Chapter 2: Fumiko No Taki: Pretty-Rich-Girl Falls
AN/ Hi. I said I wouldn't do this every chapter but I probably lied… haha. Okay – the story will be centered on Natchi's POV for a while, just because. *smiles evily* At the middle of the 3rd chapter it will switch I promise!
p.s. I hope you like Abura's Kekkei Genkai, I've never seen anything like it… (Unless there is a filler episode somewhere that I was not informed of… Damn you Fillers.)
p.p.s. In this chapter you get to breifly meet Taki's childhood best friend!1!one1!1!won1! You must be so excited!
p.p.p.s. Now! Onward to the Disclaimer!
I still don't own Naruto. Or Lee, or Gaara, or even Suigetsu…*sighs sadly* I only own my original characters (Oc's) Taki, Aburatsubo, and Natchi!
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Taki was their only female teammate. She was the close range member on their team, who doubled as their sensory type ninja. She grew up on the street, and she wasn't exactly sure if she even had a Kekkei Genkai – or what was up with her jutsu. She fought sick hand-to-hand taijutsu, employing anything to her advantage. She also had these… mouths in her hands. They stretched the width across her palm, and had razor sharp teeth. allowed her to bite people and take their chakra. Seeing her hands still freaked Natchi out - there was just something so wrong them. She hadn't lived in their village her entire life – and he guessed she had come from somewhere exotic like Kirigakure or another one of the large ninja villages...and He knew from working at the hospital that she suffered from kleptomania and this part of the exam was especially suited to her.
She usually wore her bangs pinned back and out of her eyes – but she had lost her bobby pins at the beginning of the exams somehow and now her bangs hung loosely in her eyes, every now and then she would swat at them. Her rusty-colored hair hung loosely over her shoulders and two sections of her hair along the side of her face were pulled together with black-and-white beads. She also had a small braid in the back of her hair – tied with none other than a bell. Overall she was pretty, not really anything that you'd fawn over, just average. Natchi guessed it was her attire that usually turned people off of her. She wore the most beat up clothing he knew existed.
Before they had gotten to Konohagakure he had made their entire team stop and buy some new clothing – mostly because he didn't want people thinking they were a team of slumpy genin.
Taki has chosen a standard issued jumpsuit, over that she had thrown a pair of Hakama samurai pants, with pleats just below the hips, that let her skin, and the bottom of her shorts show through. She wore the legwarmers and weights she'd owned since she was like 5; despite Natchi's best efforts to try and get her to buy new ones. On her feet were a brand-spanking new pair of female ninja shoes, with a bit of heal – which Natchi thought was unusual since she her biggest advantage in battle was her speed, he thought the heels would interfere with her running. But she hadn't had any problems with them yet. She probably wanted the heals so she wouldn't feel so short. Taki stood at 5'2, while both boys were easily 5'5. When she woke him up, she'd been wearing a Kyuuketsuki mask, the vampire-like mask* but when she traveled in the forest she was prone to throwing it in the bottom of her bag.
While at the store Natchi had bought a high-quality sleeve-less yukata, with a blue and green spotted pattern on it. In addition to the new yukata he had bought a pair of pants, another pair of shoes (just in case) and set of arm and leg guards. He remembered his father had a set similar to the ones in the store window, and he'd had the money, so he decided to add them to the cart. He also had been given a mask that matched Taki's. The mask she was prone to wearing was an old theater mask, and apparently one of many she owned based on japanese mythology. His mask was by far the ugliest; after all it was modeled after an oni*. A dark blue mask with a unibrow and fangs protruding it's upper jaw. He was forced to wear it by his team members – but only when they encountered any other teams, if their true identities got out – they were royally screwed. True - He agreed with his teammates that it would be important for them not to be found out, but still, 'Why do I have to wear the ugly mask?, he thought to him self, 'Even Aburatsubo's mask is prettier than mine is.'
Aburatsubo's mask was representation of an Enenra; a Japanese Yokai* said to be made entirely out of the smoke from burnt bones. It was quite ironic when you considered his Kekkei Genkai: the ability to turn his entire body to smoke with only a bit of chakra. In fact most of the time there was some part of him that was smoke, usually the end of his ponytail or a limb. His mask was shaped like a human face but was painted completely white except for the swirls of charcoal smoke that decorated the area arounf it's mouth and eyes. The mask he wore was the simplest out of all theirs but it was the most fitting of his personality. Usually calm and calculated, Aburatsubo always decided on the simplest things; a black t-shirt with a mesh underlay and a pair of new cargo pants were the only things he had purchased when they'd stopped by the ninja supply store. He hadn't even purchased a few smaller weapons like his other two teammates had. In fact he had no use for small weapons like kunai or throwing-stars; only using the twin katana that were only present when he summoned from the inside of his smoke. His clan had once been the most important one in their village, even holding the title of village Kage once. Though after the town's ideals changed his clan had been disgraced and thrown to the bottom of the pecking order, they still taught the principles of their Kekkei Genkai to the younger children in the clan, and Aburatsubo was a prodigy at it. His only problem was staying in his human form, and not completely dissolving into a mass of smoke. Half of his life he'd been frightened of the taller pale boy.
((A/N: the * Denotes a japanese term that you can look up for more information; basically Taki's mask is vampire-esque; Aburatsubo's is a smoky ghost; and Natchi's mask is a Troll. Now you can see why he is so upset. ))
Letting his mind wander back to the first time he had seen the gray-pony-tailed-boy's Kekkei Genkai – it had been during a game of soccer in the village; Aburatsubo who had been on offefense and had gotten the ball and was about to make a goal, when a much larger boy playing on Natchi's team had tripped him and plowed him right over. Aburatsubo had never been the strongest and took the fall hard, landing badly on his right hand. Natchi, concerned for the other boy's well-being went to help him up only to receive quite a bone-chilling shock when he'd gone to grab Aburatsubo's hand and received a fistful of smoke instead. Aburatsbuo's hand had dissolved on impact, protecting his body from any possible broken bones...Never the less, Natchi was freaked out and had ignored him for years after that, even to the point of forgetting his name. Natchi felt kind of bad about that now; after all they were team mates and stuff.
Over top of their individual outfits they had thrown large cream-colored knee-length Flak jackets embossed with the Takigakure forehead protector. The Jackets made them look more like a team, and in addition to the theater masks - Natchi had to admit, they looked like a pretty imposing team.
He was brought back to reality when Taki jumped onto the next tree branch and the bell in her hair, jingled a crisp clear note. He had been watching her spring from tree branch to tree branch for quite a while, and the repetitiveness of it had lulled him into memories of their childhood. By now Natchi had gotten used to the shape of her back – she always seemed to be moving, whether it was running; or sitting down, with the ever present tapping of her foot; or it was her habit of dancing absolutely any where. She was always some how moving, secretly Natchi wondered what would happen if she ever stopped.
They had picked up a decent pace. It was about five minutes until Natchi realized something was wrong with her.
He was mid-jump when it happened. Ahead of him he saw Taki bite it on a branch. It was a bad impact too. Her legs seemed to collapse on her, like a marionette whose strings were cut. She took the fall hard scraping the side of her face on the bark. She seemed to catch her self last minute, before she slid off the edge of the branch.
One of them should have caught her – but they were so caught off guard by the sight of her falling that they'd stopped dead about one tree branch behind her. Natchi's first instinct was laugh and point out the impracticality of her shoes, that more than likely contributed to her fall. But what really freaked him out was the fact that she just lay there for a just bit. Just long enough to make Natchi's paranoia skyrocket.
It was worse enough that she'd fallen down; because she was always aware of her body's position, whether she was running full speed or just dodging through groups of tourists in their village. But some how seeing her lay there for a while seemed to make the situation even worse – before leaving for the exam, their team had trained like crazy, and during their practices he'd seen Taki take some bad landings, but she'd always been the first person up, she had this way of rolling her body till she was upright and then springing into action like nothing had happened.
'Not this time though', he thought grimly.
He and Aburatsubo had rushed to help her up. Aburatsubo, who had been ahead of him when she fell, had gotten there first and helped her up already. He reached under her left arm and propped her up. Now that Natchi really looked at her, he noticed that she was very pale, and there was a thin sheen of sweat on her brow. He watched as she gripped onto Aburatsubo's shoulder for support.
Landing next to his teammates, Natchi went to help Taki. Aburatsubo was moving her toward the trunk of the tree. He came up and tried to grasp under her right arm to steady her, but she shrugged quickly away from him.
'Natch, - I'm fine. Just slipped that's all.' She grunted as Aburatsubo helped her sit down with her back to the tree. She closed her eyes and seemed to grit her teeth in pain for at bit.
Aburatsubo looked plainly more troubled than Natchi already felt. The raven haired nin then seemed to remember something, and he fished inside his one of his numerous pants pockets for it. He pulled out a small jar of pills, and shook a few into his hand. He then looked at Taki, back at the bottle of pills, and the proceeded to add almost double the amount to the pills in his hand. He handed them to her.
She ate them without a single comment; crunching them down without water, in one fail swoop. She then suppressed a mild shutter at their taste.
Natchi dug into his backpack and pulled out a bottle of water.
'Here,' He offered it to her and she gladly complied with his efforts to help this time, taking a gulp from the water bottle.
Aburatsubo knelt down near her. They seemed to have a silent conversation and it seemed like they were bickering for a bit, to Natchi.
He had decided to repack his backpack – rather than stand there awkwardly and watch them talk among themselves.
He only caught bits and pieces of their hushed conversation.
'You are not alright,'- that was Aburatsubo.
Taki chimed in with a comment about just being a little dehydrated.
To which Aburatsubo hissed, that ' That's the least of your problems!'
Taki tried to brush him off, and insisted that she was fine.
When Aburatsubo spoke again, he was much quieter and Natchi barely caught what he said. 'It could have been poisoned.'
Natchi glanced at Taki. She didn't look too good – she was clutching at her right arm.
Natchi decided to speak up, and take the blame.
'Which one of you did I hit with the kunai? I-I didn't look when I grabbed it… and there's a chance it could've been poisoned.' The symptoms she was exhibiting were similar to that of poison, earlier when he thought he was being attacked he had thrown a kunai straight toward his attackers not knowing they were his teammates. 'I have the antidote right here though, so it's fine.'
Aburatsubo spoke again a bit of contempt in his voice, 'You hit me Natchi. It's no big deal though – the knife went right through.'
Taki had taken this opportunity to force her self back into a standing position, and she leapt, onto a nearby branch unsteadily. Aburatsubo was at her back seemingly in an instant. With a hand on her left shoulder holding her back.
'Wait, Taki-san. I think this is good – were secluded enough, and very high off the ground. This is a good spot to camp for the day.' He proceeded to take the backpack Taki had been carrying. She stood there a bit before agreeing.
'Yeah…Seems fine, I guess.' She said sighing a bit, as the weight from her shoulders was lifted.
Natchi followed behind them. If Aburatsubo had been hit with his kunai knife – then what the hell was wrong with Taki? It was possible that it wasn't his teammate, maybe some type of shadow clone. Taki, with her brass personality was against everything she had done in the last five minutes.
Taki was a do-it-herself type of girl; she never wanted help from either of her male teammates. If she couldn't do it her self then it didn't need to be done.
Natchi remembered the first time he and Taki had spared in the academy. They had been pitted against each other almost constantly as children. One particular instance Taki had injured her hand on one of Natchi's shuriken. Natchi had thrown them, purposely underneath her feet; so when she executed a cartwheel to dodge his double-bladed kunai, she would cut her hand on the metal underneath her. It had worked, but when Natchi had been overcome with the glory of his plan working; Taki had responded with a kick to his jaw. Soundly wining their match. Afterwards Natchi had tried to make amends by healing her hand, and she had roughly pushed him away.
He remembered her turning her back on him and walking away with a group of kids that lived in the low-rent apartments in the old part of town. One kid in particular stuck out, a spiky gray-haired boy by the name of Jirokeima or 'Jiro', as he was known to most kids, had run over to him and Taki.
Glaring up a storm at Natchi, he let out a string of curse words longer and more vulgar than anything he'd ever heard. All the while Taki stood by with a smug look on her face; Natchi had fought with Jiro for a spell, exchanging his own insults. Not soon was their row broken up by a teacher The resident teacher at the academy went by the name of Dr. Wong; A stark-skinny man who seemed to lurk where ever their was trouble. Taki had assured their teacher that Natchi wasn't worth their time, and they'd walked away laughing was like that she seemed to constantly have people around her who stood up for her...
Aburatsubo turned to Natchi and threw the bag Taki had been carrying. Natchi caught it, and looked back to Taki. She was still holding her right shoulder, and when she caught him looking she flashed him a smile as if to assure him she was right as rain.
Natchi turned away – she really pissed him off sometimes. Both of them did, There was something wrong with her, not only did she act like it wasn't a big deal, but Aburatsubo seemed to know something had happened but refused to let on.
She and Aburatsubo had known each other since their academy days, even before the ninja program in their village had been disbanded. They were always sharing secrets, or training with out telling him. They were both below him in social status – Aburatsubo was middle class, and Taki she was really low class. Natchi came from family with a lot of money, and lived in the nice part of town. He hadn't associated him self either of them until the academy – and even then, their relationship had been a tumultuous one at that. Natchi and Taki had always been paired up for sparing, and one or the other ended up shouting insults before it was finished. Beside that – Natchi had never been too fond of either of his teammates.
In their village they were both considered a little weird, Aburatsubo for his Kekkei Genkai, and Taki for her boyish-personality and well Kekkei Genkai thing.
She claimed not to have a Kekkei Genkai, but no matter how much research Natchi did he could never find a reference to the jutsu she used in battle. He also knew she didn't use any hand signs. So it had to be some sort of clan ability, right?
He mulled over the possibility of her clans abilities as he unzipped the backpack and began to unpack the hammocks that they would use for the night.
The hammocks they used were unique to their village – as far as he knew. They were dark green, and were covered with leaf-like fringe. When you laid in them, not only were you kept warm by the fringe, but they looked no different from the leaves all around them in the forest. He began to secure one of them to the tree, while a few feet away Aburatsubo was getting up the genjutsu that could keep them safe in the daylight.
He had already lit one of his home-made cigarettes, and was calmly breathing the smoke all around their camp. Instead of dissolving into the air, or getting carried off by the wind like normal smoke; the smoke from Aburatsubo's cigarette hung where he a blown it. Creating a cloak around their camp, this held off most jutsu, which wouldn't allow their Cell to be found by other ninja. And to add another layer of protection to the jutsu, He knew it interfered with ocular-jutsu, because after fighting the last team they had encountered there had been a boy with especially amazing ocular-jutsu, and he seemed pretty amazed that Aburatsubo's smoke messed with his vision.
After he finished with his genjutsu, he continued over to where Taki sat; still smoking as he neared her, she held out a hand as if asking for a smoke.
He passed the cigarette to her and she took a few puffs and then passed it back to him, a disgusted look on her face, suppressing a small cough.
'Abura -These taste like you smell; it's weird, eh?' this was followed by a small smile on Aburatsubo's part, as he took back the cigarette. He sat down beside her and stretched.
Taki hardly noticed – she had become pre-occupied with biting one of her finger nails; which she only did when she was thinking hard about something. It was one habit that Natchi detested the most. He hands always looked ragged, and at some points she would bite them until the skin surrounding her nails would bleed.
Natchi glared at the two of them; they were just sitting there and relaxing, while he was setting up their camp. If it was anyone's job to set up camp – it should have been Taki. She was a girl after all.
Momentarily fueled by his annoyance, he forgot completely about Taki's abnormal condition.
He called to her, knowing he'd get a response; 'Hey – Fumiko – why don't you come over and help? Girls are usually better at this sort of thing anyway.'
He had used her first name.
She loathed her name, it was written with the kanji for 'pretty-rich-girl'... and if Taki was anything, she was the exact opposite of a pretty-rich girl. He appreciated the sick-irony of her name.
Almost as soon as the words left his mouth he regretted them.
Taki pulled the finger she had been biting out of her mouth, Natchi noticed that it had already started bleeding. She stormed over to where he calmly set up their things for the night.
Aburatsubo watched her walk over to Natchi. He closed his eyes and took one last drag on the cigarette, readying himself just in case Natchi tried to have a go at Taki.
As Taki towered over Natchi; debating weather to nail him in the crotch, or kick some bark into his eyes; Natchi noticed something...
The right arm of her jacket was dripping. At first Natchi couldn't put two and two together but when he realized the liquid was blood and his medical-nin background took over.
'Taki – holy shh – what happened to your arm?!'
Taki was caught off guard. She seemed to glance around and then noticed the blood. And she actually took a step away from Natchi. She looked back over to Aburatsubo, who had a grim look on his face; he too stared at the pool of blood.
Aburatsubo stood up, and walked back over to where the two other ninja were. His posture was tense and even his long-ponytail had stopped smoking for once.
The eerie feeling that Natchi had experienced while he was alone in the forest had returned full swing.
Taki recovered quickest. The lies fell out of her mouth, with ease.
'It happened during the battle with the team we were tracking; it's nothing more then a cut. It's just bandaged wrong, that's all. Abura can fix it.' she smiled, not only to try to further assure Natchi that she was okay, but to hold back the waves of pain shooting down her arm as well.
She instantly turned away from Natchi, and began to put as much distance from as possible.
Natchi sat stunned for a moment. For the second time that day, he was at a loss for words – and it was still morning. He pushed him self up, and past Aburatsubo, who just turned and let him pass by.
She left a trail of blood droplets in her wake. He was a few feet away from Taki when she stopped abruptly.
'JASHIN – ,' she swore in pain when Natchi tried to touch her arm, 'Don't Natchi – just leave it!' Taki said with her back still to him.
Natchi gritted his teeth, and reached for her arm again. She always did reckless stuff like this; Left her wounds untreated, left broken bones unset – This was something Natchi could help her with but she still turned him down. It was just like the time with the cut on her hand… but somehow this seemed so much worse.
'Fuck off Natchi' she said, shrugging his attempts to get a look at her injury off, once again.
'So apparently you think you're above medical attention, huh?' Natchi called to her, 'Just knock it off – you're hurt and I can help so just let me see it. I'm not your enemy I just what to help' he said a bit softer, while he reached out toward her arm again.
He grasped her at her left uninjured shoulder, and turned her around facing him. Now that he looked at her up close she looked really bad... her skin was pale and she was shivering slightly. She looked into his eyes with a utterly blank expression.
Natchi turned his gaze back to her bleeding-limb. He placed his hands tentatively onto the zipper of her flak-jacket. He began to unzip her jacket, reveling the top of her jumpsuit underneath, it was awkwardly intimate gesture.
Natchi stole a glance at her face; her eyes were closed, and once again her bangs hung across her face obscuring her vision. She was breathing deeply, trying to keep her emotions under control.
He had finished unzipping her jacket when he realized that all the symptoms she had been experiencing were usually associated with blood loss: the pills she had taken earlier had been plasma-pills, a military ration used to replace blood lost in battle. Usually with the aid of blood pills, the symptoms never got this bad, not unless the amount of blood lost was significant enough. Puzzled, He began to help her out of her jacket as he pulled the jacket off her right arm, he realized just how much her arm was bleeding, the inside of her coat sleeve was soaked with her blood, it was just about wrecked. He clothing underneath was splattered with a good amount of blood as well.
First he had to stop the bleeding and partially heal her wound, then replenish the blood she had lost, and make sure she stayed well hydrated, and at any sign of her body going into shock she had be further cared for...
He turned to look at her arm to get a better look at the wound.
Only her arm wasn't there. From her shoulder socket down – her entire arm was missing.
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OHHH! The suspense! Still want to know what team they faced in the forest – or can you guess? If you think you know drop a review and see if you right! Hehehe.
Oh – And if your all still like; 'HEY – Why isn't Taki concerned about her arm?', or 'Wait – you never told us which village age their team is from!' or 'Jashin – wait – how does Taki know about Jashin?' or even 'WTF is wrong with you, you sick freak!? You cut off you own OC's arm just for kicks?'
Don't worry, Darlings, those questions will be answered in time. Well, all except for maybe the third one… there could be numerous reasons for that one. :P
Need some moar motivation?
NEXT CHAPTER THERE WILL BE KAKASHI. BITCHES LOVE KAKASHI.
