The morning after the rainstorm, the training grounds smelled of petrichor and opportunity.
Seven-year-old Shibi Aburame stood in the tall grass, his high collar pulled up to his nose, his dark glasses reflecting the gray, humid sky. He was not playing. He was monitoring the perimeter of his personal space.
"Gotcha!"
A blur of pigtails and floral-scented chakra crashed through the bushes.
Shibi flinched. He felt a spike of panic in his hive—a sudden, violent abduction of three scout kikaichū that had been patrolling the fern fronds.
"Wait," Shibi said, stepping forward. "Those are mine."
The girl didn't look up. She was kneeling in the mud, peering intently into a small, mesh butterfly net. She wore a green dress that was already ruined by grass stains, and her hair was a messy, joyful tangle of black curls.
"Wow," she breathed, ignoring him entirely. "Look at the iridescence on the carapace! They aren't wild, are they? They move like soldiers."
She looked up at him then. Her eyes were bright, intelligent, and completely devoid of the usual revulsion people showed his clan.
"You're an Aburame, right?" she asked, grinning. "I'm Shikimi. I catch things."
Shibi adjusted his glasses. "You caught my scouts. Please release them. They get anxious when separated from the colony."
"Anxious?" Shikimi giggled. She carefully inverted the net, letting the three confused beetles crawl onto her finger. Instead of shaking them off, she brought them closer to her face, inspecting them with genuine wonder. "They're cute. They have little mandibles."
She held her hand out. The bugs buzzed happily—traitorously—before flying back to Shibi's sleeve.
"I saw a beetle yesterday," Shikimi said, standing up and wiping mud on her dress. "It looked like a rhino! It had a long nose and bright blue eyes! It was huge!"
Shibi paused. A rhino beetle with blue eyes?
The archives spoke of the Bikōchū, the microscopic beetle with a legendary sense of smell. But a giant one?
"That is biologically unlikely," Shibi stated, his tone flat. "The Allomyrina dichotoma does not possess blue ocular pigmentation."
Shikimi rolled her eyes. "You sound like a textbook. It was real! And I'm gonna catch it next time!"
She grabbed her net and ran off into the woods, laughing.
Shibi watched her go. He checked his hive. The three scouts were buzzing with a strange, sugary energy. They liked her.
Troublesome, Shibi thought, though he didn't move to leave.
Ten years later, the training grounds still smelled of rain, but the air was heavier now. Thicker with the tension of impending war.
Shibi, now seventeen, moved silently through the canopy. His coat was heavier, his glasses darker, his hive thousands strong. He was tracking a disturbance in the localized chakra field—a anomaly that smelled faintly of star anise and ozone.
He landed on a branch, sending a cloud of kikaichū ahead to scout.
Zip.
One of his bugs vanished.
Shibi frowned. He shunshined forward, ready to engage the enemy.
WHAM.
He didn't hit an enemy. He hit a wall of mesh.
"AAYHH?!"
Shibi stumbled, tangled in a massive, reinforced net that had been sprung from the forest floor. He flailed for a second, his cool composure shattered, before he realized he was hanging three feet off the ground like a caught fish.
"Oooowow!" a familiar voice crowed. "What a curious specimen!"
Shikimi stepped out from behind a tree. She wasn't wearing a dress anymore. She wore practical ninja gear—mesh armor, cargo pants loaded with scrolls, and a forehead protector tied around her bicep. She had grown into her wild hair, but her smile was exactly the same.
She poked Shibi in the side through the net.
"..."
Shibi stared at her through the mesh. "Please."
Shikimi laughed, the sound bright and sharp. She reached up and touched the rim of his goggles.
"What an incredible pair of compound eyes!" she teased, lifting them slightly. She leaned in, her face inches from his. "WOW! Ocelli beneath! Truly a rare find in this habitat."
Shibi felt heat rising up his neck. It wasn't the embarrassment of being caught. It was the proximity.
"I don't have control over who becomes a Genin," Shibi said, his voice stiff.
Shikimi's smile faltered. The teasing light in her eyes dimmed. She stepped back, letting the net drop him to the ground with a thud.
"I know," she said quietly. "I didn't pass the exam. My chakra control is... vegetative. Too wild for ninjutsu."
Shibi stood up, brushing leaves off his coat. He looked at her—really looked at her. She wasn't a ninja. She was a civilian with a hobby. And yet, she had trapped an Aburame specialist in his own element.
"I..." Shibi started, then stopped. He didn't know how to comfort her. He dealt in facts.
"Don't apologize, Shibi," she said, turning away. "I'm just a bug catcher. It's fine."
Shibi moved before he thought. He reached out, placing his hand on her arm.
She froze. He felt the warmth of her skin through the mesh armor. He smelled the star anise scent that clung to her, the scent that made his bugs hum with contentment.
"I love you," he said.
It wasn't a poetic declaration. It was a fact. Like stating the species of a beetle.
Shikimi whipped around. The heat of anger that had been rising in her face instantly boiled into a bright, violent flush of red.
"You—" she sputtered. "You can't just say that after falling out of a tree!"
"Why not?" Shibi asked. "It is the truth."
The Aburame Clan graveyard was quiet.
It was a silence deeper than the forest, a silence that swallowed sound and grief alike.
Shibi stood before the grave. It wasn't a stone slab. It was a living marker—a dense, neatly trimmed hedge of Anise bushes, dotted with small white flowers. The flowers were covered in kikaichū, the insects tending the grave with a reverence they usually reserved for the queen.
Next to him stood Shino.
Six years old. Small. Silent.
Shino wore a coat that was too big for him, the collar pulled up to hide his mouth. He wore dark glasses that hid his eyes. He stood with his hands in his pockets, mimicking his father's posture perfectly.
But Shibi could see the tremble in the boy's shoulders. He could feel the chaotic, grieving buzz of Shino's nascent hive.
"Let's go home, son," Shibi said softly, placing a hand on Shino's head.
"Even a tiny insect has half a soul," Shibi quoted, the words tasting like ash. "But she had a whole one."
Shibi turned and began to walk away, giving the boy a moment.
Shino looked down at the flowers.
"Goodbye, mom..." he whispered.
Rustle.
The flowers shifted. Shino squinted, leaning in.
A long, black proboscis emerged from the dirt between the Anise roots.
"...?"
Shino tilted his head.
The beetle emerged fully. It looked like a Hercules beetle, but... wrong. It was too shiny. Too geometric. Its shell didn't reflect light; it refracted it. Its eyes weren't compound; they were fractal mirrors.
The Bikōchū.
It chirred—a sound like glass rubbing together—and flitted into the air.
Shino didn't know the legends. He didn't know his mother had chased this bug for twenty years. He just knew it was leaving.
"Follow," Shino commanded.
A single kikaichū detached from Shino's sleeve.
The hive was a collective, but Shino had always noticed the individuals. This one was faster. Tougher. It had a scar on its carapace from a training spar.
Chrzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Shino felt the buzz travel down his forearm. He raised his arm, aiming his index finger at the sky like a gun.
If the hive was a system, this part needed a name.
Bullet Bee.
CKCHCHRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
The kikaichū shot out of Shino's finger. It didn't fly; it fired. The wind bent around its carapace, its wings vibrating like a chitonic metronome.
One hundred wing beats a second. ZZZZZZZZZZ.
Two hundred. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Three hundred. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
It streaked into the sky, chasing the legendary beetle into the clouds.
But the Bikōchū was faster. It vanished into the white mist, leaving only a shimmering trail of pheromones behind.
"Come back," Shino commanded, before his Bullet Bee strayed too far.
The black speck returned, landing on Shino's finger. It vibrated with frustration.
Shino sighed, watching the spot where the strange beetle had disappeared.
"She was right," Shino whispered to the empty air. "It does have blue eyes."