From the diary of Misuya Juri

[SexyPanda]

"Inuzuka Shisei is gasping for breath, each desperate reach for air more pitiful than the next, and though Kin presses both hands to his chest in an effort to focus Mystical Palms, something tells me he won’t live.

We’ve fought this den of missing nin several times now, the dense forest a regular stop on our way from the village to base camp. Each time they get stronger, but so do we. We have the experience of years on the ANBU Black Ops under our belts, and between us enough kills to become permanently etched into the Bingo Book. By now we must know every trick these wrteches have in store for us.

He was being stupid, I guess is the only way to put it. I don’t want to dishonor the dead (he’s not dead yet, I know, but the wet gurgle behind me and the soft swearing of our healer say he will be soon) but it’s the only way I can cope right now. There’s blood all over the ground, and ahead of us Sinna and Kirusa fight on. They’re risking their lives taking the time to combine a a fire jtsu, but what does it matter at this point? I’m only standing guard in case the leader manages to dredge up more summons. Though sentient, he is not intelligent, and it was pure bad luck for Shisei.

Bad luck is something Konoha seems to specialize in these days.

There is a strange rattling sound behind me as the wounded Inuzuka tries to draw in air, and I almost draw the sign against evil before I stop myself. I am no superstitious, wet behind the ears ninja. Though Kin is the most senior, I am not far behind.

I feel useless standing here, but I have my orders and I will not break them. Our healer cannot be harmed, and though I want to take out every single one of my troubles on our current opponent, duty must come first. Instead, I let my friends step into the thick, dank, ninjutsu bound air beyond the chakra barrier and breathe poison for me.

In my head the thought is only slightly bitter.

The twins are excellent Katon users, so what for me would emerge as a mere flare becomes a fireball in their capable hands. The leader dies with a roar of pain, fire eating away at him.

I cannot imagine the pain that would come with dying in a fire, though I have to wonder how much worse suffocating is, choking on your own blood with every gasp of air you pull into your aching lungs.

Behind me Inuzuka Shisei breathes his last breath. I cannot turn to look.

I want to be able to believe that he died with something less pained than a grimace for an expression. If I am to tell his fiancée the normal lies of a heroic death, then I want to be able to sleep at night without the image of his sightless eyes staring at the thick canopy above us haunting me in my dreams.

Somehow, I think that image will haunt me anyway.


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Firuza Iro is beautiful when she cries.
A Konoha resident like myself, Shisei’s widow is the epitome of perfection within my village. Cunning and beautiful, her face does not even turn blotchy as streams of crystalline tears cascade down her cheeks.

It is so perfect that I can’t help but wonder if it’s all an act.

Shisei was a member of our cell for five years. Sometime in that half of a decade, he courted Konoha newcomer Iro. At first we had laughed at him, asking him how he’d managed to get a girl in what could only add up to less than a week of courtship.

No relationship should be built on such a basis. That’s my belief anyway. How can you love someone who is so far away for so long? Who you only see one day a year? How do you love the man when all you have is the memory?

For all that I, too, cared for my fellow ninja, it is not my place to say these things. My beliefs were not shared by Shisei. Maybe letters can keep love alive. Maybe she really does miss him.

For one day a year, the bitter and one-comrade-less part of me says She misses him for one day a year. You miss him for the rest of your life.

I did not love the only Inuzuka in our cell, handsome and exotic as he was, he was only ever this girl's. But I was his friend, and I can see the suspicion forming in her eyes as I tell her how her lover died.

Though my retelling is the truth, this is the diluted version. I do not tell her of the rattling breaths, of the way he'd walked so senselessly into that whipping tentacle's path. I will not speak of crushed lungs, smashed ribs, of the way Kin pounded on his broken chest in desperation though we all knew Inuzuka Shisei was beyond help. And never will I mention the way Sinna went so quiet and still, or the way Kirusa cried, or the way I felt sobs choking my throat. Some matters are too private to be spoken of, even for his fiancee.

“Did you care for him?” she asks when I am done describing a lie. And at this moment, I cannot bring myself to be more disgusted by her than I already am.This is what I fight to save, I think. Nothing like a little discouragement to add to the growing urge to take the chance, set out on our next year, and never come back.

“In all the ways that matter, and none of the ways that you think.” I don’t know why they always have me report to our fallen comrade’s loved ones. I always seem to make a botched job of it somehow.

She looks at me the way you would look at a particularly large and disgusting insect. If only she could squash me.

Too bad I don’t think she’s ever held a weapon in her lifetime, not with those delicate hands."