I had no idea what I was doing. Sure, it sounded like a good idea to wait for the Jōnin after us, and then hit them with a surprise attack. There was also the idea that fighting him would've been fine for us, and that tying him would never backfire on us. It didn't even take that much effort when I did finally take him down. A surprisingly little, in fact. Suspiciously little. My spectral Byakugan even confirmed that his heart rate was steady, but did that mean he was asleep? If he was, then it also didn't seem like too bad of an idea to tie him to our beds while keeping his arms apart and fingers tied. If he could cast ninja magic from feet hand signs then we'd be screwed. However, we only had so much rope. Trying to distract myself from how weird this would look from an outsider's perspective, I calmed Hinata down. She wasn't taking the idea that the random Shinobi, Itsuki, wasn't after us. I mean, when he had found out we were actually kids he stopped looking like a threat to me. That fact alone, was more threatening. I was too paranoid to question why he would be nice, and went straight to the take down. The first Shinobi I had spoke to before had punched my lights out and kidnapped me, so I felt slightly justified in my actions. Hinata's paranoia was similar, and she definitely wouldn't like some random guy coming at us with any intent. And, while I thought she was cured a little bit, it seems her fear of getting kidnapped translated to attacking the man at any sign of anything when he entered the room. Now, after calming down, she was just sulking next to a little nest of her swords, waiting for the Shinobi to wake up. I was still skeptical about him actually being unconscious, and I got my answer when he cracked one eye open to look at me then smiled. "You pack an insane punch, kid." It didn't really answer much, but with how easy he took in his bindings, he should've been awake the entire time. Or just really weird. Or it's a Shinobi thing. You know what, I'm not even going to think of that. "So, who are you?" I asked instead of accepting the nice compliment. He looked at me funny then turned to Hinata. Her Byakugan were pulsing. "Is this really an interrogation?" Hinata twitched behind me, and I sighed internally. "Yes, this is an interrogation. Now, are you going to answer my questions?" "I don't know, kid. What will you do to me if I don't?" He didn't look too worried. He didn't have a need to be worried, either. I had no idea what I was doing. Was I going to torture information out of him? I don't think I was ready to go that far to achieve my goals yet, and I liked to think I was above casual acts of horror. What did I even want to know? "Geez, I can't believe I thought they were Shinobi…" The man mumbled to himself before flashing me a smile. "Well, kid, if you're trying to get information out of someone the first thing to make known is presence and roles. You want the captee to feel like they can't even escape, or threaten them. Another thing to pay attention is how they perceive you, and, let's face it, you both are just scared kids." "Scared kids who have been through enough in the past year or so." I quipped back, shutting my mouth a second later. Had my time with Hinata made me have loose lips towards an insult? That is not good. "And that right there is my point, kid. You're definitely much better at fighting than most Treehugger children I have seen, and you even saw through me on our first interaction." The tied up Shinobi said as if he was about to start another lecture. "However, it seems that all your skills at interaction with other Shinobi isn't the best. A failed attack, perhaps? Or maybe," He looked to Hinata and nodded to me. I felt a chill run down my spine. How easy were we to read? Right, probably looking too far into it. Instead, my eyes narrowed, as if he had found out something and my voice lowered by several octaves. From high pitched child to slighter lower pitched child, I found myself not even the least intimidated. "Who are you?" "Itsuki, no surname," Itsuki smiled happily as if I finally cracked some kind of code. "I'm a Missing Nin from Kirigakure, and a former teacher slash member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist." I paused at the answer. A legitimate answer. "You're…" I swallowed my words. "A wanted man?" "Kinda," The Missing Nin said. "It's a little more complicated than that, but I'm not about to spill my reasons to some kids, you know." "So," I eyed him hard. There was only one other Missing Nin that I knew by memory from the original Naruto's story, and he wasn't the most pleasant of characters. As in, the man was a literal assassin. "You're a bad guy?" The Shinobi hummed as he thought over my words, and Hinata tensed behind me. "To Kiri, yes, I am a bad guy, but considering they massacre any man, woman or child with a Bloodline, it's safe to say that I should be a good guy." "Okay…" I had no idea how to judge what he said. "So you're a good guy? From a village that kills anyone is different?" "You're a very jaded kid, you know." He huffed playfully. "You're the one who attacked us in the middle of the night." I shot back. The Shinobi looked at me like I had made a joke. "Really, kid, ask yourself what you would do if you're on the run, and suddenly two people, one of whom has an impossible amount of Chakra for a kid, happen to be in the village you're hiding at. Kirigakure isn't known for letting their Seven Swords be stolen by a Missing Nin, nor are they the most reasonable of individuals. Besides, sending two kids after me is something they would pull." I let the knowledge soak into me. So far all I could come up with is that all Shinobi villages are crazy. Kumogakure is somehow willing to kidnap two kids in the middle of the village for the sole purpose of increasing their bloodline users. Kirigakure was exterminating what would be the equivalent to Konoha's clans for some unknown genocidal purpose. Finally, there was Konohagakure that were probably going to be invaded by their allies in the the future. At this point, I was one hundred percent sure that all the other villages had something intrinsically wrong with them. Still, I had an interrogation to continue. I would have to plan around the crazy later. "So you're running away from your village because you stole something important?" I got the impression that he was trying to shrug inside his bonds. "It was a good idea at the time." "When is taking something that is important ever a good idea when you're trying to evade their sights?" "Revenge, I guess." The former Kiri-nin said before looking me in the eyes. His eyes spoke before I had even heard his words. "I mean, you watch your students kill each other year after year without being able to interfere." I wanted to say something, but no words came out. I realized it then, that this man was as broken as both Hinata and I. I don't really think he meant us any harm, and, while I wasn't as adept at checking for falsities, I could tell he had quite a bit of anger towards his village. "So what now?" His words spurred me into motion. He wasn't really a threat. We weren't really looking for a fight either. "I guess we can release you. This whole thing was a misunderstanding, and we'd rather not start a fight." "Huh, okay." Itsuki enunciated as he began to rub his wrists. His free wrists. We had made no move to free him either. Shinobi were bullshit, I reminded myself. Hinata twitched behind me, but otherwise kept herself out of the way. He saw our attention and smiled placidly."Your knots were rather juvenile. It makes sense that you both are kids, but seriously, whoever taught you had definitely neglected some of the more subtle things a Shinobi knows." "Yes, we'll be sure to ask them to make sure that deficiency is corrected soon." I said, hoping that this situation was put far behind us soon. "So, where are you kids headed?" Itsuki had other ideas as he stood up from his bonds, flashing us another smile. I could definitely see the teacher in this guy now. However, that doesn't give him the right to pry into our matters. Hinata is having trust issues, and I am too paranoid to include this guy in on our plans. "Does it matter?" "Not really." The Shinobi smiled, placing his hands in a gesture for surrender when it looked like he wasn't leaving. "But, I would probably be a horrible person to leave a couple of children unsupervised. Besides, your clothes are not much more than rags; you must've been lost for awhile." "I don't think we'll stay here for more than a night." This guy was getting on my nerves. "Thank you for the offer, though, Itsuki-san." "You're not really a cute kid aren't you, whiskers?" He pursed his lips as he stepped closer to the door. "You know it's not wrong to ask for help." "It is when that help is coming from a Missing Nin." The man sighed. "And if I said I knew the way to Konoha from here?" "Then I would repeat my previous words." I stated simply, trying to hide the violent flinch his words had on me. I had no idea how he had accurately seen through our problem, however, it didn't look like he would drop the issue anytime soon. "Look, I get that your moral code or whatever is being tickled or something, but we don't really know you. Just worry about yourself." "Right, my bad." The hardened Shinobi said. He left after those words, and finally our night became quiet. Hinata didn't seem to want to sleep anymore, and I was still watching the Shinobi through my specter, so, suddenly, we had to fill our time with something else. A long night of nothing but boring talks later, we promptly packed up. The little incident with the Missing Nin had clued us in on the fact that we were nowhere near Konoha. In fact, as I looked at a map the next day, we were on the border of the Wind Country. Hinata was ecstatic as they were Konoha's allies. I remembered them from the invasion that had killed Hiruzen. They were planning on turning on us. Would they be planning to do the same? How long was this plan in motion? I had no idea, and rushing to our supposed allies might end in more harm than help. I just needed Hinata to not want to go to Sunagakure. "Hey, Hinata-chan, now that we have a map we can probably find our way to Konoha, right?" "Or we can go to Sunagakure." She countered with the words I had expected. "They're our allies, after all." "Well, they're Shinobi, as well." I hated myself for trying to manipulated my friend again, but I had to keep the both of us safe. Betting on whether or not our allies had turned was not something I wanted to do. "Kumogakure couldn't have snuck into our village without trying something underhanded. Maybe they pushed for a peace treaty while they grabbed us?" Hinata shivered as the name Kumogakure came out. "...right." "So just because we're their allies, doesn't mean that they would treat us well." I felt sick to my stomach as Hinata nodded to my words. She believed me so fervently. I was hoping to have to lie a little about why we would stray away from going to Sunagakure, but I had never expected her to believe me so readily. We left the quiet town in the exact way we came. We found ourselves back the following evening. It was official, I had no idea how to navigate in a forest. In my defense, all the trees looked the same. I found Itsuki leaning on a boulder that was close to the town, his eyes one us with a smile on his face. "How're you two?" I scowled. Hinata tensed. "These maps are fake." The Shinobi looked down at the map I held in my hand, look back to me, then his smile widened further. "You're holding it upside down." "We… We'll be fine." Whether it was pride that drove me or some misplaced anger, I took Hinata's hand in mine and dove back into the forest. I would fix this like I had with everything else. This time we found ourselves walking around trees that we had marked as we moved. We were lost again, and my specter was finding nothing but trees for miles around. If anything, the fact that we weren't even close to the previous town was not a consolation to our situation. We were running out of food slowly. I had thought of going on a stealing spree in the previous town, but the advent of the Shinobi and finding out how sickeningly easily Hinata believed me had caused me to forget about that. Hunting was getting harder as I found less and less food as we traveled. Around this time, I began to review how stupid I had been. I had thought myself infallible after defeating a couple of Shinobi. I had developed some sort of pride that I had to try and solve everything myself. No, I think what really was taking my thoughts was how dependent Hinata was on me. She had trusted me so much that I felt I had to save the both of us myself. Even if our first offer of help was dubious, I should've at least tried to do something other than flounder around like an idiot. However, in the end, I knew that I was never good at thinking things through. I could plan everything. I could have my specter scour the lands looking for everything we needed. When it all came down to it though, I would go with my gut. My gut normally led me correctly. I stepped a couple feet away from a sleeping Hinata. Her soft breaths falling slow in the dark of night. Draping another blanket over her I felt that if she no longer trusted me after this then it would be fine, but I had made a promise with myself to fix this. To get her home. Swallowing whatever pride I had gained from coming to this world. I realized that even with abilities beyond whatever I could have dreamed of, I needed help. Whatever awesome powers my knife gave me, I still had no idea where I was. We were just two kids, one mentally older, lost in a forest trying to look for a way home. So I stepped away from our campsite, and found a small puddle sitting behind a random tree. I sighed, blowing out the last of my nerves. "I need your help." The simple puddle ripples, and a familiar figure rose from the impossible dimensions of it. A teacher smiled back at me. "Of course. I was waiting for you to ask." That line didn't really spurn any warm and fuzzies in my stomach. "It's still really creepy to follow two kids into a forest." Itsuki's smile faltered for a righteous second. Mine grew in equal amounts.