The stadium was quieter when it was empty.
No cheering, no gasps, no kids screaming each other's names. Just night wind and the slow tick of lanterns guttering out as the cleaning crews finished below.
Hayate Gekkō sat on the edge of the highest stone arch, legs dangling over open air, clipboard balanced on one knee. The arena bowl yawned beneath him, pale in the moonlight. The lines of the new bracket shimmered faintly in ink and chakra under his hand.
He finished the last stroke of a name, set the brush into its little travel tube, and then doubled over coughing.
"—kh—"
The fit tore through him in sharp, dry spasms. He jammed a fist against his mouth, shoulders shaking, handkerchief catching the worst of it. His ribs ached like someone had driven kunai between them and left them there to rust.
By the time it passed, his eyes watered and his throat tasted like metal and medicine.
He straightened slowly, sucked in a careful breath, and checked the clipboard.
Naruto vs Neji.
Shikamaru vs Temari.
Sasuke vs Gaara…
Names and lines, lines and names. A neat little map of who got to bleed for glory next month.
"At least they had the sense to give the kids a break," Hayate muttered, voice scraping. "Kh— small mercies."
Far below, one of the maintenance chūnin shouted to another. Brushes swept stone. A plug of dirt clinked against the wall.
Up here, the village lights were a sea of orange and white. The Hokage Monument watched it all with blind stone eyes. On the far edge of his vision, the tower speared up into the sky, windows lit on a few floors where someone was working too late.
Not his problem. Tonight, his problem was this bracket, this stadium, and the nagging feeling that all of it was stacked on something rotten.
Wind tugged at his flak vest. He folded the bracket sheet, slid it into its scroll tube, and sealed it with a thumb of chakra.
The moment the seal snapped shut, someone landed behind him.
He went still.
The presence was familiar—cool, precise chakra, held tucked in tight—and the sound of cloth and metal settling into a crouch was as distinctive as a voice.
"You know," a woman said dryly, "when you said 'I'll just take care of the paperwork,' I didn't think you meant 'climb onto a roof in the middle of the night and cough yourself to death.'"
Hayate turned his head.
Cat-face porcelain glinted in the dark. The ANBU mask tilted at him, unimpressed, purple markings cartoon-sharp even in low light. Short dark hair spilled out from under the back of it, swaying as she stood.
"Yūgao," he rasped. "Good evening."
She stepped up beside him, ignoring the drop. For a second she just looked out over the arena the way he had, the two of them side by side on the stone curve like mismatched gargoyles.
"Final brackets?" she asked.
He tapped the scroll tube. "Done. Hokage-sama will sign off on them in the morning. Unless he decides to change his mind again." A weak grin tugged at his mouth. "Kh— I think the kids are starting to suspect adults just make the rules up as we go."
"They'd be right," she said. "Though I doubt they'd enjoy knowing it."
Her gaze slid to him. Even with the mask, he could feel the frown.
"You're pushing it," Yūgao said. "You spent all afternoon in the prelims arena, then the debrief, now this. Your lungs will mutiny."
"They already have," he said mildly. "I'm just ignoring the coup."
She huffed. It was almost a laugh.
Then she reached out and grabbed his collar with two deft gloved fingers.
He blinked as she fussed with it, straightening where he'd left it skewed, tugging the fabric so it sat better at the back of his neck. The motion brushed his skin, warmed by her hand.
"Honestly," she muttered. "You'd go to a treaty summit with your vest half open."
"I like to give enemy scouts something to gossip about," he said. "Mystery. Intrigue. The proctor who doesn't know how to use buttons."
Yūgao made a small disapproving noise, but her fingers smoothed the cloth down with care.
When she finished, she leaned in, just a little, and tapped the cool porcelain of her mask against his forehead. A brief, ridiculous gesture—almost like a kiss, if you were feeling poetic and had a high tolerance for ceramic.
"You worry me," she said quietly, close enough that he could hear her actual voice under the mask, the way it softened just for him. "You know that, right?"
Hayate looked at her.
The moon painted the edges of her hair silver. Her eyes, behind the cat slits, were unreadable to anyone who didn't know the tiny tension in the muscles around them. He did.
"I know," he said. "Kh— I've always been very talented at that."
She snorted. "Don't be clever. It doesn't suit you."
Before he could formulate a suitably tragic retort, another presence brushed the edge of his awareness. This one heavier, cloaked in professional neutral, like damp paper wrapping sharp steel.
An ANBU in standard dog-mask landed on the opposite side of the arch, silent as dust. No clan markings on the armour. No ornament. Just the ink swirl of the Hokage's personal guard on one shoulder.
"Gekkō Hayate," Dog said, bowing slightly. "Orders from Hokage-sama."
Yūgao straightened, posture going from fond exasperation to crisp in an instant. Hayate shifted his weight, knees creaking quietly, and faced the newcomer.
"Late for an order," he rasped. "We starting the next exam tonight? Kh— I didn't bring my whistle."
Dog ignored the joke. They extended a scroll.
Hayate took it, broke the seal, and unrolled it enough to read by the stadium's distant lantern glow.
The handwriting was the Third's: neat, slightly slanted, with a weight to the strokes that came from years of writing laws and death notices.
Gekkō Hayate,
Following reports from various parties regarding Sunagakure's jonin Baki and the Otogakure delegation, you are to conduct discrete observation of any and all meetings between the above.
Report directly to me.
—Sarutobi Hiruzen
Underneath, in smaller script, a note so brief it was almost a joke:
Anko insists: "Their team smells wrong. Too… manufactured."
I have learned to listen when she says such things.
Hayate stared at the line for a long moment.
Manufactured.
The Sound genin in the prelims flashed through his memory: Zaku's arms, rebuilt too fast and too neatly; Dosu's strange gear wrapped around his head; the bandaged one, Kin, with chakra that felt tuned instead of grown.
Not a village, Anko had said earlier that day in the debrief, pacing like a bored tiger. A lab that learned how to talk.
He rolled the scroll back up.
"Understood," Hayate said. "I'll start tonight."
Yūgao shifted. "You're assigning him alone?"
Dog's mask tilted fractionally toward her. "This directive is for Proctor Gekkō," they said. "Hokage-sama requests a light footprint. Too many ANBU might spook our… guests."
Hayate coughed into his fist again, the sound unpleasantly like laughter gone wrong.
"Relax, Cat," he said quietly. "I lurk, I listen, I come back and annoy you with reports. Kh— nothing dramatic."
Her hand tightened at her side. He caught it in the corner of his eye: the little tremor that meant she wanted to reach for him and wasn't sure if she was allowed to in front of another mask.
"Baki is a war veteran," she said, calm and precise, the way she got when she was trying not to show emotion. "Orochimaru is confirmed present in the village. 'Sound' is an unknown quantity. This isn't a kid cheating on a test."
Dog said nothing. The wind said nothing. The entire stadium felt like it was holding its breath.
Hayate folded the scroll and tucked it into his vest.
"I know what it is," he said.
His lungs burned a little when he inhaled, but the ache behind his sternum had nothing to do with coughing now. It felt like the old war again, like waiting in trees for Shinobi from Stone to pass under, counting breaths in the dark.
"Cat," he said, turning to her. "I need you on your assigned patrol routes. If this goes bad, someone healthy should be in position to respond."
Yūgao's head snapped toward him. "Healthy?" she repeated. "You can barely get through a sentence without choking, and you want—"
"Kh— I want," he cut in gently, "you not to be standing next to me if Baki decides to cut loose. The Hokage asked for 'discrete.' Two ANBU is a pair. One sickly proctor is… background noise."
Dog made a small, approving sound deep in their throat. "He is not wrong."
She ignored Dog completely.
"Hayate," she said, dropping the codename, dropping even the pretense of distance. Just his name, bare. "You don't have to prove anything. Not to me. Not to anyone."
He smiled at that.
It hurt a little, for some reason.
"I know," he said again. "That's why I can do it."
She reached up, fingers hovering over the edge of her mask like she was about to take it off. Regulation screamed no. Her training screamed no. Every instinct screaming yes.
In the end, she didn't. She curled her hand into a fist instead.
"Report in every hour," Yūgao said, back to mission-voice, even if it shook a fraction. "If you miss two, I'm coming to drag you off whatever rooftop you've bled on."
"Every hour," he agreed. "Kh— unless I am, in fact, extremely dead. In which case, please scold my corpse."
"That can be arranged," she said.
Dog flickered, chakra shifting with the ghost of a shrug. "The Hokage expects your report by dawn," they said. "Good hunting."
They vanished in a blur of shunshin, leaving the two of them alone again under the moon.
For a long moment, neither moved.
Down below, someone laughed, distant and oblivious. The village murmured in its sleep. Somewhere, a dog barked twice and was shushed.
Yūgao stepped closer, enough that their shoulders nearly brushed.
"You're sure?" she asked, one last time. "You won't take backup?"
He thought of the Sound trio. Of Orochimaru's name, heavy as a curse. Of the way the Sand siblings moved—Gaara's sand reacting before his body did.
Of the kids in the arena today, eyes bright and stupid and brave.
"If this is nothing," Hayate said slowly, "I'll be home before sunrise, and you can tell me 'I told you so' about my lungs." His mouth quirked. "If it's something, kh—"
"If it's something," Yūgao said, "it won't be enough. One jonin isn't enough against Suna and Sound colluding and a Sannin in the village."
Her voice didn't rise. She didn't shout. But the words hung between them like the edge of a blade.
He could have said: Then we'll call ANBU. Then we'll raise the alarm. Then we'll turn this nice exam arena into a battlefield again.
He didn't.
Hayate put a hand over his chest, palm flat against the place that hurt when he coughed.
"Someone has to notice first," he said. "That's all. Kh— I'm good at noticing."
Silence.
Then, finally, Yūgao laughed once, low, with no humour in it at all.
"You're an idiot," she said.
"I've heard that before," he replied.
She reached out and, this time, did touch him—two fingers against his wrist, a fleeting press, like she was memorizing his pulse.
"Come back," she said.
"Yes, ma'am."
He rose in a smooth motion that only stuttered a little at the end. His legs complained. His lungs complained. His body had a long list of grievances; his duty had one short line: watch Baki, watch Sound, tell the Hokage.
Hayate stepped to the edge of the roof.
The stadium dropped away below him; the village spread out ahead, rooftops like dark scales. The night air was cold in his throat, but clean.
He glanced back once.
Yūgao stood there, cat-mask turned toward him, arms folded tight. Moonlight caught on the ANBU sword over her shoulder, the same style as his own. Two swordsmen on two different roofs, bound to the same village.
"I'll be back before you can sharpen that thing," he said.
"Liar," she replied.
He grinned at her, small and crooked. Then he vanished, body flickering into the dark as he leapt to the next rooftop.
Another cough shook him mid-flight; he swallowed it down.
Below, the village slept in the false safety of exam lights and political theatre.
Above, a sick, stubborn proctor chased the smell of manufactured shinobi and a snake's shadow into the night, his silhouette thinning and disappearing against the sky.
Somewhere ahead, in a quiet park where Sand jonin whispered with Sound, a storm was already coiling.