Seated on a step in a loose semi-circle in front of Kakashi, the three genin stared up at him with varying expressions on their faces. Sasuke, that dramatic little shit, had his hands folded in front of his mouth and his eyebrows pulled down into a scowl. Kakashi got the feeling he was being stared *through, and could honestly say he didn't fucking like it.
Naruto was next, looking just about ready to burst of his own skin in his excitement, or whatever. His hands constantly strayed up to his slightly tarnished forehead protector, involuntarily shining a light directly into Kakashis' only goddamn visable eye.
Then there was Tamashī, who looked like she had fallen asleep with her eyes open or was thinking something extremely deeply in her possibly genius mind. Kakashi thought she might have been his favourite, simply because she wasn't causing him any physical discomfort.
In all actuality, Tamashī was thinking about what she wanted to eat and if Tsume was going to be making tempura later. It was the only thing the woman could cook, but damn if she didn't cook it well.
"Right," Kakashi announced with a liberal amount of fake brightness in his tone, clapping his hands together forcefully. "Tell me your likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future, and all those other introductiony things."
"Can you go first, sensei? So we know what 'all those other introductiony things' are." Tamashī proposed calmly, sitting on her hands and leaning forwards.
"Yeah, sensei! We don't even know your name!" Naruto shouted, nearly straight into Tamashīs ear canal from how close he was sitting to her.
"Iruka-sensei told us his name earlier." Tamashī pushed him away from nearly sitting in her lap with an expression of annoyed amusement on her face.
"Oh. Heh, I wasn't listening." He sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, not doing the scruffy birds nest he calls hair any favours.
"Idiot." The monotone word had a profound effect on his team, Kakashi noted, watching as Naruto started puffing up like an agitated bullfrog and Tamashī turned slowly to look at the brunet with a stony expression; and what do you know, it was nearly creepier than Tenzos' ghoul face.
Then the girl leaned towards Sasuke with a much more relaxed expression and hissed low enough that Kakashi could only pick out a few words, something about turning more than his hair into a chicken? And then she was sitting normally again and looking up at Kakashi with expectancy, clearly waiting for him to start introductions. A quick glance at Sasuke revealed he was a little paler than normal and his eyes had widened marginally, but otherwise looked fine.
"Well, my name is Kakashi Hatake. Things I like and things I hate… I don't feel like telling you. I have lots of hobbies. My dreams for the future? Haven't really thought about it. Now, it's your turn." He deliberated for a moment before pointing to Naruto, "Blondie, you go first."
"But we only learned your name!" Naruto shouted in agitation, subsiding when Tamashī poked a finger into his ribs none too gently. "Fine," he grumbled sulkily before regaining his enthusiasm. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki! I like ramen! But especially the Ichiraku ramen that Iruka-sensei buys for me sometimes! My hobbies are eating different ramen flavours and comparing them, and gardening too! I hate the three minute wait for cup ramen to cook and-!" He cut himself off, gaining a vaguely sombre expression before continuing in a quieter tone of voice, "I hate the looks most of the civilians give me, like I'm some sort of monster. But I understand why they do it now, even if I still don't like it." Naruto sucked in a large breath, visibly qsyching himself up again, "My dream for the future, is to become the greatest Hokage! Because even though most of the villagers don't like me, I'll still protect them with everything I have! So they'll acknowledge and respect me!"
A sort of profound silence greeted his pronouncement, in which Sasuke lost some of his intensity and Tamashī let out a sad little smile and closed her eyes slowly.
"Next, broody." Kakashi cut through the atmosphere like a hot knife through butter, though it lingered around the edges of their perception.
"Sasuke Uchiha, I don't have many likes and much more that I hate. My hobbies are training. I don't have a dream, but an ambition I will make a reality. I will repopulate my clan and kill a certain man."
"Alright next, Girlie." Kakashi announced quickly so the silence wouldn't stretch too long again.
"You couldn't have thought of a better nickname?" Tamashī asked dryly before continuing without giving Kakashi time to respond. "My name is Tamashī Shiro, I like practising jutsu, training, making poisons and cooking. I dislike megalomaniac old men, traitors, when dog slobber gets in my eyebrows and boredom. My dream for the future isn't so much a dream as it is a series of goals I wish to complete before I die." She held up a calloused hand to tick points off on her fingers, "I wish to make chunin as soon as possible, become an opperative for TI, complete the seals so I can fly, become ANBU commander and see the entirety of the elemental nations at peace for at least a week."
"So, you are all individuals. But, can you work as a unit?" This was said in an ominous tone of voice as he went on to say there would be survival training the next day and the rates for success to being an actual genin were not in their favour. He then handed out neat little handwritten pamphlets that outlined the test in the vaguest manner possible before disappearing with a body flicker. Well, he didn't disappear, just moved three feet back and four feet down; most likely clinging to the side of the building with chakra.
"Welp, I'm going. See ya later." Tamashī announced, not quite flippant but near enough as she stood and walked towards the railing Kakashi had been leaning against.
"Uh… Tamashī? The door is that way." Naruto said hesitantly, pointing behind him to the door they came through earlier.
"Doors are for civilians." She said before flinging herself off the roof, sparing a lurking Kakashi a quick wave on her way down.
As she ambled at a leisurely pace towards her apartment, Tamashī thought on what to do about Narutos problem. An unravelling potion would most likely do the trick, but it would have to be weak enough to not unravel The Seal while still fixing what needed fixing, because other wise that would be a Very Bad Thing. Especially at this point in time, considering Kurama was a very literal incarnation of hate and rage. A blood tie, maybe? That would theoretically keep the big seal stable because it was his own parents who died creating it, and root out any other persons chakra that possibly had an integral part of his heritage sealed away. And, if she did put in a blood tie, the potion itself would likely not harm him in anyway if there was—or wasn't—anyone else's chakra in there.
Tamashī opened her eyes that had slipped closed as her mind drifted around the problem, looking around at the red light district that she called home in this dimension and the last, and was pleased at what she saw. The people who made up the district weren't as unscrupulous and dirty as outsiders were made to believe. It was actually run as a small village unto itself, with a leader and advisers who answered to the Hokage all the same, but in a way that city states answered to a president, with near free reign as long as they didn't outright defy the Hokage and funds raised within its borders to keep the streets clean and pay benefits for those people down on their luck. There was even a sort of neighbourhood watch in place that took care of anyone that tried to take advantage of the outsiders view on the district; such as rapists, drug dealers and gangs.
Make no mistake, there was verified gangs and drug dealers, even Tamashī sold stimulants when the mood struck her to acquire more money, it was the usurpers trying to make a foothold on the independent economy that were kicked down; and only rapists and abusers of the highest order were killed where they stood with no hesitation after the pertinent information had been acquired, by any means necessary sometimes. It helped that most people in the district had some ninja training, and barring that, at least a solid grasp on self defence.
Tamashī leap up onto the window sill of her third floor apartment, letting her recollections fall to the wayside as the unravelling potion came to mind again. She would need unicorn blood, freely given, to make the blood tie. Only thing is, she didn't know precisely how it would react to Kuramas hate filled chakra, that—while in miniscule amounts—circulated freely through Narutos own. The unicorn was a being of Light, it's freely given blood purified anything it came into contact with, be it magic or chakra it didn't really matter, it would be purified. Tamashī hadn't found anything yet that could withstand the process, and there had been many attempts to find one over the decades turned centuries.
There was a worry there, she acknowledged quietly as she started brewing the potion in her wizardspaced closet (not too dissimilar to the charms and enchantments on Grimauld Place), that the repercussions to a hate-free Kurama so early on in the game could be a good or bad thing in equal terms. Less grief for Naruto where the fox is concerned, but more from the old war hawk if he ever found out. Trust Danzo to try recruit Naruto by force if he even heard a whisper of the fox being controlled.
Though, he would be alot stronger earlier in terms of a timeline. But that didn't really matter now, did it? The timeline was fucked the moment she stumbled through the Veil in the death chamber, and Tamashī wasn't entirely sure she was actually meant to survive in this dimension.
She had woken up in the wreckage scarily similar to her demolished clan compound on the northernmost edge of lightning country, down to the arcs of blood splattering the floors and walls, but this time… her mother hadn't survived long enough to take her away from it. Maybe the Tamashī Shiro of this dimension had died just before the far older and world weary Tamashī Shiro arrived. Maybe her mother had found the lifeless body of her greatest shame and greatest love in equal parts and just... gave up her ghost with nothing to strive for any longer. This Tamashī knew with certainty that her mother had only lived an extra week because she had to find her bastard child's father so he would take care of her, for as soon as a four year old Tamashī was handed over to him… her mother just collapsed and never got up again.
"But you can't think about that now, Tamashī." She muttered harshly to herself as she poured in a quart of unicorns blood while stirring the nearly complete potion in figure eights. "The last time you thought about your mother, Hogwarts had to get a new astronomy tower. And blowing up your apartment is just counterproductive." She continued in that same, harsh voice before turning down the fire under her cauldron so the potion would simmer for the next twelve hours. It was the colour of new leaves and had the distinct scent of rotting greenery.
She sighed. That scent would stick to her for the next couple of hours and she was going to the main house of a clan of dog-nin. Unless… Tamashī spun around and rooted through one of the low drawers of the cabinates lineing the walls, searching for a specific, squat bottle containing a bright pink liquid with a tiny diffuser as a stopper. Hopefully it'll tone the smell down enough so it was like she had been laying in a pile of leaves in mid-autumn and not swimming through a compost heap at the end of winter.
Stepping into the decontamination shower after she found what she was looking for, Tamashī placed the bottle onto the tiled floor and pressed the diffuser down until the little glass disk inside shattered; allowing the potion to reach the dispersal chamber. A pink mist started billowing out of the bottle, similar to a canister of tear gas, and doused her in magical deodorant.
Tamashī was very pleased she had taken an interest in potions on the first day of classes in Hogwarts, Snapes attitude notwithstanding. Although, she was a Hufflepuff, so his ire wasn't generally directed at her, just Harry Potter and the rest of the Gryffindors.
Tamashī reached up and sent a spark of chakra into one of the seals on the wall, activating an array that sucked in the remaining pink mist while simultaneously drying the potion clinging to her, finally giving her nose some relief from the scent of decomposing organic matter. "Need to find that melon wine for Tsume. I might bring two bottles, just in case." She mused as she stepped out of the shower again, bending down to scoop up the now empty bottle. Tamashī meandered around a few counters to the back door of the potions laboratory, walking through to a nearly exact replica of Grimmauld Place, just without the dark, oppressive aura and severed heads of house elves.
Tamashī had practically fallen in love with the architecture of the London town house the first time she had been there, in 1994. She could have done without the severed heads, oppressive aura and screaming portraits though.
Tamashī felt an involuntary shiver creep up her spine when she bounded up the last two flights of stairs. The chill of the room from beyond the closed door seeped out in a cold enchanted mist before it even opened. She walked purposefully to the shelves marked with an 'M', trailing her fingers over bottles covered in a fine layer of dust. The whole attic had been 'converted' into a library of sorts, except with various types of alcohol instead of the usual books. Tamashī was very proud of her homebrewing bussines, especially after her mob boss neighbour set up a contract for her with four different fine establishments across Fire Country after Tamashī had gifted the powerful man a bottle of cloudberry wine. It was both a welcoming gift and a way to curry favour; saying without saying that 'there's more where that came from if you don't bring me any trouble.' Tamashī had a feeling she would be requested by name for courier runs in the near future.
Grabbing the two bottles of wine, Tamashī made her way out of the cold room so she could be on her way to Kibas' house. Her internal clock told her it was ten to eight, so she would have to hurry if she wanted to make it within the realms of fashionably late. Once she was in the entrance hall again, she opened her thigh pouch and slowly pushed the bottles in, one at a time and seemingly on top of each other. "Undetectable extension charms really are a girls best friend." Tamashī mused as she tied her hair up into a messy ponytail.
She made quick work of exiting her actual apartment and layering alert wards around the place that would stupefy any intruders. Then she was out the window at the end of the hall and dashing across the roof tops to the other side of the village where the clan compounds clustered together near the Forest of Death.
Tamashī loved making gravity defying leaps across the roofs, part of the reason why she wanted to make her own flying device. She had bought the newest model of racing broom before her tumble, the Cloudburst 3000, and the feeling of freedom the rider was granted as the broom went from 0-200 in .5 seconds was the best thing she'd ever encountered, but she wanted to make one herself. Such a difficult project was full of frustrations, but the possible elation at figuring it out kept her going through the process.
Tamashī touched down on the long stretch of road leading to the clan district, breaking into a brisk walk when she spotted Kiba moving towards her. She was probably late again.
"You're late again." Kiba confirmed her unvoiced thought instead of a greeting, which was fairly typical of the dog-nin.
"Yeah, sorry. I was thinking about stuff." She gave an awkward little laugh as they meandered towards his clan compound. "So, how was your meeting with your new sensei? Mine was nearly four hours late."
So they spent the rest of the walk, and most of the night, talking about their new teams and various inconsequential things. Though Tamashī did nearly praise the ground Tsume walked on when she told them that she had made tempura. And their roles almost switched when Tamashī took out the two bottles of wine.
It was a good night, Tamashī decided when she was laying in her bed a few hours later. Many things would be happening in the coming years, but Tamashī had decided early on in this life that she would take anything as it happened, to not worry about being happy. Because she knew, that if she scorned the scant few happy times to come, she would be a mere shell of herself. Something Tamashī had very nearly turned into the last time around, a cold unfeeling creature who cared for nothing, not even the gift of life.
But such thing were too heavy to be thinking of, so she turned over and willed herself to sleep.
So, this is the second story I've ever published and I'm determined to finish it!
Also I'd like to thank The-Funeral-Pyre for being the first reviewer of this story! I'm so glad someone liked my story enough to write a review, let alone such a long one :)
Please stick with me as I figure this story out, because I'm just writing it as I go along. I have a vague direction for it to go, but it could change. I also have a few sequels in mind but I'll leave that up to you guys if I should make them!
Tell me what you think in a review, and don't forget to favourite! lol
