Sayuri shuffled tentatively around the crackling fire. A cast wrapped around her arm.
She had failed her mission.
She had let down everyone at the village.
She had let down the Hokage, who had trusted her and her team to accomplish the mission.
It was late at night, everyone else was asleep.
No one saw her vulnerability.
Kakashi opened the flap of his tent and approached her.
"Not feeling well?" He asked. She shook her head. "What's wrong?"
"I failed," she whispered.
"Well, I've failed a bunch too," he offered. "And there's this one failure that I've never been able to get over. Wanna trade failures?"
She laughed at that. "Only you would think of trading failures, sensei. Alright then. You first."
He smiled. "Well, it was my father's last mission. And honestly, this is a really bad example. This mission was to assassinate a Kirigakure ninja who was radicalising and gathering support quickly." He paused. "During a skirmish, one of Dad's teammates was about to get killed. He saved that teammate, but their target got away. That ninja living cascaded into the Third Great Ninja War."
"Sakumo Hatake then killed himself, didn't he?"
He gave a wry smile. "I see you've studied history very diligently."
"That's not a good example," she sighed. "A failure turns into a war that kills hundreds of thousands. Not very uplifting." She paused to gather her thoughts. "Oh well. We let an S-ranked ninja on the loose to an organisation presumably full of ninjas stronger than him, and a Hidden Village no longer exists because of it."
Kakashi gestured broadly. "Well, it was pretty much as much of a fail as it goes. There's nothing we can do to change it now, just damage control."
An orange fox pawed its way out of Naruto's tent.
"I've known a great many humans throughout my life," Kurama growled out. "Who've failed spectacularly and fallen into despair. Don't dwell on it, that's all you can do for now."
Sayuri exhaled and gazed at the stars. Kurama leapt into her lap, and she began to stroke his head. He purred.
"So what do we know about these two rogue ninja?" She asked. Kakashi hummed.
"Why ask?"
"Well, just in case. If we ever encounter one of those two again." He nodded and tapped his chin.
"Well, Hidan has a curse-type jutsu that links his body to his opponent. And that woman had some kind of origami ninjutsu. It wasn't anything like I've seen before, but I saw her change her chakra three different times. I believe that it's a Bloodline Selection, but the fact that it's undocumented makes me wary."
"How?" she asked. She's like Naruto?
"I'm guessing training, with who, or how, I don't know." He stood up from his seat. "You should get some sleep. We'll get going as soon as we get out."
Sayuri yawned and opened the flap into her tent.
She slipped into her sleeping bag.
"Hey Sayuri," Naruto yawned out.
"Hi, Naruto," she smiled.
"You're not sleeping well?" She sheepishly grinned.
She averted her gaze and blushed in embarrassment. "I haven't slept yet."
YOU ARE READING
Sage's Resurrection
Fanfiction"I have found you to be worthy of being my successor." Naruto Uzumaki was a boy who was snubbed and looked down upon for his entire life. For him to be acknowledged by someone like the Sage... "You will be strong enough to achieve world peace..." ...
