AN: Sorry can't stop the weird ideas. In Who up there hates me? I have a case of a twin who can't use chakra and doesn't hold it against the one who can. They're wonderful and Lee is a very special person. But what if you weren't? Especially if you were the twin sister to the beautiful, talented, and sweet Rin and you were none of those things? Warning this is NOT a nice story. Drama and angst.
Not every path is a good one, and not everyone's a good person. Some are just in the middle and it doesn't take a lot to push them away.
()()()()()()()
Nohara Rei was born first. It was about the only thing she came ahead of Rin for. Her hair was a muddied color instead of Rin's chocolate, where Rin had lovely dark green eyes like the hidden side of a leaf Rei's were just black. Rin's markings were more vibrant, Rei's were muted and thinner. Rin was sweet and kind and forgiving.
Rei had a temper, knew she was a jealous brat, and while she could do nice things she didn't come by them as effortlessly. She didn't trust easily.
The first thing she learned, though their parents loved them both and didn't try to show it..was that Rin was the better daughter. She may have been born second, but she was everyone's favorite.
When they were children of course they played with all the other children in the village. Where they would pick Rin though and the girls would be happy at her side making flower crowns, Rei would prefer to play active rough games with the boys who soon decided girls were gross. It meant the same children that just hours before she was wrestling with or kicking a ball around were now taunting her and telling her to go away. Don't forget the stupid names they were uttering in her direction.
She hit one of them for teasing her and made him cry. Rin was the one who comforted the same child and told on her to their parents because it wasn't nice.
"Why did you do that?" Their father asked, looming over Rei later on. Rei scowled down at the ground because really wasn't it all nicely laid out when Rin told their parents earlier? If this was to try and make her feel guilty it wasn't going to work. She was far too stubborn.
"He insulted me."
"You cannot go hitting clan kid's, Rei."
That was the second thing she learned. Everyone sided with the clans. The cousin to the brat who had called her such pathetic names started to play with Rin. Uchiha Obito. He was funny, awkward, and nice in a completely messed up way that amused Rei but he'd only play with her if Rin wasn't there. Rei didn't want to be second in yet another thing so she started to avoid Obito even if he could make her laugh.
Things almost got better. Like most of the available kids in the midst of war Rei went to the academy, had watched as Rin seemed to get everyone there to talk to her even the stuck up prodigy Kakashi. Because of the accelerated curriculum it only took a single year before things took another turn for the worse.
Rei had liked the idea of becoming a shinobi and making a name for herself. Who didn't like the idea of being a ninja in a ninja village after all? So she'd studied hard and spent hours until her fingers bled throwing the shuriken and kunai and she worked her taijutsu mercilessly..
Until the chakra lessons started.
She couldn't do a thing. She didn't even have enough chakra to eventually learn to tree walk which was considered a necessity. Even Gai who was such a dork the whole class was entertained by him would some day be able to do that.
They were in war times. There was no cease fire coddling and no resources to waste on a dead end. She had a meeting with her parents and sensei and was told not to come back the next day.
"I'm afraid young Rei simply has no more chakra available to her than a regular civilian child. While it's true you can grow chakra through meditation and exercise and other methods there is still a set finite amount that everyone can reach that is determined by each person's system. Rei will never have enough to be a genin."
The words haunted her. Perhaps in the future, in a place that was not so tense with war for all it was unofficial war, she would have made it anyways. With a longer time before needing every able body to set out someone would have been able to work with her and her lack of chakra but where she would never have enough to take to the trees or walk on the rooftops? It was doubtful.
Rei heard her parents talking in whispers one day behind a closed door when she went to get a different book while Rin was at the academy. "Even those with damaged coils can at least tree walk..."
She was worse off than someone 'damaged.' huh?
()()()()()()
Of course, it turned out Rin was a natural. Not only was she good enough with her control to look into medical jutsu's at seven years old but she was possessing such a strong will she could break most genjutsu's some day.
Rei didn't want to dislike her sister..but it was very hard when envy ate her from the inside.
So she avoided her. Rin bought every pathetic lie she gave as a reason they weren't hanging out anymore. Great. She was a better liar than her sister. It didn't make her feel better.
Just a lot worse.
The third thing she realized was Rin deserved a better sister.
()()()()()()
With the path of ninja barred to her Rei was trying to find something else. She still loved weapons and fighting with them, dreaming of if she could..if she had..for a very short time she thought of perhaps becoming a fighter anyways and specializing in them because you know, her aim was extremely good.
One day she went by a training field and saw new genin practicing though and at such a speed.. and yet their sensei was scolding them for being slow. That they had not gotten any faster since they graduated. It was enough for Rei to approach their father and ask about it.
"Well of course, the ninja start to enhance everything with chakra. It's how they get as strong and fast as they do. Why do you care, Rei? Asking for Rin?"
Somehow the way he worded it made Rei decide that was closed to her too. But then she was cleaning up Rin's side of their room one day, restless for a lack of direction, and spotted her medical journal open to a page.
'On poison's and drugs used in assassinations'
Oh?
()()()()()()()
There was something here. Rei had rushed to the library, forgotten to eat, barely slept and kept going back. Book after book, every scroll she could find she absolutely devoured. This was a skill that if you were not looking to actually heal or save? It didn't rely on chakra. Rei's eyes narrowed and turned thoughtful. She needed good information. The question was who to ask it of because the wrong person would not help her.
Rei wasn't a fool. She'd go to the other most commonly overlooked source of information besides children.
Elders.
()()()()()()
There was a section of Konoha's hospital reserved for those who needed to be close by in case something failed. Of them, she was looking for one in particular. They called him Oni. He was one of the first prisoners kept alive in Konoha, now a ratty old man who spent half his days in the hospital and the other half in his run down home near the hospital. Just in case. He had lost all his hair, most his teeth. He was covered in old injuries and scars with many of his fingers missing and his ankle was broken and never set right so he needed a cane. He had lived through the days of the founding, part of a clan that had attacked not long after Hashirama had been named Hokage. The man knew so much of their enemies however, that the Honorable Wife Mito had made intricate seals that permanently sealed off the mans chakra. Something about a kinjutsu..
The worst of the injuries came from the first time he'd risen up against the village with some of their enemies. He hadn't been properly healed or allowed to leave since. But he was still wise, still knew things for all his ramblings these days were ignored. Visiting a few of the other elders who were bed ridden -and coo'd over by the staff for stopping by to ask them stories- Oni had been brought up again and again.
She lucked out because he seemed more amused at the fact she was seeking out an old poison master who had lost so many fingers just so he wouldn't be able to prepare anything dangerous.
"You want to learn hm?"
"I can't be a ninja by their standards but.."
"You're an evil girl inside aren't you?" He seemed amused though and Rei shifted. She looked at him.
"I'm not evil, but I'm jealous and angry and I want to be capable."
"That I can work with. You ever thought of killing someone or are you just thinking of paralysis?" There was something slimey to his words but Rei steeled herself.
"All Ninja kill eventually." If Rin could face that so could she. "They talk about stealth and being secretive but all the jutsu's I have seen are really loud and obvious.."
Oni's eyes seem to bug out as he gives a gap toothed leer. "Seen through that have you? Well..maybe you've been born too late girl..let's have a nice chat..see if you can appreciate how I knew things." He lets her in.
()()()()()()()
Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly...
I'll make you into something more.
Won't you come sit down and close your eyes?
The bite will only take a moment...
Hollow you out, wrap you up, change your thoughts inside out.
Set you off after those out of my reach.
A fly no more.
Sting, little wasp.
()()()()()()
Rei's days change. She manages to smile at Rin and her parents, feels more in control. She still visits the elderly in the hospital but the rest of the time she's with Old man Oni.
"When I was young, lots of us were not from clans. Plenty didn't have jutsu's to toss about or lots of chakra. Yet we still wiped them out. They'd think it was a plague, or each other.." He'd give that unhinged leer at her and wave around mangled hands. "Nin today, so soon after Konoha has been founded have already forgotten that it's the subtle ways no one tracks. They simper out 'look underneath the underneath' and the tree hugging simpletons forget that no one should know you're attacking! Listen well girl..if you go screaming out your attacks you've already lost. If you have to rely on hand signs, you're too slow. Pfft not a one of these legendary sannin I've heard of probably ever had to battle a samurai. They make an art of striking before a nin can make hand signs."
"Don't they help mold chakra?" She asks, not that it applies to her but he's teaching her in general. Theories that she would never hear elsewhere. One of those crazed eyes locks onto her and he smirks.
"If you need assistance to pull off an attack, little wasp, you aren't capable of using it. It's like using blunted kunai because no one showed you where to grasp it and you don't wish to cut yourself."
"They teach us a well placed attack.."
"What these brats think of as an attack we would have called other names, none of them good to repeat in front of little girls no matter how twisted they think they can be." Oni shakes his head. "An attack is one they never saw coming. A feint so they don't realize what you were up to. If you are fighting them off in defense is the only time you don't dictate how the battle starts but you need to always know how to end it."
"What about how fast they go with chakra?"
Oni grins and it's a dark cruel expression. "The thing about chakra, is the higher up a shinobi is the more they rely on it. You'd be amazed how many I killed without ever using chakra. It used to be a very rare thing in the tales I was taught by my father and his grandfather hadn't even a lick of it but his kill count was legendary, it's only recently become so wide spread but when that happens? Those who know how to work around it can do far more damage without ever being known. Throw a few fireballs and everyone can find you."
There's multiple parts along her body suddenly feeling off and she looks down, eyes wide as there are at least six senbon sticking out of her skin, barely having penetrated. They don't hurt but it feels decidedly weird.
"Just one of those, if I had the right substances on would need to hit. I could scratch you with something in passing. Those without chakra are assassins whom are never sensed little wasp..now pull those out and come here."
()()()()()
Oni is insane.
There's no doubting this, he's half in delusions that he is still at war with many of the clans in the surrounding area where most the names he speaks of have long died out. The man is a terrifying genius when it comes to plants and poisons and ways to kill. He makes her study as he lectures on torture methods and they cause her to squirm but she does not object.
He never poisons her outwardly, but he introduces her to small common ones and taking tiny parts at a time to start building her immunity. It's her mind that he's working the most on and as he watches the dark eyed girl slowly grinding up a mixture that she's going to be testing on herself later he's pleased. Some rush to the prodigies and coo over them. Some look for the genius's. Oni's clan was not made up of families but of the desperate and the angry. The damaged. It can just be a tiny crack but slowly he will wedge it wider and wider until she's been hollowed out and remade.
Danzo had spent years interrogating Oni for methods for Root. He never liked the pathetic mindless creations Root turned out though because you need someone almost broken but not entirely to have creative genius. He'd given up on finding an apprentice, and then the little wasp flew his way. She thought she was just a bee. A single sting and then gone, but he knows something that can sting over and over and bite when he sees it.
One who hasn't the chakra to even be a suspect and so the idiotic fools running this village that has been his prison do not think him a danger now since his chakra is long sealed away. But the true danger of his clan had been in a kinjutsu technique that this little girl is perfect for. He can make her addicted. In her his legacy will go on and that it's a konoha brat who sought him out is so perfect he laughs all the time.
The slide of this girl into not trusting those around her will not take long. They've already been doing much of the work for him and it is a delightful irony that it is the love of a sister she does not want to hate, that is pushing her where he would otherwise need to guide.
()()()()()()()
"Rei?"
"Hey Rin, what is it?" She asks as she waves, leaving from gathering simple plants in the park. None of them are dangerous but she has to learn basic herbology along with the more lethal uses.
"Ah Obito and I are going for dango with some of the other kids, come with us?" And Rin smiles at her, eyes hopeful. She's so adorable when she does that, her whole heart in her eyes. Rei doesn't have the heart to refuse. For all that she feels out of place among the other academy kids all jabbering on about their last lesson and skills she just can't put Rin off that time.
"Oh! Rei I haven't seen you in forever!" Obito laughs as he walks over, grinning under his goggles. "Why haven't I seen you at the academy?"
It makes Rei feel small but Rin is off placing their order along with some of the other kids, and it is just her and Obito right now in the booth. She feels her face grow hot but sighs. "They kicked me out, Obito. I don't have enough chakra."
"What!? That's not cool! Not at all! I'm so sorry Rei I bet you'd have been awesome!" and for just a moment as Obito is ranting and waving his arms, Rei manages a tiny smile.
"Thanks."
"Huh?"
"You're...the first who said so."
"I'm sure Rin said something she's wonderful like that!"
Rei just smiles crookedly at him but it doesn't reach her eyes because of course Rin did. She feels her hand drop to her pocket where a spare key now is to Old man Oni's house so she can let herself in to study on her own if he's hospital ridden.
Because at least there, she's 'little wasp' instead of Rin's sister. Self disgust at her thoughts hollows her out a little more.
()()()()()()
The time flies by and soon Rin has graduated, she's placed on a team with Obito and Kakashi because of course she is. The boy she loves and the one who loves her. Why Rin can't see it Rei doesn't know but it is just one more difference in them.
Rei doesn't have anyone who even thinks of her like that, not when her face isn't as soft and her jaw is too strong, her grandmother once called it..
"You've got the Nohara face, girl. It makes for handsome features. Rin takes after your mother, those Oiwa always did look far too pretty the lot of them." Their grandmother was the absolute definition of a handsome woman. Not beautiful but handsome. Strong features that were even as opposed to delicate, proud of bearing. It was not a bad thing..
When you were older.
The number of awkward hopeful boys who have approached her to see if Rin may be open to their confessions is frankly weird and she's taken to (when applicable) staring at the strangers. "Do I know you?" It works rather well.
The rest of the time she's learning with Oni, poisons and methods and antidotes. He's worked with her in an empty room of his house to show her how to throw and there's a boy one day who takes her out and starts showing her what to do at the training grounds but says as little as possible. Oni never tells her anything, just that he'd given a few more ideas in exchange and shut up and take the help already girl.
()()()()(()
"Rin!" A hand claps down on her shoulder and she's whirled around to face Obito's beaming grin, a silver haired boy and a yellow haired older man behind them. "There you..Whoops! Sorry Rei!"
"Oh? Hello there.." The cheery looking older man beams down at her but it's a smile that sets Rei on edge because it's that softness over steel Oni has taught her to look out for. Those who smile so honestly but they wear danger like a pair of comfortable shoes. "You do look like little Rin. You know her Obito?"
"Oh yeah, Rei this is Minato-sensei and that's Bakakashi..he's stupid."
There's a moment of silence before Rei realizes that's literally the end of Obito's introduction and shakes her head but a smile has stolen across her lips because Obito is amusing. She'd forgotten...
"Nohara Rei, Rin's twin. Nice to meet you."
"Are you a ninja too?" Minato asks cheerfully and she can hear Obito gulp next to her, even as the silver haired boy, really this is whom Rin is so in love with? With the drooping eyes and entirely not interested demeanor? Well he is clearly dismissing her.
"No, I was disqualified because my chakra levels will never permit me to be a genin." Rei says evenly and she's buried the pain and the anger so deep they don't choke her anymore but they are festering and she knows it as surely as she takes a little venom or poison each time she visits Oni only this one is emotional.
The silver haired boy snorts and Minato seems taken aback. Perhaps if things were different she'd be drawn into a talk, she'd get to know her sister's team. But there's no point to it because they are in a world she is not so she just turns to Obito and manages a weak smile. Because he tried, and it's always nice that Obito tries to involve everyone. "Rin said she was going by the hospital first. You may be able to catch her."
"Okay! Thanks Rei!" Obito grins at her again and the three are off as if never there.
Her blood is rushing in her ears at how easily Obito left without even a goodbye at the thought of getting to see Rin..
It sounds like wasps buzzing these days.
