"It's not that high up," the girl called, staring down at me. "Just jump off of the trash can and grab the edge!"
"Uh, my parents would kill me," I said, my eyebrows inching into my hairline. "That is, if I didn't kill myself first."
"You're such a scaredy-cat," the boy next to the other girl snorted.
"I'm not scared of climbing onto the roof, dumbass. I just don't want to...injure myself. You know me." I shrugged.
"Whatever you say, wimp."
When the memory faded, I was back in Enma's weird black chamber thing. I knew where to find the big red beast-man this time, so I immediately turned to the creaky immobile wheel and found him sitting next to it, just like last time.
"Great, here again," I groaned. Then I shook my head, getting back to what was more important. "Enma-ō, I know my life purpose now."
Enma leaned down slightly with what I could almost say was interest. Is that so? came his rumbling, commanding voice.
I nodded, getting ready for the big reveal. "I want to live for at least sixteen years before I die." I put my hands on my hips, standing defiantly in the face of a god.
There was silence for a moment, a silence during which I felt very impressive and proud of myself, but it came to an end with Enma's booming laughter suddenly ringing in my ears. This time, his face did move with the sound of his laughter.
You are rather unambitious, even for a mortal, he rasped.
Feeling defensive, I rushed to explain myself. "It's plenty ambitious to aim to stay alive in a world like this. Besides, I've never gotten to live to age sixteen in either of my lives, thanks to a certain someone's clerical error."
The humour drained away from Enma's visage, but he continued to speak with vague amusement. Why should I give you sixteen years?
"I was robbed of my chance to live properly in my other life. I'm going to live to the fullest now," I answered confidently. "Even if these lovely little meetings prevent me from getting proper sleep and result in me waking up half-dead. Thanks, by the way."
Enma leaned back and let out an ambiguous grunt. The wheel continued to creak, as if reminding us of my situation. I will give you six more years before your life must end.
Six more years, meaning I had until I turned ten. That wasn't a lot, but it was much more generous than I'd been expecting. I had to settle for now. So I plopped down on the floor, crossing my legs like Enma. "Fine. But I have more questions for you."
The beast-man narrowed his eyes minutely.
The promised week came. I was standing around in the backyard, scuffing the gravel with my sandals, which was developing into an unhealthy habit that I knew would warrant many scoldings in the future. At the other end of the backyard, Imiki was rifling through her bag for something, decked in standard jounin gear. Shuu had yet to make an appearance, however.
"Imiki-nee?" I piped up, suppressing a yawn. "What will we be doing today?"
Imiki pulled something from the bag triumphantly. It was a brown heavy-duty hairband that she quickly used to tie her hair tight behind her. She turned to me as she did so. "We'll see when Shuu-kun gets here, Futaba-chan."
I was expecting more physical exercises—more of the same old, running back and forth, high knees, butt-kickers, yadda yadda. Except this time, when I had to attempt a flip for Imiki, Shuu would also be around to watch and laugh at my failures. Joy upon joys.
I huffed a sigh and plopped down on the ground, which was a big mistake because the gravel we had wasn't the kid-friendly rounded type. I leapt up with a yelp, face turning red at Imiki's chuckle. I scowled as well as a four-year-old could and turned away. I didn't need to go through this humiliation. Discreetly, I held a hand to my injured bottom.
As I'd complained about in my dream to Enma, all of the meetings with him left me drained in the mornings like I was today. I wasn't expecting to be very on top of my game today during training, adding to my already plentiful dread.
After I'd made my goals clear to the god, I'd basically heckled him for the rest of the dream about the little technicalities of his job and my life. It was really just a tactic to get him annoyed enough that he'd reconsider calling on me in my sleep next time. I just wanted a good, dreamless sleep for once. Was that so much to ask for?
Eventually, Shuu did show up, breathing hard and holding two bento boxes in his hands. "S-sorry for being late, Imiki-sa—I mean, Imiki-sensei! Haha-ue really wanted to make food for me and Futaba." I couldn't help the eyebrow twitch at the dropped honorific. So we were on both a first name and honorific-less basis? I probably would have forgotten the honorific at one point anyway, but still.
Imiki beamed. "Aww, that's so nice of you, Shuu-chan!" His eyebrow seemed to twitch at his new honorific. Take that. "Put them under the tree over there and we'll get started."
After doing so, the two of us stared up at Imiki expectantly. She cleared her throat. "We'll be doing something a little different today, Futaba-chan, because I'm pretty sure Shuu-chan is already being trained physically and is in shape…" She laughed gleefully. "Probably even more than you!"
"Thanks, Imiki-nee," I droned.
Imiki sobered. "Have you kids heard of chakra?"
Of course I had, but the four-year-old Futaba wasn't as well-versed. "Eh?"
Shuu, on the other hand, wasn't as modest. "It's the stuff you use in jutsus!" he exclaimed excitedly. Man, this boy had a lot more energy than he'd had before.
"That's right, Shuu-chan!" Imiki said. "Chakra is a form of our very life energy. That means when we use it, we're using our life energy too, which can be dangerous."
She then kneeled down, and we watched, spellbound, as she pressed a finger to the left side of Shuu's head. "This is a Gate, something that exists to regulate the usage of our chakra. Right here is the first gate." She stood up again. "There are eight gates in total. Using them all is extremely dangerous and I never want to see you using them for as long as I live, got it?" We nodded in sync. Imiki wasn't serious very often, but when she was, it stood out.
"Have you ever opened the gates, Imiki-sensei?" Shuu asked curiously, an expression of awed excitement lighting his features up.
My aunt just smiled mysteriously, raising a finger to her chin and tapping it thoughtfully. "Have I?" Us two kids exchanged looks with each other in confusion, but said nothing. "Now, I want you guys to try to feel for your chakra. Just try to identify it in yourself for now. Remember, it's the energy that drives us and flows all throughout our bodies."
What was chakra supposed to feel like? In this world, I'd been born with a chakra system. Asking me to feel my own chakra was almost like asking me to feel my own blood, right?
I tried to look over to Shuu to perhaps complain a little or commiserate in our shared confusion, but the boy had his eyes shut tightly and a look of intense concentration on his face. I heaved a sigh—if Shuu was trying, I guessed I should be too. I mimicked Shuu and closed my eyes, trying to feel something that was inside me without me knowing.
We stood there with our eyes closed with what felt like hours. I still wasn't having any luck drawing out my chakra by the time I opened my eyes and let out a drawn-out sigh of exhaustion.
"Futaba-chan, you seem to be having trouble," Imiki said, walking over to me. "Here, I'll help."
She stuck her hand in front of me. I watched in awe as it started to glow a sky blue. As this world seemed intent on teaching me, seeing something on TV was one thing. Seeing it in real life was another very different thing.
"What should it feel like?" I asked.
"It should feel like...well, imagine this. You're lying down and there's a warm water bottle on your belly. You like those, right?"
I nodded, giggling in that toddler way. It was too cold in the mornings here.
"That warmth is your chakra. Learning to feel it is important, got it?" She tickled my belly for a good measure.
I blinked, imagining the analogy. Experimentally, I tugged at the warmth inside me. Maybe the reason I didn't know what chakra felt like was because my stores had been full my entire life. I tugged again, a little more insistently, and nearly jumped as it moved up.
"Thanks, Imiki-nee." Shuu had his head embedded into the gravel with frustration, so Imiki hastily left to help him. Ow.
As I continued trying to tug at the warm "water" in my belly, I heard Shuu wailing. "It's no good! My sister could do this when she was three!"
I doubted she really could, even though Kouko was a pretty monstrous kunoichi-in-the-making. Parents tended to compare you with others to rile you up and get you to work harder, and having met Shuu's parents once in passing a couple days ago, they definitely seemed the type. His mom was pretty nice, though.
"Everyone learns at different paces, Shuu-chan," Imiki reminded him. "Focus on what you can feel in your belly, just like what I told Futaba-chan."
I turned to watch as Shuu scrunched his eyes even more tightly shut, his focus reaching new heights. Then, his stomach growled.
"I feel hungry," he muttered pathetically, opening his eyes and slumping over. I laughed while Imiki rubbed Shuu's back placatingly.
"Let's break for lunch, then," she suggested. "I'll get myself some food and be right back. Stay here, kids." Then, she suddenly phased out of our sight. I blinked, disorientated, and decided to file this as another one of Imiki's strange idiosyncrasies.
Shuu dropped a bento box onto my lap and plopped down on the ground next to me, already unwrapping the box hungrily. I followed suit, mouth watering when I saw the array of food in the box. I didn't hesitate before digging into my meal. We ate in silence for a bit.
"Oi, Futaba," Shuu eventually said through his mouthful of food. "Your aunt is weird. Like, I'm kinda scared of her, but she smiles a lot, so I dunno what to feel."
Oh man, I felt that. I laughed at Shuu's apt description of Imiki, the boy giving me a bemused stare. I explained, "She's scary when she's mad. Otherwise she's harmless. And forgetful. And clumsy—"
"Why, thank you, Futaba-chan," Imiki's voice suddenly said, coming out of nowhere.
Shuu and I screamed in unison, jumping and looking around us for my aunt. She appeared before us, casually walking into the yard with arms crossed and familiar playful smile on her face.
"If you two are done eating, we should get back to training, ne?" Imiki patted off her hands.
After the meal break, we seemed to be back to square one, sitting or standing with our eyes closed and trying to draw out our chakra in a form we could recognize. The hot water bottle analogy wasn't working as well this time around, as I'd managed to identify the warmth as my chakra, but had no idea how to move it. There weren't really any chakra muscles, were there?
The sky had already started to turn pink as eventually I tried to replicate the tugging motion I'd done to make my chakra spike upward earlier. It took more than a few tries to even get the mass of energy to respond to me. As I gave one last firm tug, I jumped as the warmth separated itself from my belly marginally. "Imiki-nee!" I called. "I got it!"
She seemed to do a double take. "Whoa! Nice job, Futaba-chan! Let me just finish up with Shuu-chan here and we'll go get some zoni for supper, how about that?"
I nodded and decided to play around with the chakra for a bit. Interestingly, as I pushed farther away from my belly, slowly letting the "water" trickle down my arm, I could actually see it under my skin. It left a faint trail of light under my skin, a glow that felt familiar to me somehow. When the drop of light was in my hand, I started experimenting with it. It glowed from within my hand, like a flashlight under a blanket. Fascinated, I urged the glow all over my body – in my cheeks, around my neck, even my nose – and soon I was like a dim human flashlight. I giggled and tried to turn up the intensity, bit by bit. Then, I pushed as much chakra as I could into it.
A dumb move, in hindsight.
I could only imagine that I must have looked like a lightbulb burning out after the little stunt I pulled—key word here being "imagine" because I'd immediately lost consciousness afterwards.
Five minutes later—or maybe more; I hadn't exactly been keeping track—I woke up in my bed. I groaned as I tried to prop myself up, feeling sore and drained. I noticed Shuu sitting to the side, looking relieved, and shot him an embarrassed grin.
"You're alive," he said, relaxing. "You suddenly fell over after giving off this weird light. Imiki-sensei freaked out."
That much I could infer. I reached behind my head and rubbed at what was beginning to become a bump, wincing. "Did you manage to move your chakra around?" I asked, changing the subject.
It was Shuu's turn to beam, which he did with pride. "Yeah, just before you fell over! And I didn't pass out."
Before I could give Shuu a response, Imiki barged into my room and bonked me on the head with a clenched fist. "What were you thinking!?" she demanded, mirroring my thoughts. "I told you usage of chakra could be dangerous, especially when you've just learned how to detect it!" I shifted my gaze, unwilling to meet my fierce aunt's glare.
"Sorry, Imiki-nee," I said meekly, having nothing to say for myself. "It won't happen again."
My aunt sighed, looking more and more stressed by the second. "At least you didn't hurt yourself this time. Looks like your body was just overwhelmed by your sudden chakra abuse and shorted out."
"Imiki-sensei, how did Futaba do that?" Shuu said, eyebrows knotting in thought. "The glowing thing? I've never seen anyone in my family do that before. Not even Sasuke's goody goody brother." He practically spat the last half of his sentence, reminding me of his attitude during our first encounter.
Imiki sighed, suddenly looking very tired. "This is exactly why I was avoiding training involving anything to do with chakra…" Shaking her head, she addressed Shuu, "It's just a defect that runs in our family. No need to worry."
Shuu hummed and turned back to me. I was still thinking this over, though—that was the same glow I'd seen after I woke up from those dreams a while ago, the ones that gave me a panic attack. There was more to this chakra glow than Imiki was letting on, but I was too tired to look into it.
"That aside, you should be well enough to stand, right?" said Imiki.
I dizzily pushed myself to my feet, nearly toppling over in the process. Shuu grabbed my arm to steady me. He still looked worried, and internally I snickered. A stoic, snooty Uchiha indeed.
"Feeling well enough to make the trek to Shiro's Soups?" Imiki asked tauntingly.
I thrusted my free arm upwards, first clenched. "Of course!"
The three of us headed to the soup store, chatting idly. The sun was already on the verge of setting, dyeing the sky a vivid red. When we arrived and reserved our booth, I ordered my beloved zoni soup eagerly while Shuu got tsukimi soba. Imiki didn't buy anything.
"So, tykes, tomorrow we'll train a bit more with chakra. Maybe I'll have you learn your affinities." She was about to go on about chakra natures and affinities and such when Shuu interrupted her.
"Imiki-sensei, can't we get a break from all this during dinner?" he whined.
"Yeah, Imiki-nee, class is over!" I joined in.
She sighed. "Alright, alright. But freedom is temporary," she warned.
We ate at the stand, chatting about this and that as the sky grew darker and redder.
Apparently, Shuu's mother was Mikoto's sister, a fact I stored in department things not present in canon. They'd wanted their youngest children to get along, being in the same general age bracket, but Sasuke had immediately rubbed Shuu the wrong way by pointing out how great his brother was and how not-great Kouko was in comparison. At this, I had raised a brow. Sasuke's idolization of his brother led him to make some dick moves.
I also learned Kouko muttered in her sleep, Shuu had an old cat named Mugi, and that their mom married their dad out of love, something uncommon in a big-name clan like the Uchihas.
I was having a lot of fun—I hadn't had a dinner this lively in a while, not since my parents left for a high-ranked mission a few days ago. Every time we started to get tight on money, they'd take another A-rank and come back a few days later, but that just left me and Imiki, and sometimes, just me. I thought everything was going pretty well until a sickeningly familiar voice interrupted our conversation.
"Excuse me, but Shuu-san's mother has requested for me to retrieve her son," Uchiha Itachi's voice stated, cutting our conversation off.
Shitfucks. Shitfucks.
I turned around reluctantly, as did Imiki and Shuu, and saw two too-familiar boys standing before us. Sasuke—the little shit in all his four-year-old glory—was ducked behind Itachi's legs. I averted my eyes uncomfortably, something about the older Uchiha boy giving me the creeps. A complicated torrent of emotions occupied my gut, a mix of fear, annoyance, and many others I couldn't name. All I knew was that right now, Itachi was bad news.
Shuu scowled. "Yeah? How about onee-san? Where's she?"
"Kouko-san is studying at a friend's house," Itachi replied evenly. Shuu gave the two a look of contempt.
"Why is he here?" Shuu jabbed a finger in Sasuke's direction. Said boy glared back.
Imiki cut in. "Now, now, Shuu-chan, don't be rude. Don't keep your mother waiting. We'll see you tomorrow afternoon!" I nodded, agreeing. I just wanted Itachi and Sasuke out of the vicinity as soon as possible.
Shuu seemed torn, but grudgingly slid off the seat and walked over to the brothers.
He kept his distance from them as he waved to us.
I couldn't help thinking that there was something extremely crucial that I had forgotten about the Uchiha clan. Something that would be relevant soon, but I couldn't tell when or why. All I could do for now was avoid interactions with the two brothers until I had a better plan, and I'd done just that this time, thankfully.
Crisis averted?
and into the canon abyss she goes...
