AAAAAANNNDD I'm back!

It's a cute chapter so there isn't any warning! (the warning would be for my grammar, I'm too tired to do something about it rn)

Chapter 13: The overwhelming realization that she fucked up

The harbor was busier than usual as Uzushio's gates had been open for two days already. Merchants from the continent screamed to the top of their lungs, fought for people's attention and scourged the market to buy their wares in mass to resell at a higher price in the capital.

As a result, shinobi's presence was felt twice as much and the uncomfortable feeling of eyes following her firmly took root in the back of her mind.

Usually, after rummaging through the market in the morning, Nagisa would stick to the higher grounds where she would be free of the noises, the smells and the merchants' presences. Unfortunately, Miru wanted to hang out at the docks.

And that's how Nagisa found herself, seated at the end of a pontoon, water licking at her toes and thoroughly engrossed in the explanation of her seal. "- and the only scroll we found on the theory of stealth and how to hide your chakra was an archaïc one! Can you believe it! Hundreds of years passed and not a single soul thought about creating a stealth seal! It took us hours - and a few trips to sensei's office" - Nagisa winced at the thought of her bruised pride - "to understand the outer layers and we're still not done!"

She threw her hands up in disbelief. Miru swiftly moved out of their ways.

"Whoa, unbelievable." Her friend nodded, though it was clear that she failed to find the appeal to the conversation.

"Truthfully, if it wasn't for-"

"Let me guess," she whispered to herself, as Nagisa hadn't been mentioning her for the past ten minutes, "Mito?"

"-Mito, I wouldn't even have done half of the work that we've done. I mean, honestly, no one would think that covering yourself with your surroundings chakra would efficiently hide your chakra. No! Mimicking your surroundings is the most natural solution but guess what? It works."

Miru leant against the mooring post more comfortably, propping her leg on the wooden floor while the other moved with the sea. The layers of her blue dress gathered carelessly around her thighs, reminding her of the foam on top of the sea. Her lips slowly curled as she sent small bursts of chakra in the water. Nagisa remained blissfully unaware.

"True, mimicking is the better alternative as it completely changes the core of your chakra while covering can't hide too much chakra. But covering is far simpler and I don't have enough time to-"

Nagisa jumped as something rubbed against her toes, the most undignified yelp leaving her mouth. Miru dissolved in a puddle of laughter.

"Wha- What the-" She leant forward and would have fallen into the water if it wasn't for her chakra firmly sticking her butt to the wood. "A seahorse?"

Her laughter was so free and pure, so childish and mocking it burned her cheeks with embarrassment. It came to her ears as a tickle and bounce - and only a rocky heart could do anything but join in such generous mirth.

"Your face!" Her stomach shook as she fought new gales of giggles and she threw her head back and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Okay, I got it." Nagisa smacked her red cheeks, swallowing giggles and willing blood out of them, "Now, you can stop laughing. It isn't even that funny."

Pride was a funny thing that would be bruised by meaningless deeds but her affection for Miru won over and she didn't stay hurt too long. "That thing came out of nowhere."

The brown hair girl slapped her arm, chuckles dying on her pretty lips. Nagisa clicked her tongue, moving away. She slapped her arm once more for good measure before exclaiming:

"Don't call my companion a thing! Do I call your brother a thing?"

Nagisa spluttered, eyes widening before disbelief colored her face. "It's completely different!"

"Your mother gave birth to him and I gave birth to my companion! It's not that different!"

The hand Nagisa threw at the sea froze mid-way, clenching and unclenching sporadically as she stopped breathing all together trying to comprehend the bomb Miru threw at her. She was sure there was another meaning behind her words but no matter how many times she ran that sentence in her head, Nagisa failed to understand.

After a painfully long silence, Nagisa finally asked: "I'm sorry, what?"

In the time that it took her to comprehend, Miru had turned sheepish, wincing at her blunder. "I... wasn't… supposed to say that."

"You can't just say that and nev-"

"It's a clan secret." Miru tried again.

Nagisa bit her fist trying to reign in her agitation and her burning curiosity. For an outsider, learning about a clan secret was the greatest honor as it was the worst curse: you were trustworthy but that could get you killed faster than saying 'cat'.

Ultimately, that didn't stop Nagisa from digging a little deeper. "But did you really… Like a mother…" She mimicked the act of pushing a baby out with her hands.

"No! From my chakra, a companion is born from his owner's chakra." Miru spluttered, straightening in her seat, and turned her face away from her friend. The tips of her ears were a bright red.

"Oh, ah. Okay, cool." For some reason, Nagisa felt really awkward, pulling on the collar of her shirt. " But, hmm, I thought that they were summons."

Miru jumped on the occasion to correct her, explaining wildly with her hands. "Not at all, summons are animals born with an important amount of chakra which gives them a higher intelligence and good chakra control. They live in a completely different realm too. Whereas our companions are made from our chakra, they are our life partners with whom we grow old and die together. Pretty cool, right?"

"Yes, it's interesting." The Uzumaki girl nodded along.

It was quite the information. Did it mean that they had a special chakra? Wouldn't mixing their bloods make Uzushio stronger? What could they do with their partners? Share sight and ears? Control it? Wouldn't that make them the perfect spies? Were they bound to sea animals or could they create bird animals? What about-

"Cooler than your scribbles, right?"

"Absolutely not! I won't stand for such disrespect! Scribbles! The nerve." Her rebuttal was immediate. Nothing could beat fuinjutsu. And to add weight to her point, she sprayed her with water.

Nagisa never saw her defeat coming.

As luck would have it, Miru happened to be an aggressive splasher, the kind that was relentless and unwilling to lose. Her partner tried to help her in her endeavor but there was so little a small seahorse could do in a water fight. Wave after wave hit her and for all it's worth, Nagisa might as well have jumped in the water for she ended up soaked to the bones.

Perhaps, if she had known of any elemental attack, Nagisa could have won but in her actual state, Miru was too strong of a challenger for her.

"Fine, I yield." She raised her hands in surrender, coughing a bit of the water that went up her nose.

With a war cry, Miru jumped on her feet and struck a victorious pose. Nagisa jumped on her feet too and just as she readied herself to push her off the pontoon, voices caught her attention.

"You know it's illegal, Saito, and it's not your first warning either. Next time you try something like that, we call the guards."

The familiarity of the voice struck her frozen.

"Come on Kazashi, don't be like that. A man needs to provide for his family."

Her mother's voice was strong and deep, she was more baritone than most. When she felt joy, it would raise several octaves and become younger. The sound of her words anchored Nagisa and would always bring a sense of home. In that instance, though, the underlying aggressivity in her tone alarmed her daughter.

"If you want to trade, you trade with our merchants. No one else."

Needless to say, Nagisa ditched Miru and speed-runned to her mother just in time to see the man - an awfully ugly man with a crooked smile - stroked her face.

"Don't be like that, I'm sure we can find an arrange-"

She caught his wrist, yanking it away from Kazashi's face and hissed: "Don't touch my mother." Her fingers dug into the skin with the intent of leaving bruises.

Saito yelped, pulling his arm back but Nagisa wouldn't let him go. "As a matter of fact, don't touch anyone with your filthy paws without their consent."

"The fuck is this wet brat-"

"Nagisa," hands grabbed her shoulders and gently pulled her back in a chest, "please let him go."

She did as she was told.

"The fuck is wrong with this kid? You trained her like a dog? She barks and sits pretty on command? Fucking psycho bitch." Saito rubbed his wrist, taking a step back from them.

"The law is the law, it's absolute on this island." Kazashi started, her thumbs were drawing circles against her trapeze muscles, "However I'm willing to make an exception should you speak to my daughter like that One. More. Time."

Nagisa's eyes creased into content crescent moons, grabbing her mother's fingers while Saito froze, proceeding her words before clicking his tongue. "Loosen up Kazashi, motherhood turned you into a stuck-up. You were more fun when you were younger."

He murmured the last sentence to himself though it was loud enough to be heard by everyone in the vicinity. When the daughter bared her teeth in an unfriendly smile, Saito finally got the hint that his presence was not welcomed any longer.

They glared at his retreating back, Nagisa more menacingly than her mom.

Her fingers dug into her shoulders a little, leaning more against her until she buried her face in the girl's hair before she forcefully turned her around.

"Nagisa, I am grateful," from the tone to the elongation of the word, she knew it was a lie. Her hands hitched to cover her ears, for she knew a lecture was on its way. "However, don't ever do that again. I could have dealt with it on my own and-"

"But he was touching you as if you were an animal to be cajoled," her daughter cut, scandalized, grabbing both wrists to push them off her shoulders.

She sighed, stroking her cheeks and catching drops of water falling from her hair, "Why are you soaked?"

"Water fight."

She pressed her lips into a thin line, nodding to herself before she took off her jacket with a faint scowl and wrapped it around a squirming Nagisa.

"Mom, I don't need it."

"You're going to be cold."

"No-" Kazashi kept fussing, gathering her hair and before wringing it. She would get small slaps on her hands when she tried to push her mother away, "I'm fine!"

"Stop acting like a cat." Kazashi clicked her tongue.

Nagisa scowled. Miru had been observing from afar since the beginning but neither of the mother-daughter duos seemed to have realized that fact.

"I'm the adult here. It's my job to protect you, not the other way around. Don't needlessly put yourself in danger."

With both fists on her hips and an overly apathetic expression, Nagisa said matter of fact, "I'm going to be a shinobi. It's my job to be in danger needlessly."

Far away gaze watched Nagisa as her expression twisted and sombered. Kazashi bit her lip lightly, nibbling and worrying it as the reality of her words sunk in. The woman's heart growled like a trapped animal, hurt and useless.

Her hands that went back to her shoulders froze, recoiling at her words before climbing her neck to cradle her cheeks with a sad smile.

You shouldn't have to, her blue eyes seemed to say. A breeze washed over them, spraying soft droplets from the crash between the tide and the rocks down below, and pushed some strands out of her braid and into her face.

The little girl tucked them behind her mother's ear with a wry smile. This is what you've agreed to do.

For the moment Kazashi married Daichi, she condemned her children to this fate.

"I-" She stopped, gazing away before sighing, "With who did you play?"

"Miru." And as the name fell from her mouth, Nagisa whipped her head, craning to see her friend that she had forgotten in the middle of the situation.

She gasped as she found her next to her mother, neither too close nor too far.

"Hello Kazashi-san," She bowed, overly polite. Miru was like that, a terror to kids but the perfect angel to adults. "I'm glad to see you well."

"Good afternoon, Miru and"- she gave her a once over, eyeing the small patches of dark fabric and the few beads of water shining in her hair -" congratulation on winning the fight."

"She did NOT! And it wasn't a real fight!"

Nagisa's fingers played with the rim of her cup. She smiled at the moon as her mother settled down next to her.

Shivers ran up and down her arms and the girl had a hard time warming up without consciously running her chakra through her body. A blanket fell on her shoulders and an arm was wrapped around her waist, tugging her into her mother's side.

Nagisa sent her an appreciative smile but her mother's eyes were glued to the sky.

The silence between them lingered comfortably, the sounds of drunkards and their joyous antics were a well-known song by now while the soft clinks of the wind chimes added rhythm to their joy. 'We celebrate life for it is our most precious possession,' they would say and Nagisa couldn't agree more.

The mother-daughter duo remained like that, drinking Yaki nori and stargazing, until the girl finally asked what had been on her mind since the confrontation.

"Mom. What were you like when you were younger?" She blinked as Kazashi frowned, debating on something before taking a cigarette out.

Nagisa scrunched her nose, hating on the smell too sweet to be natural. Still, as if sensing her discomfort, her mother didn't light it, preferring keeping it between her lips.

"Like any other girl, I guess. Too naive - I dreamt big and never took no for an answer - and a little reckless - I would relentlessly pursue my goals without considering the effects they could have."

There was melancholy hidden in her tone, the kind of regret that only comes with growing up and losing the innocence-tinted glasses of childhood. There was history in her words but Nagisa wasn't privy enough to it and couldn't help but feel like she just missed an entire era.

"I was foolish." And it cost my heart.

"From the tip of my brush flows the blackness that brings life to my creativeness," Nagisa murmured, lips stuck between her teeth as she carefully wrote the outer layer of her seal. She missed the horrified glance Mito sent her over her scroll.

"You're no poet. And you have ink on your chin, and your hands, and your clothes." She carefully elongated the words as if they would express her distaste better.

Mito liked cleanliness. Nagisa, with her messy buns from which wild strands sprang free, her crumpled clothes and blotches of ink spread all over her body, was anything but clean.

"That, Mito dearest, is what we call 'creative mode'."- she designed her with the point of her brush. Droplets of ink flew up, describing perfect parables before splashing on the table with the grace of dog shit falling in the gutter. If looks could kill, Nagisa would be dead - "It's when your task takes so much of your attention that nothing else matters."

Like the posh relative Nagisa once saw, Mito searched in her pocket, retrieving a small handkerchief and cleaning her side of the table. "Did you even sleep? You were here before me."

She clicked her tongue, furrowing her brows as she cast her attention back on the paper. "Sleep doesn't matter when my future as a fuinjutsu master is on the line. The seal isn't completely done yet and the exam is in less than three weeks."

Her cousin pinched her lips, opened her mouth but decided against it. She reported her attention on the scroll.

Inwardly, Nagisa shrugged. Mito wasn't one to keep her remarks to herself, with enough time, she would say what was on her mind.

She read two lines before relenting. "Why did you wait so long before actually attempting to draft it, anyway?"

Gotcha.

"Sensei said: don't even attempt to draw a seal without a complete understanding of the phenomenon or I will wring your neck with my bony, wrinkled spider-like fingers." She put her whole heart into acting like him but Mito wasn't buying it. Her eyes seemed to say: he didn't say that, duh. "Aaaand, creative mode works better with the overwhelming dread and the eldritch horror that deadlines create in me."

"Laziness, I see." She puffed her cheeks in indignation but didn't refute. "How far along are you?"

Drying her brush first, she twirled it between her fingers before perching it between lips and her nose. "Almost done, actually. A spout of ingenuity sprinkled on me last night and who am I to deny it?"

Mito blinked, rolling her eyes too. Stress awakened something strange within her cousin, she had sudden flares of eccentricities that made her question her sanity. "I was willing to help you test it but I think I will abstain."

The brush fell from her mouth, rolling away to stop against Mito's discarded scroll.

"Please, don't," Nagisa answered softly after a moment. "I need you to call the medic when I inevitably fail."

The younger girl looked perplexed, not understanding why she suddenly put herself down. "Is it-" she started, then paused, looking more troubled by the second, "Is it your fear of failure talking?"

She tilted her head, the hair decorations holding her two buns chimed.

Ah. Bullseye. Nagisa softly scoffed. Watching Mito's growth was as terrifying as it was humbling.

"Noo, of course not. I need to run my seal through Sensei first and I'm not entirely certain Sensei wouldn't approve of a failed seal just to teach me some lesson." Nagisa waved her hand, shooing her guess away.

Mito blinked, then frowned and suddenly adopted a mom attitude - one brow cocked with both hands on her hips while leaning slightly forward to attempt to look bigger. "Sensei is mean but he isn't unfair, he would only mock you for your failure."

Pressing her top teeth into the meat of her bottom lips, Nagisa mulled on whether or not she should correct Mito's words. 'Just mocking' shouldn't be something to be satisfied with or 'just mocking' would quickly turn into 'just one hit' and escalate from there.

She will be able to understand that when time comes. Nagisa nodded to herself, reporting her attention back on her seal for the third time.

She gave a sharp whistle - and inwardly enjoyed the rather violent twitch of her friend -, patting herself on the back. "Now, that's what I call a seal."

Mito straightened up to attention, shooting her a rather pleading look. "Can I see?" She clawed at her seal, taking it from her hands before she could answer.

"Of course," Nagisa said to the wind as her cousin was already immersed in her work.

She would make some small noises when she recognized parts of the seal they worked on together - until Sumi-sensei caught them and proceeded to give them an earful because they were cheating. At times, she scrunched her nose when she didn't immediately get the reasoning, puffing on the strands falling in her eyes.

Then, she inhaled sharply, looking up at her with wide eyes and- "You need to show that to Sensei."

She jumped on her feet and went to find their teacher before Nagisa could react.

W-what?

She could not be more at a loss for words if she'd learned the art of metamorphosis, her sudden actions weren't easy to understand.

"Wait, Mito, what do you mean?"

When Nagisa decided to give chase, the other redhead had already found him and was pointing to a very specific part of her seal, talking wildly with her hands.

Sumi-sensei, after quietly analyzing her seal, watched. It wasn't the kind of small and dismissive glance he would usually throw her, he truly watched her. Seeing her beyond her messy appearance. Seizing her up. And finally admitting to himself that Nagisa wasn't just here on luck but there were skills and a brain behind her actions.

Finally, after fixing her for god knows how long, he muttered: "Interesting."

"What are you talking about?" Nagisa dared ask.

Mito grabbed her arm to bring her to her side before pointing to a very specific part of her seal. "That is genius. With just that part, I'm sure you will become a fuinjutsu master."

Nagisa blinked, once, twice, thrice not fully understanding what was so amazing about her stabilizer. "You mean, the Unforgiving Blue Sun seal?"

"Is that what you will name it?"

Nagisa squinted, completely lost. "It's… what it's called, yes?"

"It's so cool," Mito burst next to her, starry eyes opening wildly and reddening cheeks, "I never thought you could combine two stabilizers together by changing the elemental nature of the seal but now that I see it, it makes so much sense!"

When spreading chakra through the layers of a seal, a good fuinjutsu master made sure to keep it as neutral as possible. The chakra would then take the primary elemental affinity of the different basic seals it meets.

Here comes the tricky part: elemental chakras had different compatibility with each other, which could result in an unstable seal that would go kaboom in a matter of seconds. That was why stabilizers were necessary.

Stabilizers were chosen to be the middle ground between two opposite chakra natures: they either were from an element that had good enough compatibility with both natures or used yin or yang energy. The most important problem was that it multiplied by two the size of a seal and the complexity.

However, the discovery of secondary elemental natures was a game-changer. Instead of using two basic chakra natures, they would use one secondary elemental nature. The problem of affinity would still remain but the seal would be greatly simplified.

In her case, Nagisa used an ice-chakra stabilizer, the Unforgiving Blue Sun seal instead of water and wind one

Nagisa was glad it made sense for someone at least because Nagisa wasn't understanding their reactions.

She pressed a fist to her mouth as a trickle of an idea came to her mind.

Hold on… Surely not? They had to know about that, right? She knew combining stabilizers had been a fairly recent discovery but-

Hold on, HOLD ON. If they knew about it, their reactions wouldn't make sense do-

OH MY FUCKING GOD? I DIDN'T. So the only solution was-

Her inner screaming intensified. She bit her knuckles as her eyes spun in her eye-sockets.

-she stole someone's spotlight, most probably, Mito's.

The reason why the concept of adding stabilizer had been discovered so late was that secondary chakra nature users - or more commonly named 'combined chakra nature users' - were far and few and the Uzumaki became aware of their existence thanks to Mito's husband.

Fuck.

Surprisingly enough, Sensei agreed to let her test her seal soon after, saying that she would realize what could be changed only through experimentation.

Her seal, however, had a very important weakness. It couldn't hide more than half of her chakra and so, she couldn't perform at full strength when using it.

But it worked! And Nagisa was satisfied enough with it to present it during her graduation.

Mito laughed herself to sleep as the memory of Nagisa falling from a tree because of a lack of chakra and into a puddle of mud kept replaying in her head.

...

To be continued?

...

Hola, thanks for reading that chapter!

Next chapter will be the graduation, we're finally getting to the good stuff. Miru's companion appeared! What did you think about it? Her mother too! I don't know if you saw it but in chapter 2, I changed some stuff and most notably, Kazashi's role: she is also in charge of monitoring the population's general feelings, which explains why she took Saito aside. A bit more worldbuilding too and also, another tentative to explain fuinjutsu. If you didn't understand my explanation, just tell me (I will cry myself to sleep) I will try to explain it better!

HOWEVER: WARNING, THE RATING OF THE STORY WILL CHANGE TO MATURE.

Soon enough, there will be mentions: description of dark stuff SUCH AS genocide, human experimentation and other things that can be painful for some of you. If you don't feel like it, squirmish or you simply don't like my story, please DROP IT.

Take care of yourself, please.

Considering that this stuff won't come up immediately, I will keep posting the warning.

See ya!