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Eastern Sector - Minutes Earlier
Natsuki and Narumi shared a simultaneous groan as they could finally slow down their pace now that they no longer had to locate and tail their targets. This kind of work had been much more difficult than they had expected, though that may have been the result of their personalities and favored fighting style.
As far as their personalities went, they were quite different people, with Natsuki being almost a carbon copy of their mother and Narumi being somewhat of a tomboy and only putting up with the dresses and feminine clothing that her mother picked out for her for the time being.
However, they did share the same base traits, with both being boisterous and exuberant individuals, being very picky eaters as seen by their steady diet of ramen, and their love for pranks. They also had a similar verbal tick, just like their mother, but unlike her, through years of training and discipline, they had managed to suppress it for the most part. Now it only made itself known when they were very excited or feeling incredibly strong emotions, positive ones in particular. Their fighting style also turned out to be similar since they were trained by the same people, though they preferred to rush into battle as opposed to thinking of the situation beforehand, one of their many faults.
Due to these traits, they had accumulated a completely incompatible relationship with intelligence work and tracking missions. The levels patience and stealth required for these types of missions was far too much for either of them to handle, they had nearly blown their cover and given away their presence to their targets over a handful of times in just over two hours because of their incompetence in this particular field.
While they were not a good match for this kind of work, they had managed to fulfill their part of the mission. All three of their targets had been duds. Their first target was a teenage girl who looked to be a severe drug addict. There was no humanly way possible that she was in any kind of condition for shinobi work, much less participate in a full scale invasion of one of the five great hidden villages. Though to make sure they did tail her for some time in order to come to their conclusion. The second target was farmworker who was on his day off, it seemed he was the one who owned the farm in the furthermost section of the northern sector who provided the entire town with their supply of crops and grains, judging by the conversations he had and people who he had interacted with throughout the day. Their third and final target was an elderly man who was restricted to a wheelchair and whose sight was rapidly deteriorating, judging from what they had overheard his nurse say.
In other words, the town looked as though it hadn't had a shinobi presence here in months, if not years. Though that wouldn't be very surprising since the town was pretty out of the way from any of the other towns.
They still had two hours to observe their surroundings before they needed to meet back up with the rest of the team, so they were wandering aimlessly through the now-empty streets in the direction of the northern sector because that area of the eastern side was the only place that they hadn't checked out yet. Though, now they could pose as regular girls walking down the street instead of having to stick to the shadows or blend into the crowds that had previously flooded the narrow streets.
"Narumi, Are you okay? You've seemed kind of out of it for a while now..." Natsuki asked her twin sister worriedly. Though she had an idea of why she had been estranged and silent for the most part.
"..." Once again the blonde-haired girl refused to respond. She had only spoken when it was in regards to the mission, no more, no less.
Natsuki sighed, knowing how thick-headed and stubborn her own sister was. It would be much harder than than this to get through to her. "You're thinking about what happened back at the hideout aren't you..."
"..." Natsuki was met with a long silence once more, causing her to let out another sigh. Just as it seemed that this conversation would die out, Narumi finally found her voice. "How do you do it...? How can you be so...so normal right now...?"
Natsuki stopped walking and looked over at her sister who was clearly disturbed by what she had done. "You feel remorse for killing those shinobi back at the hideout..." Natsuki's response was a statement, not a question.
"I-I know I'm a shinobi...and I know I shouldn't feel like this...it's just, I can't help it! Then I look over at you and everyone else on the team...and it seems like taking another person's life doesn't even affect all of you at all!" Narumi was trying hard to hold back her tears. She knew what she was getting into today and she knew the reasons for why she needed to do it, but every time she closed her eyes, even if was only to blink, she saw all the faces of the people she had just killed.
"..." Natsuki was silent for a moment, not exactly sure what to say to bring comfort to her distraught sister. "I'll be honest with you and tell you straight out that it doesn't...It's kinda hard to explain, ya know...On one hand I was there, I know that I killed those people and shed all that blood...but on the other hand, it feels like it wasn't me who killed them...or like I know I did it but I haven't been able to process it yet..."
"I-I see..."
"Though the only thing that has been running through my mind recently is the story Nii-san told us about his experience yesterday...I guess I feel that I just don't have the right to feel guilty or remorseful for what I've done, knowing his experience had to have been at least a hundred times worse...He never had anyone to comfort him all his life, never to show them that they cared, no matter how much we try to deny it...but when we get back to the village Tou-san, Kaa-chan, Tsunade-obaa, Ero-sennin, Kakashi-sensei, all of them there beside us..to comfort us...Knowing that I wasn't there to held Nii-san makes me feel that I don't have the right to feel bad for myself..." Natsuki honestly answered Narumi's unasked question. After hearing her brother's story yesterday, she couldn't help but beat herself up for having such selfish thoughts when he had to go through all of this so early on and on his own at that.
Narumi's eyes widened as she heard her sister's reasoning. She knew that her sister was attached to their older brother, perhaps more so than a sibling should ever be, so at the beginning of her explanation, the blonde simply disregarded it as her willing to do anything for him. But now that Narumi fully understood what her sister was trying to say, she couldn't help but feel a pang of regret in her chest...Not because she was thinking about her recent kills again, but because she hadn't realized how selfish she was being. If what she had been feeling up until now was enough to drive her over the edge, then just how much pain had her brother gone through? How was a person able to deal with all of that mental trauma on their own?