Chapter 10
Seal Attempts and Exercise
'Single quotations' = Thoughts
Italics = Untranslated Japanese
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As I stared at the small mountain of scrolls and pencils at the foot of my bed, I got the feeling that the ninjas were trying to tell me something...
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The date was approximately June 16th...or it would have been June 16th if I'd been still back at home. At least that's what I was able to figure out by asking Ren how many days it'd been since I'd been found. I truthfully was shocked that I'd already spent a whole month out of my own universe. True, a lot had happened, but because everything was just so fast paced, I hadn't realized the amount of time that had passed.
It'd been three days since I'd been reunited with the preteens and Kakashi. It had been a very, very long three days. For one, Ren had stopped by and force fed me a ridiculous number of pills, and given me a terrifying number of shots. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit...Nevertheless, I'd been treated like I would drop down dead at any moment.
Naruto especially was very overprotective of me. I don't know what got into him, but he freaked out over everything. While eating lunch, I'd accidentally breathed in a grain of rice. Naruto panicked and thought smacking me on the back was the correct thing to do. Let's just say that I had a palm sized bruise between my shoulder blades.
I might have been angrier, but my small bruise was nothing compared to the lumps that appeared on the top of his blond head after Sakura and Sasuke were done with him.
Truthfully, the reaction of the three preteens confused me. True, I'd spent two whole weeks with them almost constantly, and I'd personally come to be very fond of the whole group, but I didn't think they'd become as attached as they were. Kakashi however didn't seem remotely surprised at the bond formed between the preteens and me. What was I missing?
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Back on track… On my third day back at the hospital, I woke up to find a mountain of scrolls and pencils. Obviously, someone, somewhere, was heavily hinting at me to start doing seals.
Though the prospect of creating a translation seal more successful than the last one was extremely tempting, I was still iffy on my own capabilities. Seals, I realized, were a lot more complex than I'd initially believed. It wasn't just a bunch of mumbo jumbo mixed together. I was lucky that my amateur attempts hadn't turned me into a gigantic tongue or something.
However, seeing the materials for seal making sitting innocently on my bed, I found myself conflicted. Surely they wouldn't have given me the green light to start experimenting with volatile magic, unless they were sure it was okay...right? I snorted and shook my head wryly.
"Yeah, right." I muttered to myself.
Still, I was curious, extremely curious. What kind of normal person wouldn't want to experiment with the ability to make words reality? Making my decision, I reached over and grabbed one of the larger scrolls, a couple of pencils, and got to work.
This time, I was determined to make the seal as detailed and precise as possible.
"This will give the user the ability to automatically understand Japanese as if the user was a native speaker. The translated Japanese sentences will be grammatically correct. This will give the user the ability to speak Japanese fluently without grammatical errors. At any time, the user may cancel the abilities. These abilities will stay permanent until user consciously cancels the abilities."
Once done, I gave my seal a once over. Unlike my Google Translate seal, this seal was three times larger and more neatly written. In neat block print, the English words were carefully formed into the shape of a seal. I was even careful to make sure that I'd capitalized and used periods. Cross my t's and dot my i's and all that.
Truthfully, once done, I was nervous. My hands gingerly held onto the edge of the scroll. It surprised me that I was actually quivering. From anticipation or fear, I wasn't sure. Most likely, it was a combination of the two.
After double and triple checking for any spelling or grammar mistakes, I finally laid my hands over the seal and focused my chakra.
Nothing happened. Not only did the seal fail to absorb any chakra, it also failed to make any sort of reaction.
"Huh…"
Cocking my head to the side curiously, I next tried poking my seal with the tip of my finger while gently letting out a bit of my chakra. Nothing happened.
Two hours, and three scrolls later, I was no closer to finding out why my sealing attempts were failing. I was so frustrated at the letdown that I had evolved from tugging at my hair to picking at the skin around my nails. Yes, I know that's a gross and bad habit, but during stress I just couldn't help myself. During finals week for example, my fingers are always covered in Band-Aids preventing me from picking at them. In fact, the first few days I'd arrived in this world caused my fingers to bleed a little from me constantly picking at them.
That was how the preteens found me. All three stood at the doorway looking confused at the image I projected. For once, I was not washed up and ready to meet them. My hair was still fluffed from sleep, my hospital gown laid crooked, exposing a bit of shoulder, and I was surrounded by scrolls and eraser shavings.
Shaking her head, Sakura purposefully stomped in and pulled me out of bed. We made our way towards the bathroom. Once there, Sakura turned to the boys, and gave them a pointed look. Naruto and Sasuke, who were still standing awkwardly in the doorway winced, took a step back out of the room, and carefully closed the door behind them.
Once I was finished, all four of us sat in my room and ate breakfast together in comfortable silence. Of course, with Naruto around, it didn't last long.
Despite the fact that Kakashi was always late, Naruto never seemed to be able to accept his teacher's tardy ways. Grinning wickedly, Naruto somehow fashioned an elaborate trap for the door. I wasn't sure on the mechanics, but let's just say it involved a lot of wires, ink and left over food from breakfast.
Though at first, I chastised Naruto for his childish ways, I soon came to realize that Kakashi would never fall for the simple trick. He was a ninja, right?
Surprisingly, Sakura and Sasuke acted as if there was a chance of the prank working. I was adamant in my belief that Kakashi would notice the trap a mile away.
At 8:32 AM, the door finally opened. Kakashi was 28 minutes early! Alas, he was not.
Poor Ren...And while I'm at it, poor Naruto. Ren was going to slaughter him.
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"Nee-chan. What's this?" Naruto asked me while squinting suspiciously at my seal attempts. The mischievous blond was finally done with moping and licking his wounds. Ren had not been gentle while punishing Naruto.
Sakura and Sasuke leaned over Naruto's shoulder to see what the blond was talking about.
"Looks like a seal…"
"Hn. Never seen writing like this before."
"That's because it's written in her language. It's not code either so don't bother trying to crack it."
The three preteens started, and spun around sharply.
"Yo." Kakashi greeted lazily, not taking his eyes off from his orange smut book.
"You're LATE!" Screeched Naruto and Sakura together like always; and like always, Kakashi just mumbled an excuse that led to a furious, "LIAR!"
Seriously, I never heard them say a nice happy good morning to each other.
"Good morning Fei." Kakashi greeted me cheerfully.
"Good morning." I replied back in Japanese.
The gray haired man slouched over to my bedside and leaned in to look at my scroll. Seeing my many, many attempts, he seemed to realize I was having no success with my sealing adventure.
With a gentle smile, he patted me on the head, (to my ire) and said to the preteens, "Today, Fei will be joining us for training."
I heard my name mentioned, as well as the words 'today' and 'training'.
'Oh f-ckity f-ck f-ck f-ck.' I thought with a feeling of doom.
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Kakashi had somehow found some black shorts in my size, a pair of ninja sandals, and a simple black t-shirt. He'd done well with the shorts and shoes, but I suspect that the shirt I was wearing once belonged to a male much larger then I. It was nearly a dress on me, no, not nearly a dress on me, an actual dress on me. I didn't know why I was even bothering to wear shorts.
Naruto and Kakashi seemed pretty amused by the sight of me swallowed up in oversized clothes, and even Sasuke was smirking. At least Sakura shared in my horror of the outfit.
"Doesn't she look adorable!" Naruto laughed while wiping tear from his eyes.
"Hn. Looks like a kid playing dress up." Hn'd Sasuke.
It seemed that for once, the two boys were in agreement.
"Oh poor Fei. This is just terrible! Kakashi-sensei, next time I'll choose!" Said Sakura while shooting me a sympathetic look.
Kakashi just sheepishly scratched the back of his head and held the door open for me.
I of course didn't go out. Instead I looked up at Kakashi in confusion.
"Bracelet?" I asked him while holding out my wrist.
To my surprise, Kakashi just shook his head.
"Hokage-sama has already released you from the seal. You're not restricted anymore."
'Hokage-sama, seal?' After a few seconds of puzzling over Kakashi's words, I finally put the pieces together.
'When did he take off the restrictions?' I wondered. Furrowing my brows, I tried to think of a moment where I may have been released from the seal.
'Oh! It was that time after we got back to the hospital. He put his hand on me and I felt that flash of chakra through me. That must have been when he took the seal off.' I thought.
With renewed confidence, I took a deep breath and marched out. Alas! I was once again zapped. My brain was fried and I fell into a deep coma for all eternity…
Just kidding.
No, nothing bad happened. Though I winced expectantly, I felt no pain. Truthfully, I felt a bit foolish standing in the doorway with my eyes screwed shut and my shoulders hunched up protectively.
After a few awkward moments of silence, I relaxed and sheepishly grinned at the amused expressions on the ninjas' faces.
Once we made it outside, my fears of training became reality. When I tried to sneak away to the tree to sit under its protective branches, I felt Kakashi's hand fall on my shoulder.
I looked up over my shoulder to see a comically friendly smile. It was the type of smile you would give someone just after you'd shaved off all their hair or something.
'Merde.' I thought weakly.
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I am not a very athletic person. Not only am I anemic, but also I had never done sports at school. My petite frame and delicate build made sports difficult for me. Not to mention, my parents were extremely overprotective. No, I was the type to sit on the sidelines and read. The only time I ever excelled in PE was during dodge ball. No one ever had the heart to throw a ball at my wincing cowering self, and then when they forget that I'm there, I get the little suckers with my sneak attacks. I'm an academic type, not a fitness type; don't judge me.
Well, Kakashi and the other ninjas obviously never got this message. The gray haired man immediately got me running laps around the field with the preteens. What they didn't expect was for me to stumble and collapse to the ground within minutes due to nausea and dizziness. I hadn't completely healed from my stint in the hellhole.
Kakashi, seeing this as a lost cause for now, let me rest for a few minutes underneath my lovely, lovely tree before he forced me back onto my feet. This time he decided to go with a less strenuous exercise.
Soon I was the proud wielder of a kunai. I held the sharp metal knife delicately with two fingers, keeping it an arms length away. I didn't know what Kakashi expected me to do with it. No way in hell was I going to stab anyone with it!
It seemed I wasn't going to stab anything…yet. Instead, the now clearly exasperated man slowly showed me how to throw the kunai. With a THUNK, the knife was embedded into the trunk of my poor, lovely, lovely tree.
"I'll try, but don't expect much." I mumbled to myself while adjusting my grip on the kunai. Holding it like how I thought Kakashi had gripped his, I carefully pulled back my arm and threw the kunai.
The good news was, I didn't hit anyone, including my favorite tree. The bad news was the kunai fell with a pathetic flop not two feet away from me. I had misjudged the release, and ended up letting the kunai go in such a way that the thing had spun on itself and fallen to the ground with a pathetic flop.
There was silence, then a snort of amusement from the direction of the preteens. It was Sasuke I realized. I threw him a halfhearted glare. Naruto and Sakura both seemed to be holding back laughter as well.
"You've got to be kidding me." Kakashi sighed.
Two hours later, I was no better at throwing kunai. Despite how many times Kakashi adjusted my grip and posture, and no matter how many times I threw the damn thing, I had yet to hit the target.
The usually laid back man looked more than a little ruffled for once. He seemed to be bewildered at how bad someone could be at a little knife throwing. I got the feeling he thought I was a complete failure. I wanted to tell him that in my world knife throwing wasn't a practical skill, and that I had a bright future ahead of me thanks to my academic prowess, so screw knives. Unfortunately, my vocabulary skills were too lacking to get that particular message across.
Finally, to my relief, and to the preteens' disappointment, Kakashi gave up with a sigh. Plucking the kunai from my grip, he just led me towards Sakura, who was halfheartedly doing sit-ups with the boys.
"Sakura, please teach Fei how to do sit-ups." Kakashi sighed, before ambling off to read his book.
Well, at the very least, sit-ups were easy enough to do. I just went slowly, and gave myself breaks between repetitions.
Sasuke and Naruto seemed to find my snail pace amusing. I noticed with a glare that the two boys were showing off. For one of my sit-up, they did five. But soon, it evolved, from teasing me for my lack in athletic abilities, to a fierce competition between the two.
That was then I noticed the flow of chakra from the two boys.
'They're using chakra!' I realized with a gasp of comprehension.
Carefully, I pooled a bit of chakra to my abdominal muscles and tried a sit-up. To my delight, it came much easier then before. Soon, I was happily matching Sakura's pace.
In a few minutes, I started feeling slightly lightheaded, but ignored the feeling, assuming that it was from the constant movement of my head. Then, I suddenly found a hand on my forehead, pushing me down, preventing me from getting back up.
With a startled yelp, I saw that it was Death God who was crouching over me, holding me down effortlessly with one hand.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing! Get away from her you bastard!" Naruto yelled, while lunging towards Death God. Sasuke and Sakura were also up and tense. Sasuke even had a kunai out and ready.
Death God easily knocked the blond off his feet with a blur of motion too fast for my eyes to follow.
"NARUTO!" I screamed as I watched his body thump to the ground. A normal boy from my world could have been seriously injured, or at the very least have had the wind knocked out of him. Not the people from this world. Naruto bounced back up as if he had just been lightly swatted away, which I supposed was the equivalent here.
Before Naruto could leap again at Death God, Kakashi appeared behind him and grabbed the back of his collar.
"Stay." Death God ordered me. I stared at him with wide, WTF, eyes. In one fluid movement, the man released my forehead and stepped away from me. Still in shock, I meekly laid still on the ground.
"Care to explain?" Kakashi casually asked, looking most unperturbed by the events.
"She was using chakra to do sit-ups. At the rate she was burning through her meager reserves, she would have gone into chakra deprivation shock."
"Ah. I see."
Whatever Death God said calmed everyone down. All the anger and caution from the preteens changed to worry, and in Sasuke's case fake indifference.
Kakashi dropped his hold on Naruto, and said, "Naruto, get Shibayama-sensei." Hearing Ren's name, I realized that I had somehow hurt myself again. Naruto quickly scampered off to fetch Ren.
"At this rate, she'll never be a shinobi." Kakashi said.
"That bad?" Asked Death God.
Kakashi gave his upside down U smile. "I know you were observing this whole time. I haven't gotten so rusty as to miss you hiding up in that tree."
Death God's chakra spiked minutely. I got the feeling he was annoyed at Kakashi.
"Why are you observing?" Sasuke demanded coldly.
Death God's attention shifted towards the glaring Sasuke. "Orders." He answered.
"Hn." Sasuke replied. I seriously thought that Sasuke could do with some speech training. The amount of Hn's he used was excessive.
I wondered if I was allowed to sit up yet. It was extremely uncomfortable being the only one laying down while everyone else stood around. When I experimentally edged my torso up a bit, Death God somehow managed to crouch down and smack me lightly on the forehead before returning back to his standing position. I didn't see him move at all, only feeling the smack on my forehead.
Disgruntled, I laid back down with a huff of annoyance. Sasuke's amused snort did not help prevent the deep blush of embarrassment from pooling in my cheeks.
When Naruto finally arrived with Ren, I was immediately bombarded with the very familiar scolding chatter Ren adopted around me.
"Honestly! Why does this keep happening? I would think that after all the OTHER times you've experienced chakra exhaustion you would know better!" The blue haired medic grumbled while he let his warm chakra slid into me.
When the feeling of vertigo passed, Ren pulled his chakra back and helped me sit up. I half feared that I would receive a smack on the forehead again.
"Are her reserves really that low?" Sakura asked.
Ren ran a hand through his hair, a habit he seemed to adopt every time something happened to me. "I'm afraid so Sakura. Her chakra levels are about the same as an academy student's, but unfortunately she has good chakra control."
"Hey, wait! I thought chakra control thing is good or something!" Naruto burst out.
"It is, but in Fei's case her control is so good that she's able to do things with her chakra that her level of reserve just can't handle. An academy student would never have to worry about chakra deprivation from creating dense chakra in their palm because they just wouldn't be able to do it in the first place."
"So her reserves haven't grown at all?" Kakashi asked.
"No! I just don't understand it. Her core is growing steadily, but her body just isn't producing enough chakra to fill it up! It's like it's leaking out somewhere but we all know that's not it or we would have sensed it!" Ren stated animatedly, an expression of intense frustration on his face as he threw his arms up in exasperation.
Knowing that I wouldn't be able to understand what they were saying at all, I ignored the conversation about me, and instead focused on trying to make Death God feel guilty by rubbing my forehead.
Adopting a wide-eyed 'how-could-you-do-that' expression, I managed to put just the right amount of pout in my lips for it to look natural. Who knows if it worked on Death God. His damn mask made it nigh impossible for me to tell. At the very least, my expression made the preteens look slightly uncomfortable so I knew I still had it. My years of begging sweets and favors from my parents were paying off.
After few minutes of periodically glancing at Death God with 'the look' the masked man finally sighed in irritation and reached into his pouch. Suddenly, with a blur of motion, I found something restricting my forehead. I reached up to touch whatever it was. It was bandages. The insufferable Death Cat (no way was I going to call him a 'god' anymore) had wrapped my forehead with bandages.
"Hehe. Nee-chan, you look great!" Naruto said, a cheeky grin on his face.
"Your first battle wound." Sasuke grunted with a smirk.
"You'll start a new fashion trend for sure!" Sakura said with an innocent smile.
"Oh lovely, just what I need, another patient." Muttered Ren.
"Hm. Insert witty comment here." Kakashi said with a lazy flourish of his hand, his nose still buried in his book.
I had no idea what they were saying but hell… I could guess.
'Just you wait you little ninja turds. Just you wait.' I thought darkly.
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A/N: I'm so sorry! I really am. Thank you to Generator X who reminded me to get off my lazy bum and start writing. I just started college and was really overwhelmed by the change. Just when I think, "Oh! Some free time!" another midterm suddenly materializes. Thank you to all my reviewers. I hope you liked this chapter. Critic is welcome!