Darkness explodes around her as she drops through the cracks between space and time. She falls swiftly, even as everything around her slows to a crawl. Honōka twists and turns, frantically searching for something to grab onto, but she's blind and in total darkness.
She abruptly falls through an equally blinding white light and spills back into the world like a shadow cast by candlelight.
Her momentum carries her off her feet and she rolls head over heels down a slippery stone cavern. She guards her face and slows herself by attempting to stick to the slick surface with each part of her body that makes contact.
She finally slides to a stop and allows herself a moment to recover. She's not hurt badly, just a couple scrapes and bruises—nothing broken, at least.
A gravelly chuckle reverberates all around her and she springs up, blinking to focus her spinning vision.
"That was quite the entrance, little hatchling. The lacking grace of you four-legged creatures never ceases to amuse me."
The faint luminescence in the cavernous space she finds herself in is just enough to see by. Her jaw drops.
"Are you Benzaiten-sama?"
The absolutely massive shirohebi cackles and the booming sound goes right through Honōka's skull, despite her covering her ears to dampen the noise. A couple of stalactites drop from the ceiling so far above her and luckily do not crash down anywhere near her.
"No, little hatchling, I am not Benten-sama." Another husky laugh, this one oddly melancholic. "The gods of this land perished a long time ago."
"They died?" she asks. "All of them?"
"Indeed. Only their messengers remain, though for how much longer I cannot say."
Honōka looks up at the unusual shirohebi and her chest aches.
"Are you Benzaiten-sama's messenger?"
"…I was."
Honōka can't help herself. She cries.
"Little hatchling, you must separate yourself from the influences of my spirit—humans are not meant to comprehend the weight of a life lived many times over."
She continues crying, scrubbing at her face to wipe away the tears that just won't stop.
"Oh dear. I thought as much."
There's a sound like stone cracking and the great white snake slides their body off the massive dais upon which they rest. Petrified scales and unshed skin cracks and falls from their body, smashing like fine china on the cave floor.
An unexpectedly soft tongue brushes her face, just the tips of each fork erasing her tear tracks.
"It is as though you have been trapped in a shed that is much too tight and your spirit is ready to burst forth, but your next skin is still too soft."
Honōka sniffles. The great snake is close enough that she can see every detail of herself reflected in their huge yellow eyes. Eyes that are the same color and shape as her sensei's.
"Little hatchling, I foresaw your arrival, but I know not your name."
"Tsunemori Honōka-desu."
"I am Daitenja, the White Snake Sage."
Honōka bows and the White Snake Sage rumbles gently at her, a twinge of good humor coloring their mood.
"Little hatchlings have no reason to bow to me."
She straightens, and Daitenja retreats to their stone dais.
"Daitenja-sama, you said you foresaw my arrival?" she asks. "When?"
"Hm, I wonder. I am not so great with numbers, especially when they involve the passage of time."
"Oh, well, I guess when doesn't really matter anyhow. I'm here now."
Daitenja flicks their tongue in a smiling kind of way.
"Indeed. You are before me now, both as I expected and yet not how I expected."
She tilts her head and waits for clarification.
"Some years ago, I had a vision that a human hatchling would appear before me; cold, hungry, decorated in hurt, and so angry with the world. That child would have come to me seeking the power to poison the seas and the skies—to punish the people who had wrought them.
"Some years later, I again had a vision that a human hatchling would appear before me; warm, fed, and well loved. Yet this hatchling also knew the pain of the world, perhaps even better than the first. This child is before me now, seeking power that is no longer mine to give."
Honōka thinks of who she might have become if she was not first Tachibana Tomoe. Would she still have met Sensei and Minato and Kakashi and the rest of her friends? Would she, a civilian, have approached the eccentric Might Duy and passed the Academy exam? She doesn't know.
"Daitenja-sama, I'm not here asking for power. I'm actually looking for someone I lost about eight years ago."
"Eight years ago…?"
"Ah, sorry, I know you said you aren't great with numbers—"
Daitenja flicks their tongue with a sharp crack in the air, and Honōka shuts up. The gesture reminds her of Sensei, holding one elegantly extended finger up for silence.
"Almost eight years ago," Daitenja drawls. "Seven years and two seasons ago?"
"Yeah! On the spring equinox exactly, if that helps?"
Daitenja's head lifts straight up and they open their mouth in elated surprise. Their strange headdress almost falls over from the sudden movement.
"What a fantastic coincidence! Or perhaps not a coincidence at all, but a twist of fate!"
Before she can ask what Daitenja means, the ground shakes and there are distant echoing screams that sound suspiciously like another great serpent hissing out Sensei's name.
Daitenja chuckles.
"That stripling Orochimaru just can't resist putting his nose where it isn't welcome."
The ground shakes again and Daitenja huffs.
"Honestly. I ban him for one day, and he storms the place in a right fit. He and Manda are two of a kind."
"Um, Orochimaru is my sensei,"
Daitenja balks.
"That arrogant half-rotten slug is your sensei?"
Honōka frowns. She won't deny Sensei being arrogant, but he's not some half-rotten egg. She worked hard to force out the stagnating chi in his lower dantian. He's only a little bruised now, like a wind-fallen tachibana orange.
"He's probably looking for me because I suddenly disappeared."
"Sage have mercy—the stripling thinks I've stolen you!" Daitenja cackles.
She doesn't point out that they kind of did.
Sensei appears in a flicker, and she doesn't even get a greeting out before he's picked her up by the back of her shirt. She's glad the navy shinobi tees and tanks she buys are so sturdy.
"We are leaving."
"What? Wait! Daitenja-sama and I are talking, Sensei—don't be rude!"
He lifts her to eye level, and his eyes really are eerily similar to the White Snake Sage's.
"You. Talking with Daitenja-sama. About what?"
Oh, wow. He's like… really stressed out. He tore down here in a dead sprint, too. You'd swear he thought Daitenja-sama was going to eat her or something.
Daitenja chuckles in that gravelly way of theirs.
"Oh, it was nothing important, stripling. I was just considering having her sign the contract."
"Just considering?" Sensei feels offended on her behalf. He seems to think there's nothing to consider.
"Indeed, but the little hatchling has kept a certain someone waiting in suspense for a very long time. I suggest she go meet him now and sign the contract after."
Confusion puckers Sensei's brow, but Honōka lights up.
"He's here? Where?!"
"He has been waiting for you this entire time at Benten-sama's spring." Daitenja flicks their tongue. "The stripling knows where it is. He can take you there."
She wriggles, and Sensei drops her. She grabs his hand and digs her heels in, pulling on him with all her might. He doesn't budge.
"Come on, Sensei! We're going to Benten-sama's spring, right now!"
She's never felt Sensei be so confused before. He's almost in a state of shock.
"Go on, stripling. The little hatchling has a very important first meeting, and I must summon my attendants to present the contract."
Sensei reluctantly tears himself away from his circling thoughts. He pulls her into a side along shunshin and they move deeper into the cave.
He slows to a walk after a couple hundred meters.
"How on earth did you charm Daitenja-sama?"
She grins up at him. "The same way I charmed you!"
Sensei takes a deep breath and pushes his hair back. It falls back into his face after a quick shake.
"Did Daitenja-sama tell you what a first meeting is?"
She shakes her head. It did sound kind of important, though.
"It is exactly what it sounds like, a meeting. But there is more to it than that. A first meeting is the establishment of a lifelong partnership with one of the Ryūchi Cave snakes and will determine where you fall on the hierarchy; who will respond to your summons, who will or will not obey you…"
"Sensei, who was your first meeting with?"
"Manda. He is the largest snake in Ryūchi Cave. I had to beat him into submission to make him accept me as his first meeting. It took three days and nights. I was nine years old."
"Sensei, you're amazing!"
He chuckles dryly. He doesn't feel too amazing at the moment.
"Honōka-kun—you should not have let Daitenja-sama dictate your first meeting. They could be setting you up for failure, either with an opponent that you cannot handle, or one they consider weak. Either outcome could limit your summoning potential going forward."
She points to her mark. "I already met him, though. It would be rude to keep him waiting any longer."
"Child, dealing with you is an exercise in patience."
She pouts and pulls on his hand. "And you're moving too slow!"
Sensei drags his feet after that, and she gives him the look, which he ignores. They continue walking for some time.
Then she feels a presence that she knows at the edge of her sensory-field and lets go of his hand. She runs. Sensei keeps pace.
The luminescence increases tenfold as they turn a bend, arriving in another enormous cavern.
The source of the light is a large pool of crystal clear water, fed by a sculpture of a huge marble dragon with eyes made from jade orbs wider than she is tall.
And in the center of the water is a Benten-sha painted a brilliant shade of crimson red. Where her family's shrine had an offering box is instead a wooden dais, and on that dais is a coiled albino rat snake.
Two red eyed gazes, as similar as they are different, meet across the water. Where hers are blue like the reflection of the sky on water, his are the color of the setting sun after a storm has passed.
There's no bridge to the Benten-sha—not that she needs one. Honōka walks across the mysteriously glowing water and Sensei stays on the stone bank. He's still apprehensive, but first meetings seem to be sacred and he respects that.
She reaches the shrine and her snake flicks his tongue at her.
"You are much smaller than I remember." He says, voice light and airy.
"You're a lot bigger than I remember." She says, grinning.
He flicks his tongue like a smile.
"I suppose so, we did both shed our old skins."
She laughs. That's one way of putting it.
"What do I call you here, Mikogami?"
She freezes. How…? No, it doesn't matter anymore.
"Tsunemori Honōka-desu."
"Honōka-sama."
She frowns at him.
"Just Honōka is fine."
"Honōka-sama." He repeats. "You may call me as you see fit; for my mother, the venerable Hakuja Sennin, Daitenja-sama, has given you the honor of bequeathing me my first name."
Dear gods, he's stiff! It's going to take serious work to break him from that overly formal demeanor!
More importantly, he's asking her for a name. She's never named another living being before.
She takes in his appearance again. Like herself, he no longer looks the same.
His scales are pearly white, and between the interlocking scales is a golden amber color that matches his irises. The glaringly red pupils are both beautiful and a source of discomfort for her, but she is happy to share the trait with him.
"Kohaku. Your name is Kohaku."