“Of course, he is,” Hiyori-san says with an exasperated smile, “he never stops, that man!”
Miyu takes care not to let her open, friendly expression tighten. Because Hiyori-san’s dear boyfriend Toru-san had only been running around so frantically because he was busy preparing for the new year festival. As the inheritor of a famous wagashi store, he had been doggedly preparing for the influx of orders.
But Hiyori-san has expressed twice to Miyu that she can’t wait for the two-week break he will be taking after the festival.
Swallowing down her dread, she shakes her head and huffs out a laugh, “That man! If his sweets weren’t so wonderful, I’d force him to take a break myself!”
Hiyori-san laughs, and it sounds husky and nothing at all like her usual clear, high tone.
“Ah, I believe the little… Hyuuga, was it? Is requesting assistance.”
The ninja nods towards the class, and Miyu offers a quick grin before hurrying over to the children.
Her chest feels too tight, throat unbearably dry, and it takes effort not to let her hands shake.
Okay. Two guards, out of the three on duty. Two that aren’t who they appear to be.
“What does this mean, sensei?” asks Hyuuga Junpei politely, pointing to the paper she had handed out.
“This move uses a pawn to protect a more valuable piece,” she says, glad that her voice doesn’t sound as strangled as she feels. “It’s known as a defensive tactic.”
“But sensei,” he looks up at her with his milky white gaze, brows furrowed, “if it gets captured, can’t Shota-kun use it as part of his attack?”
Heart in her throat, Miyu manages a nod. Captured pieces, defensive pawns, shit.
The game today is not being played out on a board before her.
Miyu is a pawn in a field of more valuable pieces.
Miyu is a pawn that must be the lynchpin in their defence.
“But you see,” she only sounds a little strained, “if the pawn is taken, it gives the more valuable piece time to move, or better yet, stage a scenario to capture the opponent’s piece. This is what we call a counter-attack.”
The boy nods his understanding, and Miyu lets her gaze roam over the rest of the class. On the western side of the courtyard she can see another ninja standing, watching the children.
Shit. Three who aren’t as they appear.
Miyu takes a deep breath. Squashes down her rising panic, and forces herself to think.
A plan begins to form, dependent on too many variables for her to back with complete certainty. Right now, though, it’s outweighing the other scenarios playing out in her head.
Nara Hiro has raised his hand.
She grabs her notebook from her table, and makes her way to him and his partner and finds that they’ve played their way through their game.
Miyu flips her book open and pencils in a few notes on the games she had written earlier. She mostly just adds their names and a few tips on how they might want to adapt the game, but she spends the extra time doing it.
She must establish a pattern in her own behaviour first.
The second pair raises their hands, and Miyu repeats the process with them. She takes her time adding a few comments along the sides of the page, allowing the brief, bright smile of Uchiha Sayuri to settle her nerves somewhat.
Her gaze scans the class as she looks for the perfect candidate.
If these ninja are hostile, they very well may be linked to the alarm last night. If they somehow ended up here, they’re smart enough to have evaded capture.
There’s only one reason why they are here.
Miyu is the lone adult responsible for twenty children.
Miyu is the lone civilian adult responsible for twenty ninja children.
Miyu is the lone helpless civilian adult responsible for twenty ninja children, twelve of which belong to clans.
They will act before the children’s parents or clan retainers return to pick them up. Miyu has less than forty minutes to execute her plan.
Still, she bides her time as the class goes on.
Come on, come on, come on –
The candidate cannot be clan.
Please, just raise your hand – one of you, come on –
The candidate cannot be civilian.
Gods, please –
The candidate must be one of the three children in the class who belong to no clan, but are generational ninja all the same.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Thirty minutes left, shit – oh!
Tsunemori Akihiko raises his hand. Miyu tries to quieten the suddenly deafening beat of her heart as she approaches him and his partner.
“Good work,” she smiles at them both, and then begins the process of writing in the notebook. She hands each child their slip of paper, and meanders back through the rows, observing the ongoing games as she goes.
Five minutes pass, and she resolutely does not offer Akihiko’s table more than a cursory once-over.
Finally, finally, he raises his hand.
“Yes, Akihiko-kun?” she hopes her voice doesn’t convey her bone-deep terror.
One slip and she might be dead. Just one suspicious word, and these children will be too far out of reach for her flimsy defence.
“Ano, sensei – remember last week, my mama told you I had to leave early? That’s today, and she said to be back by two-forty-five.”
Miyu frowns for a moment, opening her book to last week.
“Ah!” she shuts it and offers an apologetic smile, “I forgot! I’m sorry, Akihiko-kun – thank you for reminding me.”
“It was no trouble sensei,” he smiles up at her shyly, pressing his index fingers together bashfully. “I – I really want to stay, but mama told me not to be late.”
For the first time since her arrival in Konoha, Miyu is grateful for the early training of their children.
“You better hurry now,” she smiles as she reaches out to pat his head, “well done today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Hn!” he nods, cheeks flushing, and leaves the courtyard with a bounce to his step. Bless him.
Miyu looks to his partner – Aburame Shizuka and reopens her notebook to write down a simple game.
“Here you go,” she hands it to the girl with a small genuine smile. The child doesn’t smile back, and Miyu can’t quite make out her expression behind her high-collared jacket.
The Aburame accepts the sheet of paper and begins resetting the board.
Miyu turns to help a pair of civilian children, taking care to talk slowly and explain properly. Gods, she’s trembling. She struggles to keep her breaths steady and even as the minutes continue to tick away.
There’s still twenty minutes of class left. They must be ready to act soon, before the parents would notice.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Hiyori-san nod to someone she can’t see, and step forward.
“Grab the H-”
“Hiyori-san!” Miyu waves the woman over, interrupting whatever command she was about to give.
“How rude of me, I forgot to congratulate you on your engagement!”
The pretender is blank for a moment. Then, like someone flicking a switch, they smile brightly.
“Thank you! I was so surprised!”
You would be, Miyu thinks dryly, you’ve only been dating for three months, and he definitely hasn’t proposed.
“Oh, how romantic! Iori-san was telling me all about it in class today – she said she saw it happen,” Miyu imitates the smile she’d seen on the faces of those carefree civilian women. Open and loose, showing altogether too much emotion. “I’m so happy for you!”
“Thank you,” the response is short, and Miyu can see her forming a hand-sign for a signal to her partners no doubt.
No, no, no – shit –
She needs to stall them, right here, right now. No one’s here yet that she can tell and shit, the other ninja is stepping out of the shade –
“Well class!” Miyu turns to her students with a clap. “You’ve all been so well behaved today, so we’re going to play a game of…”
She trails off, hand beside her ear to hear them yell, “Hat shogi!”
The class breaks into chaos as the children frantically pack their shogi sets. Most of them are chattering, some are screeching in delight, and a fair few have packed their things in seconds and are waiting patiently in a line for her to hand out the hats.
“Come along now!” Miyu yells over the din, eyeing the frozen ninja as the children run between tables, laughing and screeching in excitement.
Miyu grabs the basket she stowed beneath her table and begins to hand out the hats. Some of the rowdier children are play-fighting with imaginary swords, a group of girls are chattering to each other about pawn attacks, and a few of the quieter clan kids are grouped together.
She approaches them, heart in her throat. Sees the moment Hiyori-san shifts in the same way Itachi does before he blurs into movement.
Miyu shoves the group of children behind her, adrenaline surging as the ninja flickers into existence too close for comfort, arm half-extended.
“What is your purpose here?” Miyu demands over the ecstatic laughter and yelling from the rest of the still ignorant class.
She feels a tiny hand tug at her sleeve, and carefully pushes the skinny little arm out of sight.
Gods, her body will never be enough to shield them from danger. Not with Hiyori-san’s dark blue gaze so cold and empty.
“Some of these children have been summoned urgently,” the woman says flatly.
Miyu levels her with a stony glare, “These children are to be collected by retainers of their clans only.”
“I’m following protocol,” Hiyori snaps, but there’s a different sound to her voice now, sharper and harsher, like the accents of passing travellers back in the flower districts, “now move aside, civilian, before I-”
“No Konoha protocol calls for the summoning of five-year-old children,” Miyu interrupts her sharply, “so I’ll ask again, ninja-san. What is your purpose here?”
There are a few tense moments of silence between them. And then a smirk spreads on Hiyori’s face, so unlike any expression the woman has made before that it sets the hairs on the back of Miyu’s neck upright.
“Ya know what we do to unruly civilians where I’m from, sensei?” the voice is no longer Hiyori’s. It’s husky and deeper, accent distinctly northern, “It’s a neat ol’ thing called electro therapy.”
The woman raises a tanned hand, and Miyu doesn’t flinch as yellow sparks dance across her palm, “It only hurts a little. Might leave you drooling for the rest of your sad life, but hey- fuck!”
Miyu later learns that the clan children behind her began flaring their chakra in tandem for an emergency at that moment. She also later learns that her guess that they would try to take a Hyuuga first was correct.
The hand she had thrown out to block the woman’s path to the boy had come into contact with fake-Hiyori’s sparking fingers, and Miyu had dropped in an instant.
She learns that Akihiko had successfully alerted the Konoha Military Police, and that they were setting up a defensive perimeter in the likely occasion of an escape attempt in the time Miyu was fretting over her last few minutes.
With the children flaring their chakra, it had taken only seconds for the ninja – Miyu is told there were four, not three – to be swarmed by Konoha’s significant specialised takedown force.
She only learns it, however, a day later.
But on that day, Miyu wakes blearily to a cloudy sky, placed carefully in the recovery position. Shisui is crouching before her, a rare, concerned frown on his face.
“Miyu,” he says, voice low.
She can hear the children crying, and wonders how much time she lost.
“Shisui, the Hyuuga-”
“Safe,” he says shortly, reaching forward to press his fingers at her neck, feeling for her pulse. “Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head and extends an arm in a plea for assistance. One handed, he pulls her gently upright. She sits for a moment, blinking though a bout of nausea, hoping she doesn’t throw up before what appears to be a large number of Konoha Military Police members.
“How many fingers am I holding up right now?” he asks without any of his usual humour.
“Two,” she responds, wincing at her pounding headache, “I’m alright, really.”
His countenance doesn’t change.
“Shisui, what-”
“Stand up,” comes a stern voice from behind her, “raise your hands beside your head and turn around slowly.”
Miyu freezes for only a moment. Meets Shisui’s grave eyes, and decides to keep her mouth shut as she does so.
Four ninja are facing her, weapons drawn. Behind them she can see her class behind herded away from the scene.
“Sugawara Miyu,” says a man she’s seen three or four times at the station in passing, “you are under arrest pending the investigation of the infiltrators. Konoha reserves the right to detain you indefinitely. We ask that you cooperate with questioning.”
