It's a strange assignment to be sure. Kurenai has never once worked with the cryptoanalysis team, their work as esoteric to her as a foreign language, least of all their reliance on computers. Their role is important, she has no doubt about that, but it has never interested her.

Until recently. Upon her return from...she didn't know what to call it, how to put words to it, but ever since that incident, she has taken more of an interest in such things. When she hears of the troubles that arise for the cryptoanalysis team, she can't help but wonder if it's related.

"We have our best working on getting the computers up and running." Behind her thick glasses, Shiho's eyes flit toward the computers that are still display only static. Rows and stacks of books lay scattered around the small office with many shinobi pouring over them. Konoha's communications can't go lax just because the computers are down. "If you can help the decoding teams, that would be appreciated. We—"

FZZT!

Shiho yelps and hurries to a nearby computer that has smoke pouring out of it. Kurenai watches for a moment before she slinks to the side where a laptop has been left unattended. Its static stares back at her. It makes her brain feel much the same.

Movement catches her eye and she turns to see Sai. "...Are you here for the same reason?"

Speaking about what happened during the chuunin exams outside of that night feels almost oppressive, as if she shouldn't utter a word of it, especially here among other shinobi.

"I don't know if any of this is related." Her red-ringed eyes return to the snowy static that jitters across the screen. "But I had to see it with my own eyes."

"Please…" the mother's plea is soft and worn. Tired, red-rimmed eyes tell her that this is her last, desperate hope. In her arms, her baby screams and wriggles endlessly. The little boy is as tired as his mother but has less qualms about making sure everyone knows.

Why she had been called, she isn't sure, but Kiba is with her when she's summoned and allowed to come along. It seems they are accepting any and all help for this peculiar problem.

"I'm afraid I cannot remember this lullaby." As the woman tries to recall its melody, a familiar chord is plucked in her memory, but no words follow. It's frustrating in a way she can't place, grasping for a memory that isn't there.

"Kiba," she turns toward the young man. "Could Akamaru try to entertain the little one? Maybe if he quiets down a little, we can think a little clearer."

What luck, then, that someone else had beaten her to it. And after Ino had woken up early and everything. Through the brush, their silhouette stands perfectly, infuriatingly still, as if to say I’m not leaving anytime soon.

Teeth gritted, Ino marches toward the clearing, ready to bite the head off the jerk that's ruined her plans. She shoves aside a stupid branch that has the nerve to stretch out in front of her, and behind it is —

"Kurenai...sensei?"

Breath catching, Ino swallows down all the insults she'd been on the verge of throwing out at the 'intruder'. A too-loud laugh bubbles up as she mentally scrambles to shift gears.

"Oh...! Aha! I, uh."

Strictly speaking, she’d come there looking for a fight over the spring. But that’s the last thing she wants Kurenai to know: that Ino lost her head because of one early morning and one minor inconvenience. So she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and smiles sheepishly.

“Yes!” Then, dropping her voice a few levels, “Yes, I’m here to train, but I didn’t think I'd find anyone else all the way out here. Especially not you, sensei."

Ino takes a second to admire how still the spring water is beneath Kurenai’s feet; her interruption has hardly phased the other woman.

"On occasion," she replies. "It reminds me of what it's like to be a student." A pause, and then, "Will you join me? There is plenty room for the both of us. In fact, our training will go better together."

She shifts her stance, breaking the water's surface into ripples that stretch outward, but it's no problem for her to maintain control of her own chakra. This, at least, is still something that she can do.

For a moment, she just stares. The surprise was clearly evident on her face, even though she tried to hide it- It was evident by how her eyes widened just a fraction, and her fingers stopped fidgeting with her sleeve.

Hinata had... Never thought of Kurenai like that.

To her, Kurenai-sensei had always been steady. Confident. Someone who knew. The idea that she still felt doubt was something Hinata could not even grasp the concept of.

She thinks she understands what her teacher is telling her, but... There was always that lingering fear that she was wrong. So, instead, Hinata lowers her gaze briefly, trying to sort through the feeling, her thoughts a little tangled.

“…I didn’t know…” she admits quietly.

There’s no judgment in it. Just soft, genuine surprise.

Her hands come together again, but gentler this time, like she’s grounding herself rather than hiding.

“I always thought you were… certain. About yourself.”

She hesitates, then looks back up, more earnest now.

“…If you still feel that way…” Hinata continues, her voice soft but searching, “then…”

She falters slightly, but pushes through it. Her eyes stay on Kurenai now, open and vulnerable in a way that shows she truly wants to understand.

She didn't feel she would be a good teacher if she tried to shield her students from everything and that meant also showing her own weaknesses.

One of the great lessons of childhood is learning that the adults are not infallible.

"It gets easier with time. The more you learn and grow, your confidence naturally follows. And perhaps most importantly, finding those that you can rely on and that will support you."

Hinata's expression is one of an earnest willingness to understand. It's what lets her known that Hinata will make it through whatever comes her way. The kind of inner strength she's always seen in the young girl.

He's following quietly in the shadows, reading their target's body language in order to determine when they're going to turn around to check their surroundings. It's every few blocks or so... Asuma doesn't feel like he's made it very far down the street. He can see Kurenai hiding not too far ahead, and when she gives him that nod and disappears a second afterwards, Asuma knows to make his way to her now.

Asuma is silent as he disappears, his feet barely touching the ground now as he runs towards their new hiding spot. It only takes him a few seconds before he appears behind his partner, one hand resting gently on her lower back for a short moment before he shifts away as not to completely crowd her space.

It's as Asuma says. He seems to be waiting for someone.

She nods. "Let's wait and see."

It takes only a few moments before someone else appears. Is it some kind of smuggling operation? Are they trading information? Kurenai tilts her head, waits, and... watches as they walk off together without a word.

He's staring intently at the palm of his left hand. There should be a scar. A part of him wants there to be. It's normal to bleed. When Shikamaru shoved his fingers into the wound, it should have hurt. Asuma should have felt it but in place of flesh and bone there had been nothing but static. His hand closes into a fist and briefly, there's a flash of pain as blunt fingernails dig into his palm. He repeats the action a few more times in an efforted attempt to reassure himself that everything was still as it should be.

Footsteps inside pull him from his thoughts and then he's reaching to open the window further.  Either to invite Kurenai out or give himself enough room to come back inside. "Hey..." The tiredness he felt was starting to seep into his voice as he leaned his head back against the railing before looking at her and holding his right hand out to her. "Did I wake you up? I know it can be a pretty easy thing to do most of the time but I thought I was more being careful tonight. Sorry..."

Soft steps bring her to the balcony and she finds him waiting in the cool night air. Kurenai shakes her head.

"I haven't been able to sleep." Kurenai steps out beside him, into the warmth of his side, and observes the quiet Konoha. It's so different from its busy days and yet no less familiar to her. Now she wonders how real it is.

We're free, Deidara thinks, raising his head to look at the sky through the trees.

The proctors say something about "allowed to go back to the village," and "any attempt to harm your teammate is grounds for immediate disqualification," but he's more focused on the fact that the air feels like air now.

"We're not out of the clear yet."

She moves to stand near him, keeping a watchful eye even as he flops down to the ground.

"The immediate danger is past, but we're still in the forest. I'm not going to leave you behind." To do any different would go against her nature. He may not be her student or even of Konoha, but he is her partner.

He sneered. Trapped in a fuckin' genjutsu again, because everything just loved seeing him in pa—

Roll: 1d3 = 3

But his partner for this round seemed... alright. Better than any Uchiha with the eyes, and better than the girl who stabbed him, at least.

Roll: 1d3 = 3

"Awww Dei-da-ra-kun! Don't you want to play with me?", called a familiar voice, its tone carrying some notes of anger.

They're greeted by a disembodied voice, but this time when it speaks her name she's able to pinpoint its general location.

Before she can do little else, however, a very familiar looking contraption falls out of the sky and snags against her cheek. The two kunai tied to each end of a wire. Kurenai presses her fingers to her face and draws away with blood.

"Stay alert for more attacks." Wary, red-ringed eyes survey their surroundings. That voice, it came from this tree, she's sure of it. No matter how ordinary it looks.

The moment she touches the tree, however, she stumbles forward, and watches in disbelief as the tree movies away, the clearing expanding tenfold in the process.

"I'll go first." She nods to Asuma in the darkness, then opens the trap door and disappears through it back into the academy's halls.

As expected, Komorebi is nowhere near her, and so there's no one to witness the dashing shadow that makes its way from the hallway to the classroom. The window Asuma spoke of is still open.

Kurenai moves toward it. Moonlight and fresh air spill through and caresses her skin, a welcome feeling after hiding in the hallway's shadows for so long, but she remains focused on the task at hand. The area is clear and it's time to make her escape.

With practiced ease, Kurenai slips out of the window and down the side of the building, barely disturbing her surroundings until she lands on her feet beneath the shadow of a tree.

"I'm clear." She speaks into the mic. The academy looks quiet from here. Hard to believe there's several ninja trying to escape its confines.

He takes a moment to shut the door behind him, as if that would conceal the path he'd taken. They were aware of the proctor's route she was taking through the halls. She hadn't entered any rooms, though Asuma supposes it hardly matters now. They all had a clear path to escape.

The classroom is dimly lit by the moon's rays pouring through the open window. The smell of smoke still lingers, though just barely now. Asuma smiles to himself and makes a break for the window, channeling just enough of his chakra towards his feet to run down the outside wall of the academy. Once he spots Kurenai in the line of trees, he runs towards her and takes cover in the underbrush.

Shikamaru was five years old when he learned how to suppress his chakra. And he was twelve, crouched behind a tree in the Forest of Death, when he realized there was no way for an ordinary shinobi to conceal it completely. His mother had known the entire time.

It seems like Komorebi's trying to teach him the same lesson.

After her silhouette glides past the teachers' lounge, Shikamaru slips out. He leaves the door cracked with a coat rack stand hidden in the shadows by the west-side wall, which separates the lounge from the hallway he's in. If the team needs more time, he can make noise and emit chakra. From where Komorebi is, she would be able to sense his general direction; he can only hope that she'd investigate the lounge first.

Kurenai's voice crackles in his ear. Then Asuma's. The tension in his shoulders soothes over. Two safe, and he knows Ino can make it.

There's no way they'll hold their sensei back now. With Shikamaru keeping tabs on Komorebi, and with both their escape routes secured, all that's left is to finish executing the plan.

Ino sits on the edge of the roof, using her heel to press down on the ladder. The joints are caked with rust, but it feels nice and stable.

Halfway into her descent, Ino notices the ladder's not fully extended after all. She gives the drop-down ladder another nudge with her foot. This time, its lack of movement is less welcome, but she can jump the rest of the way down if she has to.

"I'm heading down n—eek!"

With a grating clang, the bottom half of the ladder falls away just as she lifts her foot to keep descending.

Jumping it is, then.

Landing on the grass, Ino looks over her shoulder to make sure the noise didn't draw any eyes. She then glares at the broken ladder beside her before moving to rejoin Asuma and Kurenai.

His eyes sweep the darkened corridors of the Academy one last time. They've grown a lot since the first time they stepped foot in here—him, Ino, and Chouji.

Ah, well. No use dwelling on the past when he's got her, Asuma, and Kurenai waiting for him outside. A faint smile rides his lips as he pulls open the transportation scroll.

It tires quickly thereafter.

"Ugh," is the first thing Shikamaru lets out in his team's presence. He tugs at his ear, still ringing from the ladder's sudden malfunction. "That felt like a humiliation ritual. Dunno what the higher-ups got in mind, putting us through the Exams again. It's such a drag ..."

But hey, everyone got out. That's all that matters.