(18 Years Old)

Midori crashed onto her futon, exhausted and practically falling apart at the seams. Even with all the conditioning she went through when she had been sixteen, she had a sharp increase in anxiety, helplessness as if she were no longer feeling in control of her life, low self-esteem and a bit of humiliation and shame. No one could know her occupation, and it felt like some sort of dirty secret that would forever mar her reputation. Luckily, after two years, she was out. She was kicked out of the seduction side of her corps but now she could take more relaxing assassination missions.

Her commander had noticed her increase in agitation and her inability to relax and after a quick review, it was determined that she needed at least a break from the seduction missions. A break at the very least because she was still one of his best operatives.

She had been the best in the seduction division, having moved to more difficult missions in increasing frequency which meant she flew up the ranks within the division. She had been forced to take some extra training from the Torture and Interrogation Corps so her seduction missions to get information went a lot easier (especially since not all interrogation relied on pain and she was well versed in using pleasure as torture).

Being suspended from seduction missions for at least a few months to get her head on straight as well as being forced to take some training for the Corps, Midori was given leave for two weeks to relax before taking any assassination missions.

Midori was fine with this, it would allow her to create some new techniques with Issen Amimasu. Her poor sword seemed to have been neglected for a while, as she had only been able to do some routine practice and no actual missions where the weapon had been truly needed.

Her time away from the business, basically a short vacation, allowed her to learn that she had obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It was simple and practically lifesaving in her job, but it was annoying when she had discovered it. She had a constant compulsion to check on her gear. She would check and see her gear at all spare times. All Midori's gear had to be placed just perfectly where it belonged and it would constantly annoy her if it wasn't done properly. She hated premade packs of anything since she was compelled to fix it to her liking or else it bugged her and started making her anxious.

Along with having all her gear in tip top shape and where it was supposed to be, she had a compulsions to tap her fingers against her thigh when anxious exactly three times. Any time she began feeling anxiety, which wasn't very frequent during missions since her personal emotions were shunted to the back of her mind, she tapped her thigh. Midori had noticed that the more time she spent around stupid civilians or the like, the more anxious she got and the more she began tapping her fingers in a rhythm of three.

Other than those minor things, which could really bug her, she was enjoying her break.

Midori curled up against her stuffed tiger, a new one she had created and it was so large that it was literally twice the size of her body and practically the size of the futon. The tiger was just one in her massive collection of stuffed tigers, including Albino Tigger her first stuffed tiger. She snuffled a bit, squirming among her piles of stuffed animals, and practically buried herself among the fluff.

She was dressed in a yukata top and simple silk draw-string pants which were comfortable especially in the slight heat. Nothing was going to bother her while she lay comfortable in her pile of stuffed animals on her futon, and she continued squirming trying to get just a little bit more comfortable.

A few fake tiger claws dug into her side and Midori huffed before wiggling around a bit more to dislodge the uncomfortable claws.

Outside of her room, Midori could easily sense her parents watching her with what had to be some sort of funny face as they could only see a quivering, moving pile of stuffed animals. Midori huffed, ignoring them, and used a chakra chain to scoop up any stuffed tigers that had fallen off the futon back over her to completely cover her.

A waste of chakra, though not much since it was just a chakra construct, and Midori sighed in content. She was finally perfectly comfortable.

Not moving an inch, Midori tensed up every single muscle in her body before unclenching and releasing all her stress as well. She closed her eyes and slipped off into an easy meditation, relaxing but not yet quite ready to actually fall asleep.

She had been stressed as she crawled into her futon, but she was relaxing. She wasn't deluding herself to the fact that she was still falling apart, but that could wait a bit until she gained more equilibrium in her sense of self.

Meditation smoothed out all the spikes in her chakra, and she could watch her core with her mind's eye swirl agitatedly before beginning to smooth and calm. Midori watched, and helped, her chakra smooth and even out which took a lot of her stress out of her. Spiking chakra set the body to react and tense up so smoothing and relaxing her chakra helped release the stress and tension in her body.

An hour later, Midori felt her chakra was once more calm and tranquil within her body, so she went outside of it. Her mind trailed through her body before she focused more on the outside.

Nature chakra, no matter how chaotic and dangerous, was natural and sedative. It was why she figured that turning into stone wasn't recognized by the user and dealt with, it calmed you down so much that you didn't really notice it taking over your body and turning you to stone. Midori could also infer that bijuu chakra was blistering and acidic but when purified would be much like natural chakra while also being augmenting even further upon the bolstering effect of the chakra. She equated chakra in this sense to juice, natural chakra to caffeinated but soothing tea, and purified bijuu chakra to some sort of condensed energy drink in the form of a bubbly drink.

Midori, with all the experience feeling natural chakra because of her navel seal, could now collect it naturally. The seal was now a shortcut to using the energy without having to sit still to collect the chakra. She had used the natural chakra so many times that she was experienced in feeling it, plus it didn't hurt that she had a backup seal that helped to shock her system should her body become overwhelmed with nature chakra and start turning to stone.

Nature chakra flowed through her, entering her body, swirling around every single cell inside her, and leaving just as it arrived. She was one with nature, she did not exist, she held emotions but she was at peace, there was no chaos but instead there was harmony. Midori was calm, embracing nature and all its perfections and imperfection, and then she came back to herself.

Her body was practically rubber, it was so relaxed.

Midori sighed in content, closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep. She didn't feel like reminiscing on any of her missions that she had done, nor did she think of the training she would have to do.

She simply drifted off into a simple dreamless sleep.