Oniyuri carefully curled her fingers around the target and tightened her hold, gingerly rising it. The cup wobbles in her hands, the tiny muscles in her arms straining. The bottom of the cup barely got off the table before a large hand comes and tugs it out of her hands.
"Oniyuri-sama, you should not stress your muscles so much." She scowls at the words, slowly raising her head to watch her caretaker, Hanabi, take the cup over to the kitchen and empty it, placing it in the pile of dirty plates.
True to her word, Oniyuri's muscles were already burning from the exercise. It was only two weeks ago the Suiei's birth ritual was performed on her, and the baby's body just wasn't ready for extreme exercise. The motor skills were equally poor, so the most she had done in this state was keep her head up. Even now, Oniyuri needed a backrest to prop herself up.
"Are you ready for the introduction?" Hanabi asks, sitting down next to Oniyuri, slowly offering a spoon with unidentifiable liquid substance. The spoon slides into her mouth and Oniyuri carefully shut her mouth around the spoon and sucks it down. She had finally mastered the art of swallowing without dropping half of it down the front of her shirt just yesterday.
"Y-Y-" Hanabi smiles and offers another spoonful of milk. Oniyuri sits in silence as Hanabi goes over the facts that she had repeated every night before bed.
Half of it was simple things about her new body. To improve speech, it was recommended that newcomers should repeat the hiragana table out loud as many times as possible, because normal babies babble at night, repeating all the sounds they heard during the day.
Due to prior knowledge, Suiei clans tend to pass milestones far sooner. The average time between the ritual and the ability to do exercise greater than sitting up and first word marked around a month or two, and it took about a half a year for new members achieve satisfactory mobility.
Another thing was information about the Suiei Clan. They lived in the Elemental Nations, a land where ninjas lived. They used chakra to fight each other, but the Suiei Clan was a civilian clan. Because of how they earned their money – how, what, and why was still a mystery to Oniyuri – they travelled all around the country.
"We have darker skin because our clan originates from Lightning. Yours is slightly lighter because I met your father in Fire." Hanabi explains, holding her arm next to Oniyuri's. True to her word, Oniyuri's skin was multiple shades lighter than hers, although it was far darker than the skin she had in her last life.
With the last spoonful of milk long gone, Hanabi quietly left the room for a moment to gather Oniyuri's clothes and her own. She returned to extract the spoon Oniyuri had in her grasp and slowly tugging off the sleepwear she had on.
"Seeing as you know Japanese, I suspect you know about kimonos, Oniyuri-sama?" Hanabi asks, laying out the fabric in question, neatly displaying them for Oniyuri to see.
"Ye-ye-yesssss," she stutters out, finally achieving the word. It wasn't her first, seeing as Oniyuri worked hard so Hanabi's name was the first word she spoke.
"Fantastic. A lot of the first members to regain their past life were Japanese, so clan traditions are deeply enriched by Western culture. Of course, other cultures have made their place, but in order to fit in, we dress to impress." Hanabi lifts up Oniyuri's arms to slide them through the children's yukata. It was slightly heavier than her body was used to, but it wasn't used to much. "Our clan mostly dress in kimonos and yukatas."
It takes some time for Hanabi to tie the obi around Oniyuri's chest and spent a good five minutes putting on her own.
"Alright," Hanabi smooths down the bottom of her yukata. "Let's go," She reaches down to pull Oniyuri off the floor, setting her on her hip. Oniyuri's tiny fingers automatically grasped the thin fabric, and they took the moment to make her burp.
They walk out of the little hotel room the clan rented, and walk through the rooms until they come to a door that was nearly identical to every other one, except it had the number fifty-two engraved on the door. Hanabi lightly knocks and states her name, waiting for the soft footsteps to reach the door.
"Hanabi-san," Asagao greets, "Kiku-dono is already here, come in." Oniyuri didn't really know Asagao, but Hanabi said she was the mother of the other baby who went through the ritual at the same time as her.
"Oh, I'm sorry for making you wait," Hanabi apologises, slightly bowing to the clan head. Oniyuri turns her head and slightly dips it. Kiku doesn't bow back, but she levels her steady eyes to meet hers.
"It is no problem." She answers, turning her gaze back to the other baby across the simple table that all of the rooms provided. He – it was obvious that it was a he, not only from the haircut but also the hard facial features.
"Good morning," he clearly says, more towards Oniyuri than to Hanabi.
"H-H-Hi." Oniyuri felt embarrassed, and it only messed up her pronunciation further. Hanabi told her she was progressing quickly with her speech, and yet this boy completely smashed through her record. He even said it in keigo!
"I see your speech is advanced like Asagao said, Ajisai" Kiku comments, and then diverts her attention to a packet of papers beside her as Hanabi sits Oniyuri beside Ajisai. The two older women leave them with the clan head, retreating to a corner of Asagao and Ajisai's hotel room.
"Now, in this introduction, we will be learning more about the Suiei Clan and this new world we live in." She picks out a few papers and lies them on the table. Thankfully, it was low enough for both of them to see. One of them was clearly a map – it had an irregular shape with lines crisscrossing all over it, single Kanji emblazed in the centre.
"This is the Elemental Nations. Each country is named after an element, funnily enough. New countries pop up and disappear all the time, mostly after a War. The five main countries are Fire, Lightning, Wind, Earth, and Water, powered through their Hidden Village. Other countries are Wave, Waterfall, Rain, Stone, River, Whirlpool, Frost, Hot Spring, Rice Fields and Grass, where we are currently. There is also Iron, but it does not allow outsiders to enter." She points out each of the countries on the map.
Kiku goes into detail about which country is famous for, whatever they sell. She tells us about a few things about each country, like how the clan was traced back to Lightning, the people in Sound don't particularly welcome them, and only once every five years are they allowed into Iron. She mentions that villages are normally only about 100 people large, and the biggest could only reach around a thousand. They dotted the continent, almost hundred thousand towns, and more were appearing each day.
Finally, she places the map away, yet she doesn't get another one. Kiku turns to Oniyuri and Ajisai and laced her fingers together. Despite Oniyuri not knowing what was going on, she felt herself almost anticipating the next words out of Kiku's mouth.
"I am sure that your caretakers have mentioned the existence of ninjas." Oniyuri nods best she could, but only could barely dip her head down in fear of tipping over. "They are not the silly ninjas that use simple tricks to fool ordinary people. The most famous ninjas can easily level a town without breaking a sweat. Do not think that ninjas use tricks."
There was something seeping into the air that felt thicker and heavier than humidity and a lot more dangerous. It made Oniyuri's heart beat faster, and the light seemed to desert the room, and for the first time in a very long time, Oniyuri felt scared.
Abruptly, it disappeared.
"That was killing intent," Kiku explains, her posture not moving. Oniyuri realised she hadn't moved at all. "Ninjas can create far worse, and a weak heart can give out if it's too strong. That is only the bare minimum of what a ninja can do."
She pauses, letting it sink in.
Oniyuri doesn't quite know why Kiku scared them like that. She could see that it was more to scare them into understanding that ninjas shouldn't be underestimated, but if the heart thing was true, then why expose two recently-born babies to it? Whatever Kiku's purpose was, it probably had the opposite effect on Oniyuri. A fire of curiosity flickers inside her, urging her to learn more.
Kiku leans back, the threat theatrics apparently over.
"The reason why ninjas are so strong is because of chakra." She draws out another piece of paper, a simple outline of a person with strange lines all over the body. From what she remembered, Oniyuri couldn't remember any medical diagram like that.
A little yin and yang were drawn in the gut of the outline, a kanji that Oniyuri recognised as physical on the chest and another kanji – this time mental – taking up space inside the head. Both hands were engulfed in a whitish-blueish fire.
"The chakra they use is the mix of mental chakra and physical chakra," here she pointed to the corresponding kanji "they then draw it to the hands where they form it via hand seals." She then moved her hands in strange patterns.
"Here is where we're delving into clan secrets. Do not repeat them to other people without my explicit permission." Kiku casts a glance at both of them, before continuing. "After accessing your past memories, your mental chakra will skyrocket, far quicker than your physical chakra can keep up with. Tell me, how old are you?"
Ajisai repeats his without a single sign of struggle while it took Oniyuri some time and several attempts to stutter out her age. Embarrassment burned her checks - Ajisai was far younger than her, and yet he easily outstripped her.
Kiku smiles and nodded. "I suspected so. Oniyuri-san, your mental chakra is the biggest I've ever seen in this life. I think it's the biggest since the birth of this clan." Oniyuri blinks in shock, nearly slipping off the block she was leaning against, catching her balance by the skin of her teeth. Oniyuri knew she had been old, but she found it hard to believe that the clan didn't have a few elderly people in their midst.
Despite her doubts, Oniyuri felt a little self-esteem return.
"Our clan earn our income by travelling to many, many places to give entertainment to everybody. And that includes everybody." Oniyuri was slightly confused by the sudden change of topics but nevertheless continued to listen. "We dance."
She blinked – Oniyuri didn't see that coming.
"Because our chakra is unbalanced, we treat it differently. We'll go into that at a later date, but basically, we use our chakra to control water." Oh. So that's why they were named Suiei.
Kiku slides her hand around the ceramic cup that Oniyuri had ignored for the most of the session. She raises her hand and when the middle of her palm passed the opening of the cup, water followed. Oniyuri could've sworn up and down that what she saw was plain water bending, not chakra.
The Clan head plays around with the water for a little, drawing kanji, spreading it flat and then disrupting the surface so it looked like the sea, and finally reached out to us and tapped us on the nose, where Ajisai hiccupped.
"Is there any questions?" Kiku asks when the water returns to her cup.
Hell yeah, Oniyuri wanted to say, but her speed impediment closed over her mouth like an invisible hand. Mentally sighing, she turns her head to watch Ajisai, no doubt bursting with questions. Surprisingly, all he did was gape at their clan head like she had broken his world.
"Alright, then," Kiku says, shuffling around her papers. "Once you learn how to speak and crawl, I'll visit you two again." Hanabi and Asagao's voices grew closer, apparently sensing the teaching lesson was over.
"Have a good day, Kiku-dono," Hanabi bows deeply, and they all stand in silence until she leaves. Hanabi gently picks up Oniyuri, settling her tiny body onto her hip again. "See you later, Asagao-san,"
"Bye," Oniyuri carefully says, giving the other woman and the little boy on the ground a wave. Asagao returns it with a small smile, but Ajisai doesn't even acknowledge it.
A little note (A/N)
Be prepared for a lot of OCs, a lot of world building, and a lot of weird shit being made up. And swearing, that too.
Updates every Tuesday, until I run out of previously written chapters. Have a nice day :D