CHAPTER 18

"Alright" She said more to herself than to the snake on her kitchen counter, "Let's lay some ground rules." He didn't seem to be paying attention, she chose to continue anyways. "One, you will be under my supervision at all times, don't wander off on your own. Two, don't attack anyone no matter what. Three, I didn't ask for this, neither did you, this doesn't have to become punishment for either of us, but remember: I call the orders and you follow. Don't forget I can send you to the slaughter anytime." She took a deep breath. "Last one, do not speak with any other human, is that understood?"

He turned his head to her "Why."

"Why what?"

"Why should I obey you." There were many answers, but she had a feeling that hers would determine the nature of their relationship. Now, she could play many roles, the sweet girl who has no idea what's going on, the strict self-righteous woman who was chosen to make him go straight or the cruel slave-owner. But she was none of that.

"Listen, I'm not your mum. I'm kind of your roommate. Ideally I'll just tell you off if you eat my food or like do something that has consequences for me. Just follow the rules and we're cool."She walked to the fridge and grabbed a bottle with milkshake on it. "Just don't try to run away, I'd hate to go to Manda to tell him that his baby boy is being mean to me, I'm an easy crier ."

"I am not anyone's baby boy nor I'll ever be, you fool."

"Yeah, we gotta work on that. Those insults are pathetic." She took a long gulp straight from the bottle. "Hey, what are your opinions on female semi-nudity?"

"What?"

"I just want to chill with no pants off."

"What are pants?"

She turned to him with a smile "Perfect." She walked to the counter and offered her arm to climb on her but the snake just slithered off on his own making her roll her eyes. "Whatever, bratty boy, follow me to my room, where we sleep from now on." She was so fucking lucky that Kakashi was out of town and that the threats were getting bored of her. They had been following her for so long and all she did was average and normal. Train, go to class, study sleep, talk to animals and just chill. Nothing suspicious. And they were noticing, so they just followed her from time to time, just for some hours and not every day.

Just in time to make her position become questionable.

She hadn't planned to leave so early but she might need a plan C, just in case. Plan B is crawling to Manda and owing him one to smuggle her out, he surly wouldn't mind anything that traps her into needing him.

She offered her arm to transport him to her bedroom but he ignored her as always. She liked to say that she wasn't resentful but she did enjoy watching him struggle to climb the set of stairs afterwards, 5 minutes of pure joy.

"This is my bed, I sleep here, you can sleep wherever. We can fix something more appropriate if you lie, but this will have to do for now." He didn't seem to care much, but then neither did she. She was not getting out of her way for some rude snake, he ignored her again and curled on the floor. "Goodnight, don't be a dick and try to escape while I'm sleeping."

He was still there when she woke up, somehow, she was both relieved and annoyed. She didn't want to be no one's private babysitter but also didn't want to anger Manda. At least, his son as a security blanket, Manda couldn't kill her now, but now she cannot deny having connections to the big purple snake.

She was lucky that it was a Saturday so she didn't have class that day, at some point she would have to face a enormous class of excitable children and an aggressive snake meeting, just not today.

She tried to talk to him during her breakfast, but he ignored her so it was a lot more like talking him through her meal. Since he didn't answer when she asked him if he wanted something to eat he skipped breakfast.

She sat at a nice shadow to rest and study for probably hours, while Kurodoku just chilled on a branch just, above her. He still didn't answer when she asked him if he was hungry. This time she confronted him "Are you seriously giving me the silence treatment? That's so sly of you, sly boy. Perhaps you might also want to interrupt me when I speak from now on?"

"…"

"What, are you trying to kill yourself through starvation? That never works, trust me, you'll start eating everything on your way, even rocks. Here, let me get you a fresh cuckoo egg from this nest. I'll even give you some proper meat." She held the egg to his face and wiggled it. Famine was evident on him, he started eyeing the egg and wiggling his head to the compass. When she finally fed him, he swallowed it whole with little to no care for her fingers. "See? No reason to be a little bitch. Let's head to the house."

Her life with a pet snake wasn't so different, it was just as silent. Kurodoku hadn't even looked her way since they got stuck together by destiny. Yes, all the higher powers had put him on her way to...become a better person? How did these kind of things go anyway?

She was lying down lazily on the sofa, looking at the ceiling as she emptied her mind:"… and that's what happen when you eat aconite, basically you die. I feel like you aren't listening to me. Don't look at me if you are interested. Ah, I knew you liked it. Anyway there is this red mushroom that can also be partially green…"

"Why don't you fear me?" He hadn't spoken in hours and he chose to ask that stupid question?

"Like, in general or…?"

"You heard I was planning to murder my summoner, why aren't you upset?"

She was tempted to think her answer through but the cascade of nonsense was already leaking from her mouth. "I mean, sure, you are a big boy and your criminal record definitely intimidates me but the chain-y oath helps a little. It, however, brings some questions to my mind. Why didn't you oath to never harm your old summoner?"

"The hatred came both ways, he was also looking forwards to killing me as I no longer was fooled by that cunt's false promises of loyalty." He had this intense look, even for a snake. She couldn't help but to believe him.

She angled her heat to look at his direction. "Okay, lesson number one, if you are going to speak so formally the only insults you can use are fool and… fool, just fool. Maybe follow it with a highly descriptive adjective: gruesome or abominable or something like that. If you want to say cunt just simplify it, making it colloquial: he hated me too, that fake cunt, yes that's a lot better. Or…" She sat on the couch abruptly and smiled at him. "...just call him a son of a bitch."

He stayed mute after that and so did she. Hours passed and day became night. She couldn't help to reprimand herself for having called the dinners with Kakashi awkward, these were a lot worse. A snake couldn't really sit on the chair.

Now, today was going to be a problem.

In the morning she just worked out and walked Kurodoku through the woods letting him observe her socializing with other animals, she was sure it arose new questions. Yes, she could speak to animals, for as long as she remembered, yes any animal. Moving on.

Now came the tricky part, since she was supposed to attend school the next morning she would have to take him to a room full of children and she didn't know how he would react. The main problem is that he was a stubborn little shit. "I need to get you around the city so I have to carry you."

"No."

"C'mon, it's not that bad. You'd just have to chill in my pocket or hold yourself on my arm, just pretent it's a branch." She pouted."You're just contradicting me to annoy me. It'll be a couple minutes."

"No."

She rolled her eyes and let out an impatient exhale. "Oh, c'mon, baby, don't be like that; it really won't be that bad. I'll give you a treat or something."

"…" He looked away from her, ignoring her hopeful face. "On your arm, like a branch. I leave when I want to."

She smiled widely at him "Deal, deal, deal, whatever. Let's get going." She offered her am and he took it. She had some problems placing her hand, since his head was on her wrist she couldn't keep her hands down but couldn't hold him up without looking ridiculous. "What if… how about… like a scarf over my shoulders… yeah like that."

"Are you sure you I should be around your neck?"

"I thought you'd have realized I am a complete idiot after spending two days with me." She rolled her eyes. "I'll just pretend you are the most expensive necklace I've ever worn. I'll give you an egg if you hide my scar."

"Am I?"

She clicked her tongue" An exotic snake skin? "She asked rhetorically. " Probably…wait there was that time I pretended to wear a lost Water Daimyo flower necklace. Then my cousin sold it, for a really high price. My mom had made it for my birthday but she wasn't as upset when she heard how much. It got us so much money we had to give some away just to avoid suspicion. Too much money for merchants, imagine."She sighed."Good times."

"Now, don't communicate to anyone in town, pretend to be another regular animal, not a semi-gigantic snake." She asked him as she started walking down the deserted street. She planned to start from the outskirt to dive into the city and divert to the outskirts again. This way she could see how bothered he was by humans.

"I am gigantic."

"Mmmm" She hummed, judging him "Not really."

"I am several feet tall." He spoke to her ear as the streets became more crowded. She walked on stern and periodical pace to avoid overwhelming him. She could notice how tense he became when people passed a little too close to her shoulders. At least he wasn't getting as much weird looks as she expected.

Somehow, it wasn't hard to pick out the pineapple shaped hair between the mass of people. "Hi Shikamaru. How are you?"

"Hey" He said lazily as he looked at her collar and then turned to her face. "New friend?"

"He's a snake." Before she finished speaking, two more kids and an adult appeared in front of her too. His teammates were unaffected, well the fat kid was, the blonde hid behind him making him blush as he chewed on a chocolate bar. Their teacher, an intimidating jounin, was the biggest problem. Hopefully he wouldn't know anything about exotic snakes, and judging by his face, he didn't. "His name is Kurodoku."

"Where did you get your pet? That's a nice snake." The man didn't seem suspicious but it would be better to be careful, she could be fooled; he was a jounin after all and she was barely a genin, if so.

Kurodoku hissed at him and she found herself correcting him. "He's a friend, not a pet. He came to me. He's nice to have around, I was bored."

"Chst, it's probably going to be a drag but you can come to the compound to play shogi whenever." She smiled at Shikamaru. Aww, he said that because she said she was bored? He was a good kid.

"Wait a second!" The blonde's voice chimed in, "you want to give your girlfriend Kurenai-sensei a snake as a gift for your anniversary?! Are you crazy? She's going to leave you."

"She's not my-"

"Everyone knows it, Asuma-sensei. Don't bother." Shikamaru cut him off. It was kind of fun seeing a grown man blush, kind of cute too. She decided to offer her advice.

"Flowers, diner and…" She couldn't say condoms in front of children…she didn't even know how to say it, "something sweet."

"Yes" The blond said exasperated, "Yes, yes, yes. She gets it." She pointed at her teacher. "Don't forget to give her a goodnight kiss she won't forget." Her teacher choked on his cigarette and Arabella couldn't help to wonder, did she know what she's implying?

Her giggles didn't help the situation much. "Yes a good kiss, but I wasn't going to say that." He got so red faced he couldn't say anything. Shikamaru looked amused, but the blonde was just confused.

"Men are so immature, they always react like this?" The blonde huffed "I already know how to kiss."

Arabella bit her lip. "You really shouldn't, this is my advice: avoid trying it so young. Believe me it's better if you wait a couple years so you don't regret it."

"I'm not going to regret it, besides I'm saving my kissing skills for a special guy. There's no way it can go wrong." She strated daydreaming and Shikamaru shook is head.

"She's always Sasuke this, Sasuke that." Shikamaru sighed.

"Yeah" The fat boy, she assumed he was an Akimichi, spoke for the first time. "There are more boys. We're also here, you know. "

"Sasuke's not a boy, he's a man. He's so talented he could kick anyone's ass. He's the strongest ever, and I'm gonna marry him before that fore-, Sakura."

"Sasuke?" Arabella asked more to herself and made a sound of disapproval. She didn't really know what to think about him. He had help her once but he was also an asshole. On the other hand, he was twelve, everyone was an asshole at twelve. " He's always on a bad mood and he's not that pretty."

"You are lying." A voice whispered on her ear. She had forgotten about Kurodoku.

"Yeah the kid is cute but he's an asshole" She answered in her language. "Besides, you don't- wait you haven't met him, how'd you know?"

" Ssnakes are trained liars, we can sspot a mediocre one almost immediately." He moved from her sholder to her arm and she had to raise her hand to avoid dropping him. "I didn't know you could sspeak the ssnake's language. I undersstimated you."

"I can speak to animals" She informed to both the snake and the people in front of her.

"Ah" Said Shikamaru" Makes sense, I thought you just really liked animals."

She smiled at him.

She finished her poorly cooked eggs absentminded while she went through her vocabulary notebook. She rose her head to look at the position of the sun through the glass of the window and left the plate on the sink with the rest of dirty dishes. She was in a hurry.

Now she had to convince her new 'partner' to come with her without making a flush.

"I'm going to class, you're staying in the bag with my books without making a sound or I'll throw you in my toilet and I'll keep flushing."

"Get that finger out of my face." The snake hissed at her. "Can't I just stay here and sleep? Bringing a criminal to a room full of people sounds 'fucking stupid'."

She opened the bag and shook it "The toilet Kurodoku, it's not as fun as it sounds."

"Whatever." He said slithering to the bag.

"Let's go, this are going to be the most bring hours of your life." At least that was easy. Hopefully the classes would go as smoothly as this conversation.

She was pretty excited for the classes, to be honest. This was the first time she could understand most things the teacher said and she was ready to absorb this kind of information. Ninja history, while clearly biased to keep the rest of countries as evil and the enemy and Konoha as a proud hero. She couldn't check the veracity of the textbook because she hadn't known a thing about this. This was like finding a new world with a civilization that has their own culture, exciting and immensely interesting. She was so surprised when the Book mentioned trade treaties with the Land of Birds and their war with Land of Rain. And she knew about that. She'd read about it when they travelled there.

She hadn't been exactly schooled as that would leave trace of their travels but sometimes she bought books from different places. The life of a traveler is not as fun as it sounds, she used to question everything they did. But the funny part is, that in none of these places they ever mentioned shinobi or were any books about them, there were fantasy stories about them, placed in the past and portrayed as lone heroes who could invoke gods and create gigantic samurai to protect themselves.

Ninja History was parallel to Political History which wasn't taught. When two governments had the same interest that either caused an economic and diplomatic tug-of-war or a war itself. This was easy to put together on her own, but maybe 8 year-old wouldn't.

Geography was also a ride, she couldn't count with her fingers how many countries she had lived in but she noticed that none of them had a Ninja hidden village. She had been in the Land of fire before, traveling along her parents and selling herbs, on the far south, next to Tea country where Cilantro and Rosemary grow best.

Ten minutes into writing class, her chair started to shake. She didn't waste a second to stomp on the tail that was tangled on the table legs. Not a second after, Kurodoku used his back to shake her chair and the kid sitting next to her was looking at her weirdly. "What the FUCK do you think you are doing?"

Whispering to her bag was getting more kids to play attention to her. "I was getting bored" He shook her chair, alerting the teacher. She had a couple ways to direct this, trying to hide him and making the teacher suspicious or giving Kurodoku attention and getting her kicked out of class. She couldn't punish him in front of the kids and her teacher and she couldn't take him back to Manda for a stupid thing like that. He knew what he was doing, but so did she.

"Sorry." She said aloud to the teacher and put Kurodoku on the table, getting back to work. The snake was shocked enough to stay on his place for some seconds, while the girl on her right screamed. "It's just a snake. He won't do anything to harm you, I can speak to animals, remember?"

The kid calmed down but Izuma-sensei cleared his throat to catch her attention. "Arabella-san" F-U-C-K she only hoped this didn't escalate to the Hokage office. "You've improved your vocabulary, congratulations."

"Thank you Izuma-sensei." Now that someone had seen Kurodoku she couldn't pretend to hide it anymore and she had made very clear that he had to accompany her everywhere, that little bitch.

At least he seemed fine with staying on the desk critiquing her calligraphy, he was learning insults very quickly, she was almost proud but somehow she was offended the most when he called her kanji 'mediocre'. It wasn't. It was near damn perfect, these snakes were too snob.

She could tell that he was bored on math class, so was she because she already knew the math and science bits. By the start of reading class he had curled up and was trying to sleep while the kids learnt.

She didn't have Bukijutsu and Taijutsu until the last period so she started petting him through theoretical Genjutsu because he was starting to interrupt Izuma-sensei with his complaining hisses.

Sweaty, tired and slightly achy from Taijutsu she confronted the snake: "You know, I'm supposed to punish you for being a little shit today, but I actually like that and you didn't cause me any problems, so whatever. Do you want to grab a milkshake before training in the woods?"