Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
I stand there, in the shrine, in the smoky air still staring at the space that Cousin Gaku had occupied only moments before. There's a dreadful sort of finality that speaks more of ash and dust than it does of sunlight and spring days. I turn to the statue of Okami. His face is wreathed in blue plumes of smoke, and in the haze it looks like fur. White wolf. Okami has ash colored hair and eyes a dark shade of gold, and the pelt around his shoulders is silvery. In mythology, Okami is always a white wolf.
But our clan statue has him dressed in a silver robe with red markings on the sleeves and ash gray fur in a ruff around his shoulders, high in the heavens above Yama in his two forms. Yama is more interesting though as he is both a silver haired man, and a massive black wolf. It is strange to settle the dichotomy.
"Okami-sama." This shrine has always been at the heart of the clan compound. "Please protect our pack." I kneel and press my forehead to the ground. It is not generally within the boundaries of our pride to bow, but here in the shrine we are all his children. Protect Cousin Gaku. He deserves so much more than this life he's chosen.
The statue of the man with ash gray hair and the same red fangs on his cheeks does nothing, but I really doubted that the statue would do much. Even if Okami is real, he's hardly going to be a statue in the clan shrine.
With a sigh, I rise and return to my room.
The Triplets left much earlier in the morning, as sitting around and watching me sulk about how to reach the Daimyo as a lonely ten year old chunin isn't really something that they find interesting, or have advice for. Cousin Ashi's gone over to Kegawa-jisan's house to pester Cousin Kotsu about something, which leaves only me in the house.
My chakra control has improved, but only just barely, and it seems that I will never master the amount of control that Tou-san alluded to in his notes, but I do have the two required affinities, which theoretically means that I ought to be able to use the explosion release.
I pick up one of Deidara's spiders, and think back to what he'd said to me. They'll explode too, if you say katsu and add chakra. What, then, exactly made these spiders special compared to any normal clay spider made by a seven year old? I set it down at the edge of the table. He'd said I should add chakra to it, but I didn't want it to explode in my hand as I have no idea how large he'd made the blast radius. There's no reason to blow the house up.
I sit on the stool before my low table, and juggle six kunai, lost in thought. Surely, not everyone in the Explosion Corps has the same amount of chakra control that Tou-san did. How then, do they master the explosion release? Besides, while Tou-san said he worked with clay, he didn't use it while on the battlefield.
And it's at this moment that one of the kunai slips from my grasp and slides across the table. It hits the spider I'd been looking at earlier and both objects fall onto the floor.
The white clay spider cracks and as I pick it up it breaks open into perfect halves, almost as if it had been designed to be broken. It's hollow on the inside though, or rather, it would be if there wasn't several crumpled pieces of paper in it.
I pick them up and smooth them out. These are...They are covered with childish diagrams and scrawling descriptions of clay figurines labeled 8-14. Dei-kun. Oh Kami.
He hadn't just given me spiders. He'd given me notes. He'd handed me the secrets of Iwa's most famous kekkei genkai, and if his teacher or anyone from Iwa had any idea what he'd done he'd be completely dead. Can't teach you how to make them, un. And he'd frowned so hard about it.
But he'd found a way. He'd found a way for him to teach me what I needed to know. He'd made me three clay spiders as a gift and stuffed them full of knowledge that he really shouldn't have given someone from another village. But you're cousin, should know how. I pick up another one of the spiders, and tap it with a kunai. It too, splits and there's a few more sheets of paper. These are covered front to back with tiny penned descriptions of duo chakra molding messily copied from what I assume are his own notes.
I pick up the third spider, and channel a tiny bit of chakra into it. "Katsu." I whisper. It splits in half revealing three more sheets of paper, diagrams and clay figurines 1-7. I gather up the six perfect spider halves and study the clay. There's nothing about it that says it's any different from normal white clay.
Carefully, I channel more chakra into it. There's traces of other chakra in it already, dormant and sluggishly moving about. As soon as Deidara's chakra touches mine, it speeds up, vibrating back and forth faster and faster. Oh. Oh that isn't good at all. I lob it into the air. "Katsu." I state, rather sarcastically. It's a very small explosion, bits of clay clatter onto my floor.
So his chakra's in there already, but he managed to make two volatile elements coexist peacefully until another chakra touches it, and then it explodes? How does that work?
I pick up another spider half, this time, trying to figure out how he'd managed to stick two chakra natures into one very small patch of clay. Are there even two chakra natures in here at all?
Deidara's chakra is for lack of a better word, sunny. It also doesn't seem to give off an elemental affinity at all. So...oh but wait, that makes sense.
Despite the names we give chakra releases, there's really only two things that make up the energy we use for ninjutsu. While it may manifest outside of the body as lightning or earth or fire or water those are just constructs. That's not what it is while inside the body. I quickly throw away the now vibrating spider half. It explodes into a shower of dust. Last time, it made bigger pieces, but I let it vibrate a bit longer this time. That means that the type of explosion changes when vibrated more?
Chakra is a combination of physical and spiritual energies. To balance the two in equal percentages is to create the chakra that's used for daily ninjutsu like clones or substitution. To have more spiritual energy is to use Yin chakra. To use more physical is to create Yang chakra. And elemental releases come from...Changing the vibration or energy levels.
I make a single hand seal and pull chakra towards my hands for the Earth Flow River, but I don't finish the technique. Instead, I examine how the chakra actually feels when prepping the jutsu. It's slow, methodical, like molasses, dormant.
Just like the chakra Deidara left in his little clay spiders. That's how you actually make an earth river from just chakra, you're encouraging the earth to move with the chakra you put into the ground. And all living things have chakra. All living things already had a pattern to the flow of energy inside them. So the chakra Deidara had left in his clay spiders didn't automatically explode because they were more earth natured, and therefore traveled with the energy paths inside the clay itself.
The explosion occurs due to a disruption of those natural paths...which theoretically means that anything could be a basis for explosions.
I will the chakra gathered in my hands to move faster. Some of it leaks out into the air and sparks and sizzles. Chakra for Raiton did move significantly faster than Doton, but it's a jerky sort of movement, there are pauses, leaps and gaps between one bit and another bit.
And to combine them both? I separate my hands. I keep one hand constant and steady while willing the chakra gathered in the other hand to slow down, back into the more molasses like movement. Then I slap both of my hands together and push the chakra in both hands out into the world.
The very air in front of me explodes.
I lie there on my back for a long moment, blinking up at my ceiling. Ouch. That was a stupidly bad idea. The resulting blast had pushed me backwards, and as I'd been sitting on the stool I'd merely topped backwards onto the floor. It is still an experience that I don't really wish to repeat though.
There's a sort of numb feeling in my hands, and my left hand aches horribly when I set it down to push myself up. I hold it up to the light.
There are three torn nails-ring, middle and index fingers-The closest fingers on the hand you were molding Raiton chakra on-my mind helpfully supplies, and trace amounts of blood dripping from my fingertips onto my face. I turn my hand over. The other side is unharmed. I check my right hand.
It's fine. Well that's good. All could be worse. Instead of three torn nails and an aching head, I could have no hands.
I use that hand to push me up, and pull my first aid kit towards me. While torn nails are painful, they aren't that bad compared to other various injuries I've suffered. I carefully blot the ends with blood clotter, disinfect with rubbing alcohol, slather on open wound ointment, and bandage the tips of my fingers. I could go to the hospital later, but then I'd have to explain what I'd been doing to get three nails torn off.
I decide to leave it for later.
Deidara's papers have been scattered all over the floor, and I scoop them up and set them in a desk drawer, sandwiched between a few different sets of plans for the ninth district and Tou-san's chakra control notes. There has to be a safer place to put them, now that I know how valuable they are and what sort of trouble he'd gone to to give them to me, but I'm not overly worried. There's no one who knows that I have them besides Deidara and I, and as long as no one sees them by accident there's no harm really.
I make sure to sweep up the clay fragments, and set the four half spiders carefully in the same desk drawer, on top of the other papers, and head out.
There's other stuff I have to accomplish today, like how to get a mission to Kakunodate, and how to approach the Daimyo once I'm there.
I head towards the Archives for advice. At this point, it's almost a reflexive action. When in doubt about politics, head towards Suzaku-san and he won't steer me wrong. Suzaku-san's surprisingly up to date on political issues for someone who sits around in the Archives and smokes cigars all day seven days a week.
But then, he's also the keeper of practically all the book keeping information in Konoha, at least for the shinobi population, and he has a brain that could fit at least ten libraries inside itself, so on second thought, his uncanny political knowledge makes perfect sense. It's also mildly perturbing to think of just how badly he could mess up the entire infrastructure of Konoha if he wanted to. For someone who knows so much, he sure doesn't do anything about it.
I think it over, and shrug. It's probably for the best. If any Nara actually gained a modicum of motivation they'd probably either conquer the world, and thus, make it more organized, or they'd burn everything down.
I do not, in all actuality, make it to the Archives like I'd planned. I'm walking along a side street towards the Hokage Tower...and then a green blur sprints past me and doubles back.
"AH! I HAVE FINALLY MANAGED TO LOCATE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BLOSSOM OF YOUTH!" At some points, I wonder if Gai's smile is even anatomically possible.
"Um...hi?" I offer him a weak wave. Why were you trying to locate me again, Gai-san?
He strikes a nice guy pose and sends me a thumbs up. "MY ETERNALLY HIP AND COOL RIVAL WANTS YOU TO JUDGE OUR NEXT COMPETITION!"
I blink. "Are you sure that Kakashi came up with that idea?" It sounds more like something you would come up with, Gai-san.
"Maa." A hand lands in my hair. "Well, if that's the idea, I don't have an objections to it."
I peel his fingers off of my head carefully. "If I judge your competition, will you help me with a training favor?" It's not the nicest thing to ask him, but seeing as he is a prodigy perhaps he'd be able to explain just why the explosion release is a kekkei genkai. What I did earlier today wasn't really all that hard. There has to be a reason that no one outside of that particular set of DNA in Iwa has done something like this by now.
And as I could reasonably envision him being proficient with two elements, he's really the most optimal person I could ask in regards to the whole affair.
He peers at me from up close. "What's the favor?" And then he has the audacity to pat my head. "I forget that you're really just a cute chunin, Hana-chan!"
"Not everyone can be an ANBU genius by age ten." I grouse.
Gai looks back and forth between us as if he has no idea what's going on. To be honest, he probably doesn't. I don't even know what's going on and I'm taking part in this conversation.
"At any rate," I continue. "I'll judge your competition if you answer a few questions regarding dual elemental affinities."
Kakashi considers it, and I just know that he's mocking me because he strikes an exaggerated pose with a hand on his chin. "Done!" He grabs my left hand and is about to shake it before I hiss with pain. And suddenly he's looking very closely at it indeed, and peeling bandages off of a finger to check the injury level underneath. "Did you go on a mission, Hana-chan?" There's a cool edge to his voice that's just a little bit dark, and I know I have to nip this in the bud. I don't know why he's so angry all of a sudden, but it's really better to set the record straight.
"No, I didn't." I pull my hand back, and carefully rewrap my bandages. "I had a training accident this afternoon, that's all."
"MY ETERNAL RIVAL! WE STILL MUST COMPLETE OUR RACE!" Gai interjects, and it's the most thankful I've been all day. Oh thank Kami for Maito Gai. That was an awkward experience.
I end up standing on top of the Hokage Mountain, specifically over the head of the Nidaime setting up the ending goal post of their race. And then I'm just supposed to wait for one of them to show up at the top of the mountain and pass the white ribbon.
There are worse ways to spend an hour or so I'm sure. There are worse things to do, but actually watching the race instead of judging the end result would probably be more fun. Alas, I have no giant clay bird to fly on and sit over the entire village. A project to consider in the future. I decide.
I brush my bangs back from my face, and my left hand tingles. Medical ninjutsu is also a thought for the future.
The thing about Medical ninjutsu though, is that I'd likely be really bad at it. Hana had been a vet in another life, but something had to have been messed up this time around because my chakra control is just modestly above average. It's probably because we aren't the same soul. I'd come to this world with an exceptionally large amount of spiritual energy, and then I'd overcompensated with my training regime to bring the physical aspect of chakra under control.
It's left me with above average chakra control, which is kind of a mark against being a medic nin. I don't know if it would be any better if my chakra had been more balanced from the start.
A Hana that had inherited Inuzuka Kaito's chakra control would probably have gone on to be an exceptional medic down at the hospital. Me...not so much. I have no idea how many fish I'm likely to kill before getting anywhere with that project.
Still...And I think over how many injuries the people I care about have already suffered. Even at the risk of being truly mistaken for Nohara Rin by an injured Kakashi...it is probably better to at least learn basic medical ninjutsu even if I never became great at it. The empirical gains outweighed any of the potential losses should I not succeed. Even if the odds are currently stacked against me, I can't assume that something is just impossible.
I ended up in this world after all. By all rights, my very existence is impossible, yet here I stand.
I have no time to consider the thought further though. There's just one cloud of dust heading up the mountain, but I assume that Gai and Kakashi are going head to head.
It's time for me to actually be a judge.
Two blurs are sprinting towards the finish line, but it's the green blur that rips the white ribbon from it's moorings before the gray blur. "Gai-san won that one." I state flatly when both of them turn towards me in anticipation. Both of them look kind of shocked and disbelieving though."By all of...half a second." I justify. "Gai-san won because the green blur passed the ribbon a half second before the gray one, and Gai-san also has a very distinctive sounding run. That one reached my ears earlier."
I couldn't really judge them based on scent, because that's not really how races work, but I could judge by sight and hearing, and by both, Gai had clattered over the finish line before Kakashi.
"YOSH!" Gai screams. "TO CELEBRATE MY VICTORY I SHALL DO A THOUSAND JUMPING JACKS ON MY HANDS!" He then proceeds to race off towards the village.
And then it's just Kakashi, me and my injured left hand.
"Every time we meet you seem closer to killing yourself." Kakashi comments as we stroll down the mountain and back towards the village at a leisurely pace.
"Speak for yourself." I mutter. "You've been to the hospital more than I have during our acquaintance." Isn't this an over reaction to simply torn finger nails?
"I hear that during the Chunin Exams in Suna two years ago, you were unconscious for two whole days." He sounds vaguely displeased, and I have no idea why.
Honestly, that was two years ago. "And you very nearly died in your own apartment due to a common cold because somehow you couldn't be bothered to get up and find some antibiotics." I look up at him, at his covered left eye, his mask and wish that I could just rip the thing off so that I could read the set of his mouth. That's probably why he has the mask to begin with. The enemy nin would probably learn really quickly how expressive he really is if he didn't wear that thing.
As it is, he still shows more emotion in the one eye he has uncovered compared to Chichi's entire body.
"I deny that ever happened." He singsongs and I struggle to reign in the irritation I feel.
"I just don't think you have any right to-" But hadn't I-Everyone that he cares about ends up dead. "I'm not going to die just because I happen to talk to you on occasion!"
We're standing outside his apartment door at this point, and I'm sure the neighbors are getting quite a show. It might even be the first time that they've ever seen Kakashi to be honest. I don't know how he normally enters his living space, but I'm sure it isn't the normal way.
"Is that what I said?" He muses while glaring at my bandaged fingers. "I don't think that's what I said!" And I could learn to hate his a hundred percent plastic smiles for the sheer fakeness that they radiate in every direction.
"It's what you meant." I jab a not injured finger in his direction. "And that's just unreasonable."
"I have no idea what you mean." He sings as he unlocks his door and we step into his foyer-hallway.
"You are not some weird bad luck charm that kills people." I stand with my hands on my hips and grouse at him. "Don't you think attributing the deaths of people you know to just your existence is a bit arrogant of you? You're not the only reason for people dying you know."
He shrugs, and pads onward towards the kitchen. "Explain my plight to me then, because I don't seem to understand."
"Other people's loved ones die too, you know." I hold up a finger. "Kaa-san lost her elder sister, and her husband in a single year. Do you think she spent all her time thinking about how she killed them by existing?"
And Kakashi is completely unlucky, but I'm fairly certain that it really isn't his fault. His shoulders slump forward. "I might have overreacted." He admits as he starts rummaging around in his refrigerator.
I plop myself down on my designated chair. "You've just gotten stuck in your thinking." I shrug. "It happens to everyone. For example, Chichi thinks that coffee makes the world go round and his grief should just be confined to himself."
"Chichi?" He turns from arranging his eggplants in a pyramid on his kitchen counter. "I'm under the impression that your Otou-san is dead?"
I gesture to the tiny Uchiwa on my left sleeve. "I've gained an adoptive father. Chichi is Ita-kun's Tou-san."
The peeler he'd been holding slides from his grasp comically. "Uchiha Fugaku?"
I frown at him. "Are you saying that that's something that's so unbelievable?" There's nothing wrong with Chichi. I have no idea why absolutely everyone thinks that he's emotionally dead. It's clear for anyone who spends any amount of time with him that Uchiha Fugaku is most certainly capable of positive human emotion.
Kakashi does not respond. He merely peels and then expertly fries eggplants without a single word. The miso soup is similarly taken care of, with about as much perfection as a professional chef.
He sets food on the kitchen table, and I wince almost imperceptibly. Why must he be better at cooking than me?
Well, a small and rather nasty voice snarks back, would you prefer to eat burnt eggplant? Would you like that sort of thing? And there's not much I can say in the face of that, because of course I'd rather eat good food than not. It really begs the question of why he bears with my horrible culinary skills when he can produce edible food with absolutely no effort whatsoever.
I take the chopsticks that he hands me. "Thank you."
He sits down on the other side of the table, in the similarly mismatched chair and nods. "You said you had a training question?"
I swallow my food before answering him with another question. "You're primarily a Raiton User, right?" He nods, but doesn't say anything. "And you're also capable of using Doton and Katon and Suiton." I assume he's copied enough jutsu with the sharingan to be proficient with those releases as well.
He nods again. "I don't think that's your training question." He comments, completely unhelpfully.
"I was getting to it." I jab my chopsticks to the side of my bowl of rice, chew aggressively, and then continue. "My question is, why haven't you tried to combine any of those to make new jutsu? Why does jutsu have to have only one elemental affinity?"
"Well." He begins and his singular eye is scrutinizing me with uncommon interest. "Because that's called a kekkei genkai, Hana-chan."
What? Combining elemental natures is always a kekkei genkai? My thoughts dissolve into gibberish right about here. "But how does that even work? Splitting focus so that it's just one in each hand isn't the hardest thing to do."
He glances down at my bandaged left hand. "What exactly did you try?"
My mouth clicks shut. "I'm not telling you that." I don't think he'd react well to the idea that I'd just slammed two chakra natures together and hoped that the resulting explosion wouldn't flat out kill me. He's still eyeing me with a slight amount of a wary interest though. "I'd love to tell you, but that's a pack secret." And now he can go and assume that it's some secret Inuzuka Clan thing, because technically everything I've said is correct.
"Hmmm..." He responds. "Somehow I think there's something you aren't talking to me about Hana-chan." And now his face is very close to mine indeed. "And I don't like it. Not. One. Little. Bit."
I lean away from him. "It's not going to kill me." At least, I don't think it is. "So you have no right to complain. The only rule to our friendship thus far is that I can't die and leave you all alone in the world right?"
He blinks. "So that's what you think it is." And now he's retreated back to a regular person's amount of personal space. "That wasn't what I thought it was."
"Well what did you think it was?" I throw up my hands. Honestly, trying to understand you is worse than trying to figure out why people build sand castles at low tide and expect them still to be there tomorrow. You make just as much sense as stupidity.
"That you'll never get injured ever." He practically sings. "But I know that's unreasonable so I'll accept your rule. First Rule of Friendship: Hana-chan's not allowed to get herself killed before me!"
I groan. "I'd rather that you didn't get yourself killed for no good reason either, Kakashi." I make sure to smile at him in a way that he could perfectly see all of my teeth. "Otherwise I'd have to visit hell to claw your face off for being irritating." I pause and make sure that my smile is still in place before continuing. "And then your face won't look so...pretty anymore."
He's frozen halfway between shock and amusement for a moment, and then he bursts out laughing. "Pretty?" He gasps. "I knew there was a reason I kept you."
After a good night's sleep I decide that I don't need to visit Suzaku-san about my next course of action after all. I could just use logic to persuade Danzo to help me commission a mission for the people of the ninth district to go and visit the Daimyo. Sure, he hadn't been enthusiastic about it when viewing it from a personally altruistic standpoint, but Suzaku-san's right.
If his primary motivator is making sure that Konoha's stronger than everything else, and he wants that by hook or by crook, then he's really not going to be happy that some civilian noble clans based in Kakunodate can just simply influence the economy of an entire district of Konoha to make money for themselves.
As long as I make sure that that's the main focus of my discussion with him, then I'll be able to ensure that he pays attention to me.
As such, I use my hour long lunch break from paper filing to my advantage, forgoing eating for the time being, and run down to the Tower to schedule an appointment with the Darkness of Shinobi himself.
"Do you have a scheduled meeting with Hokage-sama?"
I smile at the chunin at the reception desk on the first floor of the tower. "I'm here to speak to Elder Shimura actually. Could you schedule me an appointment?"
The receptionist glances down. "At about what time would you like this appointment to be?"
"As soon as possible, please." There's no point in dithering. If he'd help me, then he'd help me. If not, I would have to find time to meet with the Hokage himself who would be much harder to persuade since I didn't know nearly as many of Sarutobi Hiruzen's buttons.
The receptionist looks back up at me. "Well you're in luck then." He casually flips a pen around his hands. "Elder Shimura has an opening right now for half an hour. You can go right up to see him."
Oh. Well. That's not exactly what I meant when I said as soon as possible.
But it is exactly what I asked for. I take a deep breath, paste on a smile and thank the chunin for being so useful and prompt. And then I eye the stairs with trepidation and promptly sprint up them two at a time. If I give myself any time to hesitate, all of my courage would just go up in smoke.
I raise a hand to rap on his door. "Elder Shimura? It's Inuzuka Hana."
There's no response for a long moment, and I think perhaps he's actually stepped out for lunch, and I won't have to meet him today.
Alas, the universe has a way of dashing my fondest hopes. "Come in."
It's all over now. I close my eyes, take a deep breath-If he helps me, he helps me. If he doesn't help me, I'm not really worse off.-and push open the door.
A.N. And the meeting between Danzo and Hana will happen next chapter! In this chapter...Hana learns about explosion release, hurts her fingers, judges a race, and has yet another conversation with Kakashi. No Uchihas made any appearances whatsoever this chapter.
But Kakashi...this scene was interesting. Hana did not notice this particularly, but this is the first meal that they share in which Kakashi cooks.
Thank you so much to hasan9206 (Thank you! I like how Fugaku's personality has developed so far as well. It's made him more interesting.), Shy911 (Aww, I'm sorry that it upset you. Hana does say that she sees him again, so that's something right? He does have more of a part to play.), JustQuokka (Kakashi makes more appearances this chapter! He took up more space than planned yet again. ._.), WhiteFang001 (Yeah, Mikoto deserves to develop some more of her own character. I've always found her to be Fugaku's almost perfect compliment to be honest. They seem like a very close couple in canon.), Zeru'Xil (All Uchihas are adorable in their own way.), Guest One (Kiba is Hana's light. Sasuke...well, Sasuke's not there yet. And in canon Itachi is 13 when he massacres everyone.), AnimeFreak7177 (:P), oleaster (I've always loved writing dialogue. It's a big part of developing characters. I'm glad you like it.), 33 (Hana is at times, complacent about some things. It's one of her many flaws.), Cooked Ghost (Wow, that's a really cool name. I'm glad no one's become OOC yet. When planning and writing Fugaku, it's always difficult to tell. And we will see Dei-kun again! He is super wonderful.), NightsBlackRose13 (Oh, Nara-sensei will not be pleased, but he's kind of indisposed fight-wise right now. So there's just going to be a lot of anger. That and Hana's been purposefully keeping things from him because she doesn't want him to worry since he's not entirely great. It'll make some things worse.), libraryrockerr, Born to Sleep (Hana really should.), Guest Two (She does. There are definitely some Shakespeare quotes floating around, and other lines are lifted sometimes as well.), and Ayat (Welcome to Bloodless!) for reviewing!
And to everyone who favorited and followed!
~Tavina.
