The Legend of Konoha's Shooting Star

Perpetration for Battle

It turned out Tazuna-san had some pretty sweet digs. His house was right on the waterfront and next to a nifty little windmill.

"Are you alright, Sensei?" Tazuna's daughter, Tsunami-san asked as she stared down at the jōnin they had tucked into one of the guest futons. She had been really surprised when her dad had returned home with four kids and an unconscious adult in tow. She had already given the guys a lecture for letting April carry a grown man the whole way on her own. The girl looked positively exhausted! In fact, she had sprawled herself out haplessly on the floor the moment their sensei opened his eye again, and she felt safe enough to relax, like a lazy cat that couldn't be bothered to move another centimeter.

"Yeah... I just can't move for a week or so," Kakashi answered a bit sheepishly, embarrassed to have everyone making such a fuss over him. He had woken up in the middle of the lecture, so he already knew pretty much everything that had happened while he was out. April really was something else...

'A whole week!?' April thought, flinching in shock in her spot on the floor. And she had thought being useless for a whole day whenever she tried to use the Shadow Clone Jutsu was bad...

"What?" Sakura said in disbelief. "The Sharingan is incredible, but... if it puts that much stress on the body, I guess you have to think before using it."

"Well, we defeated that strong of a ninja this time. We should be safe for a while!!" Tazuna said, laughing it off. He was just glad to have been able to make it back home in one piece!

"By the way, who was that masked kid?" Sakura asked.

"That was the mask worn by Hidden Mist's special Hunter-nin team," Kakashi replied. "They are also known as body erasers. Their duty is to completely dispose of the body without a trace. A ninja's body holds within it secrets of the ninjutsu, different chakra types, herbs, and other things that would reveal information about their village. For example, if I died, the secrets of the Sharingan could be revealed. If you aren't careful, there's a danger that the enemy will steal your jutsu. A ninja's body can reveal important information. So, by killing and disposing of the missing-nins who have abandoned their village, the hunter-nins protect the information from getting out. They are specialists who guard the secrets of their village," he explained. "No sound, no smell... That is a ninja's end."

"So that Zabuza has been chopped up and disposed of? Scary!!" Sakura said with a shiver.

"..." April frowned slightly as she stared up at the ceiling.

'What is this? Zabuza is dead, yet it feels like I'm missing something important...' Kakashi thought as his eyes began to close, about to drift off to sleep again, when April spoke.

"Hmm... Somehow, it doesn't feel like it's over... I almost wish we had seen the body being disposed of..." she mused out loud. Maybe then, they'd have gotten some kind of closure. Kakashi suddenly opened his eye again and shot up into a sitting position, surprising them.

'She's right!!' he thought. His eye widened in realization. That was it... They hadn't seen how the body was disposed of!

"What's wrong, Sensei?" Naruto asked.

"Did I say something weird?" April asked, blinking.

"Well..." Kakashi said, holding a hand to his head."... Body erasing teams usually dispose of the body of the person they killed right there," he explained.

"!" April gasped as her eyes widened in realization, and she also shot up. 'Eh? Wait, then... isn't that bad!?' she thought, alarmed.

"Huh? So what?" Sakura asked, wondering why April suddenly looked so freaked out about something so minor.