Chapter Text
One session. Between the intellectual might of both Biwa-sensei and myself, it took only one session to complete my technique. And it was terrifying. If you didn’t take it out with Raiton jutsu or Dust Release, it simply wouldn’t. Stay. Down.
Naturally, I used it the very next day. We were doing another mock scrimmage, but instead of a cobbled together mix of reserves, we were against Hogo-taichō’s real team, the members of which had all been cleared for hard training.
I didn’t know anyone on Squad Twenty-Four besides their captain and Utau. In this exercise, they were Konbō and Chi, respectively. And let me tell you, it was an adjustment fighting a team with a captain as a Konbō.
Our own (Sable) was having a difficult time with only Tsuno (Gonbe) to tank for her. Chi (Egress) couldn’t work his magic because he was trying to pin down Twenty-Four’s Tsuno, a Doton ninjutsu specialist who must have been uncommonly excellent at handling genjutsu. Utau, however, was going through it, trying to ward off Sūji-taichō at ultra long range, working with her Ha to protect their rental Hara.
We were winning. Team Twenty-Four was rusty, and we’d been going hard in our current formation for over a month now. However, they had one player with the ability to turn the tables. Their own Me, who was, ironically, a clone master. He could use that earth clone variant that I had encountered way back in the final segment of the graduation exam. The one that didn’t have to displace the earth to move through, because it could simply move the chakra through the element without leaving a trace of itself behind. It was practically teleportation, if a bit slower.
Which meant he could intervene in every confrontation. Which he was doing, liberally. All it would take was one slip up, and he could manufacture an opening that would end one of the crucial fights around us.
It hadn’t happened yet, as he was most directly attempting to take me and my Ha (Naiyō) down. Between the two of us, his clones weren’t getting far, but we weren’t contributing much beyond holding his attention.
“I have a plan, but I need some height,” I told her.
“Hara,” she said, warningly.
“It won’t put me in harm’s way,” I assured her, punching right through the chest of a clone and grabbing the lip of the hole with my other hand. Ferociously, I ripped the thing in half, which unfortunately wasn’t overkill. These things were resilient.
“I finished the jutsu I was working on,” I confided in her. “I just need a clearer shot over these tall ass clones and our allies.”
“Fine,” she acquiesced. “I’ll boost you on three. One, two, three.”
I wasn’t expecting that quick of a countdown, but I reacted in time. I put my leading boot in her cupped hands, pushing off as she heaved with more strength than her little body should be able to produce. I went airborne, already cycling through my new seals with something between a grin and a snarl on my face.
Doton: Gaki no Batsu no Jutsu (Earth Style: Gaki’s Curse Technique)!
A torrential haze erupted from my masked mouth, amalgamating quickly and gaining mass as it soared in an arc. Biwa-sensei had given inspiration to the name, likening the clone to hungry mythological spirits called Gaki (the origin for the derogatory name for ungrateful children) that roamed the barren desert realm of Gakidō. His insightful comment regarding the amalgamation aspect of the jutsu proved true; my technique created grains similar in grit to sand, but its texture and other characteristics depended on the environment. I’d have to do some more experimentation under different conditions, so I would know what to expect if I was forced to use it in unfamiliar territory.
This arena floor yielded a sort of sticky dust, and it arced towards the enemy Me like a cresting wave. He wove familiar signs, casting Fūton: Daitoppa no Jutsu (Wind Style: Great Breakthrough Technique) to blow the seemingly loose construct away. It didn’t work as he hoped. My jutsu gathered together in a sort of pointed spear, the bulk of it piercing through the wide spread defense. Then, it was on him.
“Is that a clone?” Ha asked as my jutsu bulked up, taking on a humanoid form with thick limbs and a domed head. The perplexed Me gave a few feet of ground as the clone attacked with unexpected viciousness, no semblance of defense in its form.
“It’s a lot more than that,” I shared, transfixed by the melee. “Kunai out. If he starts molding hand seals, pin him down.”
And we did. True to his position in the formation, their Me was behind the rest of his squad. They couldn’t see him, and were too absorbed in their own fights to notice. He also didn’t realize the danger he was in, so he wasn’t calling attention to himself. He was probably getting frustrated we weren’t letting him cast jutsu, so in the end, he only had one real choice. That was, to attempt to dispel my construct the hard way.
I wished I could see the look on the clone expert’s face when his fists punctured my monstrosity’s body, and it didn’t break. According to common understanding, chakra bubbles were the only way a Doton clone with such a fluid body could be formed. I probably turned his entire understanding on its head.
And, of course, doing that activated stage two of the technique. His hand was trapped, and though its back was to me, I could see the thing’s condescending leer in my mind’s eye. It had pissed Biwa-sensei the fuck off last night in testing.
The captured shinobi swung his free arm through its neck, beheading it. For all the good that did. He attempted to blast himself out of the mass with overloaded chakra, an unrefined mockery of the Hyuuga’s Kaiten that was only as effective as it was because he was utterly encased in dirt. That had minimal effect as well. I just knew his fate was already—hehe—sealed.
As in, the seal was planted on him. I could tell because he became the focal point for the pursuing sands, which had maneuvered to surround him from all sides. It was creeping up his legs, over his torso, and it was all he could do to stay on his feet and scrape the encroaching dirt from his face. Unnecessary; it wouldn’t actually asphyxiate him. But he didn’t know that.
“On me!” he called, finally. “On me! Help!”
“What…what did you make?” Naiyō asked as we hassled the trio of Utau, her Ha and Hara with bukijutsu as they tried to retreat to their Me’s position. Sūji-taichō wasn’t going to let that happen so easily either, however, and the enemy Ha took a “lethal” blow to the back as he turned. The first elimination of the bout.
“I’ve never seen a technique like that.”
I grinned behind my mask.
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Utau and her Hara reached the writhing earth cocoon with her Squadmate inside. My friend frantically warded off Sūji-taichō’s precision ninjutsu with their elemental counters—it was pretty impressive, actually—freeing up their team’s centerpiece to attempt to excavate their Me. I saw him dig one hand partly in, only to yank it out like he had touched a pan hot out of the oven.
“Get it off me, fuck!” the Me cried, truly panicking, and his temporary teammate stole himself and dug his hand back in.
“Surrender, and it’ll stop!” I called loudly, just in case he’d forgotten that.
“Surrender! I surrender!” he choked, and immediately all sentience fled from the mass clinging to him. It dropped to the ground in a heap, leaving its occupant heaving, curled up on the pile of dirt. Somewhere on his person, the used tag unmade itself, its remains becoming indistinguishable from the filth around it.
Utau was soon retired, and Sūji-taichō turned her attention to her peer, finally forcing a surrender. The rest quickly fell apart from there, and most of them huddled up around their downed member. He still hadn’t risen.
“Hey, are you good?” I called over approaching. I made it just in time to see him wrench down his mask’s jaw and vomit on the ground. He was shaking, full body.
“Pull him out of there,” I told his team. “Ten feet or so away from the dirt. And don’t get too close to it for a minute.”
They didn’t really understand the purpose of the instruction, but there was clearly a lot they didn’t understand so they followed it without a second thought.
“What…the fuck was that?” the downed Ogre moaned, heaving as the rest of my team joined me, confusion etched into their postures.
“It’s an original technique I just made,” I said, uneasily. Did I make something that I should under no circumstances use on allies? And then used it on an ally?
“Damn girl, I thought you were joking,” Sable said as the two taichō exchanged hushed words. “You actually made an original technique? It didn’t even take you the full two weeks!”
“I didn’t get to see,” Egress complained. “What did it do?”
“It was like this sand thing that we couldn’t get off Chi,” Utau answered, cautious concern in her voice as she crouched over her Squadmate.
“No, it was a clone,” Naiyō said. “With a regeneration feature.”
“It was both of those things,” I said, offering a hand to the downed Ogre. He didn’t take it, waving it off and remaining on the ground.
“Yeah, well neither explain why I have fucking chakra exhaustion now,” he moaned.
Oooooh. Was it really that effective? It was barely enough for Biwa-sensei to notice!
I slapped a hand to where my forehead would be, if there wasn’t porcelain in the way. Of course it barely did a thing to Biwa-sensei. He was an S-ranked jonin with the ability to throw around a kekkei tota like no one’s business! On a normal person, who had just spent the last ten or so minutes deploying chakra intensive clones…yeah, the exhaustion made sense.
“My bad, man,” I told him. “I really am sorry. The person that helped me test it hadn’t been casting jutsu before then. I didn’t realize the chakra draining aspect was that effective.”
“It has chakra draining too?” Sable exclaimed.
“I think that, in the future, we should consider getting caught in this technique an elimination,” Sūji-taichō said, cautiously.
“I mean, if it lands it would probably kill most people,” I said, sheepishly. “Since we were against comrades, it knew not to go for the mouth and nose, or attack soft tissue. But it could.”
Egress whistled.
“I’m not going to tell you all how it works,” I added. “But it is a Doton technique. Raiton jutsu will shut it down. You just have to get one off before it keeps you from molding hand seals.”
“You scare me sometimes, Hara,” Sable said. “You’re improving too damn quickly. It’s freaky.”
“I have a lot of motivation and great teachers,” I said with a shrug. “Uh, I feel really bad. Can I get you anything?”
That was to the guy I messed up. Chakra exhaustion really wasn’t fun.
“Water,” he requested, and I unsealed and offered him my lidded bottle. I had made it myself, modeled after the ones in my original world. It had a flip up straw, and a large capacity. I loved it.
“I think practice is over,” Hogo-taichō declared, clapping her hands. “Jisho, bring Hermit to the infirmary. Everyone who’s able, prepare yourself mentally for intense training tomorrow to shake off those cobwebs.”
The rest of Squad Twenty-Four groaned, but complied. Sūji-taichō debriefed us on our performance and we were dismissed.
“I was being serious, before,” Sable told me as we left with Utau in tow. “Your rate of growth is scary. And you’re making ridiculous jutsu in your free time? I genuinely thought you were bullshitting before. And all those other times too when you turned down our hangouts.”
“I would never do that,” I told her, frowning. “Friends shouldn’t need to make excuses. If I needed alone time, I’d just say so, and I expect the same from you all.”
“Annnnd now I feel bad,” she muttered. “Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed that. It wasn’t because I thought poorly of you, for the record, I just…”
“If you’re really doing everything you say you are, plus things you’re not allowed to talk about,” Utau chimed in, uncharacteristically serious. “Like whoever you’re seeing for individual training now, who apparently has the clout to upend Squad Twenty-One’s entire schedule. And your…whatever you’re doing with Mondai-chujō. That’s too much. You’re going to burn out.”
“Utau, what’s your favorite thing to do in the world?” I asked, abruptly.
“If you’re going to try and change the subject, you could at least be more subtle about it,” she pouted at my apparent non sequitur.
“I’m not trying to change the subject,” I stated, eyes straight ahead. “Humor me. What do you like to do, more than anything else?”
“Read,” she said, and I blinked behind my mask.
“What, really? I’ve never seen you with a book.”
“She only does it in private,” Sable confided in me. “She’s embarrassed by her taste in trashy romance and erotica.”
“Sable,” Utau whined, but I’d rib her about that later. I had a point to make.
“Do you think you could ever be burnt out with reading?” I asked her.
“I mean, probably,” she said, and I wasn’t sure if she was being honest or just trying to be contrary. Either way, it wasn’t the answer I was looking for.
“Okay,” I deadpanned. “Under your current expectations, spending most of your day every day training or running missions. If you read every day for most of your remaining freetime, do you think you would get sick of reading?”
“No but—”
“But nothing,” I insisted. “I’m being so serious when I say this. I love chakra work. If the world was peaceful and I didn’t have people to protect, I would spend every waking moment of my life on it. I am incredibly fortunate that the activity that I enjoy so much is so highly valued by the village I love. And at this point, I wouldn’t have the choice to tone it down if I wanted to. If my placement here is any indication, my skills are high in demand. So, thank you for your concern. But I’m fine.”
“It’s not just the jutsu thing,” Sable said. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed that you’ve shot up over half an inch since we met you. We all know what that means. You’re having a second growth spurt. Whatever you’ve been doing, probably since before you joined the Akaoni, has drastically increased your chakra reserves. To an unnatural extent. You’re sure you won’t burn out mentally? Great. But your body has limits. The medics can only put you back together so well.”
Laughing probably wasn’t an appropriate reaction to that statement, but it was incredibly ironic. Second growth spurts were a thing, especially if the individual in question experienced malnourishment in their youth. As I shoved in Biwa-sensei’s face last night, there was plenty of that to go around not so long ago. Chakra repaired and strengthened the body, wringing out every drop of its latent potential. If a person’s reserves drastically increased, they could finish growing, or even exceed their genetic potential by a slight margin.
Kazuhiro was one example. He was a little older than these girls thought I was, but that only meant he had spent his entire childhood at war. His growth was stunted, but as he underwent his intensive training to become a jonin, he hit a second growth spurt. He was now over half a foot taller than he had been when he’d adopted me.
A part of me felt bad. These women truly were concerned about me and had no idea their fears weren’t warranted. If I told them, “hey, actually I’m twelve and going through my first growth spurt, and this level of physical training is okay because I can hack my body and enrich my tearing muscles and cracking bones with Yang-skewed chakra,” I might set their minds at ease. Or at least shift their worries onto more relevant topics.
Of course, I wasn’t allowed to. Akaoni couldn’t share personal details, even with one another. I couldn’t have asked for a better excuse. Because, if I were to be truthful to myself, even if that was an option…I couldn’t see myself taking it. Even if it meant being dishonest to people who I respected and really, really liked.
I enjoyed being Arson. Oftentimes more than I enjoyed being Imai Kasaiki. I could act my age around the Akaoni. I could joke with people as viciously as I wanted. I could say what was on my mind. I could drink, and talk about sex. People viewed me as an equal.
If Sable and the others knew my true age…they’d treat me differently. I just knew they would. Probably not to the extent others did—they were uncommonly loose cannons, after all. But it would be noticeable. They would probably never allow me to become as close to them as they were to each other.
“You’re right, my chakra reserves did increase considerably,” I said slowly, chewing on my words. “But not for the reason you think. What actually happened was that I had a bit of a health scare. How familiar are you with human biology?”
In the case of Sable and Utau, not much. Naiyō, who was observing the conversation in solemn silence, knew quite a bit, which wasn’t surprising at all to hear from a poison specialist.
“There’s an organ in the chakra circulatory system, located near the stomach,” I told them, explaining in loose terms what the Keimon was, and revealing the dysfunction I had gone to the hospital for a long time ago. It wasn’t even an outright lie; this all had happened. I just omitted some details, like the fact that it was the intentional result of a procedure I had done on myself. I also implied that it had happened far more recently.
I still felt bad about it. I had already been dishonest with too many people I cared about in this life. I was remorseless about it before my accident, thinking my lies were all white and harmless. Until that misunderstanding was remedied in the worst way. I was trying to be better now, but this world was making it really, really hard.
“That’s kind of scary, even if it worked out,” Sable said. “That your body can just turn on you with no warning.”
“That’s just how life is,” I said with a shrug. It would be pointless to reveal that there was a rational reason in my case anyway, because it happened to other people without one sometimes as well.
“Sorry to unlock a new phobia. But it is rare. I think y’all are in the clear. You’re far better conditioned than I was at the time of the incident.”
“Which explains your rapid growth,” Naiyō said with a satisfied nod. “You were starting at a lower level, and were suddenly given the chakra of someone at a higher one. I’m sure your energy levels and healing rate have taken an abrupt jump.”
“Let me tell you, it sucked the week or so after the dysfunction happened,” I told them, remembering the sensation of my overflowing canals. I’d never let it get that bad since.
“I felt like a balloon. If I pressed into my skin, I could feel every single chakra coil. They were so swollen, it felt like ninja wire threaded under my skin.”
“Freaky,” Utau said with a shudder.
“And I preferred that to how I felt after they were drained,” I continued. “You ever stretch rubber too much?”
“Okay, this is getting gross,” Sable said, and I was glad they finally allowed me to change the subject to something unrelated to myself.
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
I was getting real fucking annoyed with this damn water tranferrence seal. Every solution I pursued led me to a dead end, and I was starting to become convinced that I’ll need to invent a literal space-time jutsu to get it to work.
“Why don’t you just scoop it up into a scroll or something?” Daigo asked, ever helpful as always. Biwa-sensei had to cut our morning training short for reasons he wouldn’t share, and since our schedules were cleared for another three hours, my teammates and I decided to take the rare moment of respite to grab a late breakfast (or brunch as I would call it) and catch up.
We might be back to seeing each other every day, but there wasn’t a whole lot of chatting going on under Biwa-sensei’s attention. And, of course, we couldn’t discuss much about the most interesting aspect of our lives with one another at all, especially sans masks. Everything to do with the Akaoni had to be kept incredibly vague.
We were limited to discussing our training (to an extent), and our personal lives. They were both surprised to hear about my impending niece or nephew, and (mostly) jokingly expressed concern over my influence on an impressionable, young mind.
Now I was complaining about my commissions. The Futon technique was on a short hiatus, and would be picked up a couple Thursdays from now. After our incredible success with the clone technique, Biwa-sensei had agreed to make our sessions a weekly thing. The next order of business was to make my Gaki no Batsu purely ninjutsu, so he and anyone else could use it. That way, I could submit it to R&D. I hadn’t brought up my Futon jutsu commission to him yet, but I’m sure that, using the one we made as a basis, it wouldn’t be too difficult. His wind affinity would be just as much a help as his external chakra control.
The water transference seal, however…concerning that, I was entirely on my own.
“You have that excavating seal,” he pointed out. “Like what you used on our last mission to bury those creepy face mines.”
“Doesn’t work on liquids,” I shot him down. “They’re too loose. My chakra can only select a negligible amount of material at a time, not even enough to be considered a drop. The rest just splooshes in every other direction, taking it out of contact with the seal. It’s not like a solid, which possesses strong intermolecular bonds that chakra can travel between during the selection process. Without that, my chakra can’t know what to take and what to leave behind.”
I’d seen scrolls in the anime that were capable of storing water. Most notably used by Shikimaru against Hidan in that final showdown. There were no references to that sort of thing that I could find anywhere here; I wondered if it required technology that hadn’t been invented yet in this time period, like an industrial freezer. But even that wouldn’t allow me to transport the sheer quantity of water I’d need to put a dent in irrigating Miraigakure.
It seemed I’d lost Iwao at the mention of molecules. To be fair, their existence in this world was considered hypothetical, even though most of the research into this particular subject ironically came from my very own village. Specifically, by the Nidaime Tsuchikage, the inventor of the Dust Release (sometimes referred to as Particle Style).
“Then why don’t you just put the seal on the bottom of the river bed or whatever and leave it going?” he attempted. “Might take a while, but the water will drain eventually.”
I looked at him like he was an idiot.
“Daigo, when you seal something away, you can feel the chakra drain, right? It’s not a lot, but it's there. In that case, you are opening the connection for an instant. If I did what you’re suggesting, the activator would be dead of chakra exhaustion before they sealed away a cubic inch of water.”
“This sounds tricky,” Iwao said, and I shot him a look. “What? I don’t know what to tell you. This is way outside our expertise. I’d help you if I could, but—”
He stopped mid sentence, his eyes flicking over my shoulder as he tensed. From the sudden draft on the back of my neck, I guessed the restaurant’s door just opened.
“Neither of you turn around,” he ordered, voice low and grim. “Continue eating. Act natural.”
Then he adopted his usual charismatic grin and began chatting, though I noticed he was hunched closer to the table. I mirrored him, my heart rate picking up steadily. It was not like Iwao to react this way to anyone’s approach.
Threat? I signed with my fingers casually.
“Maybe,” he said in a musing tone, conspicuously not signing back. Which, if I wasn’t overthinking it, meant that Iwao believed this person could read Ogre sign. Really not good. Did we piss off a jonin that I’m forgetting about?
“I heard you met up with Takeo from our academy class,” I asked with a manicured, teasing tone. “How is she?”
“Oh, you know,” he said. “Working to distinguish herself as we all are. She’s taking steps towards learning chakra enhancement. I gave her some tips on—”
“Oi,” a deep, masculine voice called, mere feet behind me. It took all my willpower not to jump.
Iwao was a really good faker. I wouldn’t have even noticed something was amiss with the way he looked up, a pleasant, easy-going smile in place.
“Can I help you, shinobi-san?”
There was a short, humorless laugh.
“Don’t play dumb,” he said. “You know who I am. And I know who you are. Ishida Iwao. Hirose Daigo. And Imai Kasaiki.”
Well, if that wasn’t a cue to turn around, I didn’t know what was. I nonchalantly looked up and over my shoulder, and my heart stuttered. I’d never met this man, but I knew exactly who he was. I memorized the pictures of every elite-jonin in the village, after all. However, we’d had no association with him, and no common threads existed between us.
Until a couple of months ago when we slaughtered his brother.
Nomo Yoshiki definitely bore a resemblance to Hideo. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that Hideo bore a resemblance to him, since he was the younger sibling. The Slumbering Dragon of Iwa was stouter, more muscular. His face was rounder, and clean shaven just like his head. It could have been access to running water and soap, but the man before us looked far more polished as well.
The biggest difference to me, however, was the way they carried themselves. Nomo Hideo had been full of bluster and ego. I could see it in the set of his shoulders, the cocky tilt of his head and the patronizing smile upon it. Yoshiki had none of that. He bore a quiet grace and stood with a sense of assuredness that shirked attention but demanded respect. However, I couldn’t help but notice the formidable bags under his eyes. This wasn’t a man who’d had a restful night's sleep any time recently.
“You’re hard genin to track down,” he said, mildly. “May I have a seat?”
All three of us tensed. Daigo’s hands disappeared into his flared sleeves, clasped under the table to form seals at a moment’s notice. I channeled the slightest bit of chakra into my bandages, and they prepared to unravel.
“That depends,” Iwao said softly, his eyes calculating. “On why you sought us out.”
He considered the statement for a moment.
“To tell you the truth,” he said slowly. “I’m not really sure.”
…What?
“It wasn’t to make trouble, that’s for certain,” he claimed. “I just…felt like I needed to meet you.”
Iwao looked to Daigo, then to me. I gave him a gesture so slight that it could barely be considered a nod.
“Please,” he decided, pushing out the last, unused chair at our table with his foot. With a nod of thanks, he sank into it. It seemed too small for him, which was odd since the man wasn’t all that large.
He certainly didn’t stand on decorum. He summoned a worker with a raised finger, ordering food and a fairly expensive bottle of sake.
“Cold as you can get it,” he requested. “And the rest of these meals, put them on my tab as well.”
“That’s unnecessary,” Iwao began, but was silenced with a look. Not a word was spoken until the hostess returned with his booze.
“Three more saucers,” he requested, and though the woman balked, casting an eye over our quite young faces, she clearly wasn’t willing to say no to the intimidating man.
“You don’t have to drink it,” he said to us, taking the stack of cups. “But I would like it poured.”
And so he did, before distributing them and raising his own with silently urging eyes. We wordlessly followed suit, but I was the only one besides the elder Nomo to bring the saucer to my lips.
“What?” I asked as my teammates stared at me with judgemental eyes. “Old enough to kill, old enough to drink.”
Daigo’s gaze frantically snapped back to Yoshiki’s, but his only reaction to my somewhat tasteless comment was a snort.
“I would like to know what happened,” he said, finally. “If that’s something you’re allowed to talk about.”
The three of us were at a loss. We weren’t mentally prepared for this, what the fuck were we supposed to say?
“There is some context that needs to remain classified,” Iwao said, voice low. “The battle itself, not so much. Though we’d ask for some discretion. Are you sure you want that, though? I can’t see how it would grant you any peace.”
“Bah, peace,” he grumbled. “I already don’t have peace. What am I supposed to do, eh? Should I thank you for restoring my family’s honor? Should I curse you for taking the last blood I have in this damned world? Should I apologize for the hardship he’s caused you? Should I be happy, angry, sad? Fuck if I know.”
He shook his head and went back in for another drink.
“I had a hand in raising that bastard,” he spat. “I didn’t see the signs. I put work over my own brother, and didn’t notice him rotting from the inside out. But I…I was there to see his story begin. I saw the middle too. All that’s left is the end. So, if you please.”
There was nothing we could say to that. Warily, Iwao began to relay the tale, starting at the beginning of our battle, but he was pussy-footing around too much and that wasn’t helpful. It wasn’t what Yoshiki needed.
“Let’s back up a little,” I said abruptly, leaning back in my chair and ignoring the annoyed look Iwao leveled at me. My eyes were only for Yoshiki.
“I was the one to select Hideo as our target,” I declared, and his eyes glinted in interest. “For the record, it wasn’t personal. We had three jonin. They had four. That’s all there was to it. A numbers problem, nothing more.”
“You selected him,” he repeated. “You knew your choices.”
“Correct.”
“Then why him?” he asked, nothing but curiosity in his tone. “Did you think he was weaker?”
“Not weaker, necessarily,” I told him, truthfully. “I just thought we’d be better suited to counter him than the others. It was more of a judgement of our skills than his.”
“I see,” he said, proceeding to grill me. We worked through the fight in extreme detail. I told him everything I noticed with the utmost honesty. Every word I remembered him saying. Every impression of his character and skills that I had gotten. It ended up being fairly uncomplimentary, and Iwao kicked me under the table more than once. I didn’t acknowledge him or allow myself to be influenced.
One bottle of sake turned into two. Two turned to three. I drank Daigo’s cup in addition to my own, but no more. Eventually, as we neared the end of the tale, our conversation turned into a critique of our performances, both my teams’ and Hideo’s. It was actually fairly insightful.
“Can’t believe he was done in by a handful of fresh genin,” he spat, forehead looking a bit rosy. “Fuckin’ embarassing.”
And now it was time.
“He was dead long before we met him, wasn’t he?” I asked, meeting his considering gaze.
“...right. Guess he was. Far as I’m concerned, he died the second he deserted.”
“You think so?” I asked, mildly. “My throat is getting sore from yapping so much. Why don’t you tell us a story?”
“A story,” he repeated, frowning. “What about?”
“Hideo,” I said, and everyone else at the table tensed. “Who else?”
“Kami, Imai, have some tact for once,” Iwao hissed. “Don’t make the man speak about his deceased brother!”
“I don’t think I can make an elite jonin do anything,” I said, my eyes never leaving Yoshiki’s. He wasn’t even blinking.
“But I get the sense he’s going to be thinking about him anyway. Might as well put it out there, ne?”
Iwao’s reply had perfectly summed up the shinobi approach to grief: repress, repress, repress. That Hideo had gone rogue only added another layer of complexity. I was sure by now that Yoshiki didn’t want to be sad about the passing of his brother. Because if he felt that loss, what did that say about his own loyalty?
For him to even begin his journey through the stages of grief, I needed to reframe the entire narrative.
“Nomo Hideo used to be a loyal shinobi of Iwagakure,” I said. “Tell me about the boy that missing-nin Nomo Hideo killed.”
“Why?” the tipsy jonin asked suspiciously, and I smiled.
“How can I take pride in avenging a stranger?”
It was heavy handed, but in my defense I didn’t have a lot of prep time. I hoped the magic of alcohol would be enough to offset my lack of subtlety, but regardless of whether it did or didn’t, Yoshiki began speaking.
I learned a lot about the child Nomo Hideo. Tales of his younger days reminded me of my old batchmate, Ban Rio. Something of an oaf, bearing an inferiority complex that mutated his hero-worship of Yoshiki into resentment. But he had redeeming qualities. He was fiercely protective of their mother, even fending off their abusive father while Yoshiki was away on a mission as a genin. Yoshiki had been proud of him for that; he didn’t state as much but I could tell.
When their mom passed away, Hideo was never the same. But though it cracked him, he didn’t yet break. He pursued the chunin and eventually jonin rank with determination, soaking up every Katon technique Yoshiki could spare him with passion (if not finesse). I didn’t hate the person Yoshiki described.
Everything changed when Yamasaki got his hooks in him. By that point, Yoshiki was so busy with missions that he barely crossed paths with Hideo. What little he did see—jadedness, frustration, excessive pride—wasn’t enough to set off any real warning bells. He didn’t find fault in his association with Yamasaki either; at that time, the man was a respected elite jonin, even more than himself. The elder brother bitterly confessed to being pleased that Hideo had ingratiated himself to such an accomplished senpai.
“Yamasaki went out as a bitch and a pawn, if you can take solace in that,” I told him.
Yoshiki barked a laugh.
“It does bring a smile to my face,” he said. “I just can’t help but wonder, if I saw through him back then…I’m kidding myself. If all it took were a few honeyed words to sway Hideo, he must have been a traitor at heart.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” I told him. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds like he’d been compared to you all his life. Told he wasn’t enough. Everyone who put that notion in his head shares some responsibility for his fall. The Will of Stone states that any pebble can support the mountain. They contradicted that message, and that left a void that Yamasaki filled. Now, I’m not saying that excuses Hideo, far from it. But this should be taken as a cautionary tale. I can’t help but pity him, a little.”
I wondered then if I pushed a little too far. What I said couldn’t be interpreted as treasonous, right?
“You’re a strange little kunoichi, Imai Kasaiki,” he said finally.
“Give me a year, I’ll be taller than you,” I sniped, and I think that stalled his addled brain for a moment.
“Imai, we’re expected, and I assume you are too,” Iwao finally spoke up, for the first time in a while. He’d given up trying to get me to shut up, and once he let go of his indignation, he began following our conversation with a speculative look in his eye. I think that he realized that there was more going on here than even he understood.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, pursing my lips. Another half hour or so would have been useful, but duty called.
“Ah. I apologize, I did not intend to take up so much of your time,” the jonin said. “Allow me to settle.”
He did, and we waited for him out of politeness even though we really should be getting a move on. I wanted to leave him on some note to drive home the point I wanted to make. Maybe encourage him to light incense, or perform some ritual no matter how small to pay respects to his brother. Something to get him to grieve properly instead of holding it all in. Every possibility I could think of would have been overstepping, and that was even less helpful.
“Almost forgot,” he grumbled, reaching into his weapons pouch and withdrawing a scroll that he held out to us. “Here.”
I took it, unsure of whether to open it or not.
“That’s a jutsu scroll,” he told us, to our shock. “It’ll teach you an original technique of mine. It’s unranked, and not very useful on its own. But it forms the basis for all of my most dangerous jutsu.”
“We couldn’t possibly take your original technique,” Iwao protested, even more stupified than I was as a native to this world. Sharing personal jutsu just wasn’t done. It only really ever happened between masters and their apprentices or…blood relatives.
“Well, I’m not going to hold a kunai to your throat, but I would prefer if you did,” he grumbled. “I’m infertile, and not paternal material besides. Hideo went and turned traitor. I can’t afford to wait any longer to pass it on. If you don’t take it, it will have to go to the archives, and I’d rather it go to you than a stranger. Call it gratitude for restoring my name. And an apology.”
When he put it like that, it would be shitty to refuse.
“Could you tell us about it?” I asked, tentatively.
“Instructions, tips, hand seals—all that’s in the scroll. As for what you can do with it…what do you three know about pressure? Not the metaphorical kind, the science kind.”
Pressure? Well, pressure killed me before, so I think I had a unique perspective on the topic. Tasteless jokes aside, I knew quite a bit about the science behind the characteristic, probably more so than most people in this world. It was highly relevant to my job as a submarine commander.
“Increasing pressure makes the substance it’s exacting upon more volatile,” I said. “It generally ramps up to extremes when there is a great deal of force pressing in from every direction.”
“What about its relationship with heat?” he asked and I frowned, remembering that this guy was supposed to be an incredible Katon user.
“Pressure creates heat,” I answered. “Sometimes a lot of it.”
It wasn’t a major concern that I dealt with in my past life because any heat created through this process along the ocean floor was instantly stripped away by the surrounding water. Heat rises and cold sinks; that’s basic stuff.
“The inverse is also true,” he told us. “The jutsu in that scroll creates a sturdy chakra construct filled with Katon chakra. The air inside becomes extremely volatile, feeding into itself until it’s superheated. In that state, if you carefully sabotage the construct, its contents can be released in jets hot enough to reduce tempered steel to slag in an instant. Add some shape manipulation, and you get B to S-rank jutsu capable of giving your sensei’s Dust Release some competition in terms of destruction.”
It sounded like something that would take a lot of effort to learn. Daigo and Katon didn’t mix. Fire wasn’t really my element either, but I could use it at least. Iwao might take a shine to the technique, though. He didn’t have an affinity either but it was his second strongest element, and he had the chakra control to turn the base jutsu into something more flexible.
“I’ve looked into pressure-related Futon Techniques,” Daigo piped up. “The texts I found said that heat, even without Katon chakra, was its biggest weakness, because it decreased air pressure.”
“That’s probably because the air used in those techniques isn’t contained,” I told him. “Warm air wants to expand, and the farther apart its molecules are, the less dense it becomes, which means there is less force exerted on the matter below it. Ergo, less pressure. However, if those molecules are contained very securely, they don’t have room to spread out as they’d like. They bounce around with nowhere to go, hitting each other and creating a great deal of intermolecular force. Which translates into higher pressure.”
“This is the second time you’ve mentioned intermolecular force today, and I’m no closer to understanding what you mean by it,” he said under his breath, and I quirked an eyebrow. I didn’t frequently bring up the topic of science; what was the context earlier? Oh, right, I was talking about my commission, and how annoying liquid was to work with because it lacked…
Fuck me. I think I just figured it out, maybe. I was so focussed on finding a chakra solution to my problem that I totally neglected to consider something as mundane (by my standards) as physics.
“Sounds like you understand well enough,” Yoshiki said. “I suppose I should caution you against attempting or practicing this jutsu without your sensei’s supervision. Given what you clearly know, that should be common sense. Come find me if you have any questions. Ja ne.”
He departed without another word, and after exchanging glances we went in the opposite way to the nearest hidden entrance point to the tunnels. We could change there.
“How did you know?” Iwao asked me softly, once we were near to our destination.
“About pressure? I don’t know, picked it up from a book sometime probably.”
“No, not that,” he said. “How did you know what to say to him? How you navigated that situation…that was the last way I would have done it. And it worked. I don’t understand.”
I sighed, heavily.
“Iwao, you’re a lot better at the talking thing than I am,” I told him, which, yeah, no shit. “You’re good at making friends and forming connections with people. You know how to be polite, you know how to pander, you can fit yourself into any civil conversation you come across. Your weakness is that you don’t speak crazy.”
Next to us, Daigo gave a little chuckle.
“Nomo-san wasn’t crazy,” Iwao defended.
“He was in an altered mental state,” I said. “Grief makes people irrational. He approached us because he was lost. You kept trying to soothe him, because you’re a nice person. That wasn’t what he needed. He needed to be shown the way out. And I don’t think that I managed it, but I tried. Hopefully he left better than he was when he found us.”
I let him absorb that as he knocked on the door to the entrance point. There was no call from behind it, so we went inside.
“Another example,” I said, efficiently unwrapping my bandages quickly. I was behind the partition because I took the longest; there was a smaller time frame for someone in a rush to see my male teammates.
“Remember the night we had dinner with the Tsuchikage and his wife? You went in expecting it to go a certain way, because you thought they would approach the conversation with the same level of integrity and politeness as yourself. You were so blindsided that their personalities didn’t align with the titles they bore, that you completely lost all sense and forgot your training.”
“So how do I improve?” he asked over the divider, his voice now distorted by his mask.
“Go to a bar,” I said, bluntly. “Find the saddest drunk there. Talk to them, see what you can learn.”
“I don’t believe for a second that’s what you did,” Iwao told me.
“True,” I acknowledged, my voice losing personality as I slipped on my own mask. Memories from another life came back to me, of long nights consoling others and being consoled. Memories of loss and sacrifice. Of mental breakdowns and crushing expectations.
“I didn’t have to go searching. The crazies found me.”
And I included myself in that designation.