Duty

[Hiko]

“Duty” was a difficult concept, and Akemi had three to consider.

Ayana. Kouji. Shirio. None should have been put first, but neither could they all be equal.

Akemi sat in a worn, woven chair in the medical wing of her clan’s compound. She gazed across the bed that Ayana rested in with a weary, red-eyed gaze. How long had the girl laid there, unmoving? How many days now? How many nights? Akemi had lost count.
During the forest trial, Ayana had gotten caught up in the trap of some team or another (to her guardian, it hardly mattered who the attacker had been), and in freeing herself, spat needles out at her assailant. Shikomi Shindan, but more than just the attack itself.
Dokunochi had been activated. The opponent had died within moments, and Ayana had had to be carried to the next stage. While the team passed on a technicality, her young charge’s time in the exam was over.

And if the girl didn’t wake soon, the same might soon be said for her life.

“Akemi.”
The jounin looked up slowly, loath to turn away from the bed and its inhabitant. “Chiko-san,” she addressed the woman before her. Chiko, an iryou-nin. One of the clan that had never awakened the bloodline’s abilities. While most went on to unassuming lives, Chiko had earned a place within Takako’s private, trusted circle, despite this “handicap.”
“Shift over?”
The medical-nin nodded. “Your students have the wing in an uproar. You’ve heard, I assume?”
Akemi leaned back in the chair, groaning at the shift after hours on edge. “Word travels quick enough, Chiko-san. Shirio’s a chuunin.”
“At the cost of Kouji’s eyesight.”
“What?”
“Half-breed – what could you expect?” the blonde before her said with a shrug, as if the boy were nothing more than a cur from the street. “Enough people saw the fight. Your dog-boy didn’t touch his eyes. What else could have caused it?”
The jounin chose to ignore her relation’s sour commentary. “Chiko.”
“Akemi?”
“Where is Taka-sama? Her heir has been near death for days. She’s a cold-hearted bitch of a woman, but even she wouldn’t stay gone from Ayana’s side for this long. Where is our clan head?”
Chiko paused, obviously surprised at the question. “You didn’t hear?”
“If I had, I wouldn’t have asked.”
“Akemi, she’s insane. She left during the exams, to hunt for the dead.”
“What?” The jounin rose from her seat, more out of a need to be mobile than out of any feeling of surprise. “Insane, I understand, but what do you mean she left to “hunt for the dead”?”
“She got it into her head about a day into the second exam. Something broke – it had to have. You can’t look for someone you yourself killed.”
“Chiko,” Akemi took a wary step toward the other woman, “Who is she hunting for?”
“Your mother. She’s looking for Kotone.”

[Hiko]

Akemi was red-eyed from lack of sleep; something that amused the jounin even as she stared up at her reflection in the window of Ayana’s quiet care unit. It had been forty-eight hours since she’d last laid down, and the chair kept her too stiff to even nap within the room. She yawned, stretching from her seat. The constant drone of the Beep. Beep. Beep. of Ayana’s ECG monitor was both there and not; after enough time, it became just more white noise, with only the occasional spike or drop in the rhythm to bring it back to Akemi’s focus of concern.

The jounin had stopped paying attention to the minute details: the ECG, the rise and fall of Ayana’s chest as the comatose girl continued to breathe on her own, even the coming and going of Chiko went largely unnoticed. Akemi supposed in her fatigue the only event of important would be if her charge suddenly were to wake, gasp for breath, or flatline.
“Akemi-sama!” A voice that wasn’t Chiko’s gasped, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you were in here!”
Whether it was the voice or the suffix that broke her lack of concentration, Akemi didn’t know. She glanced up. “Me-what?”
“A-Akemi-sama? Would you like me to get you a pillow? O-or a more comfortable chair? I should do that!” The young girl in the doorway almost seemed to tremble with anticipation. Short, with too-dark of hair to be anywhere close to the main family line, and plain brown eyes, Akemi realized that the girl was bloodless – if she’d had enough of a chance to gain Dokunochi at all. She frowned at the girl, more for her sudden appearance than the conclusions drawn.
“Chiko’s apprentice?”
“Y-yes, ma’am.”
“Her family?”
“Y-yes, Akemi-sama.” The girl ducked her head, probably from the habit of dealing with clan stigmas, if the jounin were to guess.
“You keep using that.” Akemi leaned forward, and cushioned her chin on balled fists, the elbows digging into the legs. “I’m branch, Apprentice-Girl. No need for formalities. We’re both serving the main house.”
“You are the main house, though, Akemi-sama,” the girl (still unnamed, to Akemi’s chagrin) replied, eyes wide.
“I’m what now?”
“With Takako-sama gone, and Ayana-sama, well…” the apprentice trailed, glancing at Ayana’s still frame.
Realization hit Akemi like a tidal wave. “Oh. Fuck.”

[Hiko]

“…our duty to oversee the new bonds of alliance with – Akemi-sama?” Matsuyo clearned his throat, causing Akemi to glance upward. One of the few men on the clan council, it was his voice that the jounin was quickest to register when her care for a meeting faltered.
“Apologies, Matsuyo. I understand how delicate a matter this is, with our former standing regarding Iwa.”
The older man grunted, “It was your own aunt who made such a mess of matters with their Bull. You should be aware of the task upon you, Akemi-sama. It will be no easy task to regain the trust of that village.”
“It has been over a decade, Matsu,” Torako replied, her voice gravel on Akemi’s ears, “Perhaps with new leadership, they will see we are committed to peace.”
“None of you are saying what you want,” Kirei snapped. The youngest on the council, only a sparse handful of years older than Akemi herself, Kirei was often the most blunt in these discussions. Akemi felt herself tense at what would likely become yet another argument between the generations. And she would sit through it, all the while screaming in the back of her own brain for the ability to leave and return to the care unit where Ayana – the real heir – still rested.
“You all want a marriage, but no one’s got the balls to say it,” Kirei spat, “The Tsuchikage has unmarried grandsons, and our clan has no new heir.” She looked plainly at Akemi then, as if it show her disgust with the prospect.
The jounin balked. “Those grandsons are half my age. No one in their right mind would-“
“And yet, the offer stands,” Matsuyo said softly, cutting through Kemi’s surprise, “He offers it out of goodwill. The eldest is almost seventeen, you know. Well-liked in the community – and seems to have an earnest affection for Konoha.”
“He has an affection for the bath houses,” Kirei muttered.
“At least consider it, Akemi-sama,” Torako pleaded, “A marriage between villages would insure their alliance during this war.”
--

Ayana was motionless in the bed when Akemi finally managed to return to her side. The ECG continued its dedicated beep, beep, beep, however. The jounin sighed, slumping into the chair that had become her second home. “Ayana-sama, I think today was the first time I hoped you didn’t wake. If you had to deal with the political mess your mother left for us, I…” Akemi sighed. “But you don’t. I do. I suppose by the time you wake – if you wake...” Another heavy, ragged sigh.
“Ayana, if you wake up before this is all over, just... Just find a path that suits you, not the council. I'm too much of a lapdog to say no.”

[Hiko]

It was quiet in Ayana’s world, still and dark, and there was a peace to it that the young kunoichi had never before experienced. What occurred outside this world mattered not. While others rushed about in an ongoing haste toward endless strife, Ayana knew pure tranquility.
Beep.
What was that noise doing, entering her reverie?
Beep.
Though she did not wish it, Ayana’s body made a small groan.
Beep. Beep.
Though she did not will it, Ayana’s eyes stirred beneath their lids.
Beepbeep.
Even as she struggled to remain in her quiet world, her eyes opened.
Beepbeepbeepbeep.
Everything was too bright! Too white! Too loud! Without thinking, the girl slapped her hands to her ears and huddled up against herself, as if it rally her body against the onslaught of the world to which she had returned.
Beepbeepbeepbeep.
“those charts – oh!” A new loud thing entered the barrage. “Ayana-sama! You’re awake!”
“Too loud,” she rasped, her throat too dry to effectively speak.
“You want out?”
“Too loud,”
“Turn the machines off, and get Ayana-sama something to drink, please.”
“Familiar.” She said the word before she could think to stop herself. Ayana cringed at the feel of talking, and peeked out into the brightness with one eye. Blearily, she was able to make out the sight of a woman.
“I’d hope I sound familiar. Do you plan on greeting the world again with just the one eye, or might it do you better to open the other one, as well?”
“Sensei? You’re here?”
Akemi smiled, and as Ayana’s eyesight adjusted to the lights and sterile whites of the room around them, she thought her cousin looked drawn. Tired. Paler than she remembered.
“Always.”