up to see as well, but the sight stole his words away half way through his sentence.

“Yeah…” said Nagisa hoarsely, having guessed at his intent anyway. “I think that’s probably our sensei,”

Fuuka was transfixed, her thoughts and movements sluggish as if she was wading through something thick and clinging and her eyes would not leave the sword embedded in the woman’s back. Fuuka had encountered death, she had taken C rank missions with Yoritomo sensei and her old teammates. In those missions they had gone up against bandits and other criminals and sometimes there hadn’t been a safe way to restrain targets that also refused to surrender, Yoritomo sensei had been forced to kill them. But Jonin sensei weren’t like desperate, untrained bandits, they weren’t supposed to just die before you even met them.

“We have to tell someone,” said a voice and Fuuka was shocked to realise it was her own, it sounded hollow and strangely distant. “Raise the alarm or something,” That was right, Fuuka realised as her mind started to catch up with her mouth. A jonin was dead, which meant this whole situation was out of their pay grade. The right thing to do was hand this off to someone higher up the chain who could handle whatever this was. Fuuka seized this lifeline of a thought and followed it, finding that the narrower focus was helping her get a handle on her scattered state of mind.

“There should be a… a listening post, or a sentry that we can make contact with,” Fuuka continued, her voice starting to sound more familiar as she picked up steam. “I don’t know where the closest one would be in Soru ward though,”

“I can send one of my rats,” said Kaoru shakily. “They can sniff out nearby chakra signatures and find a jonin or someone else to alert, Sukuna is the fastest, I’ll send her.”

Oh that’s why they could always deliver messages right to me even when I wasn’t home. Fuuka mused absently, her mind wandering away from the gory scene before her almost of its own volition.

“That’s good, do that,” Fuuka said, wrenching her attention back to the matter at hand. “In the meantime we should… we should-”

“Someone’s here!” Nagisa snapped, tugging urgently at the shoulder of Fuuka’s jacket with her free hand. Fuuka’s eyes snapped up from the corpse to follow the line of Nagisa’s sight to see that there was indeed a person standing in the doorway across the living room.

The newcomer was an adult, with a slim build and somewhat below average height, further details were obscured by the clothing they wore, which was black and loose except for at the ankles and wrists where the excess material had been pinned back with wrappings. The person’s face was concealed almost entirely underneath a cloth mask, with only a thin opening for their eyes, revealing a sharp, intense stare. Murderous hostility seemed to emanate out from those eyes like a physical phenomenon, thickening and chilling the air and rooting all three genin in place as their instincts misfired.

Unhurriedly, the masked figure advanced across the living room, towards the body and towards the three genin standing in the opposite entry way.

“S-Stop!” Fuuka called out, failing dismally to sound authoritative. “Who are you? Did you do this!?”

As if Fuuka hadn’t spoken at all, the masked figure continued stalking forwards unhurriedly, almost casually except for the intense stare they kept directed at the three genin the entire time.

“Fuck this!” Nagisa said, her voice cracking as she raised her bandaged right arm, her hand clutched in a tight, shaking fist. The bandages around Nagisa’s arms shivered and unfurled, revealing intricate panels of polished wood instead of flesh.

A prosthetic? Fuuka thought as within a split second two panels either side of Nagisa’s forearm sprung open and bent under the pull of the string that joined their extremities, forming a taught, crossbow-like weapon.

“Wait!” said Kaoru, but Nagisa had already triggered the mechanism partially concealed in her arm, the curved panels snapped forwards with a loud metallic twang and the air hissed as a bolt rocketed out from Nagisa’s wrist. In motion the bolt was a blur to Fuuka’s senses that she more extrapolated the presence of rather than actively tracked, that was until it came to a jarring halt, in the grasp of the masked figure.

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The masked figure had not halted their casual advance even once as the genin panicked, cajoled and eventually fired upon them but they stopped now, right in front of the dead body of the murdered jonin in the middle of the room. The stranger cocked their head slightly and tilted the crossbow bolt they had snatched out of the air like a toddler catching a particularly slow butterfly; studying the formerly lethal implement with casual interest before discarding it just as casually, tossing it to the side and bending down towards the corpse.

Nagisa inhaled a sharp, hissing breath as the masked figure reached over to the corpse and began rifling through the jonin’s tool pouch.

We can’t let them just take whatever they want Fuuka thought, desperately willing her feet to move; her hands to form seals; for any part of her body to respond in any way but none of them did. Fuuka’s mutinous body already understood what her conscious mind was struggling to admit: that the stranger crouched beneath them could and would end their lives in an instant.

While Fuuka wrestled with her instincts the stranger found what they had been looking for: a compact, tightly wound scroll that they withdrew from the dead jonin’s pouch and transferred to their own.

This is it. Fuuka thought, a cold bead of sweat rolling down the back of her neck as the stranger rose to their feet and continued walking towards her. They’re going to walk over here and kill you and you can’t even move let alone defend yourself. DO SOMETHING! A shrill voice in Fuuka’s head screamed as the stranger took another step towards them, closing in to under a dozen paces.

DO SOMETHING! The voice screamed again and Fuuka’s hand twitched, her fingers brushing up against her sweat drenched palm. Her hands were down by her sides, Fuuka hadn’t even been able to raise them into even a pale mockery of a combat stance since the stranger had appeared but actually wasn’t her left hand quite close to her tool pouch? Fuuka was sure that if she tried to properly draw a weapon she would be cut down before it even cleared the pouch, but her thumb was concealed from the stranger’s line of sight by her hip.

Slowly, achingly slowly Fuuka worked her thumb under the flap of her pouch. Where are my smokebombs? Where the fuck are my smokebombs? Fuuka thought, the pad of her thumb roving around as the figure, just a few steps away now finally came to a halt in front of the genin. Suddenly Fuuka’s thumb brushed up against paper and she immediately channelled a pulse of chakra into it to activate the smokebomb, hopefully giving her and her new teammates time to flee.

Wait, was that a smoke bomb or an explosive tag? Fuuka managed to wonder before heat and force erupted outwards in every direction from her pouch and she was catapulted forwards. For a split second Fuuka was hurtling through the air, then she slammed into the stranger, knocking them both down into a tangle of limbs as thick, black smoke expanded to fill the room behind them.

Fuuka gasped and then started coughing as she sucked in a mouthful of smoke. Fuuka tried to stand, or at least get to her hands and knees but her world was a dizzying kaleidoscope of pain and confusion. A piercing ringing tolled in Fuuka’s ear and her lower back was viciously contested by a fierce burning sensation and a bone deep ache from the sheer force of the blast wave from her tags.

Smoke washed over Fuuka and the stranger, but before her vision was caught off Fuuka caught a glimpse of their enemy already getting to her feet. It made sense: their collision had to have been far less damaging than direct exposure to the explosion itself and they were probably more resilient than Fuuka to begin with. No matter how reasonable it was, it didn’t change how much danger Fuuka would be in if the stranger got to their feet before Fuuka did. With that in mind Fuuka managed to prop herself up on an elbow until she suddenly felt an iron hard hand grip down tightly on her ankle and drag her inexorably backwards. Fuuka tried to scream but the smoke reduced her efforts down to a pitiable series of coughs as she slid backwards on her stomach, her fingers scrabbling ineffectually at the smooth surface. Fuuka cleared the back of the smoke cloud and she flipped herself, pulling her free leg up to her chest to try and kick out at her kidnapper, only to come face to face with Nagisa and Kaoru. The hand around Fuuka’s angle was made of wood, attached to the end of Nagisa’s prosthetic arm by means of an oiled, black chain that was quickly retracting back into the hollow inside of the prosthesis.

That thing seems really handy Fuuka thought deliriously as Nagisa grabbed her arm and hauled her roughly to her feet.

“Can you walk? We’re getting out of here,” Nagisa said as she and Kaoru started hauling Fuuka back towards the front door.

“I um, think so- yes,” Fuuka managed, she stumbled the first few paces but gradually her legs started properly responding and she was able to join her teammates pace of a light jog. The spot on Fuuka’s hip underneath the tattered remains of her tag pouch stung fiercely and she could feel the fabric of her shirt scraping against what was probably a combination of burnt and bruised skin. The thick fabric of the pouch itself and her shirt seemed to have protected her skin from the worst of the damage.

“Do you know which way your rat went earlier?” Nagisa asked Kaoru, talking over Fuuka’s shoulders as she struggled along between her teammates. “We need to make this somebody else’s problem, run it up the chain. Whatever that scroll was that they took it must be important,”

“Oh this scroll?” Kaoru asked innocently as his cloak bulged and a rat poked its way out, a tightly wound and familiar scroll held in its jaws. “I had Takeha snatch it during Fuuka chan’s distraction. He left behind a shadow clone disguised as the scroll too so it should take our opponent some time to realise,”

“Your rats can make shadow clones?” Fuuka asked incredulously, her eyes flicking between her teammate and the road ahead.

“Sort of, we can make them together,” Kaoru hedged, wiggling a hand back and forth. “It's a modified technique that forms the basis of most of my combat skills. Anyway, Sukuna went in that direction” he added, gesturing to the left as the street ahead

“Why would you go out of your way to learn a technique that makes more rats?” Nagisa asked with a grimace. Before Kaoru could answer Fuuka spotted a familiar, black clad figure drop from above her sight into the middle of the street ahead of the three genin.

“It’s her!” Fuuka gasped, seizing her teammates arms and yanking them hard to the left, into an alleyway as Nagisa cursed and fired off a futile, parting shot towards the figure. Fuuka never saw what became of the crossbow bolt, the alley was narrow enough that the three of them were jostling each other for space and she had to twist suddenly to the side to shift around a sour smelling, metal trash can.

“How did she get ahead of us!?” Kaoru asked breathlessly before vaulting over a discarded box.

“I guess your distraction wasn’t all that convincing!” Nagisa snapped, over the sound of her mechanical arm reloading itself with a heavy *kerchunk.

“It doesn’t matter!” Fuuka said, her mind racing to formulate a plan even as she spoke. “She’s way faster than us, we need to split up or she’ll catch us in no time!”

Nagisa nodded curtly and Kaoru, even as he ran alongside them, wove some hand seals with his slender, pale fingers. Two rats nosed their way out of the boy's cloak and in a puff of smoke they transformed into scrolls that Kaoru handed to Nagisa and Fuuka.

“Good thinking,” Nagisa said curtly, accepting her decoy scroll while Fuuka tucked hers away in the pocket of her shorts. “I’ll turn right when the alley opens up, on of you turn left and someone will have to go straight and cut through or over the buildings across the road,”

“I’ll go straight,” Fuuka said, glancing down at Kaoru. Fuuka’s conditioning was starting to tell because she could see some dew-like droplets pooling on the back of his neck.

Why does a boy have such a long, slender neck anyway? Fuuka thought absurdly, before chasing away the intrusive notion. Kaoru looked like he would be fine to keep running for a while, but he might struggle to cut over a building. Fuuka didn’t even know if he knew the wall climbing technique, it wasn’t taught in the academy but the Shinizumi might have taught him it themselves. Fuuka still liked her chances on the straight path better though, even with the burn on her hip still stinging.

The window of light at the end of the alley expanded as the trio drew closer to it and suddenly they were disgorged out into the light of day and the bustle of city foot traffic once more. Fuuka pushed herself forwards, darting across the path of a horse drawn carriage closely enough that the driver cursed her out and she lost track of Nagisa and Kaoru immediately.

Across the street, directly on Fuuka’s path, was a wide fronted, dingy apartment building. There was an alleyway on either side of the building but Fuuka would have to lose some time cutting off to one side. Nagisa or Kaoru might think she was abandoning the too plan which would be mortifying and dangerous.

With a huff, Fuuka ducked and then sprung upwards in an enhanced leap, throwing her feet and hands forwards to cling to the side of the building when she landed against it with a thud, her hands and feet adhering to the concrete with a thin layer of chakra. Fuuka pulled herself upwards, in a crawl at first and then a sort of stumbling, vertical half walk, her hands seizing at balconies and ledges that she passed to pull herself upwards faster.

Fuuka hooked her hands on the lip of the rooftop and flipped herself up onto the top of the building with a gasp. When she got her feet back underneath her Fuuka straightened and turned around, risking a glance behind her.

Immediately Fuuka’s vision was filled with black cloth and something solid slammed into her gut, sending her flying backwards.