Genin Days (XIV).

"Thank you for your help," Terumi said. "Who knows if we would have been able to save all the children alive without you. Winning the battle, sure, but saving everybody?" She shook her head.

"There is no need to thank me. Saving the orphans was part of our mission anyway. It should be me who thanks you for allowing us to end this mission successfully."

"Speaking about the orphans," Anko chimed in. "What happened to them? Especially the children that weren't from the orphanage but from around this island."

Terumi gave her a small smile. "We organized for all of them to be brought to the orphanage that you told us about, no matter if they were originally kidnapped from there or not. We have regrettably not enough resources to keep all of them under our protection and the situation in this country will turn much more violent very soon. That's no place for children, especially not orphans." She made it a point not to look at him when she said that part, but Itachi ignored it. After all, it wasn't as if he disagreed with her.

"We also told all our people on this island about you, so you should have no problem reaching your destination. You only need to run west until you reach the coast, which you should be able to do in two or three hours, and then continue running over the water for another two to reach land once again."

Both of them nodded their thanks at that.

After a moment he started speaking again. "Regarding what I asked you about..."

"We will try, but I can't give you more than a week. We can't spare even one man any longer than that."

"I understand."

One week should be enough for his plan, so there was no need to worry.

"It was surprisingly nice meeting you, given your background and all," Mei said in good humor. "But I'm afraid our time is over now. I have important duties to fulfill, after all. But rest assured, I will not forget what you have done for us."

With that, she vanished with a Shunshin.

....

They had been running for nearly two hours when Itachi finally decided to break the silence.

"Why are you in such a bad mood? Everything went well, didn't it?"

He had expected some sassy comment or even an annoyed glare, but she only gave him a glance from the corner of her eyes before returning her gaze forwards. "It's just... I was pretty useless, wasn't I?"

He blinked in surprise. "Why would you think that? Both of us would be dead if you hadn't killed-"

"I'm not talking about the mission in general!" she snapped. "After we stranded on this island, I did nothing more than follow you around and accept your decisions. I haven't contributed anything noteworthy while we were here, but you somehow managed to get ourselves in the rebel's good grace. But I... I was useless!"

He hesitated. He could be truthful and risk hurting her feelings, or he could try to soothe her to cheer her up...

"You're right." He decided to go with the first option. "After we arrived on this island and we were put in a situation where your fighting prowess didn't matter, you didn't contribute anything to our continued survival."

Anko didn't explode, but she started clenching her fists.

"But," he continued, catching her attention, "that's not the case because you're useless or dumb. You just didn't think things through."

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"You are an impulsive person who lets her emotions dictate her actions way too much. While you manage to stay calm and concentrated in battles, outside of it, you loose your calm all the time. I do not doubt that you would be an amazing kunoichi, rather than just one with great potential like you're now if you had better control over your emotions."

Who knows? Maybe telling her the truth bluntly like that might be enough to make her actually think about it and improve herself.

Anko hadn't time to answer, though, as both of them felt a presence closely in front of them. It didn't feel like a shinobi or even like an adult, but more like...

"A child," Anko hissed out what he was thinking.

Silently agreeing on a plan of action, both of them closed on to the position from where they could feel the child's presence.

A second later, they were crouching on a tree branch, only a few metres above from where they had sensed the child, looking down on it.

It was apparently a girl that couldn't be older than four or five, wearing tattered and dirty clothes. It was obvious at the first glance that she was too thin, a sure sign that she lived on the streets on her own for some time now and had problems in finding enough food.

Nodding to each other, he and Anko appeared a few metres away from the spot under the tree where the girl was sitting and walked in her direction. There was no reason to scare her by just appearing in front of her out of nowhere, after all.

She didn't notice them until they were basically right in front of her, but instead of reacting startled or scared like Itachi had expected, she only looked at them for a moment before giving them a serene smile.

"Hey," Anko said softly, crouching down in front of her to be on her eye level but still keeping enough distance to dodge should she be attacked. "Are you alright? You're not hurt or anything, are you?"

She shook her head but didn't speak up.

He hated to see children like that. They were innocent and didn't deserve to live like this. Children were supposed to live peaceful lives with enough to eat, with friends to play with, and a home with loving parents they could return to in the evening after running around with aforementioned friends all day.

Putting a friendly expression on his face, he crouched down next to Anko. "My name is Itachi, and that" -he pointed at his teammate- "is Anko. What's your name?"

She frowned at him for a moment as if puzzled that he would ask her such a 'strange' thing before her smile returned. "I'm Haku. Nice to meet you, Itachi-nii, Anko-nee." Afterwards, she held out her hand, inviting him to shake it.

He hesitated for only a moment, too brief for her to notice, in which he considered if this was a trap and if she could be a threat before he decided that this was not the case. Also, it wasn't as if she could hide any weapons in her sleeves as her top didn't even have sleeves.

"Are you two shinobi?" Haku asked once he had shaken her hand, tilting her head to the side in askance.

He and Anko shared a short glance before Anko. "Well," Anko drawled, giving a credible imitation of being amused when in truth both of them tensed up the moment the little girl recognized them for what they were. "Aren't you a clever one? What gave us away?"

"Your eyes. They look like those of a shinobi. You saw death, right? Just like I did."

He intentionally didn't react to that.

The girl must be pretty attentive to notice something like that. Of course, neither Anko nor him had really tried to hide their profession, seeing that their non-existent equip and commoner clothes would usually be enough to fool a mere child, but to instantly recognize them was still impressive.

It was also important to note that even the most talented actors often forget to show real emotions with their eyes while during their act. Well, either that or they were just unable to fake them convincingly. This was also one of the most common mistakes Genin made in the beginning that needed to be corrected by their instructors before they could be sent on undercover missions. The only reason that Haku could see something in their eyes was that they hadn't bothered with an innocent expression.

"Ohh~? So you could see right through us? Impressive!" Anko said with a grin.

Haku reacted to that praise with not more than a simple nod before asking another question. "Are you from Kirigakure?"

"No," he said, seeing no reason to lie about that. "We're from Konoha. We came here by accident and are now on our way home."

Her eyes got wide, marking this as the first time she had any sort of strong reaction since the start of their conversation. "Konoha? That's on the mainland, isn't it? You must be really strong, then!"

He wasn't sure how she came to the conclusion that they were strong solely on the basis that they were from the mainland, but he still smiled and nodded in thanks.

"You bet we are, kid!" Anko exclaimed while demonstrating the muscles in her arm with exaggerated enthusiasm, though Itachi was pretty sure the pride in her eyes was real. She really liked it when people praised her skills, even if this person was just a homeless child. Before she could say anything else, however, there was some sort of growling noise.

Itachi stretched out his senses, his first instinctive suspicion being that an animal had managed to somehow sneak up on them, but less than a second later he calmed down again, recognizing the sound for what it actually was. He gave the now blushing girl an amused half-smile before he grabbed for his supplies and subsequently handling her some bread. "Here, you must be hungry."

She looked at the offered food, visibly unsure if she should accept it, before she finally took it and begun to wolf it down. It wasn't healthy to eat so fast, especially as she probably hadn't eaten so much in some time, but he let her do it anyway. He hadn't the heart to interrupt her right now. When she had finished it and looked up, she saw more food, offered by Anko this time, and this time she didn't hesitate before grabbing it.

"Haku," he said softly once she finished eating. "You said you saw death too. What did you mean with that?"

Of course he could make a reasonable guess. After all, bandits weren't an unusual sight in a country on the brink of war. It was also possible that some Kiri-nin or even rebels had some 'fun' in some random village and eliminated the evidence afterwards. He wasn't knowledgeable enough about these lands to know for sure, but if some clan with a Kekkei Genkai was located on this island, she might even be a survivor of one of the Mizukage's purges.

The young girl looked at him indecisively. "If you're shinobi, you can do tricks, can't you? Can you show me?"

He saw Anko furrowing her bows momentarily in wonder before she smoothed them again and gave the other girl another grin. "Sure! Watch me, I'm gonna show you something really cool!" she said before proceeding by walking up a tree. Needless to say, Haku was sufficiently impressed. While the tree climbing practice was one of the most basic techniques for shinobi, it still looked quite amazing for civilians, which Haku seemed to be if her reaction was anything to go by. At least this ruled out the possibility of her being from some ninja clan as she would be used to this sight already.

"And you? Can you do something too?" Haku asked him now.

Deciding to do something simple, he looked right into her eyes and activated his Sharingan. "These eyes are something that only my family have." he told the surprised girl. "It's called 'Sharingan'."

"A bloodline...?" Haku whispered to herself before she nodded resolutely. She held out her hands and stopped moving otherwise, only staring at her hands in concentration. She stayed like this for several minutes, but then, finally, when he already wondered how long she planned to stay like this, dozens over dozens of water drops seemed to be pulled from the area and formed a cone-shaped structure above her hands.

And then it froze.

Haku smiled as if what she just did was the most normal thing in the world. "I have one too."

'Well,' he thought with slightly widened eyes. 'Seems like I was wrong with her not being from a clan. She might not have grown up in a clan, but at the very least she descended from one.'