Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous
A/N: Still alive! Whoo!
I own nothing but original characters and the Plot.
Raiku couldn't bring herself to ask what the plan was. All she could think was… Well. Well. The Genematrix had really gotten her good this time. Hatake Kakashi was basically the worst possible outcome of this. How had she not seen him coming? Every teacher had upped the stakes; after she'd exhausted all of them, she was bound to get a Character eventually.
He was still looking at her.
He'd been looking at her for the last ten minutes.
The wind gently ruffled his hair as they sat and crouched, respectively, each looking at the other.
'Should… Should I…?' Raiku faltered her way through the sentence, unable to bear his scrutiny any longer where she was still sitting on the bridge. 'Should I… come up there?'
He seemed to recognize his cue and lightly jumped down. Raiku tried to repress her immediate instinct to scream and run, but even two years of exposure to Yamada weren't making that easy. She covered the twitching with a characteristically graceful recoil. He was standing too close. Three meters away was too close.
He straightened. He was very tall. Taller than her, even, which her first two teachers had not been. His hair was even taller and he was at least twice as wide as she was. This was made no less obvious when he slouched a little and put his hands in his pockets, probably sensing her distress and assuming he was intimidating her. It didn't help.
He creased his visible eye at her. She did the same, though her unease must have been obvious due to her every other feature screaming how uneasy she was. Now that she thought about it, that must have been a dead giveaway.
After a few more awkward minutes, she tried to move things along. 'Did… you get my file?'
'Nope,' he shrugged, still looking cheerful. 'So. You can't use chakra.'
Raiku squinted. It sounded like a question, but it had been phrased as a statement? Was she supposed to answer? She had better answer anyway, just in case. 'I… No, I can't?'
He tilted his head back to look at the sky after a few more minutes of scrutiny that made Raiku feel about as safe as a human being in horrible danger.
Oh god. Even her metaphors were in emergency shut-down.
She had been sweating and lethargic from the heat and too much time in direct sunlight in too many layers, but now she was shaking from nervousness. Raiku knew that she had to keep it toned down; it made sense for her to be intimidated by, or even slightly frightened of the famous Hatake Kakashi, but for her to display this level of terror couldn't be so easily excused. She had to restrain herself, she had to stay calm.
Kakashi was looking at her again. She was looking at his feet, but she knew that he was. She could feel it, could feel the weight of that gaze that saw too much. Tsunade knew about this, and now Hatake Kakashi had gotten involved. Tsunade may have been more powerful, but Kakashi was a Main Character, and that was so much worse. Why hadn't she felt him coming? He was wearing Plot like a second skin—
Wait. Why hadn't her dad seen him coming? He was much better at this than her! Raiku glared at Kakashi's feet, which stayed exactly where they were, unsurprisingly. Had her dad seen this coming? He must have. Did that mean that the time-skip would protect her? He had said something about it trying to keep things in place, did that—
'This way.'
Raiku was staring at the ground where Kakashi had been standing for almost a full minute before she realized that he'd walked off. She scrambled to her feet and hurried to catch up, almost slipping where the road turned to the dirt path that led to the training grounds.
'Yamada asked me for advice about you,' Kakashi told her, looking infuriatingly nonchalant for a man whose very presence was a potential disaster.
'What? When?!' she demanded.
He waved a hand vaguely. 'Early on. Not being able to use chakra made shinobi life a bad idea for you.'
Raiku frowned. 'But I am one.'
'It's a bad idea, though.'
Raiku was so stunned by this pleasantly delivered condemnation that she stopped, letting Kakashi walk alone for most of the way up the hill before she managed to process this fully.
'Hey!' she yelped. She sprinted up the hill, the hard training with Yamada fortunately leaving her fit enough to keep her indignant babbling up the whole way. 'It's not like this leaves me with a lot of other options! "Oh hey",' she imitated, '"I'd like to apply to be a florist—ooh, but I can't actually touch flowers or water or sand or anything ever, will that be a problem?"'
'"I'd like to be a shinobi, but I can't use chakra, ever",' Kakashi shot back cheerfully, his tone as mild as if they'd been discussing the weather, rather than Raiku's terrible life choices.
'But, I-,' Raiku broke off, frustrated with her own inability to defend her decision. He was right. It was a huge disadvantage, and she'd be struggling with it her whole life. But…
She hunched her shoulders and didn't continue. She felt vulnerable and the morning had put her on edge already. Saying anything else would just be fodder for the Genematrix, which would play directly into its inky little hands.
This left them walking in silence for a while. Kakashi seemed to just be enjoying the nice weather. The bastard.
After a while, they moved past the more frequently used training fields, currently full of students getting patiently coached through not stabbing themselves. Raiku had needed several iterations of that lesson. Memories.
Her fond remembrance of her father's mournful expression distracted her until she found herself standing in a rather overgrown clearing. The grass came up to almost her knees, and the gouges and burns on the trees that surrounded all training grounds looked old.
Oh god. He'd taken her to the outer and sketchier training grounds so that he could kill her.
No, she told herself sternly; that would be ridiculous. Shizune would never hand her over to be killed.
Well, she probably deserved it, actually, now that it had come up—not helping, brain!
Kakashi turned around to face her, pulling his hands out of his pockets to hand by his sides.
Raiku hovered at the edge of the clearing, wishing that the four meters between them could be multiplied by some large, large number.
'So… training,' she drew out slowly, eyes flicking over everything around them so that she could avoid looking at him for as long as possible.
She saw Kakashi nod in her peripheral vision and shift slightly, and then she was screaming and hurling herself to the side to dodge the kunai he threw her way.
Oh god he had attacked her she was gonna die—
Raiku scrambled halfway up the nearest tree and jumped from one of its branches, back towards where she could feel the electrical currents of Konoha. She could feel power surging, knew she was already crackling and glowing white-blue from fear and the immediate rush of adrenaline. None of which was going to help her escape him, not that—
Raiku threw herself down against a branch to avoid another attack, the reactionary surge of power leaving the wood blackened and crumbling.
'I knew it!' she shrieked, sending a pulse of power out in the direction she thought he was coming from, just out of fear, with no real hope that it would hit. Predictably, Kakashi easily jumped out of the way and vanished, reappearing within her personal space in the same breath. She jumped again, narrowly missing a punch that would have broken something vital in her face, electricity flaring again and forcing him to disappear before it connected.
Raiku stood on the branch, panting and looking around desperately to try and see where he was. Her short-lived retreat had taken them out of the clearing and into the surrounding trees, the foliage so thick that only dappled and shifting sunlight was getting through. The shadows cast by the leaves blown roughly in the wind seemed far more ominous than they had a moment ago, each one a potential place for him to attack her from.
Focus. She had to focus. She had to figure out where he was and then run as far away from there as possible.
Oh god, it was hopeless. He was faster than her, stronger than her, smarter than her and much more important to the Genematrix than she was, there was no way she could win—no, Raiku! She pulled herself up and concentrated intently. She had to focus!
When focused, her chakra senses told her exactly… nothing.
The temptation to despair made itself known again, but that was never helpful. Much like her chakra senses. But without being able to see or hear Kakashi, or sense him, there was no way for her to have any warning… whatsoever…
Wait.
Raiku's chakra sensing ability was, frankly, appalling, but shinobi were almost universally indicated by two things: chakra and weapons. Weapons that were usually made of metal. Raiku's breathing slowed as she threw her senses out again, ignoring the chakra and focusing instead on another.
Electricity. There was electricity somewhere to her right, and that had to be Konoha, had to be the electrical systems that lived in it.
Metal. Konoha was warping her sense of where it was due to its sheer concentration, in the buildings and the metal that surrounded almost every shinobi. It drew her in, the tempting lure of conductors.
Like the ones directly above her.
The bolt of electricity she sent hurtling upwards was almost as wide as she was and the resulting boom made birds scatter from the trees in the forest around them. The clap of thunder, the flapping wings and shrill cries hopefully obscured any sound she produced when she made a mad break for it. She leapt from tree branch to tree branch, the charged air around her leaving scorch marks on the branches that it didn't outright obliterate. She was too aware of her breathing, she was too focused on making sure she still was drawing breath to really run, to really let herself go and get out of there as fast as possible. Time was slowing down, it was making each jump feel sluggish and her limbs seemed to move so slowly that they were almost unresponsive to her desperate instructions.
Kakashi had no such problem.
Something hit her back, hard, sending her crashing through branches until she rolled to a halt on the forest floor, just managing to bring her arms up in time to protect herself from…
Nothing.
After an eternity spent with her eyes screwed shut and her arms held up, Raiku cautiously creaked an eyelid open.
Kakashi was standing over her, one foot planted on either side of her thin torso. He was holding a kunai, but the hand it was in was at his side, just like the other one. He had his head tilted, and he didn't look grim, or threatening, or anything like she would expect of someone to who was about to kill her.
He just looked calm.
Actually, he looked like he was saying something. Raiku muddled her way through the shock to try and make out what he was saying through the sound of her heart pounding desperately in her ears.
'How did you know where I was?' he asked, with the slow cadence of someone who'd asked the same question a few times.
Raiku stared. '…What?'
'You can't develop your chakra abilities,' he said, as though she needed reminding. 'How did you know where I was?'
Raiku continued to stare.
He tilted his head the other, looking down at her with what seemed to be a rather critical curiosity.
'Metal,' she managed, willing herself not to blink and miss the killing blow, though each second that ticked past made her less sure she understood what was going on. 'I can feel the metal on you.'
Kakashi's eye narrowed slightly. Under his scrutiny, she felt remarkably like a bug with a pin through it. Trapped, squirming, so on.
'Conductors,' she added, when this failed to provoke a response. 'I can feel conductors! Everywhere. And, and electricity! Trees are bad. I can't feel them much. Sand?! Sand is also-,'
Kakashi cut her increasingly panicked babbling off with a hand wave. It had been especially effective since he'd used the hand that still had a knife in it.
If he noticed her sudden fear-paralysis, he didn't seem to feel particularly bad about it. 'We can use that,' he said, stepping off to one side to let her up.
Raiku continued to lie on the ground, flat on her back and completely baffled.
Kakashi nudged her with his foot. 'Get up.'
Raiku lamented. How was this her life?
Kakashi crouched down when she continued to wait for death. This brought their faces frighteningly close together. Less than a meter. Oh god he was so obviously good-looking under there, she hated him and his photogenic features so much. His one visible eye was amused, but in a strange way. Actually, it looked a lot like …
Oh god, she was such an idiot, and apparently they both knew it.
'You're not normal,' Kakashi told her. Raiku frowned up at him, but he didn't seem particularly impressed by the majesty of her displeasure, continuing on. 'This isn't chakra-based, so you don't need an electrical technique user.'
Raiku's frown only became more intense. 'You couldn't have told Shizune that?'
He smiled. Maybe. She couldn't tell if he was smiling or just faking it with his eye. Was this how people felt around her? It was awful. 'The only way to learn is through experience.'
Raiku blinked. '…If that's true,' she said slowly, puzzling through this, 'why are you here? Why don't you just tell Shizune that and go?'
Please go, she begged silently.
'Because I'm the only person who agreed to help you get that experience,' Kakashi told her, and her heart sank. He took in her expression of utter horror and stood. 'So. Again.'
Raiku reluctantly pulled herself up and he took a few steps back, settling into a relaxed stance that was absolutely not going to fool her again. 'You should focus on that sense,' he advised. 'It's a good start.'
Raiku honed in on the conductors trying to pull her into themselves, and wondered if she could fall into them and away before he noticed.
No, she decided, as Kakashi settled into a stillness that made her afraid on some primal level. Probably not.
Dear Raiku,
Thank you. My team passed at the same time as Gaara of the Sand, and so we and the other new Chuunin have been largely overlooked. It's reasonable. He is extremely dangerous, and our village's strongest shinobi. It's nice to have the achievement of passing recognized by someone other than my little brother, but that's probably stupid. It is immature and conceited to require praise from other people, but I don't think I actually require it. I am just grateful. I don't mind excessive punctuation. Thank you. I hope you will enter the Exam next time, if you are ready. It sounds like your training is going well, so I think you will be. I hope so. Writing to a younger, foreign Genin is considered strange when you are a Chuunin. I will still write, though. Because we are friends, and it is not presumptuous to say so.
I did not understand the rest of the letter. You have been a teenager for over a year. I think I missed a vital part.
Iwao
Given narrative form and humorous irony, both of which Raiku was well aware of, the events of the warm spring morning that followed her first day of training shouldn't have been as surprising as they were.
Raiku woke late. Sustained emotional trauma from proximity to the Copy-nin tended to have that effect. She dozed for a while until hunger drove her out of bed, not bothering to get changed out of her pajamas. She yawned widely and repeatedly, trying to blink herself awake on the stumbling journey down the stairs and into the kitchen in a bleary and sleep-muddled quest for something edible.
'Good morning.'
'Good morning,' she mumbled, one hand coming up to rub her eyes and the other searching the cupboard.
Raiku was sitting at the counter with a mouth full of dry cereal before Tsunade's presence really penetrated her sleepy haze.
Tsunade was giving the cereal box a critical look. 'You were supposed to be on a high-protein, high-calorie diet.' She turned that gaze on to Raiku. 'Did your father not tell you?'
Raiku stared at her, frozen. The cereal in her mouth was quickly absorbing all the moisture there and there was a very real chance that she could choke on it and die. But she couldn't count on that. She should have made some poisoned back-up cereal.
Tsunade was in her house again.
Again!
Again?
How was this happening again?!
'… My dad?' she got out, once she'd managed to chew and swallow without embarrassing herself.
Tsunade smiled a little. It didn't reach her eyes. 'He's been very cooperative.'
'And you are here because… he is cooperating,' Raiku guessed, unwilling to blink in case a second Tsunade appeared. Unlikely, yes, but this one had come out of nowhere so she wasn't willing to risk it.
Tsunade nodded. The table in front of her folded hands was conspicuously bare when her amber eyes flicked down to it and then back to Raiku. Raiku blanched and lurched off her stool, already reaching for the kettle. 'Would you like some tea?!' That's right, Raiku, she berated herself. Have the Hokage in your kitchen and not even offer her a drink. Well done.
Her father beat her to it, leaning past to flick it on. 'I've got it. Good morning!'
Raiku turned so that Tsunade couldn't see her face and she was looking directly at him. Slowly, deliberately, she narrowed her eyes at him and silently promised revenge.
He smiled at her. He was playing host for the Hokage, and not for the first time. He wasn't intimidated at all. 'You slept late! Tired from yesterday?'
That bastard. He knew damn well that she was tired from yesterday! She'd staggered in through the front door and collapsed on the shoe cupboard, muttering darkly about stupid Kakashi and his stupid skills and his stupid hair and his stupid being-better-at-everything-ness.
'Yep.'
He ruffled her hair, an action so habitual that he didn't even have to concentrate to avoid electrocuting himself. 'Good to see you training hard. The Hokage has just come by to check up on the family and all that.'
What.
What.
'Is… Is this a social call?' Raiku asked incredulously, stepping back so that she could look between them. Tsunade didn't look like someone there to socialize. She looked like a large, carnivorous fish might when faced with a variety of small, herbivorous ones, after having already eaten. Entertained. Slightly speculative. Completely aware of its ability to kill and eat everything present.
'Oh, sort of,' her father said unhelpfully. He was looking … put together. He didn't have any ink on his shirt, or on the side of his face. His hands were still slightly marked with that blackness, but he … his hair had been cut. His eyes seemed particularly distant, his smile particularly mild. In other words, all of his potential attractors for Drama had been carefully managed. These were all signs of this meeting having been arranged significantly ahead of time.
And he hadn't warned her?!
'It's important to keep up with the goings-on in all the clans in Konoha,' Tsunade filled in, one immaculate fingernail tapping the tabletop.
'We aren't a clan?!' Raiku more demanded than asserted, turning back to her father.
'Well, no,' he said, pulling a mug out of the cupboard. 'Of course not. But we are a pretty large family and we do all live in one place, so we've been talking occasionally. Hokage-sama, would you like green or white tea?' he asked over Raiku's head. Mostly over her head. She came up to just over his chin now, while her hair was higher than his nose, in parts. So sort of half above and half around her head, really.
'Green.'
Occasionally?
They had done this before?!
Raiku dragged her dad out of the kitchen with some flimsy excuse tossed over her shoulder, closing the door behind her.
'What the hell are you doing?!' she hissed, trying to both keep Tsunade from overhearing and convey her displeasure at the same time.
Her father straightened his shirt, pulled out of place by her determined grip. 'This is to be expected, Raiku,' he reminded her. 'We drew a lot of attention to ourselves.'
It was generous of him to say they had all done it, rather than just her. But still. 'Having tea with the Hokage!?'
He waved a hand dismissively. 'The time-skip stops any narrative leakage from Naruto. Without that unpredictable factor, any Character influence of hers is predictable. And avoidable,' he added, gesturing to his Drama-immune new haircut.
Raiku stared.
'Okay,' she said eventually, 'but you do understand that she is the boss of everyone!?'
Her father put a heavy hand on her head, shaking his own. 'Raiku. We've been doing this for a very long time. We'll steer things back to normal, so just leave it be.'
His tone was firm. It was very specifically the one he used as the head of their family, and not the warmer one of her father.
Raiku frowned. She couldn't do anything. He was in charge and he'd put his foot down.
But, she thought, as he reopened the kitchen door and resumed talking to Tsunade as if their little interlude had never happened; but.
Surely it couldn't be that simple?
[Card: Desk drawer in Sand: extremely crumpled]
[Front of card: a cartoon tree frog in a green vest smiling widely]
Congratulations on becoming Chuunin! We're all green with envy!
[Inside of card]
Gaara! No. Gaara. Wait. Gaara of the Sand. … ! Congratulations on becoming a Chuunin! Well done! This card is not meant to imply that it's a surprise or anything like that I just thought it was customary to congratulate people and found out you had passed from another friend of mine CONGRATULATIONS from Raiku obviously only I would do something this completely insaSTOP Raiku WHY
[Back of card]
what am i doiiiiing
'Alright then!'
Daisukenojo put his hands on his hips, feet set at a combat-ready hip-width apart in front of Raiku's father and Yamada, a blackboard behind him.
On it was written "OPERATION: MSRRNNTTBHP".
'What is Operation… Muhsurrntobup?' Gairano tried, one eyebrow raised. 'And, more importantly, why are you in my house?'
'Operation: "Make Sure Raiku and Ryuu Never Notice That They've Both Hit Puberty",' Daisukenojo corrected, and suddenly Gairano stopped looking curious.
'I see,' he said grimly.
Yamada glared from where he sat awkwardly crammed into a seat that was far too small. "You are never coming up with an operation name again, get me?"
'Hey! Focus!' Daisukenojo snapped. He continued before Yamada could do more than look suitably enraged, whipping out a kunai to point it at the blackboard. 'I want to hear ideas!'
"For what?!" Yamada demanded, visibly seething with anger. "They barely even like each other!"
'Yeah, and Ryuu's gotten super hot recently!' Daisukenojo retorted.
Yamada raised his eyebrows.
Daisukenojo realized what he had said and turned bright red. 'That—that is not what I meant! Objectively speaking! He's gotten… older-looking!' he sputtered.
Yamada's eyebrows only crept higher.
Daisukenojo went, if it was possible, even redder. 'Shut up! Oh my god, shut up! People I know told me that he was! … Lady-people that I know!' he added hastily.
"So there's that," Yamada said eventually, when Daisukenojo's pathetic flailing had died down a bit. "Only she wears a mask and can't touch anybody-,"
Gairano stretched out and touched his arm lightly, not looking away from the blackboard. 'Yamada. Let him finish.'
Yamada shot him a disbelieving look. "Gairano, you can't be serious."
Gairano looked serious.
Yamada sighed in disgust. "Look, idiot," he said to Daisukenojo patronisingly, because he could hardly expect a Gairano to be reasonable. "Raiku and Ryuu are not gonna start liking each other just 'cause one of them got all sparkly. Even if she liked him, we don't even know what she looks like as someone 'older-looking', get me?"
Daisukenojo narrowed his eyes. 'Oh really? You don't think that Ryuu the super-duper-sadist is gonna be interested in someone who can, oh, I don't know, make lightning storms with him?'
Yamada opened his mouth to speak, then paused and frowned.
'Or,' Daisukenojo continued relentlessly, 'someone who is also the only female he spends any of his time with while his hormones are going out of control? Who doesn't seem to think he's attractive and who he can't touch? Combined with how he's psychotically competitive and takes everything as a challenge?'
"You're worse than he is," Yamada pointed out, but he seemed less convinced of his position.
Daisukenojo smirked, sensing his victory. 'Someone who is both very destructively enabled and,' he went in for the killing blow, 'highly suggestible?'
There was a long silence.
'I think we should kill him,' Gairano suggested mildly.
Yamada threw his hands up. "We're not gonna kill him!"
Gairano shrugged. 'Just a thought. Just throwing it out there.'
Daisukenojo obligingly picked up a piece of chalk and wrote "Kill Ryuu" as an option on their new mind-map.
Gairano smiled serenely. Yamada sighed. "So we need a plan," he agreed, with an expression that promised both of them a world of pain if anyone heard of his involvement. "I still think it's a stupid goddamn name."
Dear Iwao,
Congratulations again, then! How is being a Chuunin? Is everything more terrifying? Things are mostly the same here. Some people that we know made Chuunin as well, so our graduating class has splintered a little. It makes it much harder to avoid people when they don't move in groups of threes. But, anyway! It's quite warm here, now, which I don't like so much. I can deal with the cold, you know? Because I don't feel it, ever. I think I felt it when I was sick? It was awful. Wait. I am complaining to someone in the desert about heat. Oh god. Why am I still so bad at this?
I am being trained by a second teacher, now! He has his own group of three, but they are all basically on loan to other people. Well, one definitely is. And so is the other, ninety percent of the time. He was never that interested in the third, she told me? Maybe that part was not true. She was pretty angry when she said that. I only see her sometimes. Maybe she's like that all the time? ANYWAY. He has his own team and we train every couple of days. His training is just to beat me up. But I think it is a little harder to beat me up now, compared to a few weeks ago? Slightly harder? Maybe a fraction? A fraction of a fraction, certainly. I still don't think he finds it very difficult, but I am learning a lot! Mostly about running. Yamada is still training me, and I'm improving! I am actually not that bad at some things! And terrible at others. So I'm not sure about the exam.
I'm sorry my letter is so weird, weirder than usual, I am super tired. You can't be annoyed! We are friends!
Raiku
Raiku collapsed onto the clothing rack and let out an unhappy whining sound. The rack was her friend. It was her pal and it camouflaged her nicely.
Her father pulled her up by the back of her vest. 'Oh, don't even think about it. We just need to … find someone,' he told her firmly, 'who … can tell us what to do.'
Raiku flicked two coat-hangers together. 'This is the worst. And you are the worst.'
He glared at her. This was an impressive feat, since he was determined not to look at any of the women in the store, even peripherally, and they were starting to close in. Well, the older women were. All the women of a certain demographic were starting to close in. Raiku, who had no idea how to deal with women at the best of times, was feeling similarly threatened.
He almost lunged for the sales assistant when he saw her moving stealthily between the racks. 'You! Yes! Hello!'
Raiku covered her eyes with her hand, because her dad. Her dad. This had the added bonus of making her unable to see the thousands of bras that surrounded her.
Staring at her.
Judging her.
Raiku hunched slightly at the thought of them. They were there. Waiting. A thousand cloth-y (or, more terrifyingly, leather-and-miscellaneous-y) reminders that she had no idea how to female. Not a verb, traditionally, but it was the best way to describe it. She had been totally unprepared. She had had no idea that these things had sizes different to clothes. Her dad hadn't either.
And so, their current predicament.
'Raiku?' Her dad had successfully wrangled the sales assistant into assisting. No small feat, since she had taken one look at their obvious shinobi attire and run for the hills.
The woman smiled at her. Sort of. There was no real warmth there, but it certainly implied that she was willing to help her out. 'I understand you need a fitting?'
Raiku nodded, grateful that her mask made her blush almost impossible to detect.
The woman immediately looked at her chest.
Raiku immediately wrapped her arms around herself.
The woman sighed. It was the sigh of someone who was used to highly awkward teenage girls objecting to being manhandled by another female, and who could recognize the signs of that being about to happen.
'This is your first bra?'
Raiku shrunk back, keeping her eyes safely on one of the approaching enemy bras. Well, not approaching, but certainly looming in a malevolent way. '…Yes.'
'If you'll just come to the change room, we can do a fitting for you.'
'Over the clothes,' her father added.
The sales assistant seemed to restrain another sigh. 'If that would make you more comfortable.'
'It would! It would,' Raiku hastened to assure her, and was promptly steered towards the back. The women who had been slowly migrating towards them seemed to find this whole thing precious. They'd taken notice the second she'd come in with her dad, and had given off various signs of being increasingly charmed by her dad's awkward attempts to help his daughter through this milestone. Especially, Raiku thought gloomily, since it basically spelled out the lack of a mother in the picture.
One made an audible, but quiet, "aw" sound when Raiku made a pleading look at her father over her shoulder. He was no help. He was starting to look stressed, in his own way. For most people this was pretty standard. For her father, it meant that his gaze was distant, his smile more fixed. He looked a bit like a space cadet at that moment, so he was clearly feeling a bit threatened.
Good. He deserved it for throwing her to the mercy of some… pitiless monster who was hired to help her. Raiku backed away from the assistant once they reached the change room.
'Take off your vest,' the older woman instructed, pulling the curtain closed.
Raiku cringed. Oh god. This could only end badly.
Thank you.
Raiku turned the otherwise blank piece of paper over in her hands, looking for some sort of clue as to the sender. It was certainly very... to the point. It had arrived in the mail a few days earlier, with nothing but a stamp that seemed familiar, but that she didn't recognize. And those two words.
She squinted at the handwriting. It wasn't familiar.
Shrugging, she opened the drawer she kept all of her correspondence in and tossed the letter inside. It slid down the side amongst the more standard letters until it settled somewhere near the bottom, on top of a letter from Iwao, marked with his much neater handwriting and an identical postage stamp.
Daisukenojo sighed loudly.
When Raiku failed to respond, he did so again. Louder. He also threw his hands up to catch her eye, in case she was tuning him out again.
'What?' she asked, tearing her gaze away from Ryuu's front door.
'Why are we waiting outside?!' he demanded, gesturing. He had been doing that a lot. Talking with his hands seemed to be his thing. 'He has a perfectly good living room!'
Raiku shrugged helplessly, tugging some hair out of her face. As it got longer it got slightly more willing to listen to gravity. Not enough to be fashionably spiky, because of course not, but enough to make seeing difficult. 'He said we had to wait here!'
Daisukenojo rolled his eyes. Wow, she marvelled. His every movement was emphatic. 'And since when do we listen to him?'
Raiku paused and thought about it. He had a point. Historically, they had never made any effort to listen to Ryuu.
Oh wait.
'Because last time he knocked me out and dragged my bloody corpse out the door?!'
It had not been a good day.
'Yeah, well. Screw it! Screw this, I am going in!' Daisukenojo declared, cracking his knuckles.
Raiku gasped. 'No, Daisuke! It's not worth it!'
'It's a matter of principle! I refuse to do what Ryuu says!'
'Daisukenojo, no!' Raiku cried, trying to pull him back. She was forced to stop when he crossed the property line; if he was going to commit suicide-by-Ryuu, she wasn't going to join him. Not that it stopped her from moving to getter a better angle to see the door from.
Daisukenojo stalked up the path and then knocked on the door. He turned to look at Raiku over his shoulder when this provoked no murderous aura from Ryuu's window, raising his eyebrows. See?
Raiku shook her head, eyes wide. I see only your impending doom.
Daisukenojo huffed and turned back to wait. After a moment it opened, and they saw the face of their destruction.
She was smiling. 'Hello! Daisukenojo, right?' Ryuu's mother asked warmly. Raiku blatantly stared at her, mouth hanging open.
She looked so ... ordinary. Actually, She could have passed for a Gairano's more normal cousin. She had black hair and brown eyes and she was wearing comfortable, but flattering clothes in shades of blue. Raiku looked her up and down. She had laugh-lines! She had the photogenically lined faced of a soap-opera maternal character. How the hell had this woman raised Ryuu!? She probably baked cookies on the weekends!
'Yes, I am. Nice to meet you,' Daisukenojo said, oddly formal in the way he always was around older women. If he had a hat, Raiku thought, he would have it in his hands. His mother really had trained him well. 'Is Ryuu ready yet?'
She sighed in fond exasperation, waving a hand. 'Oh, not yet. Did he ask you to wait outside?'
'Yes. Yes he did!' Raiku called. Ryuu's mother leaned slightly to the side to look past Daisukenojo and see who had spoken.
Her whole face lit up. 'Oh! You must be Raiku!' she called, waving cheerfully. Raiku leaned back slightly. Her wariness was instinctively triggered by the woman's obvious eagerness. What had Ryuu said about her? Oh god, what had Ryuu told her?!
Ryuu's mother tsked. 'Don't be shy! What are you waiting over there for?'
Daisukenojo smirked. 'Yeah, Raiku.'
Raiku fidgeted in place, self-consciously tugging at her hair. 'I was... I was just...'
Ryuu's mother laughed, beckoning. 'I've been so looking forward to meeting you! Come inside, both of you,' she invited, stepping to the side to let her in. Daisukenojo ducked his head slightly in thanks and stepped past, vanishing into the house.
Raiku hovered. On the one hand, she was extremely curious. Ryuu had always had a bizarre determination to stop her from meeting his mother. On the other, his mother seemed very happy to see her. Well, she had been happy to see Daisukenojo, but she had been a lot more energetic about Raiku. That was suspicious.
Raiku tentatively stepped onto the path leading up to the front door. She looked up, expecting to see Ryuu bearing down on her immediately.
When this failed to happen, she relaxed slightly and took a few more steps.
'I'm so glad you finally came over; I know Ryuu is a bit of a loner, but I'm so glad he has you two,' his mother was saying as Raiku made her way over. 'And you're so cute! Just look at you, I bet that-,'
Raiku paused mid-step.
Well, that wasn't right. She tried to step and found her entire body frozen in place.
'See you later,' Ryuu said cheerfully to his mother, appearing in the doorway. Daisukenojo was next to him, one of Ryuu's hands on his shoulder and gripping so tightly that the knuckles were white. It looked painful. 'Back for dinner.'
His mother frowned. 'I was just saying hello to your teammates; can't you stay for a little while?'
He shrugged. 'Sorry, we're already late.'
She sighed. 'Well. Next time!' she promised Raiku, an odd glint in her eye.
Raiku tried to open her mouth, but nothing came out. On closer inspection, Ryuu's free hand was hidden behind his back. She bet she knew what it was doing.
She glared at him. Stupid Ryuu with his stupid techniques.
He steered Daisukenojo past her and grabbed her on the way, dragging both of them away by the scruff of the neck until his house couldn't be seen anymore.
'Let go of me, asshole!' Daisukenojo hissed, struggling.
'If that happens again, I'll smother you in your sleep!' Ryuu promised darkly. Evidently his anger had removed his self-imposed syllable limit. 'What did she say to you?!'
Oddly, this seemed to be directed at Raiku.
'Nothing!' she squeaked, using some of the precious little oxygen he was allowing her. 'I heard nothing!'
Ryuu searched her face for a moment and seemed to decide she was telling the truth, because the air around her suddenly resumed normal behaviour.
'Smother you. In your sleep,' he threatened again, before pushing past both of them and briskly walking ahead.
Raiku stared after him.
'What the hell?' Daisukenojo grumbled, rubbing his shoulder. 'What was that?'
Raiku shook her head. 'I don't know.'
He rolled his shoulders to try and get them feeling normal again. 'Shit. Wonder why he doesn't want his mother talking to you?'
'I don't know.' Raiku thudded her fist into her palm. It could be blackmail material. It could be something she could use against him! For once! 'But I intend to find out.'
Raiku,
Being a Chuunin is just like being a Genin, only slightly harder. Not much, though. That might be because we aren't actively at war right now. I don't know. It's getting very hot here too, obviously. I don't mind extreme temperatures, but I dislike summer here. It's suffocating.
What is your new teacher's name? Mine is doing well. Well, he was until a few weeks ago. Now that we're all Chuunin, the twins are testing boundaries again. Each time, he has to dominate them pretty brutally or it all spirals out of control. It's an increasingly significant problem. The two of them are still elusive when we're not training, and it's starting to get to me. I might follow one of them, soon. I'm stealthier than they are, but they aren't stupid. I need to think about it carefully. It sometimes makes me wish that I had a team like yours. If I could trust them fully, maybe this wouldn't be a problem.
I'm sorry. I don't know what else to write about, since all missions above the first two levels aren't allowed to be written about. Sorry.
Iwao
The forest was quiet.
Too quiet—Raiku reached out and snapped a twig. No it wasn't! It was just quiet enough! At the interruption of tension-building language, noise in the forest resumed as usual.
Satisfied that the birds were chirping and the leaves rustling as nature intended, Raiku settled back into her hiding place. It was midday, or thereabouts, and they'd been at this for hours. Or maybe just an hour. The trees were so thick where they were training that the foliage left them largely in gloom. She was tired and hardly inconspicuous at the best of times, so Kakashi had hunted her down at least three times, but she was doing a little better! It was taking all of her concentration and some skills she wasn't too sure about, but she'd evaded him for a while. It was taking its toll, though. Some part of her brain, and she couldn't tell which, was aching. Maybe all of it? She'd almost buried herself inside her conductor sense, trying to find even the barest hints of metal, and it left her with the unsettling feeling of being both inside and outside of her body all at once.
It wasn't the only problem. Tragically, Kakashi had decided that he'd been making it too easy for her and so when trying to help her develop this skill, he removed everything she could easily sense. This hadn't yet included his forehead protector, which she had been successfully honing in on to avoid him, until he'd gone and done this.
This.
Raiku muffled a groan and pressed her hands to her temples as though she could use them to force her thoughts into better order. He'd done something and now she felt pulled in all directions, instead of just towards him. It had gone from nothing to almost overwhelming and she couldn't focus. She knew that whatever he'd done, it had to involve decoys. But how could he have hidden so many conductors on him without her sensing them on their way there? And there were so many of them. It was impossible.
She shook her head slightly and refocused. She had to find out what he was doing. She couldn't get past them and if she couldn't get past them then she couldn't sense him. The day wasn't over until she'd evaded him for three hours, and she wouldn't put it past him to force her to stay in the woods for days. By the time she got out, she would be a hollow husk of a person, riddled with PTSD and a chronic fear of deep male voices! And she would have missed dinner.
Unacceptable. She had to figure out what he was using.
Raiku edged out from her makeshift cover, pushing a leafy branch aside to peer through the gloom. A bird chirped at her, no doubt pointing out to all its little feathery buddies the presence of a totally obvious hiding place. Smug bastard.
After a few seconds of no movement, she shifted onto the branch more securely and out of the hollow she'd been crouching in. Right. He was probably setting a trap, or several traps, or all of the traps, so she seemed to have a window of time. The nearest... whatever it was, was almost a half-kilometer away, roughly. She was learning to feel for things more sensitively, but the sense was more of an instinctive pull in the direction of attractive conductors than it was a mental radar. Still, since it was effectively a less useful replacement for a chakra sense, she'd spent most of her time learning how to make mostly-accurate guesses.
She couldn't tell if it was at ground level or above. She was going to have to wing it. She braced herself to jump.
'I can see your eyes glowing.'
Raiku shrieked and flailed, losing balance on the branch and only saving herself from plummeting to the forest floor by wrapping herself around the branch like a koala. Kakashi crouched a little further along, eye creased at her and head tilted to one side. 'It's a dead giveaway.' He tapped a kunai on the branch meaningfully. 'Potentially.'
Raiku hoped he couldn't see how her jaw was clenched under her mask. He'd taken to startling her on purpose, ostensibly to desensitize her so that she wouldn't give herself away if she was surprised on a mission. He seemed to enjoy it too much. She'd been on edge since they started for that very reason, and her shock at his sudden appearance had morphed immediately into anger that she was trying to supress as quickly as possible.
If he did notice, he didn't let it bother him. He stood.
'Again.'
He vanished.
Raiku took a few calming breaths. She'd only have a few minutes as a headstart, and she needed to use those minutes wisely.
She released the branch and twisted to land on one below, jumping in the direction of the nearest conductor. She had to know. He'd set them up everywhere and she had to know how.
The closer she got, however, the more confused she became. It wasn't something special. It was...
Raiku came to a halt, hovering several metres above a narrow but extremely deep well of water.
She couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. What the hell?
Momentarily forgetting the point of the exercise, she dropped lightly to the forest floor and approached it. It didn't seem altered. It maybe had a slightly higher mineral content, based on its slightly more potent lure, conductor-wise, but nothing too noticeable.
What. The hell?
Raiku was still staring at it uncomprehendingly when Kakashi reappeared.
'Why did it get stronger?' she asked, holding a hand above the water, close enough that her skin's glow was visible through the seams of her glove. 'I don't get it. You must have used dozens of these, and there's some extra metal in there, but how did you do that bit?'
Kakashi stuck his hands in his pockets. 'Guess.'
She risked a glance at him. He was giving her an assessing look. She turned her bewildered attentions back to the water. Why would it have started out as a poor conductor? Had he used an insulator of some kind?
No, she decided. There were too many. He wouldn't have had time to keep going back to gradually remove them.
She scratched her head. Water slowly becoming a conductor—
Raiku groaned and covered her eyes. Of course.
'Got it?' Kakashi asked.
'You just spiked the ground with huge things of ice!' she accused, whirling around to face him. 'Ice is an insulator, and the impact compressed the earth around them so they didn't just drain away and then they melted into conductors!'
A long silence. Raiku stared at him and became less certain of herself by the second. Wasn't ice an insulator?! No, it was! Where had she gone wrong, had she gone wrong?! Why wasn't he saying anything—
'Yep,' Kakashi confirmed.
'I knew it!' Raiku cried in an extremely triumphant lie, punching the air. 'I'm a genius!'
But wait. That still didn't...
'Why did it get so hard to focus?' She looked around suspiciously. 'How many of these are there?'
Kakashi shrugged. So, probably a million. And then he smiled, which immediately made her recoil. 'Hey.'
'...Yes?' she asked, still half-grinning and elated from her tiny victory.
Kakashi leaned forward into her personal space, Raiku too trapped by his gaze to even cower away. 'Again.'
'But I figured it out,' Raiku protested uncertainly, bending so far backwards to get away that her spine creaked perilously.
Kakashi managed to somehow look even more malevolently cheerful. 'But I found you.'
Raiku gaped. 'Come on!'
Kakashi was pitiless. 'Again.'
Raiku sighed, shoulders slumping. What was it about her that attracted sadists?
Iwao,
Hello! I hope the heat isn't getting to you too badly. I hate it, because all the layers makes it really, really hard to stay cool and my training hasn't helped me find a way around that yet. Oh well! It's not so bad I guess. People think I'm mysterious instead of weird, now that I'm training with the Copy-nin! That is the name of my teacher. Wait, "Copy-nin" isn't his name, his name is Hatake Kakashi, but. That's who he is. He's kind of nice! In a really violent and I'm-not-that-invested kind of way. It's helping! I think. No, it definitely is. Since I can't use my abilities in normal training, being able to use them regularly in a shinobi context is really, really helping! I think I'm improving!
Your team situation sounds... kind of unpleasant. Please don't be offended! I don't mean that your team is terrible, I don't! Really! You were all... very effective! If you're really worried about them, just don't get caught following them! If they hate each other so much, you don't want them to hate you too! Ryuu and Daisukenojo followed me once, but I wasn't very offended. Wait.
Why wasn't I offended!? Oh my god, they followed me! And our teacher! How could they do that I don't even
Not important! I don't mind if you don't write much!
Raiku
It wasn't fair.
Raiku felt the injustice of it down to her soul.
Puberty had happened to Raiku. It was continuing to happen to her with what she felt was extreme prejudice, leaving her as graceful as a legless squirrel. Even with the time-skip supposedly making things go smoothly, she got the feeling it was failing to compensate for the sheer awfulness of this entire process. It had taken her over a year to gain enough weight to look like she wasn't being starved to death, and even that was still a struggle, but oh no! Not Ryuu!
Ryuu had happened to puberty. Sure, for a while he'd been slightly gangly and his voice had been… frankly hilarious, but then this had happened. And while he was still slightly gangly and his voice was still not settled, there was nothing hilarious about this.
Raiku eyed his hair.
Ryuu was getting shiny.
It wasn't his fault; she knew that, intellectually. His tragic backstory and inconsistently low-to-high Drama rating made it inevitable, were always going to make him not only physically attractive, but also magnetic in a distinctly … Genematrix way. But she still kind of wanted to smother him in his sleep.
She sometimes worried that made her a bad teammate.
He and Daisukenojo were sparring and she was waiting for her turn, and it was looking more and more like Daisukenojo was going to be the one she was pitted against. Ryuu's medic training was getting more intense and leaving him exhausted from late nights and hard work, and it was showing itself particularly during this training session.
She was proven right a few seconds later when Daisukenojo sent Ryuu flying with a well-placed kick and pinned him almost immediately after landing, to Yamada's great amusement. Helping Ryuu up was never a smart idea when you'd been the one to knock him down, so Daisukenojo wandered off in the other direction to wave at a distant, but distinctly feminine, figure, as Ryuu clambered to his feet.
Raiku watched this with a sigh and stood. Daisukenojo had a talent for harbouring multiple crushes at once, which seemed to be causality's way of balancing her talent for failing to harbour any. It was slightly tiresome.
Raiku caught herself staring at the line of Ryuu's throat (sternocleidomastoid, her mind offered unhelpfully) when he tilted his head back to take a long swig of water. She realized what she had been doing and promptly decided that that day was as good a day to die as any.
'What the hell is wrong with you?!'
'I don't want to live in a world where this has happened!' Raiku wailed, struggling against Daisukenojo's grip on her arms, where it was stopping her from successfully ending her own life. 'This is the only way!'
'What?! Where what's happened?! You son of a bitch, she's already freaking out, so could you stop trying to murder her with your eyes?!'
Ryuu rolled his eyes and took a single step towards them, only for Raiku to hurl herself backwards against Daisukenojo's hold. 'Stay back! Demon! I'd rather die!'
Ryuu carefully put down his bottle of water.
Seconds later, Raiku's protests reached new levels of pitch and volume. Daisukenojo's attempts to restrain her had morphed into a more unified effort to drag her away from Ryuu, while Yamada took in the subsequent conflict with an air of deep and abiding disappointment.
Chapter 3: We All Remember What It Was Like To Be Your Age (This Doesn't Need To Be Hard)
So. You've decided to do something, probably something extremely unwise, and your parent/guardian/clan head has told you not to. Intolerable. Unjust. Life is hard, isn't it?
No, it isn't. Accept this now. Do you see how I pretended to understand you and then betrayed your newly-gained trust? This is an important thing to remember, later on. I know; you will be experiencing the powerful urge to slam doors and sulk, maybe for days on end, but this can be avoided if you just do the smart thing and SHUT UP. That is, S.H.U.T U.P.: Save Humiliation and Usurp The Unfit Parties.
Allow me to explain. You are faced with a choice, and the first option is this: you can angst about this in an unproductive waste of your potentially valuable time, making everyone in your family benefit greatly from laughing at your expense. The second is that you can put your dedicated hours of self-worship to use and start learning how to best make the system fit your needs. You won't be able to put any plans you have to usurp the current authority into practice for some time, naturally. But by the time you are an adult and thus, an actual person, you will have the advantage over your peers, whose own adolescence will have been wasted by pursuing romance and staring into mirrors. This has the added bonus of getting you out of everyone's way long enough for you to hopefully realize the truly staggering extent of your own self-involvement, gaining some perspective, as well as greatly adding to your undoubtedly lackluster problem-solving techniques.
So when in doubt or enraged, S.H.U.T. U.P.
Also, shut up. This is getting out of hand and we're all, frankly, about to lose patience with [continued on next page]
She didn't get it.
Raiku watched Sakura and Lee from her seat on the other side of her father. He was muttering darkly about how Sakura didn't even like udon and now none of the other Gairano were going to show up to dinner, and she was watching them and feeling hopelessly lost.
Sakura looked different.
That was an obvious inevitability, but Raiku felt as though something about Sakura was different, something fundamental in her that had nothing to do with her height or how long her hair was getting. She just…
She just looked different. Lee did too.
Raiku tilted her head, studying them.
It had to be something. Maybe it was the way they carried themselves? She subconsciously straightened slightly, her shoulders settling down and back as she considered. Sakura didn't seem to lean so noticeably towards the person she was speaking to. Lee sat fully on the seat, instead of just on the edge closest to the person he was speaking to. They seemed more grounded. Maybe it was that?
But no, she decided. It wasn't that.
Her father had stopped talking, but she barely registered his sudden silence.
Confidence? Sakura had never been deferential, as far as Raiku had seen in her admittedly limited experience, but she seemed to laugh louder, more at ease in her space. Then again, Sakura was with a friend, and not some scrawny weirdo she only really spent brief bursts of time with.
She just couldn't figure it out.
She didn't get it.
Raiku felt the familiar stirring of frustration at the back of her mind. She didn't like it. She didn't like missing things. She just couldn't put her finger on it, but Sakura looked ... older, somehow. Not much, only a little, but she seemed... to be growing up, slowly.
It was a stupid thought, but something about it was sticking in Raiku's mind. Of course she was growing up. Of course Lee was growing up. They all were. Raiku had grown up in a much more literal way rather rapidly. She was growing and her body was changing in ways that her family assured her were normal but that she was utterly certain were a horrifying punishment for some unknown crime, but.
Raiku bit the inside of her cheek and tried not to be petty about it, but she couldn't help feeling frustrated. They were growing older, but Raiku felt as though she was the only one not... growing up.
Why did Sakura suddenly get a direction in life? Why was she evolving so steadily into someone else? Why was Lee so much more at ease? What had changed? Had it been some major Plot Development that she hadn't been aware of?
But no, that made no sense. These were small changes, small changes that were stacking up over time, not grand revelations or sudden about-faces. Was Raiku changing, and just unaware of it? She didn't think she was. She didn't feel changed. She didn't feel different. She was just... the same Raiku, in a taller Raiku-shell.
She was startled out of her reverie by her father ruffling her hair. 'Hey. You want to go home and grab some food on the way?' he asked, tilting his head towards Sakura meaningfully.
Raiku blinked and it took her a moment to realize what he meant, since she'd been staring at a Main Character with some pretty terrifying intensity for a while with no ill-effects.
'Right,' she said belatedly. 'Sure.'
Her father smiled, and she responded in kind. He looked at her for a moment too long before he stood up, something searching in his eyes as he silently met her gaze, but he eventually stood and tugged her up as well. 'Right. Let's go.'
Raiku nodded, and tried not to look at either of the two Characters as she left. She just couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing something, that she was missing out on something important.
She just didn't get it.
Raiku,
The heat is manageable. But it's tiring, in a way, even though I'm used to it. Some of my missions have been taking me to places like [REDACTED] where it isn't so bad. It's interesting to see other Nations. I hope you can figure out a way to not get heatstroke. Maybe your wind-using teammate can help? Or your teacher. Hatake is extremely famous. He's a genius and incredibly strong. He would be good to learn from, I think. So I'm sure you really are improving. Will you enter the Exams?
I don't think you're weird.
It is unpleasant, sometimes. Mostly it is fine. I tried to follow Akihiro, but he's always been stealthier than Akihito and he covered his tracks well. I will try Akihito next, since I don't think Akihiro caught on that I was there. Maybe I should ask Hijino to help, but I don't think he'd approve of this. Your teammates seem to care about you, so maybe you weren't angry because they weren't trying to catch you out? I don't know.
I've sent some information on some low-level wind techniques that might help you, if you show them to your teammate. They're basic training techniques about wind and temperature, so they'll be easy to learn and aren't classified. You may also want to look into some of the fabrics used in Sand. I don't know much about them, but they seem cooler than other Nation shinobi gear.
Iwao
It was a beautiful night. The air was cool and there was a gentle breeze rustling through the trees surrounding Konoha. The night sky was clear and the grassy training grounds gently bathed in moonlight, completing the image of perfect serenity. It was lovely. Romantic, even.
The musical chirping of nearby crickets was interrupted by a loud thud.
'Just leave me here to die,' Raiku groaned into the grass, sweaty, dirty and in some places, bleeding.
Kakashi stood beside her where she lay, staring upwards at the multitude of stars with his trademark mild expression. 'Not bad. Better than last time,' he commented.
Raiku groaned again, unable to do anything but twitch. Every part of her hurt. She hadn't experienced pain this terrible since the first day she'd trained with Yamada. Or the second day she'd trained with Yamada. Or third. That whole week, really. Her lungs were burning and lying face-down wasn't helping her get more oxygen in there, but she couldn't bring herself to roll over.
'You flew for the last hundred metres or so,' Kakashi observed, turning his attention from the sky to the way they'd just came. It was somewhat less picturesque. Any path taken by Raiku when she used her abilities to augment her speed ended up being scorched, but the last part of their trail had been totally obliterated. There were small fires crackling merrily in the ruined, blackened trees that had been casualties, and the earth leading to the site of Raiku's collapse was a furrow, like a meteor had struck.
Kakashi took this in and then turned back to her. 'You lost control.'
'I did,' Raiku agreed, voice heavy with weary resignation. 'I can't keep it up for long. I get caught up.'
Kakashi hummed in agreement. 'And use too much power.'
'I know, I know,' she whined, willing herself to melt into the grass. The grass didn't judge her. The grass didn't accurately catalogue her failings. The grass didn't have broad shoulders or a mysterious gaze. The grass was better than Kakashi in every conceivable way. 'I was fast, though.'
'Very.'
That surprised her. Kakashi was very, very sparing in his praise. He had extremely high standards. Though, Raiku was extremely fast, when she really put her mind to it. For obvious reasons. They were discovering, however, that while she could move at impossible speed for brief bursts, any attempts to sustain that state would inevitably result in her losing her grip on that ability. She left scorchmarks at first, which was an unacceptably easy thing to track her with, and after a while...
Well. What had once been part of the forest spoke for itself. Gairano were going to be out at dawn trying to replant where she'd left trails of destruction everywhere. They would already have been up to do the same for the areas where Sakura was training her augmented strength attempts, though, so it wasn't that bad.
Raiku screwed her eyes shut. Kakashi had been silent for too long. When he was training her, that meant only one thing.
Don't say it, she begged internally. Say anything but that. That word was the worst word in existence.
Kakashi inhaled.
I'll be good, she promised Kakashi, her father and the universe at large. I'll remember to send Thank You cards. I'll never speak of Naruto again. I'll... I'll...
'Again.'
Raiku muffled a scream into the soil.
Iwao,
I am entering the Chuunin Exams! Apparently. I won't lie: this was not my choice. But Kakashi talked to Yamada who talked to my dad who yelled at Yamada and now I'm in them. No one is happy about this. Except Kakashi and Yamada and my team, who wanted to enter last year. Okay, so I'm not happy about this. But I may stand a chance! I don't know where it's being held this year, so I should probably look into that but maybe I won't die! I'm sorry if I die. I like writing to you and I can't do that if I die, obviously. Sorry. I may be in shock. I am super weird.
Good luck! Uh. Following your teammates who you suspect of nefarious deeds. Yes. Good. Good luck.
Thank you for the information! Ryuu took it and I haven't heard any more about it. I'm a little frightened. I mean, Sand is really famous for developing techniques, so even though I know the ones you sent me were so low-level that they could be shared, Ryuu is also really good at developing techniques. On his own. In the dead of night (probably). I'm grateful! And scared.
I will let you know how my training goes! And if I pass the Exam, assuming I don't die!
Raiku
Ryuu and Daisukenojo seated either side of her, Raiku took a deep breath. 'We ready for this?' she asked grimly.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Ryuu nod.
'We can do this, guys.'
'We have to stay on our guard,' Ryuu said, nodding again.
'Be strong.' Raiku felt her resolve waver and squared her shoulders. 'We've got to be smart about this. Daisukenojo, plan?'
'...It's a baby,' Daisukenojo said flatly, waving a hand at the toddler seated in a high chair across from them. 'It is just a baby.'
The toddler smiled at them with all three of her teeth.
Raiku shuddered.
'For the love of god,' Daisukenojo sighed. He stood up and pulled the little girl into his arms, where she made a series of happy sounds that made Raiku want to hide somewhere high up and remote. 'See? She can't even deal with her bladder, let alone us three.'
'So you can take care of her,' Ryuu suggested.
Daisukenojo glared. 'The hell I will. Come on,' he said to Yamada's tiny daughter, 'let's get you some food.'
'I don't think this kitchen stocks human souls!' Raiku called after him as he made his way through the nearby doorway in search of sustenance.
She and Ryuu stared at the doorway Daisukenojo had left through for a moment, waiting for the agonized screams.
When none were produced, they cautiously crept out into the hallway as a unit. Raiku because Yamada had been deeply displeased with Suzuki's idea of getting them to babysit, and who would have been totally enraged if he'd found out that less than the full team had ended up doing it. Ryuu for no discernible reason, except perhaps that he didn't want Daisukenojo to be better than him at something.
When they entered the kitchen, Ryuu walking like he was totally at ease and Raiku sort of skulking, or possibly scuttling until she reached a chair to sit in, they were greeted with the sight of Daisukenojo rummaging through the fridge with his free hand. 'Finally,' he said absently. 'One of you take her while I find something for her to eat.' He straightened and looked at them expectantly.
He was actually sort of attractive, Raiku noticed, largely because the vast majority of her brain had panicked and melted out her ears when they'd been told they were doing this. He was a sort of muscular redhead holding a young... humanoid. Women liked that, didn't they? And he'd been maturing at a normal rate, physically, so his voice was bit deeper and he was growing into his features. A fit and young male redhead holding an infant. In a kitchen. Girls liked that sort of thing, she was pretty sure? Maybe?
While she was puzzling that out, Ryuu had had the Yamada-Spawn forced upon him. This forced Raiku to look at him instead, and the picture was rather different. Ryuu did not hold the toddler with anywhere near Daisukenojo's ease. He gripped it under the armpits and held it at arm's length.
The two stared at each other.
After a moment of studying Ryuu's sharp features, the toddler reached her hands out. They were sticky. Wait, how were they sticky?! She had just been bathed and she hadn't touched anything! Raiku boggled, unable to wrap her head around the basic toddler gift of being inexplicably sticky at all times, which everyone else simply accepted as fact.
When Ryuu failed to respond appropriately, the little girl stopped smiling. What was her name, even?! Yamada must have said, but Raiku had been too terrified to listen.
Raiku braced herself for tears, but none came. The infant looked deeply displeased. It ...
It was...
Riku drew in a slow, horrified breath as the toddler took on an expression that made it eerily resemble Suzuki. It glared at Ryuu.
Daisukenojo closed the fridge and turned, jerking back slightly. 'Ryuu! What the hell!?'
'What,' Ryuu demanded, not looking away from his weird staring contest with the toddler. 'She started it.'
Daisukenojo pointed. 'Yeah! Because you're bleeding, idiot!'
Ryuu blinked and shifted Yamada's extremely disgruntled hellspawn to sit braced against his hip. He touched a finger of his free hand to the blood gingerly, pulling it back to see and grimacing. 'It's just a nosebleed,' Ryuu dismissed, 'It's nothing.'
Raiku slid her chair out from the table carefully. It still made a conspicuous scraping sound on the tiles. 'Pretty suspicious timing, though.'
Ryuu rolled his eyes. 'Who here is the medic?'
'Medic in training,' Raiku corrected. Ryuu was losing patience and the look he sent her could have torn the skin off someone less used to him.
Daisukenojo seemed on edge. 'Do you have a headache?'
Ryuu shrugged with one shoulder. 'A little.'
'But,' Raiku said slowly, eyed glued to the trickle of blood from Ryuu's nose, 'can't Suzuki's family kill people with their minds?'
There was a long, long silence, broken only by the ticking of the kitchen clock.
'Run for it!' Daisukenojo screamed, overturning the table and making for the hallway.
Raiku was close on his heels, the two of them skidding on the polished floorboards and bouncing off the far wall as Ryuu's enraged shouting followed them. 'Should we really leave him there!?' Raiku yelled to Daisukenojo, though it didn't stop her from grabbing her shoes in her sprint out the door. 'What will we tell Yamada!?'
'He died a hero!' Daisukenojo shouted back, dodging a kunai aimed for the back of his head. 'Good luck, Ryuu!'
'You're dead to me!' Ryuu howled from the doorway they had left behind. 'Dead!'
Raiku,
Please don't die. I am sure you will do well. I know you have a high destructive capacity, and you aren't stupid. You can pass if you are careful and smart about it. Don't die. I think Konoha is hosting its own Exam this year. That would make sense, since it's still recovering from the attack. Or it may be in Tani. I'm not sure. Let me know, and I can tell you about it. If this reaches you before then. I hope it does.
I've had no luck so far. I think I'm going to tell Hijino, so that he can help me. If he isn't angry. Also, that girl who tried to poison me tried to do the same to him, and I think they went on a date? I don't know what's happening there. I think it didn't go that well, since he's still unattached. Women are strange. So is Hijino.
I hope Ryuu uses his techniques wisely, if he's developing some. I am otherwise out of suggestions.
Write soon. Don't get killed.
Iwao
The Chuunin Exam that Raiku would eventually pass was—
"We will never. Speak. Of this. Again. Get me?" Yamada gritted out, powering through Genematrix imperative through sheer force of will and placing an enormous red seal on that entire temporal arc.
'I think it went great!' Raiku said happily, hugging her new Chuunin vest to her chest. Bright green looked appalling on her, but who cared?! She had one and it was clean and new and she had earned it!
The rather more scorched majority of Team Yamada kept their eyes firmly ahead.
'Never again,' Ryuu agreed, the entire left side of his body blackened with soot.
'It was everywhere,' Daisukenojo said in a hollow, dazed voice. He was still twitching involuntarily, every now and again.
Raiku grinned. 'It wasn't that bad! I'm a Chuunin now!' she exclaimed, waving her vest at them.
Ryuu glared at her with bloodshot eyes. 'You. Were. Lucky.'
Raiku frowned and rolled her eyes. So maybe she hadn't been as careful as she should have been. They were all fine, and she was a Chuunin! With a deeply unflattering Chuunin vest!
She started smiling again at the thought, which only made Ryuu glare at her even more. Ryuu… didn't have one. Neither did Daisukenojo, she realized belatedly.
Oh dear god.
When it hit, it wasn't so much a wave of joy as it was a meteor, an enormous impact that obliterated her remaining, highly traumatised brain cells. 'I got to be a Chuunin before you!' she shrieked triumphantly, voice reaching a pitch previously thought impossible. She pointed at Ryuu, quickly thought better of it and pointed at Daisukenojo instead. 'I am a Chuunin and I am the first one! I am the greatest human being that has ever lived!' she howled, completely out of her mind with exhaustion, relief and the knowledge that she was the greatest human being that had ever lived, probably.
Ryuu's trauma was shoved aside by his apoplectic rage. 'What?!'
Raiku laughed, loud and just on the edge of hysterical. 'I outrank you, Genin!'
Ryuu snarled and lunged for her, only for her to leap out of his reach and fall into a sprint immediately.
'You can't take this away from me! I am the greatest! I am better than you! I am unstoppable!'
A/N: AHAHA! But we all know that Shana is the greatest human being that has ever lived, because she got this out in record time for you guys. Any mistakes are my own, though. Another time-skip chapter, finished! Sorry for the wait, but since these have to be large enough to encompass a year each and RL exists, well. Also, someone made an excellent point: it is hard to keep a grip on things without a regular update schedule. They are correct and I should. However, I really am sorry, but there's no way I can do that right now, as much I would love to. In future, maybe, when this part is over, I will give it a shot. I'm glad you guys stick with me anyway!
