Terazawa, as the Sekanji Clan head still, had open office hours.
It was… more or less required, given her preoccupation with her sciences kept her in her personal lab more often than not in the evenings and mornings were for tending the growing number of her non-combat clansmen and ninja-samurai others.
Sorting out marriages and folding new people and babies into the clan, giving leave for this or that child leave to switch to ninja-samurai training instead of shinobi poison use in exchange for another child that really was better suited for pure ninja-things, listening to her people's concerns and suggesting ways to mend riffs between lovers or friends alike to how to manipulate their way out of someone else's dislike.
She did most of her rumor control and fighting in such times, given that she wasn't really a widely seen figure to the village these days and could do so herself. Such a second-hand war of opinions made the Sekanji notable for the various research efforts they took on with or without the Nara Clan and liked for such equally as much as the kunoichi clan head made them seem a bit 'fringe-ish' for most residents of the Leaf. Other days they were those weirdos that followed a woman, who could make one suffer painful stomach cramps or sudden illness so generally leaving them to be weird on their own was the safer option.
Poison users weren't, thankfully, widely social creatures and could deal with such. It had reached almost the same level of reputation they once enjoyed back in Grass, wherein the clan was deadly yet could be applied against one's enemies if you could reach an accord with them but otherwise was a bit too toxic to really bother much. A status quo, in other words, if one ignored the semi-absent slightly malicious askance most of the civilian and a fair few high ranked but not clan head or heir shinobi held for her personally.
Tera was a kunoichi, one with intelligent cunning and form to winds laced with poison, but she was honestly seen as more a 'sneaky mad scientist' than she was a ninja woman. She'd live with that happily, if only it would stay there and not require frequent tending to avoid slipping into 'mad woman' or just 'crazy bitch of the Sekanji'.
The production and regulation of medication didn't exactly help her much, but then again it was entirely a ninja-thing to have a clan of poison users be in charge of measuring out medication so the civilians and lesser shinobi probably saw it as 'just a ninja thing' and not a good nor bad trait to be applied.
To be wary of, for sure. Still no one took the Sekanji Clan head up on her offers of tea unless supremely confident she wouldn't kill them or dose them with something nasty and likely embarrassing. Hashirama, Mito, and strangely Izuna were the only ones to accept on odd occasions.
Afternoon, as in after lunch and before it reached halfway between midday and sunset, were the hours the first poison mistress of the Village Hidden in the Leaves set aside to teach her various clingy brats and help anyone that required some medication or toxic compounds if they couldn't find another poison master to help them.
Which, just after the conclusion of the Senju Clan commissioned study, had gotten terribly busy to the point the Sekanji Clan had had to inform her visitors that if it was just to bother her about things on the God of Shinobi or the Mokuton study… she would be ensuring they spent the next few days suffering from something that could only be identified as food poisoning and not sabotage.
...it didn't really help all that much.
Tera didn't greatly mind the children, half-grown now and still bothering her for random things or leave to bother her clansmen for this or that reason, but Shimura Danzō had come to her with intent this day.
"There's something… wrong, with Madara-sensei."
"Migraines." Admitted the poison mistress thoughtfully, having long since noticed and logged the Uchiha Clan head's persistent ill-humors over the last few years. "They are… just not something I can fix as of yet, Danzō-kun. As the more severe variant of simple headaches, they are either triggered by external stimulus or a consequence of pushing himself too hard and for too long in a shinobi's lifestyle. There is no 'work through it', Madara-sama tries and it should be obvious by now it cannot be done."
"He was always grumpy, but it wasn't until lately that he's getting more… vicious in it." Danzō admitted, turning his long-untouched tea around in his hands even if he knew full well the older kunoichi wouldn't try to spike it with anything. "He's snapping at Izuna-sensei too, which…"
Was so out of character for the grumpy Uchiha Clan head it was concerning in the extreme.
"There are ways to find and avoid the triggers, to try and mitigate the pain, but as of now I have no greater pain relief than the aspirin pills."
"There is one?" The preteen Shimura shinobi glanced up at her, naturally suspicious and calculative as he might be the prepubescent boy-child was not the match for Tera's sharp coppery eyes. "Why don't you-"
"It is highly addictive." Opium, but not the opiate-based compounds such as morphine, was a known drug. Knowing that it could be refined more and being alright with opening that box of evils were two different things. "And I know myself, Danzō-kun. I dislike defeat highly, if someone comes to me with pain I cannot treat I would prescribe it even knowing I may get a patient addicted to the medication."
Slight issue being one of the few that could measure out some of the medicine the Leaf stocked, Tera got to fill prescriptions and listen to everyone's medical woes about why they needed it.
She was fully up to the task of doing the job... however the poison mistress got to hear a lot about things that were, in a word, disgusting. Fixing them was an amusement she relied upon when things got stressful or she reached another wall in her research efforts, failing at even that woke that bitter disappointment in herself she had ever since suddenly becoming clan head in a violent fashion and her 'first' act as such was sacrificing her own pregnant step-mother for a toddler that had not lived anyways.
"Besides which, Madara-sama should seek my aid if he wishes for it. Not be nagged into it by student and brother alike. Doing so, with a man such as he, will only reinforce his reluctance to seek treatment."
"Damn it, Terazawa-sensei."
"Good afternoon to you as well, Izuna-sama."
Giving up the subterfuge, half-assed though it was, the Uchiha heir slunk around the opened wall of her study and at least out of the late winter rains. Somehow not looking as a half-drowned rat, the Uchihas were really way too pretty for everyone's own good, Izuna gave her a slightly annoyed stare down.
It rather lost it's edge as the man was now dripping rainwater on her study's tatami-matted floor.
"Tea?" Tera purred with a wicked smile.
"Danzō-kun, beat it." Dropping, wet clothing and muddy boots and all, onto the spare cushion set out for guests the older man rubbed his face rather tiredly as his student did so. "I know you don't use that ability to feel chakra all that much in the village, what tipped you off?"
"Aside the fact you used one of the children I also teach? Danzō-kun is good, a natural even, but I know his tells." Murmured the poison mistress wryly, refreshing her own cup simply for the taste and liquid for the conversation she had been expecting for some time now. "I do use the ability when home, just not generally close enough to pinpoint who is where. Bonfire bright the Uchiha Clan compound might be to such a thing, but you and Madara-sama burn even brighter. It is hard not to know if you are nearby, especially radiating worry and exasperation so."
"...I should've used Kagami-kun."
"On the contrary, he seems to have been infected with my samurai's regard for me and might have tattled on you immediately."
"The kid is way to straightforward sometimes." Izuna mused to himself, somehow appearing as slick as a rain bathed jungle cat might when he really should appear as a bedraggled cat dragged in from a storm.
Really, why did shinobi have to be so damn pretty?
"Surprising then, that he's probably better than the other two put together." Finished the Uchiha with a sigh.
Tera didn't say anything, merely nursing her tea as she waited for the other's patience to run out.
"...it's getting bad. He's popping your pills like their sweets, and refuses to so much as ask for a new bottle when he needs it." Admitted Izuna after several long minutes of staring thoughtfully at her desk. "I really think it's only because you hand them out so readily that he's not snapped yet."
Aspirin helped headaches, soothed inflamed joints, reduced fever, and just general health-related reduction of stress. There was also the placebo effect to keep in mind, belief was a bewildering aspect of medicinal research that stumped even Naras. Given the general occupation of those around her, shinobi and samurai with their physically heavy lifestyles and mission-related injuries… it helped so much it was utterly sad.
Of course the poison mistress used them as a catch-all for mainly everything that didn't require specific remedies to treat, and taking them regularly did help the heart.
"Any remedy is and can be poisonous, Izuna-sama. Even aspirin taken too often and too much at once might harm more than help." Cautioned the Sekanji Clan head a bit worriedly. "I certainly do not mean to say take them away from him, not if they help him so, but… if it is not reducing the severity with one or two a day then something else needs to be done."
"Is there any way to make them stronger? Reduce any ill-effects? That is what you do here, right?"
"We and the Naras, and I do not know. We are still researching all the effects of such, it is something that will take time-"
"He can't sleep these days, Terazawa-sensei." He interrupted a touch too strongly to be really calm or as unaffected as he was appearing, the lie given away by how hard he was grasping the material of his long Uchiha greatcoat draped across his knees. "An hour or two, in pitch dark places, maybe. Even Hashirama-sama can't relieve whatever it is."
"...we have sleep inducing poisons, Izuna-sama." She reminded him slowly, waving a hand to the poison lab not too far from her study. "Which, as they are not medication-grade, are available for purchase to any with a Leaf headband."
"It's a plate of armor inscribed with the Leaf we picked to represent us. A forehead protector."
"On a headband. Yes, I am aware."
With a roll of his eyes, the Uchiha heir rose smoothly to his feet and, still ignoring the puddle now seeped into her tatami mats, wandered off on her without so much as another word.
Tera blinked down at her tea, pursing thin lips.
...she really should start looking into morphine.
Tsunade, when her more likely nephew than son was born and she placed on his team, might really appreciate having most of the laboratory leg-work done for her before she took the Sekanji Clan head's infant start into honest and actual medical jutsus. She was kind of interested in how much further the Slug Sannin could go with the major headaches out of the way already.
"Aa… lady sister?" Momomi inquired hesitantly.
Startled, Tera snapped her head up to see the other kunoichi clearly. "Momo-chan… who do I need to kill and does it have to be an accident?"
"This is nothing like that, lady sister!" Darting from the doorway that lead into their home to the opened one showing the hammering rain drumming on the Sekanji Clan grounds, the now lanky if still shorter younger kunoichi slid the office's wall shut to signal privacy was needed to any visitors and turned back to her only to grimace. "Just… don't be mad?"
"Mad? Momo, there is nothing-"
"I'm pregnant."
Tera stared into coppery eyes so similar to her own, set into a white-pale face softer and less worn than her own features. Then she expanded her chakra senses to inspect her own little sister's painfully familiar chakra of earthy-wetness, as if the sun baked the rain soaked earth after a heavy storm, locating the tiny kernel of not-sunbaked-earthiness mostly hidden by her own. "...oh."
"Oh?" Repeated the still chūnin kunoichi blankly, nearly nineteen and still living with her own sister instead of seeking out a husband or a lover to dwell with instead. "What does 'oh' mean?"
"...we're a clan of poison users, herbalists. And… you got yourself pregnant."
Momo blankly stared back at her elder for a long moment. "...of course that would be what you'd get huffy over."
"Momo-chan, I specifically told you how to avoid such complications. I taught you the method, how to find the herbs and how much to use." Tera drained the dregs of her tea and set the cup down firmly. "Apparently my lectures have been remiss somehow, I think we need to go over them again."
"We really don't have-"
"Yes, yes we really must." A pause, and the poison mistress then shrugged. "Are you going to keep it?"
"Um… I don't know?" Momo glanced down at her still flat belly, her coppery eyes sliding to the side and a bastardized kimono-clad shoulder lifting in a shrug. "I guess? I mean… none of our half-siblings seem really all that interested in being heir even now…"
Mashi was a brat, and warned his passel of siblings off taking the rank because others really did try to influence the various children named heir over the years. There weren't any others that abdicated on her, but that was more than likely a good possibility if Tera tried to heap the headache of headship on any of them in truth.
"My wants or desires should have no bearing on your decision, Momo. Would you like a child, some immediate family instead of half-siblings or cousins, yes or no? As always, I will help you little sister. No matter what you pick to do with your life."
"...I kind of want it, Tera. I want a kid, to teach and guide as you did me. Besides," and here her little sister dropped most of the worry-tenseness to her frame and selected the non-muddy cushion to drop onto, as she wore pants her wide-sleeved top tucked into which allowed such movement, "the guy was really pretty."
"Oh?"
"Even taller than you, and he had such wonderful hands."
Amused, the elder of the Sekanji sisters leaned back a little and poured them both a cup of tea using the cups set aside for if and when the usual set was broken by surprised or depressed patients seeking help. "Trying to make me jealous, little sister?"
"Built for speed, too." Continued the younger kunoichi with a sly smirk, accepting the cup happily now that she knew her 'accident' would not force a rift between them either through argument or disappointment. "And had some very decent stamina, for all he was a wandering-type I've never seen in that part of Fire before."
"Pity." It was too, Tera might've gone out to seek her little sister's baby daddy if he lingered just a touch longer than normal. Would do so, once she asked to know where her baby sister's last mission took her to from one of the men that assigned such.
Knocking up her sister, even unknowingly, was a crime in her books.
Depending, on if he was really as pretty and good as her little sister said, she might not kill him for it.
"Whatever did he look like?"
"I'm not that stupid, Tera." Momo smirked wickedly, humming over her cup of tea for a long teasing moment. "If I tell you… you'll go off and see for yourself… and might kill him. Strange though… he had some interesting coloration to his eyes."
Tera blinked at the younger woman. "His eyes?"
"Yellow, if you can believe it."
"Momo, dear little sister, we have copper eyes."
"...point, my lady sister."
With a bemused little smirk of her own, the poison mistress left her little sister to her probably reminiscing day-dream and contemplated things.
Orochimaru was her nephew, then.
Her beloved little sister's son.
...a traitor to the Leaf eventually. The same village that helped her save her clan, welcomed them in with surprisingly little callous disregard for her being the clan head at the time even if it was seeping in insidiously now years after joining, and was founded by the brothers of a decently good friend or three.
"Well then. Let us see about that, little Leaf snake."
"Lady sister?"
"Merely talking to myself, little sister." Tera deflected warmly, setting into the thought of being an aunt with surprising ease for all she had been concerned her disinclination to have a family or bear a child herself might ruin a few things.
She wasn't exactly a feature in Inari's life, invited to the sixteen-year-old daughter of Mito and Hashirama own wedding to another Senju clansmen or not. More so for the parents than the young woman's own behalf. If she too was pregnant… Tobirama would know. Asking might be a bit out of character for her, but could be easily explained with the advent of her own 'aunt-hood' looming now.
Who knew where Jiraiya had come from, but the Toad Sage had some distinctive features she might be able to find if she took some really long walks around the now bustling village right outside the Sekanji Clan compound's gates.
...how soon until the first war? The second?
War was honestly not something the poison mistress was looking forward to, but she would go to fight in it if she must. It was just… she might not recall the details anymore, but this did have to mean the fight between Hashirama and Madara was nearly around the corner. As well as the death of the God of Shinobi.
While Tera herself was not much of a warm and loving creature by nature, she had grown rather stupidly attached to the Senju brothers as well as the Uchiha ones. Every night she could literally feel as if the Uchiha Clan banked their bonfire-bright selves to one side, with a normally very pleased forest-god of Hashirama's chakra nearly seep into the world from her other with a shock of icy water trail near at his side. It was… very soothing to fall asleep to.
It would be surprisingly painful to let them go.
As well as the morphine, she should probably design some kind of personal air purifier before she and the rest of the Leaf went to war against other poison using clans in other hidden villages. She might be fine if she could recognize any toxins in the air and blow it away, but that was probably asking for a bit too much.
"...do you think, if I can find him again, he might be willing to come to the Leaf?" Momo inquired a bit hesitantly, forcing Tera to strain herself in order to recall what their previous topic of discussion was about.
"I do not see why you should not try. Becoming a father might be something he would like as well… but are you sure you would like to take that chance? Good in bed might be one of his virtues, but you can never really tell the true character of someone at a glance."
"He was… really nice." Spoke the paler version, still more in the memories of her mind than taking tea with her older sister. "Silent, mostly, but nice. Seemed kind of more amused and a little tired before I sat next to him, and he didn't mind sharing a drink with me even before I offered 'recompense'."
"I believe Kesai-chan was looking for a reason to go 'hunting' out and about, now that she is a mother as well. A nice tracking mission with a non-hostile target might be just as she was looking for, to get away from her kids for a few days." Tera offered a touch wryly, a little more than bemused over how this male had addled her little sister's mind after one meeting and most of the night of companionship. "Are you truly considering this?"
"I… don't mean to say the men in the Leaf aren't nice or anything, Tera. They can be, your male springs to mind for all he is rather stiff and his brother moreso if already taken. It's just… they know us as poison users and masters and that's just… difficult to get around." Momo informed her slowly, seemingly still searching out her own mind for the truth of the matter. "Apparently, having a specialty that is nearly impossible to fight against makes us… risky for more than just casual acquaintances."
"I have a male?" Parroted the poison mistress with a measure of surprise, as that was really the only part she could comment upon.
"Tobirama-sama puts up with you in your mad scientist modes, can even understand and keep up with you in such humors. He doesn't mind if you are not 'put together' as the premiere Lady Sekanji poison mistress, and are just Terazawa the kunoichi or the greatest mad scientist of the Leaf. I really have no idea why you keep pushing the poor male away so." Her little sister wagged a finger before Tera could protest any 'ownership' of the Senju Clan heir. "I think he's already half in love with you, for the Mokuton study alone. You know how much he loves his brother, and you were the one to make Hashirama-sama's dream of passing his ability on to someone else come true."
"By killing quite a few of their clansmen." The older woman nearly snarled, still upset at how many of the Senju had risked such a stupidly dangerous way to die if it would only please their nearly god-like clan head in learning the Mokuton themselves. Not surprised by such, but still regretful it hadn't been necessary in the end. "That was… that did not end very well. And then… Hashirama-sama learned to pass it on himself in time, without me."
"Would he have learned to do such without your investigation on their behalf?" Momo pressed on keenly, strangely intent on this discussion happening now even if they had lingered a bit overlong closed into the clan head's study and there were likely more visitors to sort out waiting in the rain. "Think, lady sister, of how much effort and work you had to do in order to get the Senju there. Of all the headaches and late nights, inventing entirely new schools of thought and then discarding it for the next if it would only just get you that much farther. If that was not a labor of love itself..."
"We owe them quite a bit. I might even owe them your life, Momo."
There were some things Tera couldn't exactly wave off, as far as she knew if she hadn't absently more than really intentionally agreed to study the God of Shinobi's ability it wouldn't have been passed on until her baby sister's yet unborn son got ahold of the research and conducted his own investigation. Actual willingness to pass on the ability ensured the second variant of the Mokuton users had more control and an easier time of learning it, and Hashirama had 'gone back over' the few that learned Tera's way to fix what he could.
Fix the partially petrified limbs when moronic shinobi trying to please what was the closest any of them would come to a true god pressed too hard with something so risky.
Stone-like their various limbs now may be, but partially petrified wood users were still nearly awe inspiring and being able to ward off a blade's strike with stone-skin was a… interesting ability.
Really, Tobirama surviving it whole when learning the scientist's way was rather honestly surprising. They were so lucky he didn't end up petrified like the others, she would've-
Tera slapped a hand over her face. "Momo, do shut up."
"Yes! Finally." Grinning in a manner that her elder sister really did not like, the pregnant sister rose to her feet in a quick movement. "I will leave you to your thoughts, lady sister. Why, I feel my time now is more useful finding the father of my child and inviting him to join the clan if he would like. Do not wait up for me, I fear I might be some time yet."
Well… the younger sister was a romantic at heart. If she felt as if nesting about and trying to improve the quality of that nest was to her liking, the poison mistress wouldn't protest. Much.
"Sister, Tera." Pausing before she opened the wall again to the tapering off late afternoon rainstorm, Momo smiled sweetly. "You keep informing me that in everything I do you will support me, regardless of what it is about. Trust that I too would do anything to support you as well. I know, with what mother did, the start may be false but the love we have is true. I would like to see you happy as much you want me to be, without it coming from cloistering yourself away for hours a day in a lonely lab of death."
"Well… you always were far nicer than I." Drawled the Sekanji Clan head wryly as she fought a rather strange swell of bitter fondness. "Please do not inform him of how high up the clan you are, little sister. I would like some amusement if you will not allow me to… remonstrate with him for his actions contributing to your current condition."
The brilliant smile flashed at her reassured the elder sister that there would at least be some interesting events in her near future, even as the younger woman dashed off into the evening to locate the named Inuzuka tracker.
...now Tera had to decide if she really was overly fond and interested in a very good friend of hers, whose death she had just been pondering about.
(It happened while Terazawa was trying to reverse engineer how to refine opium into morphine so a little relief from whatever it had really been could be given. Something, a more vicious argument than normal or just things building up to the point even Madara couldn't stand the pain, snapped what was left of the Uchiha Clan head's usually quick-firing but equally quickly-cooled temper into something wretched and the two co-founders of the Village Hidden in the Leaves fought at what became known as the Valley of the End. Rumors abounded around for what had been the tipping point, either trying to domesticate a warlord of an Uchiha grade was just simply impossible to some insidious influence had bent the man's mind to madness or just some element of the village's evolution from a hamlet encircled by shinobi clans affair to an actual bustling town in and of itself with just spotted clan compounds within the limits of such. Leaving behind a bewilderedly shocked numb heir to become clan head, three very shell-shocked students left reeling, and his entire clan of people who shared his blood wondering in various levels of hysterics what had happened. Eventually, though none knew the start of the rumor, someone asked if that was not Madara's way of committing suicide to end what tormented him so. Hashirama would never speak of the fight nor why it occurred at all, and the last rumor had the man even more still and silent if repeated anywhere near him.)