Chapter 18
[Three weeks until Team 7 returns]
"Why do you have four limbs if you're only going to walk on two? Wouldn't three be sufficient?"
"I don't know, man, we're just greedy like that. Having two hands is useful." She was lying down in the clearing where she first met Manda, looking at the clouds float (Shikamaru mentioned liking it, so she had to try it). "My turn. Do you miss other snakes?"
"No. My turn, how did you get the scar on your neck?"
"We're not that friends."
"If you don't answer I get another question." He shifted, moving around her belly and traveling towards her face. Having a snake on top of you is kind of relaxing, when you get used to it, it's like having a pillow who hugs back. "I know all mammals have them for breeding purposes, but aren't your breasts a little exaggerated?"
She let out an exasperated breath. "They're not that bad…"She was actually offended. "It's not like I can control it, genetics, you know."
"Ah, I should have suspected you being an anomaly, after all you're a fucking nerd." He made a playful hiss while lifting his face to make eye contact. "I haven't seen another human with orange hair either."
"Well I haven't seen another snake with your coloration, or even your species, and I know your father." She acussed.
"The father transmits species and the mother is burdened with the snake's abilities." Kurodoku countered. He didn't sound too happy about it.
"Wait… I thought Manda was your father…Oh were you adopted? I was adopted too."
"It's common for snakes to alter their reproductive organs through alteration seals to breed, especially in the highest social circles. Snakes, tend to take after their mothers regardless of their species, therefore it's in the best interest of a powerful snake to lay eggs in order to pass their best traits to their offspring." He paused for a second, "I am not explaining further, it's fucking weird, you know."
She was a little taken aback by that whole ordeal but she chose to play it off. "That's fucking rad, I guess…" She started petting him. "Do you think a human can alter their body though seals as well?"
"Yes. You should try, I would want to get rid of these too." He mocked.
"Hey! Respect my tits or you are eating vegetables for dinner. And I know your body can't process them."
"Perhaps I'm not one to say, but you sound fucking stupid."
Her breathing was already irregular, her muscles, sore and her head was pounding with adrenaline. But she was ready.
She dodged a punch to the face losing her footing and leaving an opportunity for Izuma-sensei to kick her in the guts. Dammit. The hit hadn't been particularly strong, but there she was, laying on her butt repressing vomit. One hand failed to protect her stomach and the other was busy securing the contents of her lunch. "Again" Izuma-sensei was a good and caring teacher, but he was strict as hell. Ouch. She could understand now. This was why the student wanted to surpass the teacher: to beat him senseless. The humiliation of picking herself up just for him to take her down with the facility of demoling a house of cards.
On her feet she got to the defensive kata and waited until the bigger, stronger and badder opponent began. It was an unspoken rule, if you are smaller, let the enemy attack first and counter it, better and make it more effective than your foe's attack. Sensei tried to kick her knees but she jumped, just in time to block a punch to the face midair. As soon as her feet touched the ground she had to dodge another punch, this time directed to her torso. She didn't even have time to make an offensive move, even if she saw the openings.
You see, the problem was that when you were smaller than your opponent, you'd usually be faster, but this wasn't the case. And she could feel the difference. Izuma was bigger, stronger, faster and more experienced than her. So she was on the floor again. "Get up."
She was getting more frustrated by the moment. How big was really the difference between them? How could she compete with those who had been doing this all of their lives? They had too much of a headstart, she couldn't keep up- why was he smirking?"Get. Up." His tone wasn't more demanding, in fact it hadn't changed at all, then why did it feel like a taunt?
When Izuma-sensei threw his first punch she was prepared. With a decisive glint in her eyes, she grabbed his arm and pulled to make him lose his footing. She jumped towards him ready to punch his face. Just a second before her fist impacted, he moved to the side, avoiding her first by a wide margin. Just for a second, she caught his amused smile. That only fueled her ire. His evasive slide gave her the right angle to slam her right feet on his back. She kicked him on his lower spine with all her strenght. The pained sound he made echoed on the training grounds. She had hit him out of spite, but she had hit him.
Maybe Shinobi weren't so untouchable...
Izuma-sensei ended up spitting out blood and coughing, but when he looked back at her he was smiling.
[Two weeks until Team 7 returns]
"Do you ever shut up? You're fucking annoying."
"I thought you hated when I read in complete silence for hours." She told him
"Somehow you manage to be just as annoying." She rolled her eyes, "can't you pet me in silence?"
She was lying on the couch with her notebook over her face at almost 5 pm after a day of doing nothing. What? She was just having a cheat day from the exercise and all that. It had been too exhausting today and she was starting to feel less threatened by the town since she started to lay low.
It was getting kind of annoying losing so much to Izuma-sensei but lately she was being a better opponent, sometimes he even struggled enough to make big mistakes. She had her ass kicked every time, but still… She could afford a day off.
"Talk to me, I don't feel like doing anything today and I'm getting bored. Tell me something about snakes."
"We can be very aggressive if we are bothered, especially by orange haired humans."
"Ha ha… Oh Lord, I'm supposed to meet with Manda twenty in minutes." That was why she was being so carefree, she didn't remember the appointment, and she hadn't touched Fuuinjutsu! She could hardly make excuses that mattered. "Should I skip town?"
The snake looked at her blankly "Don't be dramatic. Unrelated, I won't be going with you there."
"But I need emotional support." She pouted. "I'll give you treats and stuff, c'mon baby. Don't be like that."
"… I'll help you with your homework. Make a clone and I'll explain it to you." She looked at him with shiny eyes and an excited smile and opened her book. She made three clones and asked some questions. Usually she made a lot of clones and let them work out the theory, but when they popped, the memories came back and made her faint almost every time. Sometimes it gave her a headache. The other option was meditating; in her head-space she could study by herself the theory and didn't wake up with a headache but well-rested. The bad part was that she couldn't control the time it took her to wake up. Both this possibilities were impossible now that she had to look after Kurodoku.
"Do you have a seal on you?" He asked, but it just sounded like he was voicing his thoughts. "By this level you cannot have put a selective altering seal by yourself, oh, it looks like it's mixed with a restricting seal. Interesting. Beautiful. Extraordinary."
She looked at him and sighed."My mom put it on me" She confessed, feeling a little awkward. She hadn't talked about her family in a long time and perhaps this wasn't the moment or the right person, but her cousin (who used to be a therapist) had always recommended her to talk things out whenever and as many times she could in order to overcome her repressed feelings and avoid bottling them up. That made her EXTREMELY volatile, and she was already prone to heavy moodswings once in a while if she didn't take proper care of herself.
"Your mother? May I ask, why would she make a seal that filters your chakra?"
"It has to do with my bloodline limit, don't worry about it." She evaded the question, she wasn't ready to talk about that.
"I'd still like to speak to her. Her seal is beautifully well crafter. A master's work."
"She's dead, along with the rest of my family." She took a breath and tried to look unaffected, "Is that, like, hard to make?"
"…Yes, it is." He let her a few courtesy seconds to recompose herself and then continued questioning her, "did she teach you anything about seals? This one can barely be felt unless someone is looking for it, it's a masterpiece."
"She taught me some barriers, I didn't know it was Fuuinjutsu at the time." She shut up then, feeling like she had said enough. She was getting dirt under her nails from digging up her buried memories. At last, she felt a little peace within herself, her burden loosened a little everytime she talked about them, but it was hard for her to revive her memories when she wasn't going to look at them ever again.
They fell in comfortable silence.
"You should really work on your Kanji."
Manda didn't so much as mention how green she was, he just asked about his kid. Kind of rude, if you asked her, but she didn't say anything because he still was a giant snake who could crush her, maybe not kill her, but severely damage her wasn't out of the table. The class came and went quicker than most, she found herself enjoying it more than usually. Perhaps she wouldn't mind working on it for a couple years, even if it wasn't useful for a fight. It's not like she had planned to become a real Kunoichi.
"Do you happen to have your mother's notes? They'd be priceless." Lately, Kurodoku did nothing but praise her mothers work under his breath and riddicule hers outloud. It was starting to hurt her pride, even if he had said that she has 'potential'.
"No, I didn't bring anything. Can't be retrieved either as I burnt my family's camp." As soon as the words left her mouth, she yawned. "We were being hunt down, so it was etiquette to activate the fire seals and turn the place to ashes. Just to avoid getting the bodies stolen." She overshared a little more after that, shifting the athmostphere to a rather depressing one, "I left my little sister behind after I found a bandit on my mother's corpse." She cleared her throat, the traitor, as words became more difficult.
"Is that how you got that scar on your neck?"
"No, after the... attack I hid in the woods for a long time and just recently I was found by Konoha nin, that's when I got it." She paused to take a deep breath, "Nice chat, love the topic."
"One would think you'd resent them, instead of joining them." He sounded morbidly interested in her psyche, at least her being fucking nuts was entertaining to someone.
"I couldn't really avoid becoming a ninja. If I had had the choice I probably wouldn't have rejected it." She licked her lips, "I find it amusing. However, I am still doubtful of the country and don't trust the authorities. Perhaps I shouldn't be telling you, but I don't plan to stay for long. Don't know when I'll leave but the countdown it's getting closer to cero."
"Interesting, I thought you were fond of the lifestyle. You seem focused during training."
"I like it" She said honestly, "but it is inevitable, like I said I'm running out of time. After all, time only stops for fools in love. That something my mom used to say."
The snake snickered and curled on her chest. "Dramatic."
[A week before Team 7 Returns]
"Your fucking eggs are burning and you're going to be late to kindergarten."
"Shut the fuck up." She said as she took the burnt eggs out of the pan. "You're supposed to be supportive, for fuck's 't you see I'm doing my best?"
"Do better." Kurodoku tightened around her belly as he climbed to her shoulders. She hurried to the table and began placing her textbooks on her backpack as she chewed on her terrible meal."If you fight like you eat there won't be match for you in the Five Nations."
"If you weren't so cute I would have gotten rid of you before you got this annoying." She said, slowing down on her meal. She was going to be late anyways.
She wasn't just getting used to him, she was also taking a liking to the snake, and that was actually scary. He was kind of strict and never lost an opportunity to make fun of her, which was fine. Kind of reminded her of family. Since the butchery of her relatives she hadn't been close to anyone, not to an animal nor to a person. It didn't help that Kurodoku seemed to be a weird mix of both.
He wasn't as bad as she had pictured, him being a criminal and all that. But who wasn't? She could be judged for defamation, fraud, identity fraud and minor theft and all she could say would be that's fair. He was mean but not cruel, rebellious but not unsubordinate, and sometimes kind of sweet, in a twisted way.
She still didn't think for a second that she should trust him. Let's be fair, the second she died, he was free. He knew that, she knew that. The only obstacle was that he couldn't kill her himself so he had to wait it out. Of course, she had no intentions to make it easy for him.
[A two days before Team 7 returns]
"Theory this, theory that, boring, boring, boring." She picked the snake up from the kitchen counter and carried him to the sofa with her. "Can't we do some seals that can actually be used in a fight?"
"Impatient" He hissed, "Fuuinjutsu is an art, not your favorite toy. Treat it with respect."
She rolled her eyes "but…?"
"Sealing can't be used on a fight per se. It's a support ability. Perhaps you'd be interested in making space-time seals, they're the easiest way to apply Fuuinjutsu to modern Shinobi fighting. I have heard of an interesting seal that allows you to teleport, the Flying Raijin Jutsu, used by the fourth and first of Konoha." She wrote it down on her notebook under her list of goals, "Orochimaru, the fool, tried to replicate it. Didn't go so well" He added with a smile. "Your mother, however might have been able to. Beautiful work."
"And when will I be able to do something like that? Or just anything useful in a fight?"
"Three years to learn altering body seals. Seven to replicate the Hiraishin. That's being incredibly generous but you are dedicated and a fast learner."
"WHAT?" She chocked, "seven years to get to my mother's level? That's insane. How long did she study it for?"
"Most people take two years to get to your current level, maybe due to your dedication or being tutored, but you are progressing faster than most. You should be grateful, many masters of the art take more than twenty years to reach the level you can in not even a decade."
"But I still can't do anything with it on a fight…" She whined. "It's not fair."
"You have potential. Don't waste it with that childish attitude. The slow pace of the first years may be discouraging but in five years you'll be able to make most advanced body altering and decomposing seals. You can specialize in battle support body altering seals and containment and time-space seals as well."
"How many specializations are there?"
"There are five: Body altering, both fight related and casual, containment, including barriers and physical sealing, Space-time and Chaotic-"
"Chaotic?" She interrupted him.
"Of course you'd be interested in that one."He murmured more to himself than for her, "There hasn't been a Chaotic Sealing master since the Sage of Six Paths. All of the tailed beasts are an example of Chaotic sealing." He explained. He was expecting her to focus solely in the hardest and most undiscovered part of sealing
"Okay, I get it. I give up." She rolled her eyes, "Anyways, what is your specialization?"
He didn't answer.
"My bad, what part of the beautiful and sacred art of Fuuinjutsu are you master of, oh great Kurodoku-sama?" She mocked.
"...Iryofuuinjutsu."
"Healing? That sounds interesting! I'm guessing it mixes body alteration and cointainment in the sense of physical sealing." She exclamed" Maybe? I don't know..." He was making a weird face even for a snake. What was up with him?
" There is a little of space-time jutsu to support the physical sealing and I also utilize iryoninjutsu."
"Sweet. THAT is what I'm talking about. Evn if you can use it as a weapon it is useful in battle. You'd teach me, right? You wouldn't have bothered to tell me about it if you wouldn't teach me, riiiight?" She did her best to make puppy eyes to the snake but he was to busy looking away from her face and kept avoiding her when she tried to make eye conact. The hell?
"You need to complete the basics. We'll talk then."
"Ha!" She exclamed. "That's not a no."
She grabbed the snake and tried to rubbed her cheek against his but he escaped from her hold slightly disturbed" The FUCK are you doing, human?"
" I was just trying... you know... rub my cheek against yours." She tried to explain lamely.
" Why would yo-"
" It's just an affectionate pet, god. Just say no." She clicked her tonge in annoyance, "dramatic bitch..."
"...Fine." He gave in.
"What?"
"Just do it and shut up for the day, you're going to give me a headache." Snakes couldn't blush but she was pretty sure he was embarrased. Awwww. Whatever.