Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous
Still alive! Dear god the time-skip is murder.
I THINK WE ALL KNOW THE DISCLAIMER BY NOW
Raiku cleared her throat.
When this failed to help her find something to say, she did it again. 'So! I am a Chuunin,' she said.
Damn. Way to state the obvious, Raiku.
'Yep.'
Kakashi wasn't exactly easy for her to talk to at the best of times, but this was ridiculous. Raiku was beginning to feel, in the part of her brain that dealt with the Genematrix full-time, as though many of her defining moments of the time-skip were beginning with her inability to speak to Hatake Kakashi.
Raiku narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on her chopsticks. This couldn't go on. She was a Chuunin! She was very nearly sort of a young adult, she was doing okay at life, she hadn't made any enemies in months and she was wearing a bra and by god, she was going to have a proper conversation with her teacher!
'Congratulate me!' she demanded, pointing her chopsticks at the Copy-nin from across the table. Kakashi looked up from his udon and blinked. 'You are my teacher and I just became a Chuunin, you have to congratulate me!'
Kakashi blinked again, slowly.
Raiku refused to budge. So, okay, it wasn't the most graceful opener anyone had used. It still covered the main point.
'Good job,' he said eventually. He creased his eye at her, but Raiku had been using that trick for most of her life and she refused to be taken in by it.
'That was insincere! I have achieved something!' She kind of wanted to shake him. 'I've never achieved anything before, and you and Yamada helped me do it!' Maybe she was letting a little too much of her insecurity into her voice, as Kakashi seemed to have frozen in place, like her vision was movement-based and he could use that to his advantage. 'You are going to congratulate me and I am going to thank you and we are both going to mean it or I am going to develop a complex, fail a mission and leave you to live with the knowledge that your lack of emotional availability caused my death!'
Kakashi stared. Raiku took a second to catch her breath. That had maybe been a little over the top. The entire restaurant was staring at them now. Her dad was sort of inching away on the bench from both of them, undoubtedly regretting leaving Konoha to come and celebrate her promotion right away instead of waiting, while Yamada, unfazed, was taking advantage of the distraction to steal Kakashi's umeboshi.
Kakashi looked at her for a long moment while she tried to calm herself down, and the rest of the customers seemed to wait with bated breath. Her Chuunin vest was slightly too big and most definitely too green, but she was wearing it until she could get a different one and she was so obviously proud of herself and he was going to acknowledge her.
He didn't shoot her that cheesy one-eyed grin, but his features seemed to relax slightly. 'Good job,' he said again, eventually, more quietly. Raiku met his gaze with a searching look of her own, trying to gauge his sincerity, before deciding she'd take it.
'Excellent!' She broke the moment of bonding, deeming it sufficient, and neatly pulled her chopsticks apart. Well, maybe in an ideal world, she actually ended up with half a chopstick in one hand and a splintery one and a half in the other, but she was used to that. She couldn't win them all. 'Let's eat!'
The waitress seemed to decide it was safe to come over and set down a plate of dumplings beside their each of their dishes. 'So cute,' she smiled, glancing between Raiku and Kakashi. 'It's so nice of your dad to take you out to celebrate like this; this is on the house, okay?'
Her actual father's chopsticks snapped in half in his suddenly tight grip. Raiku, after a long pause, slowly pushed her half of the bench away from the table, which left Yamada at a strange, diagonal angle. The perfect angle to shake his head at Chitose as the other man gaped in dismay at the wooden splinters sticking out of his hands.
Kakashi beamed back at the woman, deftly sliding the dumpling plates towards himself. 'Thank you! It is nice of me, isn't it?'
The waitress smiled at him in a distinctly friendly manner as Raiku struggled to find a way to react. She had the familiar feeling of terrified energy coiled inside her, trying to find an outlet. Carefully and deliberately, in accordance with her deepest instincts, she placed her palms on the underside of the table's edge and braced herself.
Yamada saw what was about to happen too late. "Speedy, no!" he yelled, just in time for her to give a battle cry and flip the table.
IWAO I PASSED I PASSED OKAY BUT NOW MY TEAM IS GOING TO KILL ME BUT I AM A CHUUNIN I AM THE BEST AND I AM ALIVE BUT ONLY FOR NOW PROBABLY WRITE SOON OH MY GOD
THIS IS FROM RAIKU BY THE WAY
'So! Congratulations, everybody who made Chuunin!' Sakura exclaimed from the other end of the very long table, populated almost entirely by their peers. 'Good job!'
There was a chorus of vague agreement before everybody was finally allowed to eat, digging into the assorted dishes with enthusiasm.
Well, almost everybody.
Raiku glared at Ryuu, who was gloating from his place across from her. 'You going to take your mask off, toaster?' he asked slyly.
Raiku made a low growling sound and shook her head, never breaking eye contact. She hadn't wanted to come to this rather impromptu celebration and her teammates had forced her to anyway as soon as she got back, before she could recover enough to realize their true agenda. Their agenda being to put her in a position where she would be uncomfortable and unable to eat anything without showing everyone her face.
They were getting worryingly good at vengeance. She was going to have to keep an eye on that.
Ryuu's smirk only became more pronounced. 'Hm. That will make it hard to eat anything, won't it?'
From his place on her left, Lee took in this exchange with open fascination. So, to Daisukenojo's dismay, did Tenten, seated on the other side of Lee, who was listening to this... this entrapment, instead of continuing to talk to the redhead.
'So you won't be wanting those, then?' Ryuu asked, reaching across with his chopsticks to steal her dumplings. He narrowly dodged a chopstick in the back of the hand when Raiku slammed one of hers downwards so hard that it stood sticking out of the table when she released it.
'Oops,' she ground out, skin starting to crackle quietly, 'it slipped.'
'Well!' Lee interrupted quickly, trying to keep the peace. 'I think it's a big step! Congratulations, Raiku!'
Raiku finally stopped glaring at Ryuu, just long enough for her eyes to slide over to look at Lee. '...Thank you,' she said, relaxing a little. 'Congratulations to you too, Lee.'
He beamed at her. Literally, his teeth sparkled enough to almost be a light source on their own. Not that Raiku was in a position to criticise that. 'Thank you! I knew you could do it, as you are—'
'Don't. Please don't,' Daisukenojo grumbled, rubbing his face. 'He'll just want to kill her more.'
Lee tilted his head, looking a lot like a confused owl. 'What? Of course not! Ryuu is just trying to provoke Raiku to greater heights of achievement, as any good teammate would! Ryuu!'
Ryuu's eyes widened at Lee's emphatic address.
'Your selfless dedication to the improvement of your—'
He was interrupted yet again, this time by Neji. 'Lee. Your food is getting cold.'
Lee blinked and then took the hint because, despite strangely popular belief, he was no idiot. 'Oh! Thank you!'
Raiku, meanwhile, hastily pulled her mask back up just in time to avoid being seen, having taken advantage of the distraction to cram several dumplings into her mouth at once.
Neji shot her a deeply unimpressed look, conveying his obvious displeasure with her table manners. He knew what she'd done. She looked a bit like a chipmunk, though, so that wasn't hard. Still, it wasn't like she'd had a choice, so she just averted her gaze and proceeded to pretend he wasn't there. That wasn't that difficult either, since he was diagonally across from her at an awkward angle, so... that was , now that Ryuu's taunting had momentarily abated, Daisukenojo was able to drag Tenten back into conversation on his other side.
'It was nice of Sakura to put this together,' Raiku said, poking her food moodily. 'Since she's already made Chuunin earlier than us.'
Lee hummed in agreement. 'Sakura is an example to every one of us!'
Raiku nodded, but couldn't bring herself to look over at her. Something about the pink-haired girl stung her slightly, even though she knew she should be happy for her. 'She's really something,' she threw in. 'But it's sort of strange to see how everybody's growing up.' It fell short, because she didn't think she was and she cursed how obviously it must have been written on her face.
She and Lee fell into a lull that she thought was entirely too strained.
'I guess so,' he said with his characteristic cheer. When she risked a glance at him, he was looking at her with his wide, guileless eyes, and it had been a long time since she'd let herself fall into the trap of thinking Rock Lee was stupid. 'You've grown up a lot too, Raiku.'
Raiku stared at him for a moment, then looked back at her food, hating that she felt even slightly reassured by such a minor platitude, hating that she sort of needed it, because she was a Gairano and Gairano didn't Angst like this. '... Thanks,' she said anyway, because she may have hated it, but she just felt grateful nevertheless. She felt compelled to return the kindness, somehow, because she didn't spend a lot of time with Lee but he was always nice to her anyway. 'You know... you're a really good guy, Lee.'
He smiled, and she could almost feel Ryuu, or maybe Neji, glaring at her.
Raiku smiled back at Lee anyway, because she couldn't please everyone.
Raiku,
Congratulations on becoming a Chuunin. It's an important milestone and not an easy task. You should be proud of yourself. Where did it end up being held? Did your teammates pass? What was it like? I hope you're not injured.
Oh, Hijino is going to help me. He thinks it's a good way to teach the twins a lesson in team spirit. He uses "team spirit" as a threat, though. I'm a little worried. But I don't want to steal your thunder. Take some time. Be happy that you passed. I am happy for you.
Iwao
The Chuunin Exam that Raiku eventually passed, the Genematrix tried again with admirable tenacity, was—
'Not important!' Raiku interrupted. The three of them had been waiting for Yamada, but she clearly had to provide some extra motivation, because that just was not going to cut it. 'Now! I am a Chuunin and neither of you are because you are the worst and I am the best,' she continued, hands on her hips as Ryuu struggled against Daisukenojo's immediate headlock behind her. She tried very hard not to cringe away, because this was important! Naruto, as far as Raiku could make out, was supposed to be the last one to make the slow winding down of the hyper-charged flow of time that she was beginning to feel, that meant that her team and the other remaining Genin were running out of time to pass.
She'd taken it upon herself to give them some extra motivation, because they had to pass the next Exams, and they didn't have very long. This was going to suck. But still, if she didn't, and they didn't pass...
She shook her head. No need to give the Genematrix any ideas.
'Just let me kill her,' she heard Ryuu hiss. Maybe. It was almost like a homicidal croon, which couldn't have been reassuring for Daisukenojo. 'I'll make it quick.'
'All of which means!' She spun around and pointed at them. 'I get to tell you what to do!'
The air rose sharply in temperature, enough for her to start sweating slightly. Or maybe that was the murderous glint in Ryuu's startling yellow eyes. Had they always been such a vivid shade of yellow? Surely they had been closer to brown when their team got together?
She shook herself out of it. Not important! She had a mission to accomplish!
She looked Ryuu right in his homicidal eyes.
And laughed.
Both Ryuu and Daisukenojo froze, and there was a moment of perfect stillness.
'Toaster,' Daisukenojo said, 'you were a pretty good teammate.'
'Thank you, Daisuke. So were you,' Raiku said bravely, standing up straight and ready to meet her doom.
From where he was walking up the nearby road, Yamada felt more than heard the explosion that shook the training grounds.
"Goddamnit," he grumbled, picking up the pace. "Can't leave those little bastards alone for five minutes."
Youngest Kazekage in Sand Village History!
Earlier today, Sand Village named its fifth Kazekage, after an unusually long period without an appointed leader. Gaara (or Gaara of the Sand as he is also known), the youngest of the fourth Kazekage's three children, is now the youngest Kazekage ever to [continued]
Raiku very carefully set down the article clipping she had been sent without bothering to read the rest, and took a few slow, deep breaths, staring into space. After a few minutes she reached into her desk drawer and rummaged through the letters there until she found a mostly blank piece of paper, with only two words and her address on it. She held it up to compare the handwriting to the writing of address on the envelope that had contained the article.
After another long moment, she put both of them down, and noticed that on the back of the article was written:
congratulations. you are a chuunin now.
Raiku covered her mouth with her hands, and muffled her terrified scream of realization into her fingers.
Raiku adjusted her mask, her face set in a mask of grim determination. She could do this. She was a Chuunin and that meant she had to be strong. She could do it.
'You ready?' Daisukenojo asked from beside her.
Raiku nodded. 'Yep.'
She tensed, readying herself to move.
The wind ruffled her hair.
In retrospect, that should have been a warning sign.
Daisukenojo charged forward with a cry as Raiku stepped off a nearby lamppost and jumped, lighting up and flashing through the air, the two of them hurtling forward as a team.
Mere meters from their target, they both collided violently with an invisible barrier that viciously hurled them backwards on impact, the two sent flying backwards through the air to land and skid along the concrete.
A pause.
'What was that?!'
'We didn't even get to the door!' Daisukenojo groaned, barely audible over Raiku's pained noises.
The front door clicked open.
'Mum! I'm going out!' Ryuu's call could distantly be heard over their pained groans, his mother's cheerful answer too muffled for them to make out the words. Raiku curled into a ball on her side, the pain of impact making everything hurt, Daisukenojo sprawled out and twitching next to her. She heard footsteps, which had to have been deliberate because Ryuu was a sneaky bastard normally, and then he appeared, looking down at her.
Ryuu smirked. 'You're going to have to do a lot better than that, Chuunin,' he said, and stepped over her to walk down the street.
Raiku glared after him, the throbbing dying down in favor of the sting of scraped skin.
Oh, she would.
Iwao,
Thank you! It's so exciting! I haven't gotten any Chuunin missions yet, I think because my team hasn't passed and so on, but it's so cool! I am officially a person! Not to Yamada, who says that's reserved for Jounin and people too smart to try and be shinobi at all, but still! It was held in Tani, like you said, and it wasn't so bad? I think all the training with my ability really helped, so I owe Kakashi a lot. Even if he's totally evil. How are you doing?! You didn't say!
I'm glad Hijino is going to help you! My teacher uses that as a threat too, so I know how it feels. Please be careful. I'm sure it's nothing, but they might be angry.
Thank you.
Raiku
P.S: THUNDER I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE
Her father smiled. 'Hey!'
Nothing good ever started that way. Her father usually grumbled his way through the morning. Raiku was developing a real fear of entering her kitchen as a direct consequence of his inconsiderate social life. The time-skip was making her so paranoid about it that she'd started using a mirror to check it for safety, but she for some reason had forgotten it that morning.
…Which should have been her first warning sign, damnit, she cursed internally. 'Hey, dad,' she replied, recognizing when she'd lost.
He gestured to the two people sitting across from him. 'You remember Aburame Muta and Atsuko?'
Raiku visibly relaxed. 'Oh, hey!' she greeted with much more enthusiasm. 'How are you?'
And really, how could she not have recognized them? Aburame Muta wore goggles and a high collar, and that would have been a dead giveaway even if he hadn't married her cousin. He nodded at her, and he had very plain hair, she noted with approval. Dark brown and straight and parted only slightly right of center. Very nice, very unremarkable.
Judging from her warm expression, Raiku's cousin Atsuko agreed. Atsuko was similarly unimpressive. Her hair even resembled her husband's. Raiku eyed the plain brown locks with envy.
Her father chuckled. 'Grab some breakfast. These guys just stopped by to say hello.'
Raiku nodded and moved past into the kitchen, grabbing their insulated oven mitts so that she could try and make some toast. She was never going to live that first mistake down; she couldn't afford to make another one. She listened to their conversation with half an ear, mostly preoccupied with her plans for the day. Run from Kakashi, scream a little, end up with her face smooshed into the ground; standard stuff, really.
'—and so here is the picture,' she caught the tail-end of, which piqued her interest. She peered over the kitchen island but she was at the wrong angle to see whatever Atsuko had handed her father. 'I think this could really work out.'
Ah. Raiku nodded and turned her attention back to her breakfast, gingerly trying to hold a wooden chopstick in each mitted hand to get the bread into the toaster. So that was what this was about. Gairano generally married civilians, or extremely (and carefully) distant relatives, but they would occasionally marry people from non-Plot Magnet clans just to keep the peace. Clans like the Aburame.
It made a lot of sense; the Aburame were large and kept to themselves, much like the Gairano. Unlike the Gairano, they usually also produced powerful shinobi with unsettling regularity, but their bloodline ability was so weird and considered by so many to be unattractive that they didn't really get much Genematrix attention. Relations between her family and the Aburame Clan had historically always been very good.
Unlike that one awkward time with that one Uchiha. Raiku shuddered at the memory of that old tale, secondhand embarrassment making her skin crawl. Fortunately this went unnoticed, and the meeting seemed to be wrapping up.
'It was good to see you again,' Atsuko told her on the way out, Raiku's father and Muta saying exactly nothing to each other and just nodding in manly acknowledgement. Raiku smiled and waved, and since Atsuko was a generous soul, she didn't even comment on the mitts as she left.
And that was when the morning went to hell.
'Raiku,' her dad began, once they were alone in their kitchen. 'Sit down.'
Raiku hesitantly crossed the room to pull out the chair opposite him, munching on her toast loudly just to make some white noise.
Her father took a deep breath. 'I asked Atsuko to look into some… people you might be interested in.'
Raiku inhaled so sharply she could feel toast crumbs entering her sinuses. While she went cross-eyed with agony and silently clawed at her face, her father continued. 'I know! You're getting to that age. Well, you've been at it for a while. Technically. And I want to support your personal growth!' he said encouragingly, pushing the envelope towards her. 'She came back with someone I think you should talk to. Not to marry, obviously, arranged marriages are rife with Drama, but I think you should meet! You have a lot in common.'
Raiku's horrified writhing finally abating, she stared at the envelope, before drawing it towards herself.
After another long, drawn out pause, she opened it and pulled out a picture.
For a while she just stared at it.
Then she realized the Aburame, eyes hidden and collar high enough to obscure the characteristically largely androgynous face, was a girl. Maybe? She'd made that mistake before, so she wasn't game to ask.
'Her name is Hisoka!' her father said brightly, and yes, that was a girl. 'She's quiet and practical and she likes butterflies. You like those! You're off to a great start already.'
Raiku was… not sure how to respond to this. When she had started as a Genin, Raiku had dreaded heading towards female homosexuality for the simple reason that the Genematrix seemed fascinated by it and she was conspicuous enough already. However, she had later learned the Genematrix usually got distracted or confused halfway through any attempt to portray it in either gender, and so a while ago it seemed to have resolved not to touch it at all. So the Gairano, naturally, had become extremely open-minded about everything to do with it. Even Raiku had to admit that it would be an appealing prospect if she turned out to like girls. It made sense that her father would be open to it for her too—
Wait.
Actually, if the Genematrix ignored any lead-ins to homosexuality in Plots or Side-Plots, that explained this whole thing.
'Dad,' Raiku said flatly, 'I'm not going to be a lesbian just because you really want me to be one.'
'But she's so cute!' he protested, taking waving the picture of Hisoka in which she was, Raiku had to admit, rather adorably inconspicuous. 'She'd be perfect for you! Her name means "reserved", even; she is your ideal thematic counterbalance!'
Raiku sighed, realized how melodramatic it had sounded, and then tried it again in a less theatrical way. There. Perfect. 'I don't care how little Plot attention gay people usually get—'
'None,' her father interjected. 'They get none.'
'—I'm not an anything yet! I've never liked someone! I don't even know what kind of someone I like yet! You're all about waiting and seeing usually anyway, you know you can't try and steer me into anything!'
Her father had to concede that point; sexually repressing (or in this case, openly encouraging) your children was a bad move in terms of Childhood Trauma ratings, which weren't set in stone until the end of the time-skip. She had him there; he would have to wait and see what happened, or he risked messing things up. He seemed to reach the same conclusion and nodded, setting the picture down on the table and steepling his fingers in front of his face.
'Okay?' she asked, just to make sure.
'…You're not interested in girls just to punish me,' he said sadly. 'This is teen rebellion, isn't it? It's finally happening.'
Raiku snatched the picture and flipped it over to lie face-down. 'Oh no! This conversation is over until I actually like someone!' She realized that that opened her up for future trouble and hastened to correct. 'Actually, no, it's over forever!'
'I just want you to be happy and to enjoy your teenage years! …With a lovely young lady! Raiku? Where are you going? Hey, come back here! Raiku!'
Dear Gaara,
Hello! This is Raiku. Again. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you for your letter newspaper clipping message. Congratulations on becoming the Kazekage! Is that what I'm supposed to say, I have no idea, this isn't exactly a normal level of achievement.
Good job!
I'm going to go ahead and stop here before I say anything stupid I mean write anything stupid oh god it's already started THANK YOU FOR CONGRATULATING ME CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU TOO
Brute force wasn't her way in.
Raiku crouched on a roof two houses away from Ryuu's place, hidden by the chimney stack, and thought about it.
She could just not do it at all, some part of her brain suggested, but she disregarded that right away, of course. She wasn't going to give up just because Ryuu wanted her to. If she did everything Ryuu wanted, he'd be intolerable and she'd be dead, probably.
So! Brute force wasn't her way in. If Ryuu could sense her approach in the air, she would just have to strike while he wasn't home.
All she had to do was wait.
Fortunately she knew exactly when Ryuu was going to go out and meet Yamada for some training, so she barely had to wait for twenty minutes before she spotted him leaving via the window, because why use the door when there was a perfectly good window?
She rolled her eyes. Shinobi.
She also squawked and ducked down out of sight when Ryuu paused, standing on his neighbour's roof, oddly tense. She waited for a few terrifying seconds for him to appear and murder her horribly, but after a few minutes had passed peacefully, risked another look.
He was gone.
Oh god, it was a trap!
No, she told herself sternly. It was a normal Wednesday and she was going to go to Ryuu's house.
She slunk around the chimney stack and jumped down onto the road, not so much walking as scurrying over to Ryuu's front gate.
She took a deep breath to ready herself.
After she was sufficiently calm and emotionally ready to be eviscerated, Raiku took one careful step over the property line, her eyes squeezed closed as she braced herself for another painful trip to the ground.
When nothing happened, she opened her eyes and carefully, she took another.
By the third step, she was feeling a little better.
A few more and she was at the door, hovering.
She knew Ryuu. She didn't like it, but it was an indisputable fact. She knew him quite well and the Ryuu she knew was paranoid and sadistic. He loved mind-games. It would be completely in-character for him to let her get almost to her goal before he—
No! She shook her head. No, Ryuu was smart but he was not omniscient and it was ridiculous to think he could predict her every move.
She raised her hand to knock, but hesitated.
She gnawed on her lip.
Ridiculous.
Wasn't it?
No, no, it was and she was going to do this.
Raiku took a deep breath and knocked.
The world spun and she staggered a few steps before falling over, skinning her knee hard against a nearby log.
She looked around, because seriously?! Of all the moments the time-skip could have picked, it chose then to just deposit her somewhere in the woods—
"Speedy?"
She whirled around and Yamada frowned down at her, looming out of the shadows cast by the forest. "What are you doing out here?"
Raiku blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it again.
'Yes, Raiku.'
She shuddered at the sound of Ryuu speaking somewhere behind her.
'What are you doing out here?'
Raiku closed her eyes.
Okay. Not the time-skip.
So maybe Ryuu was omniscient.
She had known all along.
"Well! You're here now, so you can join in, get me?!" Yamada gestured between them. "It'll be good practice. Speedy, you run, and Sullen, you try and stop her. Ready?"
'Absolutely.'
'I object!' Raiku squeaked, waving her hands to try and fend off Yamada's suggestion, somehow. 'I'm not ready!'
"And go!"
Raiku wailed and ducked away from Ryuu's outstretched hand, putting on an extra burst of speed to try and get away.
So it appeared that neither brute force or Ryuu's absence was going to work in this case.
If she survived this, she would have to think of something else.
Raiku,
You are a person. I am fine. I've been training very hard recently, mostly because Hijino wants to submit us for consideration as Jounin next year, or maybe the year after. He says we're young, but he wants us to do well. He's supposed to be a genius. He seems to know what he's doing. I'm going along with it for now.
I'm surprised that only you passed. Not because I don't think you're strong enough, but because your teammates sounded like they were doing well. I've heard weird rumours about those Exams. Did anything strange happen?
The plan to look into what the twins is doing is on hold until they're back training with us full-time. They've both been around a lot more anyway. Maybe they were just fighting in secret again. It wouldn't be the first time.
I might get a mission to Konoha soon.
Iwao
'Focus.'
'I am focusing! Why don't you focus?!' Raiku asked shrilly.
She met Kakashi's dark, steady gaze and squirmed uncomfortably with the knowledge that she just couldn't win. Grudgingly, she rolled her shoulders to try and get rid of the tension and settled into a relaxed, cross-legged pose.
As relaxed as she could be while sitting on a tiny post sticking just about a meter out of a fast-moving river.
'Can I at least ask why it has to be here?!' she asked, trying to slow her shallow breathing. She couldn't concentrate, she couldn't think with all that water everywhere and oh god, what if she fell—
Kakashi smiled at her from where he stood on the water next to her. 'You have to be able to concentrate even when you're in danger.'
'Maybe we should work our way up to this?' she suggested, lacing her fingers together to hide how they were shaking. She could feel her eye twitching every time a fleck of water made its way onto her clothes.
'Focus.'
Raiku was one square inch away from begging. 'I don't want to—'
'Focus,' he instructed patiently, or as close as Kakashi ever got to patiently. She'd thought it was that, at first, but really everybody was just fooled by his even tone. It wasn't so much patience as the utter certainty that, eventually, the other person was going to do what he said. A tone of inevitability, as much as such a thing could exist.
Raiku fixed her gaze on something in the distance and tried to calm herself down. She could feel her heart racing in her chest, the nervous, twitchy energy of adrenaline racing through her. Plus the water, couldn't forget all that water—
'Focus.'
God damn him. Raiku inhaled and exhaled slowly, tightening the grip of her trembling fingers and focusing on that tense ache until she felt a little more centered.
'Good. Now the next part.'
Oh goodie, the next part. Raiku fought the urge to close her eyes and turned her attention inwards, to the anxiously ebbing and flowing power trying to get out through her skin. It was so easy to sink into that she felt herself relaxing almost unwillingly, the whitehothungry power dragging itself to the forefront. But this was the next part, and Kakashi was right; glowing was a dead giveaway on a mission.
This was important, she told herself, even as she cringed at the thought.
This was important, she thought again, and tried to drag that power downwards into herself.
It hurt. She was trying to drag it back in on itself and it hurt, power slipping through her control and desperately trying to keep flowing freely, expanding into every free space that she turned her attention away from. Slowly but steadily, she persisted, and felt the curious sensation of coldness in her extremities as the energy was pulled, kicking and screaming, away. It felt... dark, and cold, and she could hear her heart beating loudly all of a sudden, sounding sluggish and strange. She heard a muffled, low sound one, then again as she kept trying, that centre of electricity growing smaller and more potent by the second, growing smaller and smaller.
A moment of weightlessness, and Raiku hit the water.
The cold water swallowed her whole and she came back to herself with a violent spasm, eyes widening, stinging, and she inhaled reflexively. The water flooded down her airway to sit heavy in her lungs and she choked on it, hands coming up to grasp at her throat and electricity was pouring out of her into the water, pouring out of her white-glowing skin even as the current dragged her downstream. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe, she had no air left and she tried to grab at the river bottom to slow herself down and only succeeded in her fingers stirring up silt, muddying the already murky waters.
Her chest was burning and she couldn't pull a thought together through the suffocation and the power ripping gleefully out of her, too caught up in the conductivity and dissipating away from her and—
The floor of the river jerked and then something hit her hard in the chest, the force propelling her upwards and throwing her out of the water, hurled through the air until she hit the ground with an impact that made her teeth rattle, rolling a few times before coming to a stop on the mud. She turned herself over and coughed violently, sopping hair sparking and crackling where it hung around her face, surrounded by a rapidly growing pool of water that fizzled ominously. She choked and gasped, inhaling greedily and digging her fingers into the ground just so she could feel like she was holding onto it. Her chest was hurting viciously, the familiar pain of broken ribs and the heat of an already blossoming bruise marking where the spire of earth had shoved her out of the water.
'Gairano. Gairano, you're alright,' she heard Kakashi say from somewhere nearby, and it was only then that she realized she was half-gasping, half-sobbing on each inhale. She felt him pat her back, felt the power of a careful layer of chakra between his hand and her wet clothes. 'You're alright.'
'I'm not doing that again,' she rasped, yanking down her mask so that the wet, clinging fabric couldn't obstruct her ragged breathing. 'I'm not.' She wiped at her face and knew she'd only made herself dirtier, but she felt the sting of hysterical tears and she'd rather be muddy than crying.
There was a brief pause, and then Kakashi patted her on the back again. 'We'll think of something else.'
She nodded, shoulder shaking with another repressed sob. When she finally could bring herself to look up at him, he was studying her, a strange look in his eyes.
She tried a watery, very nearly weepy smile, and after a moment of further scrutiny he glanced back towards the river. She followed his gaze, one hand rubbing her chest, and took in the dead fish floating towards the surface, the blackened, dead plants, the haze hanging over the water.
Iwao,
Jounin already?! You can't be serious? No way! You guys are so young! You can't! Not that you can't can't, but I mean, that seems really extreme! Still, I guess you know how strong you are, so you'd know.
Why, what have you heard? Nothing strange happened at the Exams, nothing strange at all it was all totally normal and nothing weird happened or ever happened there that's totally ridiculous
Anyway, your team is super creepy! Well, you aren't, but the whole situation is really weird. Please don't be offended. I'm sorry. You aren't creepy. You're my friend. My team is doing pretty well, still, but they've taken to ambushing me. They say it's because they want to keep me on my toes, but it's because they're jealous and I keep provoking them. I am a Chuunin, though, and I will win! Unless they try to break into my house again. Then my dad will win.
I hope you come and see me! Unless that would be weird and crossing some weird sort of penpal line that I don't know about. Then I hope you don't. If it isn't then I hope you do! I'll stop now.
Raiku
When she remembered, she ended up almost spraying her father with her mouthful of tea. 'Should I still be checking on Mura?!'
Her father frowned at her over his slightly damp book, obviously unimpressed with her lack of composure. And her memory. And her table manners. But what else was new?
'Really?'
She went red. 'I remembered eventually! Should I?!'
He sighed. 'No, Raiku. You shouldn't.'
Raiku's sudden tension refused to believe it was that easy. How could she have forgotten? How could she have forgotten for almost three years?! Was it the time-skip, was it just shuffling things around in her brain until it needed them to come up again? The thought made her feel vaguely unclean, but she had to push through!
'I thought she was my responsibility until she stopped displaying Dramatic behaviour?!'
He turned his attention back to the book, turning a page. 'No longer inside our jurisdiction.'
That didn't seem right. Gairano didn't leave Gairano jurisdiction. Gairano didn't go places. Unless they were shinobi, but Mura wasn't one. Had she married out? No, even that didn't mean Raiku could stop keeping an eye on her.
Oh, wait.
'Was she reassigned during my Plot?' Raiku asked, relaxing slightly. That was the most obvious explanation.
Her father shook his head.
Raiku frowned. 'So, wait. Where is she?'
'Oh, she's dead,' her father replied absently, flicking through to get back to his page.
Raiku dropped her mug. It hadn't been more than a centimeter off the table, so it mostly just wobbled precariously before settling, but given the gravity of the situation it should probably have shattered. 'Dead?' she repeated.
He hummed again. 'Dead.'
Impossible. Mura couldn't have just died without Raiku knowing about it. The woman had been such a deliberate Drama magnet that Raiku had gotten a Plot attached to her without even knowing about it while she was responsible for her! And wait, how old had she been? What could she possibly have died of?
'How?' she eventually managed through the haze of shock.
Her father made a noncommittal sound and kept his eyes on his book, his expression as neutral as it usually was. As though they were discussing something harmless, just some piece of family trivia. Nanao's had a baby, Aki's starting school, oh, and Mura's dead.
'Does this not seem abrupt to you?!' Raiku demanded. Her family was no stranger to death. Gairano died in groups, the faceless casualties of a thousand things. But Mura had been trying to distance herself, and while she had done so by effectively stripping someone of what little free will they had just so that they would love her, it made no sense for her to just… stop living.
Her father turned another page. 'No. It doesn't,' he replied after a long moment. And Raiku didn't know what it was, because his tone was mild and he was looking particularly harmless that day, but…
'Dad,' she said slowly, gripping her mug just to have something to hold on to. 'Dad,' she began when words failed her, only for it to happen again. 'Mura, she was…' young and selfish and happy to drag Raiku down into her personal Drama arc just so that she could have one, and oh god; her father hadn't liked that at all. But he was the Head of the family. It was his job to look after all of them as best he could, and not just Raiku. Even though, looking back, all of Raiku's problems had really started with Mura, who made Raiku question herself, who made Raiku question everything and Brood and worst yet, Angst. Mura, who was so willing to use some Genin as her sacrificial lamb, but her father wouldn't have just…
Her father glanced up and he looked right through her. 'Yes?' he asked, and he looked so guileless.
'…When did it happen?' Raiku asked instead of what she had meant to, what she wanted to. Instead of asking him why he'd snapped and let Mura die, which part of Mura's selfishness had pushed him over the edge and if it bothered him at all to remember that he had killed, or allowed to be killed, one member of his family for jeopardizing another.
He tilted his head as he thought about it for a moment, and it was all so perfectly harmless, it was all so casual that she knew, she suddenly knew exactly when and exactly how Mura had died. '…About two, three years ago?' he eventually offered. He waved a hand, dismissing the topic. 'Early into the time-skip.' With a shrug, he went back to reading.
Raiku fell silent, unsure of what to say. She knew her dad loved her, and she knew equally well that he took his duty to their family extremely seriously. She wasn't sure how to deal with the idea that she could drive him, her logical, utilitarian family Head, to lose his temper so spectacularly.
She picked her mug up again and just turned it in her hands, staring into it as she tried to make this fit into her worldview. The mug, unsurprisingly, offered her no help.
Dead.
Just like that.
[Wastebasket, mostly burnt piece of paper]
-u didn't come to see us whi-
-ike to - you, Ryu-
- next time you'-
can find us wher- over th-
-rom, your famil-
Ryuu's house was seemingly impregnable. Raiku could accept that. Once she'd talked herself through possible entry scenarios a few thousand times, she could accept that. Bitterly. Grudgingly.
But, she thought as she peered over a shopping aisle to see Ryuu's mother perusing the vegetable section, Raiku rationalized that Ryuu couldn't stop her from meeting his mother in a public place. Just happening to bump into her surely wouldn't warrant a death sentence. He couldn't be everywhere at once.
Well, he almost definitely could. But it would be worth it.
Raiku ignored the weird glances she was getting for clambering over the shelves and dropped down, giving a nearby eldery woman a business-like nod. Nothing to see here. Just a totally normal day with a totally normal person climbing up shelves of produce to spy on their friend's mother. Totally. Normal.
She coughed and briskly walked around the corner of the aisle, swerving back to grab a shopping basket on the way so that she would seem to have a legitimate reason to be there.
Totally normal.
She glanced around and saw Ryuu's mother heading for the frozen section and cut around the other side so that she could just happen to spot her from the other end. The closer she got to her target, the more paranoid she got. There were too many variables. Ryuu could be anywhere.
Or everywhere.
Raiku paled as she remembered his weird dissolving trick and walked slightly faster. She was definitely going to die. She could accept that. But she would be damned if she'd be beaten by Ryuu in addition to being murdered by him it didn't have to make sense.
Ryuu's mother spotted her, probably because she was almost running, when Raiku made it to the frozen section. She smiled in recognition and waved. Raiku stopped in her tracks and waved back, slightly less enthusiastically.
'Go ahead.'
Raiku jumped and almost knocked over a small display of canned goods, their collapse halted only by a familiar, tanned hand. Ryuu -and where had he even come from other than hell itself—carefully pushed the jostled cans back into place, keeping his eyes on them instead of her. 'Go ahead and say hello,' he invited, voice both mild and oddly pleasant. 'She's right there.'
Raiku stared at him with wide eyes, pressed back against the cool glass of one of the fridges.
'She's very friendly. Very maternal,' he assured her, making sure the labels were all facing the same way they had been before she'd accidentally attacked them. 'She's looking forward to meeting you.'
'...I'm going to,' Raiku said, pushing herself off the fridge and squaring her shoulders. 'See if I don't!'
'You should.' Ryuu finally looked at her, sticking his hands into his pockets. His expression was mild and oddly expectant. Smug, maybe. It said one thing: I know something you don't.
It was possibly, out of all of his various looks, the expression Raiku was most threatened by.
'I should,' Raiku agreed slowly, eyes flicking back towards Ryuu's mother, who was looking rather fondly at what she must have thought was a friendly exchange. She still looked normal. It had to be a trap.
Ryuu smiled, close-lipped.
Raiku was beginning to feel trapped by Ryuu's knowing attitude. Which was exactly what he wanted.
She rallied. 'You haven't had time to set a trap for me! You just want to get inside my head,' she accused, watching him carefully because she absolutely was not convinced by what she was saying and he was capable of anything
Ryuu's face gave nothing away. His stupid, beautiful face. 'I haven't,' he agreed, but something in his intonation implied a second sentence.
'...But?' she prompted, when none was forthcoming.
'But what?' he asked innocently.
Raiku met his gaze and hovered, caught in her agonized indecision. The tension mounted and she started to sweat slightly, despite the cold air.
'Well?' he invited, gesturing towards the other end where his mother was starting to come towards them.
Raiku broke and hurled the basket at Ryuu's completely unsurprised face, sprinting for the exit.
'Raiku?' she heard a female call uncertainly behind her, but she couldn't risk it.
Ryuu had won the battle, yet again.
But she would be damned if she lost the war!
Raiku,
It's not unusual for someone my age or slightly older to be a Jounin. It's just a goal right now, anyway. As it is, the Chuunin missions are becoming slightly repetitive. Maybe that is lucky. I should be grateful. Predictable means non-fatal. I don't want to die. But I don't want to feel like what I'm doing doesn't make a difference. It's a balance. I hope to be useful. It's why I became a shinobi.
I haven't heard anything about your Exam. That's why it's unusual. But you don't want to talk about it. I won't pry. Sorry.
I know you don't think I'm creepy. But you haven't seen me in a long time now. Maybe I am creepy. People tend to ignore me and talk to the twins. The twins smile more. I don't tend to. I only smile when I'm happy, and I don't like talking as much as they do. Maybe I should try harder. I'm sorry, I don't mean to talk about myself so much.
I will let you know if I am heading to Konoha. It looks like I will soon. I would like to see you if I do.
Iwao
She should have known.
No good thing ever, in the history of anything, had started with the words "I want to try something."
Logically, those words coming from Ryuu should have set off an avalanche just from sheer, inevitable doom.
Raiku stood across from him in a ready stance, sweating slightly from fear. Ryuu was concentrating. That never meant anything good. She had to force herself not to jump back when he raised his hands, chakra spiking.
"Easy, Speedy," Yamada cautioned, and she relaxed as much as she could.
Ryuu's hands flicked rapidly through symbols that Raiku didn't recognize (not that that was hard), and suddenly the air around them seemed to shift. Just slightly, but in the back of her mind it felt like a sudden path splitting through the air for her to move through, and she stopped blinking, stopped breathing. She swayed forward, almost dragged forward by the lure of that path, of such little resistance and she could feel the moisture in the air, could feel tiny sparks coming off her in anticipation of power as she leaned towards the one person she would ordinarily rather never be near, and—
And that was when Daisukenojo punched her in the ear.
The explosion of pain broke the lure of least resistance immediately. 'MY EAR!'
'My arm!' Daisukenojo cried in only a slightly lower pitch, the muscles of the offending limb twitching and going into spasm from even that brief contact. Ryuu stepped back and away from Raiku, undoubtedly reminded of what would have happened if she'd connected.
Raiku screwed her eyes shut and tried to block out the ringing in the side of her head, dark spots blooming behind her eyes after the white-hot surge of pain. 'Why did you punch me in the ear?!' she demanded, words slurring together slightly from pain and surprise. 'Why would you ever do that, whodoes that?!'
'You were acting weird!'
'It was his technique, you—you asshole!' Raiku clapped both hands over her mouth as soon as it came out, eyes wide with horror at her own daring use of a very mild swearword.
Daisukenojo gasped.
Yamada, standing a few feet away, rubbed his temples, because how did training always go so wrong?
'Y-you heard me!' Raiku refused to back down. She'd been punched in the ear. Only assholes did that—wow, that had actually been easier. And sort of liberating! He was an asshole, he was an asshole—
Raiku realized she was starting to snigger to herself and quickly tried to tone it down a little.
Daisukenojo looked scandalized. 'You can't call me that!'
'Why not?' Ryuu asked, chewing on a piece of grass seemingly only for nostalgia's sake, evidently displeased at the interruption of his technique experiment. 'You are one, fuckwit.'
"Hey!" Yamada barked. "That one's out of line! Drop!"
Ryuu rolled his eyes theatrically and dropped from standing onto his fingers and toes, because he knew the drill by then.
Daisukenojo had ignored him, unsurprisingly. 'You don't swear!'
'Well apparently I do!' Raiku retorted, standing up a little straighter. 'And it was kind of fun!'
Daisukenojo gasped again. This unexpected character development seemed to have wounded him down to his moral core. 'You did this!' he accused Ryuu, pointing a still-twitching finger. 'You … you corrupted her!'
'Right,' Ryuu muttered between push-ups. 'Because she listens to everything I say.'
'I do!' Raiku agreed. 'I listen because you threaten me about ninety percent of the time and I need to know how you will eventually kill me!'
'Oh, like that would help you see me coming—'
"Everybody shut up!" Yamada roared, and it was only years of intimidation and outright terror that broke the chain of rapid escalation.
They looked at him.
Yamada looked like he'd tasted something bad.
"As I was gonna say before you all started acting like tiny primadonnas," he said pointedly, "I think you two idiots are ready to enter the Exams again, get me?" he finished, looking entirely unhappy about even this tiny acknowledgement of their abilities. "Weird power experiments aside."
'Yes!' Daisukenojo punched the air in triumph, shooting to his feet. 'I knew it!'
Ryuu snickered, but his smirk seemed slightly less at someone's expense than usual. So he was probably happy, or his own equivalent.
Raiku, for her part, sagged with relief and rubbed her stinging ear. Thank god. All of her taunting and inferiority-complex building had paid off. Or maybe it had been unnecessary all along, but she chose not to believe that based on how much bodily harm she'd suffered for it, so.
"But we've gotta train hard before then! We don't have much time, get me?!" Yamada demanded, his bloodthirsty grin making all of them step back reflexively. "You know what that means!"
Raiku raised her hand. 'I've already passed the Exams, though.'
Yamada was unstoppable, like always. "Where's your sense of teamwork, Speedy?! You little cretins aren't leaving this field until you sweat blood, get me?! Let's go, let's go, let's go!"
Raiku dropped her arm and groaned.
She'd had to try.
Iwao,
Well excuse me for being nowhere near Jounin level. I hope I don't sound offended. That was genuine. I'm sorry. I haven't had any Chuunin missions, still! I don't think I'm bad at strategy, and even though I'm scared, I kind of want a chance to do something! I've been training really hard for a few years now and I really want it to actually be worth something. I'm still scared, though. It's kind of confusing. I'm going to ask Kakashi to maybe look for a mission to start out on, but he's away for a few weeks, so it'll have to wait until then. I'd like to be useful too, but not in a scary way? That may be hard. I am scared of most things.
You're not creepy! I assume. It's really an empty platitude until I see you, which will hopefully be soon, but I'm sure you're not! You're so nice! You did save my life that one time though. Maybe you're super intimidating in person? Also the twins sound kind of terrifying, you shouldn't try to be like them. I will let you know if you're creepy when I see you, but I'm sure you're not! Very sure! Please let me know when you're coming, so I can warn my dad. He's all weird about boys.
Raiku
'Yo.'
Raiku restrained her shriek by flailing away and biting her lip hard, hand pressed over her racing heart as she tried to recover from the surprise.
Personal growth. It was only slightly horrifying.
'No scream?' Kakashi asked, leaning against the bridge's guard rail beside her.
'No,' she said with forced evenness, taking a few slow, deep breaths. 'Nope. Not here.'
He creased his eye at her. Just wait, that look promised. The day is young.
'So! Where are we training today?' she asked when she felt her heart wasn't about to take a flying leap out of her chest. Stupid Kakashi. 'Forest of Doom?'
'Death. Forest of Death,' he corrected mildly, seeming to be content to just enjoy the sunshine.
She tried very hard not to glare at him. 'So, there?'
'Nope,' he drew out, popping the "p" because he knew it annoyed her and that was just the weird dynamic they had.
'So... where?' she prompted, when he seemed to feel no real reason to explain himself.
'We're not.'
Raiku was sure she'd misheard. 'We're... not? Not training?'
Kakashi shook his head, looking out over the river.
'...Just today?' she tried, suddenly unsure of what was going on.
He shook his head again.
Raiku felt something perilously close to hurt. 'Are you... not going to be my teacher anymore?' she asked in a smaller voice.
'We're going on a mission together,' he said instead of answering her, and he could have professed his undying love and left her no more surprised.
'A mission?!' she exclaimed. Or tried to. It came out as more of a squeak. 'Together?'
He nodded. 'It's low-level. A man in a regional town is getting a lot of attention.' He glanced at her. 'They say he can see the future.'
Raiku raised her eyebrows. 'But that's impossible.'
Kakashi shrugged. 'People are listening to him. It's enough to check him out. He's probably a con-artist, but people are listening to him.'
'But we're...' Raiku trailed off, then moved forward to lean against the rail again, beside Kakashi. It made no sense to listen to some rural rumours of some mystical guy. Seeing the future was supposed to be impossible...
But it wouldn't have been the first time someone did something thought impossible. 'We're checking to make sure he's not actually someone with an unknown bloodline limit, aren't we?' Raiku asked after she'd puzzled through it.
Kakashi smiled, which meant she'd at least gotten something right.
A thought occurred. 'But why take me? I'm... I sort of stick out,' she hedged.
'If he's hard to find, it might be useful to have you there.'
That just made no sense at all. 'That makes no sense at all,' Raiku echoed, and damn, she'd been doing so well at not just blurting things out!
While she scolded herself for the lapse, Kakashi pushed off the rail to stand back. 'There's something funny about him.' He eyed her. Having one eye made this no less effective. 'Sometimes Gairano have a weird knack for finding weird people.'
Raiku stared, open-mouthed with shock. 'I've never heard that!'
Kakashi ignored her, like he did whenever she said something he found irrelevant. 'We'll leave in a week. Make sure you're ready.'
He vanished in a flash, leaving Raiku staring into open space.
... People thought Gairano had a knack for something...?
She narrowed her eyes. There was only one person to ask about that.
Raiku,
I hope your mission goes well.
Iwao
'So I heard something weird from Kakashi,' Raiku brought up once she'd successfully cornered her father. Ordinarily not a difficult task, but her father had a way of knowing when she wanted to discuss something he didn't want to talk about and could quickly become almost impossible to pin down. Topics that prompted this usually included feelings, Raiku's ever-changing physical landscape and whether or not it had been actually been his turn to sweep the house.
'Did you?' her father asked innocently, from where he was trying to make leaning against a hedge while being inside a hedge look nonchalant. What, this hedge? I hide here every day, it's just a thing I do. It was one of the few times it was obvious that they were very much related, so Raiku made a note to feel fond of the memory later.
But she had more pressing things to worry about. 'He said that sometimes "Gairano have a strange knack for finding strange people",' she quoted. 'Why?'
She expected him to tense up, but he didn't. In fact, he relaxed and gave a dismissive hand-wave. 'Oh, that.'
'…"That"? What is "that"?' Raiku demanded.
He sighed and stepped out of the hedge. 'It's happened a few times over the years. Every now and again, one of our shinobi family members goes on a mission and finds out that their target is a Character, or attached to a Plot. So occasionally they make the mistake of automatically following the narrative trail to find the person.' He brushed some leaves off his clothes. 'It's quite rare and easily explained away, and it's only when they're new or have impaired judgement, usually.'
This took a moment to sink in.
'Wait. Wait wait wait. Some members of our family have used the Genematrix to… to find people?' Raiku repeated in horror. 'Accidentally?! And they do it often enough that we are… known to be able to find people?!'
Her father shrugged. 'Not really. It's not consistent, for obvious reasons. People who are just important to other people aren't usually important to the Genematrix, so it doesn't work for most missions. Usually one of us gets dragged along if the assigning officer remembers hearing about it, they can't do it, and then it gets buried again. It's more of an urban myth than anything else. Most people just think it's a rumour we made up to make ourselves seem more interesting.'
Raiku gaped.
'Raiku. This doesn't need to be difficult.' Her father rolled his eyes. 'You won't be able to use the Genematrix to find your target anyway, because of the time-skip's rearranging of key people. There's no chance that the person you'll be sent to find is important to the Plot, because everyone who is is being carefully corralled into their proper places. They don't realistically expect you to know where this person is anyway, or they would have sent you alone.'
Raiku was still stuck on the blatant misuse of their abilities getting unwanted attention, so she didn't really know how to respond.
'Oh, and one more thing, while I have you here,' her father added, like he had been the one to find her skulking around the shrubbery. 'You need to keep an eye on your pacing. The time-skip's winding down, but it'll still be a bit jarring when Naruto gets back. Things are getting closer together, you've probably noticed.'
Raiku mulled this over and compared her memories of the past year to the ones of the year before it, and nodded.
'There we go. Your little sub-stories are probably closing off, you're remembering things that you shouldn't have been able to forget in the first place—that's called Foreshadowing, by the way, another Genematrix trap you need to watch out for—and it's all very standard,' he assured her.
Raiku rubbed her face. That did explain the whole Mura mess. 'So things are going back to normal?'
'Well, for a given value of normal.' Her dad frowned, like a thought had occurred, and suddenly cursed.
Raiku jumped. 'What?! What was that for?!'
'There goes my monthly Exposition quota!' he complained, pulling out a tiny notebook and jotting something down. 'Damn. How am I supposed to talk to the Hokage if I can't even tell her half-truths?'
Raiku stared at him. He seemed genuinely upset by the thought of not being able to continue his weird little antagonistic dance with Tsunade for the next month.
'You know,' she said eventually, 'sometimes I think Ryuu is right. Maybe we are weird.'
Her father frowned and made another quick note. 'I don't see how that's called for.'
Iwao,
Well that was, uh, brief. You certainly got right to the point there! So I guess I'm left to ask: how are you? I am fine! I've been training extra hard to make sure I'm ready for my mission, but Kakashi has been trying to make me more stealthy. I'm... I'm not stealthy. Well, not like a person should be? I am almost impossible to sense, chakra-wise, unless you are very familiar with me already! In which case you also know that I am horrible at things and I'm doomed. I stick out naturally, but as long as I have some hair dye or someone to use a Henge for me, that is also fixable! Especially since most people don't really know what I look like. Also my eyes give me away.
I'm bad at stealth, is what I'm saying, because I can't blend in. But I can sneak up on people really well if I don't have to hide in plain sight!
What did your teammates end up being up to? Have you found out yet? Mine are up to no good, as per usual, but they're getting pretty intense now that their Exams are coming up. I won't be there, but I'm sure they'll do great.
Are you still coming to Konoha?
Raiku
Daisukenojo let out a long sigh. 'So. I guess this is as ready as we're getting.'
Raiku started, finding herself jerked rather violently out of her room by the unsteady flow of time. She took in her surroundings quickly, trying to pretend she had any idea where she was. It was dark-ish, so early evening, and they were ...
She suppressed a sigh of her own. They were sitting on the roof of a tall building on the edge of the village, overlooking the city. Oh good. It was so nice to see that the Genematrix was so invested in their progress that it could do better than let's pensively stare over a half-assed metaphor for community and explicitly state where we're going.
Oh. Wait.
See, this was just sloppy! It had specifically stopped here, completely out of the pacing, so that it could have a nice little segment to finish off their Genin journey together! What the hell?!
Fortunately, neither of her teammates seemed to notice her quiet fuming.
'I think we're ready,' Daisukenojo said, even seeming mostly sure about it.
'You're ready for the Exams,' Raiku said, swinging her feet just so she could do something with all her pent-up, idignant energy. 'You guys'll be fine.'
It was sentimental and stupid of her to say it, because narrative causality demanded that they no longer be Genin. It did not demand that they be Chuunin, and people died during the Exams and oh god, she'd been doing so well at not thinking about it.
'Are you gonna come?' Daisukenojo asked, turning the cap to his water bottle between his hands, and not taking his eyes off it when she turned to look at him. 'To cheer us on, I mean.'
Raiku shifted. 'I would, but—'
'Don't you dare say it's a Gairano thing,' Ryuu cut in. He was looking at her, and she really did find it hard to meet such a direct gaze. It was a Gairano thing, really, because the last thing any Gairano wanted was to risk seeing their teammates die and to be saddled with that kind of Drama, but she didn't have to say so this time.
She shook her head. 'I have a mission that starts in a few days.'
'A mission?! What, by yourself?!' Daisukenojo sputtered. 'That's insane!'
Raiku leaned back and away from his sudden and intense indignation. 'No! No, not by myself! And it's just to… look around! I swear!'
'"Look around"?' Ryuu's voice was too close. Why did she always sit in the middle, what was wrong with her? 'You're terrible at stealth. You're too conspicuous for recon work.'
She shrugged helplessly. 'They wanted me to go!'
Daisukenojo was glaring. It was incongruous on such an ordinarily inoffensive face. 'Where?'
'You know I can't tell you that! Because you're Genin,' she added, hoping that their anger at being reminded of her higher rank would change the subject, 'and I'm a Chuunin and you're not. Because I'm better than you.'
Daisukenojo drew breath to yell and she heard a low growl from behind her, and oh god, she did not like Ryuu being behind her where she couldn't see him or any of the terrible things he was probably doing, but it at least seemed to have worked.
'Nice try.'
That's right, when did her plans ever work? How had she made Chuunin again?
Well. The Genematrix geared itself up because late was better than never. The Chuunin Exam that Raiku had eventually passed was—
'You can't distract us that easily.'
The light bulb of a nearby streetlight shattered with explosive, frustrated force as even that tiny part of the narrative force of the universe was shoved brutally aside yet again.
'Who are you going with?' Ryuu demanded.
'Kakashi! I'll be fine!' Raiku squeaked, trying to cringe away from both of them at once and having trouble for obvious reasons. 'Really! I'm just worried about you guys, going into the Exams and I won't even be there to see...' she trailed off.
The three of them fell into a strained silence. They'd been lucky last time, but their first Exam had left two of them in hospital, and that was just what they could do to each other. Realistically, Raiku had mostly gotten through by use of sheer destructive capability, because sense of strategy or not, that was the sort of thing you didn't brand a fail. As an incomplete team...
'Are you saying we can't do it?' Daisukenojo asked. He probably meant for it to come out angry, but it sounded a lot more uncertain than Raiku thought he had meant it to.
She quickly tried to reassure him. 'Of course not! I think you guys'll pass, definitely! It's... just dangerous.' It was even true; Daisukenojo and Ryuu would probably have passed the last Exam if not for certain... extenuating circumstances that may or may not have involved or been entirely comprised of Raiku.
Ryuu snorted. 'Dangerous. Like a "routine escort mission to Sand" or "training with Raiku" is so safe.'
Raiku growled. 'That's different!'
'Not really,' Daisukenojo pointed out, seeming to rally a bit when it was put like that. 'Those both were pretty terrible.'
'Hey!'
Ryuu nudged her with his shoulder and must have misjudged the amount of force, because it didn't hurt at all. 'It's not a big deal. We've gone through a lot worse.'
Raiku frowned. 'I know, but...'
'Aw, you have feelings under all that hair!' Daisukenojo cooed, slinging an arm around her shoulders with such a long-used carefulness that it was almost second nature. 'You're worried!'
Raiku flushed. 'No! I'm not worried!' A blatant lie, but she'd be damned if she had feelings in public. 'Who'd be worried about two jerks like you?!'
'You are! Isn't that sweet, Ryuu?'
'It is,' Ryuu agreed, smugness practically oozing off him. 'So sweet.'
Raiku folded her arms across her chest. 'I hope you both die horribly.'
Daisukenojo laughed and hugged her to his side just briefly. 'Yeah, yeah.'
Iwao,
It's been a while since I got a letter from you? No, it has, I don't know why that question mark is there. Things are still okay over here, but I've been given a mission! I'm sort of looking forward to it, but also sort of nauseated when I think of it. I won't make this long, in case your letter's just been delayed, but please write soon if it hasn't!
Unless you don't want to. That would also be fine. Well, I would be sort of upset but please don't feel pressured.
Raiku
It was cheating. It was dirty and dastardly and totally wrong, and it was crossing a line.
'Would you like some more tea?' Ryuu's mother asked.
'Yes please,' Raiku mumbled, sliding her teacup across the table and hoping her mask hid her small, victorious smile.
And it had worked.
Raiku had strolled over to Ryuu's house the second she thought he was far enough away from Konoha that he couldn't stop her, and lo and behold, it had been a success! Ryuu's mother seemed to accept that Raiku wanted to meet Ryuu's family and had apparently forgotten he would be leaving for the Exams before she got there, and had welcomed her inside immediately.
Raiku pulled down her mask and sipped her tea. She hadn't given it enough time to cool down and it immediately scalded the inside of her mouth, but still; it tasted like victory. She savoured the burn.
'So, I hear that you're also training with a second teacher! How's that going?' Ryuu's mother—please, call me Jun—asked.
Raiku put down her cup immediately and blushed, yanking her mask back up to try and hide it.
Again.
'It's okay,' she replied, mumbling again but unable to stop herself. The plan may have worked, but she had no idea how to deal with… this. Tsunade and the other women she had encountered had been forceful and terrifying, so she'd known sort of how to respond to them.
Jun was not. She was everything Raiku had no idea how to deal with in women, and it was making finding out Ryuu's secret hidden agenda a very difficult task. Mostly because most of Raiku's blood was dedicated to rushing to her face every few seconds and her vocal chords had been apparently seized by her common sense, who didn't trust her with them.
Jun smiled encouragingly. 'You're still training with Ryuu and Daisukenojo, though. Is it hard spending less time with them? I know you three have probably become very fond of each other.'
Raiku tried very hard not to let out a reflexive snort, because she felt that wouldn't be polite and being polite was probably advisable. Maybe? Mothers surely cared about that sort of thing. Well, they did in all of her sources, but all of her sources were basically the soap opera ANBU Romance, so.
'I still see them all the time,' she eventually got out.
'I'm glad!' Jun said, and then she nodded and discreetly nudged the plate of biscuits towards Raiku in a way she probably thought was helpful. It just reminded Raiku that she desperately wanted to eat that entire plate of biscuits and probably the plate too, but that would be a bit weird for someone who wasn't used to her, so Raiku desperately tried to get back some conversational momentum. 'Why doesn't Ryuu want us to meet you?'
Damn. So much for subtlety. But she'd never had any realistic expectation that she could keep it up, not being any good at manipulation, so it was better to just rip that delusional band-aid right off.
Jun blinked, obviously taken aback.
'Is he embarrassed by us?' Raiku tried. If she could make it seem like she was just insecure, maybe Jun wouldn't get annoyed.
Luckily, that seemed to work. Jun immediately reached across and touched Raiku's covered arm. 'Oh no, of course not!' she assured her. 'Ryuu's just always been very private; you know how he is.'
Raiku tried very hard not to flinch back from the contact, but her obvious discomfort could only help sell it. 'But it just seems like he really doesn't want us here!'
'Don't be silly,' Jun dismissed. 'He just doesn't want me to embarrass him in front of his friends. He probably particularly doesn't want me to do it in front of you,' she added in a lower voice, almost to herself rather than Raiku.
Okay. That was a little strange.
'Why me?' she asked warily, because being the exception to any of Ryuu's rules was never, ever a good thing.
Jun tucked some hair behind her ear. 'Well. I mean, you're a girl,' she said, taking a sip of her own tea and looking strangely... something Raiku couldn't identify. Nothing malevolent, but she got the distinct impression she was missing something.
'I... am?' Raiku tried to confirm, only to curse herself when it came out more like a question.
'Yes,' Jun confirmed generously, apparently happy to pretend that she wasn't the only one who knew what was going on in this conversation. 'And you two are close.'
Raiku had a sudden sinking feeling.
'Not that close! Not really,' she quickly responded, grabbing a biscuit and putting it into her mouth whole so that she couldn't be expected to reply immediately to whatever Jun said next.
Jun smiled and dear god, that was where Ryuu got that knowing look from. 'Oh, it's not a criticism! I think you two are so cute together!' she told her, beaming, and Raiku found herself frozen, mid-chew.
The biscuit was delicious, her tastebuds told her, but that was about all her brain was capable of processing. The words Jun had used were not, individually, offensive, so her mind scrambled to understand why their use in conjunction had suddenly resulted in a cessation of all function.
Raiku swallowed.
After a few seconds of blinking at the table, she stood up. Jun stood up as well, brow wrinkled in concern. 'Raiku? Is everything okay?'
Raiku looked at her, totally blank, and made a small, inarticulate noise, before she wandered towards the doorway. Dazed, she made her way outside, Jun following behind her with a bemused expression until Raiku gave a vague sort of wave and drifted off the property.
She was well into downtown when her mind was finally able to fully process what had just happened.
Raiku nodded to herself, and kept nodding for long enough that she freaked out several passersby, and then she made an executive decision that, since there had been no witnesses, that had never happened. Ryuu never had to know and neither did anybody else ever!
It was only when she found herself the subject of some bewildered looks that she realized she'd just said, or possibly screamed, that out loud.
Chapter Eight: True Love (You're An Embarassment)
At last! True love has found you. You have located the other human being in this life that was designed to be your very own, and you will now be together forever. I do hope you're enjoying the rush of oxytocin, because believe it or not, that's what this is. "Oh," you're thinking, "you're just cynical! My hormonal love and I are soulmates!" If you have had the desire, the fortitude or possibly the sufficient threat of violence to read this far, however, you should know that I am always right.
Welcome to teen romance! Most of you will not be unfortunate enough to be stuck with your current partner for life, but it certainly seems wonderful right now. This is largely because, due to a tragic lack of significant character-building obstacles in your life thus far, your personality is largely unformed and very, very fluid. Now that you have someone to attach to, your spinelessness has resulted in your fledgling identities merging into one awful, awful mess.
I know. I know. Your immediate reaction to this will be to deny everything and swan off into the sunset, like putting this book down will make what I say any less true. Rather than doing that and coming crawling back to me when this inevitably backfires, however, you do have another option:
Welcome to teen romance! This can be a valuable learning experience in the mysterious ways of the opposite, or possibly the same, sex. Study your partner. Learn their weaknesses. And their strengths, because if you've read this far, you know that those are just weaknesses with different hats. This will require you to detach from their face, which, I have to say, is the best possible outcome of this, because you're nauseating me, your family and even passing [continued on next page]
Kakashi had applied the Henge to her, and it was impossible for it to be itchy, but it somehow still was.
Kakashi smacked her hand away from her collar when she tried to rub at the skin underneath it, yet again. 'Stop it. People are going to think you have fleas.'
Raiku stuffed her hand in her pocket, feeling a jolt of unease when she could only see skin. It wasn't even her skin; underneath the Henge she was fully covered, but their disguises were of two obviously related people, brown-haired and blue-eyed, wearing ordinarily clothes. And ordinary clothes didn't cover every inch of a person.
She knew objectively that she wasn't going to hurt anyone, that it was just an illusion, but the anxiety was making her sick.
She dropped back to walk just behind Kakashi when the crowd got too thick for her to stay by his side, following the path he wove through in the throng of people at market.
She hated this town.
Tanzaku Town was known for its gambling and for its... other things, and Orochimaru had famously left its only child-friendly tourist attraction completely destroyed. Its popularity seemed to have recovered since then, since the main street was bustling and noisy, air unclean with the steam and smoke of the small food stalls nearby. The crowd they were walking through was mostly comprised of older men and most of them were pushy, and it was hot and it smelled unfamiliar and Raiku was uneasy and sick and she hated it.
When the feelings of strange and alien and unwelcome threatened to overwhelm, she reached out and gripped the back of Kakashi's shirt, ignoring the way he tensed slightly. It wasn't grown-up, she knew, but she wasn't grown, not really, and she'd do what she had to do get through this. And sure, he didn't look like himself but it was still him under there, and she trusted that he knew what he was doing.
Kakashi veered left suddenly and almost twisted her wrist off in the process, forcing her to contort awkwardly to avoid breaking her arm. She had no idea how she was supposed to see if their target was dangerous just by looking at him, especially when she couldn't even—
They abruptly lurched free of the crowd, the stuffy closeness giving way to slightly fresher air. Raiku took a reassuringly deep breath. She realized she was still holding onto Kakashi's shirt and... didn't let go, she was embarassed to admit, because he was reassuringly solid even when he looked every inch the portly, middle-aged civilian.
Raiku looked away from him when he didn't take another step, glanced around them and almost gave herself a heart-attack.
Plot.
Everywhere.
It was almost enough for her to declare her promotion to Chuunin a huge mistake and go running (and screaming all the way) home, because Naruto had to be there and she just wasn't equipped to deal with him. Oddly, it was her grip on the Copy-nin that kept her anchored in place, though she knew she could let go at any time.
She steeled herself and willed herself to look past it. On this closer inspection, which she applied only under the greatest of duress, it was... weird. What she had thought was one enormous Plot was actually just... a whole bunch of really little ones, usually only attached to one person or two, at the most. She stared in open fascination that earned her an elbow to the ribs from Kakashi, and schooled her features into a less manic look before he moved forward again.
She couldn't help looking around, though, as they walked, because... they were really everywhere. She'd never seen such a large concentration of them before. She'd heard about it happening, obviously; the Genematrix only had so many Devices to use, so usually small Plots blended together or used each other as springboards to launch their events, but ... surely this was excessive?
Still, it was kind of a relief to see that her father had been right. There was nothing for her to follow the target with, Plot-wise, so this could only be another nail in the coffin of that rumor.
She walked into Kakashi's back when he suddenly stopped, then quickly stepped around to see what he was looking at, thoroughly glad that she had two layers on over her blush.
"Know Your Future!", invited the sign she found herself looking at. A little lacking in subtlety, she supposed, but she wasn't really able to criticize them for that. She took the hint and slipped past the people milling around and blocking the entrance, finally able to use her negligible body mass to her advantage.
Once she got inside, it became almost impossible to see. Raiku coughed, choking on nothing except the overwhelming presence of Plot, making her feel penned in even by the eager hands of narrative. Luckily, once her initial surge of panic had died down, the Plots around her were weak enough to be repelled by the sheer fact that she was a Gairano, and didn't seem that interested.
Thank god for small mercies.
She sensed Kakashi nearby and ducked her head down, pushing carefully through the crowd to try and get to him. She tried breathing through her mouth to make the smell of other humans less offensive, because it wouldn't do to admit that she didn't really like how people smelled in general, even ones as generally inoffensive as these.
When she finally rejoined him, she found him casually looking over the crowd, which was all very clearly surrounding one man, set apart.
Raiku tilted her head, eyes watering a little from trying to see through all the Plots at once to the actual people underneath. They guy they were sent to look at was a little blurry, but it had to be him. It was the only thing that made sense. Unsurprisingly, he didn't have a Plot of his own, and Raiku breathed a sigh of relief. Without one, it was impossible for him to even be filler, and that boded well for her first real mission. In fact, he looked… ordinary. He looked totally normal, and basically seemed the picture-perfect civilian, from having an appropriate amount of muscle tone to wearing clothes that slightly restricted movement. He had a normal chakra reading, as far as she could tell, and there was nothing to suggest that he was anything special. Maybe they genuinely did just think that he gave good advice?
'He's just talking,' she muttered to Kakashi.
Kakashi nodded.
Raiku couldn't sense metal on him. He said something and a ripple of laughter crossed the people nearest him, their Plots shaking slightly—and that was weird to see, but that was the thing about influence. If you had enough of it, the weaker strains of narrative causality could be persuaded. All they were, when they were at their most basic and weakest level, was a pattern, so they just shifted into a different one. The ending was always the same, but the route could change. Unless that route intersected with Naruto. Then it may as well have been set in concrete.
But again, it was nothing really unusual. She'd ask her dad to be sure, but realistically, this was just a very good con.
'He's just a guy?' she finally concluded.
'We'll stick around for a few days,' Kakashi said quietly, and from the curious tension around his eyes, she got the impression he was seeing the man in a way she couldn't. 'But yeah. Doesn't seem special.'
Coming from Kakashi, who was all about seeing beyond the surface, Raiku felt she could trust that assessment. She almost had a heart-attack when she noticed someone nearby listening in, but when the guy just snorted and nodded to himself, she realized that their conversation sounded sceptical, rather than strategic.
Not that there was a lot of strategy here. Actually, this... seemed...
Raiku froze.
'Wait. Wait. Am I right in thinking,' she whispered, trying desperately to keep her voice below the level anyone else could hear, 'that you dragged me into another country as practice? We're just here to teach me how to look at people?!'
Kakashi smiled slightly, totally innocent.
Raiku swelled in outrage, opening her mouth to speak, but he turned and clapped his hand over it.
'Important skills,' he said mildly, and winked at her because he was an asshole who just wanted to come to Tanzaku Town, probably.
Raiku knew it wasn't worth it. She knew it wasn't.
She bit him anyway.
Iwao,
You've haven't replied in a while. I don't want to be paranoid! I swear! It's okay if you're busy!
But you are okay, aren't you?
Raiku
Raiku woke from the heavy sleep of someone forced to spend any time with Kakashi, to a sharp and inexplicable drop in the temperature of all the air surrounding her entire house.
Which meant only one thing.
'They're back!'
Raiku's joyful cry could probably have been heard from space, but it was definitely heard by her father down in the living room. He responded by grumbling into his coffee, ignoring her as she sprinted past. 'They passed! They aren't gonna die yet!' she yelled on the way through, jumping clear over the couch and smacking her shoulder against the doorframe when she didn't take the turn sharply enough. She ignored it and grabbed her shoes on the way out instead of putting them on, so that she wouldn't lose time, ducking around relatives out attending to their daily business and making for the gate.
She stepped off a nearby fence to jump to the top of the compound wall, shading her eyes and squinting down the road to where she could sort of feel them coming from.
There! One enormous person and two other blurry shapes, one with offensively bright hair! Yes!
Raiku stretched onto her tiptoes and waved as obviously as possible, trying to make herself as visible as she could. She couldn't make out their faces at that distance, but the green vests that both of her teammates were wearing were clear from even so far away, and she could almost have burst with pride at the sight of it. She jumped down and landed on the slope, skidding slightly but keeping balance all the way to the bottom until she jumped onto the path, waving yet again. They had made Chuunin! That meant they could live! She broke into a jog in her haste to reach and congratulate them, just as Naruto did the same as he approached Konoha on the other side of the village and really…
She had been warned.
But Raiku had grown so used to the whirlwind that was the time-skip, her perception of the passing of weeks and months so accustomed to that one temporal setting that when Naruto set foot in Konoha, the impact of the Genematrix's violent application of the brakes sent her crashing to the ground before she could even open her mouth to say hello.
'Oh come on!'
"Goddamn, Speedy!"
'Raiku?!' Daisukenojo's voice penetrated the haze. 'Raiku, can you hear me?!'
'I swear to god, if she's going to go insane again, I'm moving,' Ryuu's more acidic voice informed the world at large. 'I'll just leave.'
'Shuddup,' Raiku slurred, reaching one hand out and batting at Daisukenojo's blurry, concerned face. 'Shhhh'sfine! C'ngrats!'
'You idiot. Ryuu, she's blacking out, hurry up and help!'
'Why is it me, why is it always me,' Raiku heard Ryuu grumbling, right before she lost consciousness entirely.
A/N: And time-skip DONE. OKAY.
So before I get to the reviews, I feel I have to address that this section is, uh, big. And I want to keep doing it, but I may have to find somewhere else, because this many words is too many. AO3 does provide review response options, but I understand that it's harder to get a membership there if people want signed reviews or to have alerts, so I imagine that would be less popular and pretty inconsiderate of me. There's tumblr, where I could just do a response post after each chapter, but that seems finicky for you guys? Also I have an addictive personality and ... there is a reason I don't already have one. That would get out of control pretty fast if you guys just wanted fic stuff. I did not expect enough people to like this that this would ever be an issue. I am grateful! I am willing to find a solution, this is not a complaint! Alternatively I could reply to anonymous reviews at the bottom and then signed reviews in pms, but you guys seem to read each other's responses (forming a well-read cabal against me)? Or I could stop entirely!
EDIT: Alright! I've been looking into it, and I'm shifting all the replies (they have not been deleted) for the last several chapters. When there is a finished place for them, I will provide a link!
