She pounces on her sensei the moment he walks in the tent. Her assault is only partially successful, as he grabs her out of the air by the back of her shirt, one handed.
Sensei chuckles at her. He sounds tired.
"I take it you have recovered some of your energy."
"Yes, Sensei!"
He drops her and promptly kicks out his bedroll. She frowns.
"Sensei, I have questions—"
"Will they keep until morning?"
"Yes, but—"
"Are they urgent?"
"Yes—"
"Do they concern the current state of affairs?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Then we will address them in the morning."
"But, Sensei, it is morning!" Roughly two o'clock in the morning, but still morning.
"…Honōka-kun." Sensei warns. "I carry a nonlethal paralytic on my person at all times. Do not make me use it on you."
She gasps at him.
"You wouldn't!"
Kakashi's balled up arm warmer socks her in the back of the head, deceptively heavy for its size and appearance.
"Honōka, I will smother you if you don't shut up…!"
"Sensei! Do you see how Kakashi-senpai treats me?"
Sensei hums.
"Kakashi-kun, if you would, please."
Kakashi sits up with a long-suffering sigh and cracks his knuckles. Honōka dives into her bedroll.
"Goodnight, Sensei! Goodnight, Kakashi!"
"That's what I thought." Kakashi grumbles, lying back down.
Honōka pouts. Minato snorts in his sleep and scratches his nose. She thinks it's going to be a very long night. She burrows into her bedroll and closes her eyes.
When she opens her eyes again, she's alone in the tent. Someone (probably Kakashi) has left out a covered tray of breakfast for her.
She screws up her mouth and locks onto Sensei and her traitorous teammates. They're with Kōmori, so she screeches her chakra signature at him. He responds in Shinobi Standard Tap Code, and she laughs out loud. He called her a monster again.
She hauls on her shoes and flickers over to the tent they set up for her map, which has vanished.
"Good morning, littlest monster." Kōmori dryly greets.
She points to Kakashi. "He's younger than me."
"By three months," Kakashi snorts. "And he said 'littlest', not youngest."
"I'm also heavier than him,"
"Since when?!"
She doesn't answer him and Kōmori rolls his eyes at them both.
"Alright, good morning, second littlest monster."
She nods, satisfied with that. "Good morning, Kōmori-san."
Sensei glances at her, unimpressed with her interruption, and she mimes zipping her lips.
"As I was saying—Kusagakure no Sato is amenable to taking part in the routing of the Iwa forces, provided that we assist them in the process and depose the current Grass Daimyō."
"They're not happy with their daimyō, are they?" she asks. "I felt something like anger coming from Kusagakure even before you went to them, and it's only gotten stronger since."
Sensei nods. "The economy of Kusa is in shambles because of the current daimyō. His spending habits are deplorable and his reputation is equally so. He allegedly allows war refugees into the country in exchange for unpaid labor for an indeterminate amount of time. Where those refugees end up after is anyone's guess at this point."
"That's exploitation." And probably a crime against humanity, if such a thing existed here.
"Indeed, Honōka-kun." Sensei fixes her with a measuring stare. He hardly uses it on her these days, as he seems to have accepted that she's unpredictable at best, and random at worst. "Is that enough to justify assassinating the daimyō of another land?"
"When is it ever justifiable to take another person's life?" she counters. "It never is, but we can't stand aside as the lives of hundreds are ruined by one person."
She feels a spark of irritation from Sensei—likely over the issue with her father. He doesn't understand how she can casually accept the assassination of a prominent political figure, but not the same for her father.
"'No man is lesser or greater than any other, for one life is equal to another. Whether the deeds are great or small, one man is just one man, and the greatest accomplishments in life will always be those that are attained by many.'"
She is met with dumbfounded silence.
Kōmori recovers first. He clears his throat and gestures at her.
"She just quoted the First Hokage."
Minato numbly nods, and Kakashi looks confused. Sensei crosses his arms at her, attempting to puzzle out what she's attempting to convey with such a quote.
"I think, if one person jeopardizes the lives of others or usurps their freedoms, it becomes our responsibility—as shinobi—to fight. Ultimately, we bear the burden of taking the lives of others, hoping our actions mean many more survive."
Kōmori blows out a long breath and shakes his head slowly.
"Orochi, your kid scares the hell out of me. She quotes the First and emulates the Second. Please tell me she hasn't caught Sandaime-sama's attention, too."
She grins at Sensei. Should she tell Kōmori she has tea with him every other week?
Then it hits her that Sensei feels pleased, and it nearly knocks the wind out of her. Because she's felt him and others be impressed by her abilities and words, astounded, awed, sometimes jealous or even envious—but no one has ever been pleased with her before.
Sensei reaches out to pet her head and she leans into the touch, basking in his praise.
"Gods, that's weird." Kōmori interrupts with an exaggerated shiver. "Orochimaru, being affectionate? It's like snow in Suna—it don't look right."
She sticks her tongue out at Kōmori.
"You're just jealous."
Minato chokes on a laugh that dissolves into a wheezing fit of coughing. She frowns. She didn't think it was that funny? But even Sensei finds it funny and is hiding his smile behind one hand. Kōmori just feels oddly embarrassed.
She looks at Kakashi, who shrugs. He doesn't get it either.
"Sensei, my questions?"
He chuckles and messes up her hair with a rough pat—which is funny, to her at least. He's always haranguing her about keeping her hair neat and respectable, and yet it's okay for him to make it messy. She pouts at him.
"Very well, it is now morning, after all."
"It was morning earlier, too," she insists.
"Honōka-kun, that is a debate you will not win."
"Fine," she's right, but whatever. "I have questions about the Kuchiyose no Jutsu. I tried asking Kakashi, since he has Pakkun already, but he's a jerk and won't tell me anything."
Sensei takes a seat, and she sits on the ground in front of him. His lip twitches like he's trying very hard not to smile.
"The Hatake Clan are rather dogged about maintaining the secrecy of their summoning contract, Honōka-kun. It isn't polite to hound Kakashi-kun about it."
Her jaw drops and she can't help the startled laugh that comes out.
"Sensei! You made a pun—two puns!"
Kakashi sits next to her and gives Sensei a rather unimpressive glower. He thought it was funny, too.
"I need a nap." Kōmori announces. "Someone wake me up when things go back to normal around here."
"So… never?" Minato remarks.
Kōmori pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Just… someone come get me when we're ready to talk murder and war again? I need a break from all you monsters."
Honōka waves. "Have a nice nap, Kōmori-san."
"Yeah, yeah. Please don't summon any giant snakes while I'm asleep."
"Don't worry, Kōmori-san. Honōka is terrified of snakes."
She punches Kakashi in the shoulder, hard.
"…!" he rubs his shoulder and glares at her. "What? It's true. You made Genma remove the blue general in your bathroom and you freeze every time Orochimaru-sensei mentions Manda."
Kōmori laughs and walks out of the tent, cackling as he goes.
She blushes.
"Um… Honōka-chan, you're aware that Orochimaru-san's summoning contract is with snakes, right?"
"Obviously, Sensei." Kakashi scoffs at him for even asking. "Orochimaru-sensei threatens us regularly with stories about Manda eating people."
"Orochimaru-san…!" Minato fixes Sensei with a disappointed look. "That's cruel, they're just children!"
"Please, it's not like Jiraiya didn't threaten to summon Gamabunta to sit on you when you couldn't keep still."
Minato flushes and Honōka perks up, interested. Sensei rarely speaks so… casually.
"Sensei, you knew Minato when he was younger-younger?"
"Younger-younger?" Minato mouths.
"Unfortunately." Sensei says, expression wry. "You do not know how many times I had to chase him from the lab."
She laughs, delighted. Younger Minato sounds like a handful.
"Is it true that you are afraid of snakes, Honōka-kun?" Sensei asks. He feels apprehensive, like he's asking her if she's afraid of him instead of snakes.
She guiltily raises her hand and gestures. Sensei sighs.
"You either are, or you are not. Which is it?"
"I once found a dead shirohebi in a koi pond." She admits. "It was a really bad omen, and I thought I might have been cursed by it."
Sensei's eyes widen in surprise, and there's a deluge of emotion that feels faintly wistful—nostalgic, even. But there's also understanding.
"That is a very bad omen." He agrees.
"Ah, but I had a dream when I was recovering from chakra exhaustion, so I think I'm okay now."
"A dream?"
"It was really weird—I was at a Benten-sha." There's actually a Benten-sha in the Steam District near Tsunemori-ya. She went to great lengths to avoid it when she still lived there. "And I saw myself picking the snake out of the koi pond. I thought it would be dead like it was in my memory, but then I offered it out to myself and it came alive again."
"I'm sorry, what?" Minato asks. "You picked it up and gave it to yourself?"
She scowls at him.
"There were two me's. Me-me and not-me."
Kakashi leans away from her. "Two Honōka? I can barely stand one."
"Haha, very funny, Kakashi." She goes to sock him in the shoulder again and Sensei plucks her wrist out of the air mid swing.
"Where did this come from?"
He turns her left arm over, palm up. She forgot to put her arm brace back on after taking it off yesterday, and the mesh armor Mitsuha-obā-chan made for her only covers three quarters of her arms.
She squints. That wasn't there when she checked it before. Sensei rolls her wire armor back to the crook of her elbow to examine it.
It's a looping scar-white mark, coiled three times around her arm. He flips her hand over, knuckles up. Just before her wrist bone is an abstract shape in the same scar-white that looks a bit like a snake's head. A blood red squiggle and dot rests in the framed forehead area.
Sensei pulls up his left sleeve, revealing a nearly identical mark in black—a tattoo. Cool! She didn't know Sensei had any tattoos.
Minato and Kakashi are gawking at the similarity between the marks, while Sensei silently considers many things. He rubs his thumb over the white mark and frowns. It's neither raised nor indented and feels no different from the skin next to it.
"When did this mark appear?"
She shrugs. "I don't know."
"Orochimaru-san," Minato whispers, like he thinks she won't hear him. "She woke up in a panic yesterday—like she was frantically looking for something. I remember her pulling off her armguard and checking this arm, but there was no mark then."
"I thought I lost my snake,"
Sensei raises an eyebrow at her.
"Your snake?"
She shrugs again. "They gave him to me, the other me, so he's mine."
Kakashi slides her a dubious look.
"Has anyone ever told you that you sometimes sound crazy?"
"Obito, all the time."
"Maa… I'm starting to agree with him."
She ignores him.
"Oh, I did notice something weird when I woke up! My chakra exhaustion was completely gone."
"You have been awfully energetic for a child who nearly killed herself with chakra exhaustion…" Sensei murmurs. He forms the signs for the mystic palm technique with one hand and scans her arm and then her chest. She sits still.
"…"
"Orochimaru-san?" Minato asks, worried.
"A miraculous recovery," he says simply. The mystic palm technique dissipates, and he studies her mark again. He's burning with curiosity now. "And a mysterious mark."
"It's not that mysterious; you have one just like it." She points out.
"And do you know what it is?"
"No, but you do, Sensei."
He shakes his head at her, fondly.
"Indeed, I do. It is a simplified jutsu-shiki; the technique formula for summoning snakes from Ryūchi Cave. And it took me years to convince the White Snake Sage to give me this simplified formula."
Minato looks startled.
"It just appeared on Honōka-chan's arm? Without signing the summoning contract first?"
"So it would seem."
"…is it valid though?"
Sensei considers.
"Would you like to try summoning a snake, Honōka-kun?"
"!?"