The winding alleys of the Uchiha compound twisted and turned around me as I tore deeper into the dark, glancing frantically over my shoulder every now and then. My feet dug into the ground with each step, and I could feel the panicked thudding of my heart in my chest as clear as day. Another corner rounded, another turn taken deeper into the maze.
And then the maze stopped. I was at a dead end.
The wall was too high to scale—and the longer I stared at it, the taller it seemed to become. My heart's palpitations became quicker as I was rendered helpless, cornered in the maze.
Tairo appeared behind me, nonchalant and composed. I turned around slowly, observing Tairo's uncharacteristically stoic expression with a faint feeling of dread. "You can't keep running from the truth," he said in...not his voice. Whose voice was it? "You can't keep pretending to be a child forever."
"I am a child," I bit back, curling my hands into fists at my sides. The walls felt like they were closing in.
"You're lying." The voice echoed, its sound growing painful as it reverberated all around me, and I shook my head from side to side in an attempt to block it out, and yet it got louder, louder—
And then I woke up.
I sat up ramrod-straight, hands fumbling for a blanket that wasn't there. As the throbbing in my chest subsided, my thoughts started to return to me—as did my senses. Why had Tairo appeared in my dreams? And what had he been saying about the truth? I wasn't running from anything—and, well, if I was, it was only for my own survival…
Wait.
This pitch-black that surrounded me was no ordinary pitch-black.
And so she returns.
I startled, rolling onto my knees and turning back to face the large and eternally miffed-looking god. "Enma-ō! You're—I'm back!" I clambered to my feet in the void, rushing towards the stupid creaking wheel I loved to hate so much. As I neared it, I leapt in to give it a big hug, knocking against the wooden surface of its face clumsily. Enma made a few wary grunts, but I shut the grumpy giant up when I released the wheel and dove for the fabric that draped from his massive knee, giving the mass of fabric gathered in my arms a hug...of sorts. That was about as good as I could do what with Enma being the size of an actual building and me being an ant.
Enma was quick to voice his displeasure just a few seconds after. What do you think you're doing, insolent mortal? But his words had no bite, the familiar exasperation I'd come to expect from Enma flooding my ears.
I released the fabric and paced back so I could properly look up at his ugly face—that I had missed far more than I'd expected. "I'm just so relieved to see you, that's all! It's been so freaking long! You know how long!?" I waved my arms for emphasis.
Time is a mortal construct, Enma intoned blandly.
"Almost a month! That's almost a month I've been without my memories, or without someone to...to talk to about any of this…" I shook my head, blinking away the memories of nights spent sitting around in irrational, baseless anxiety. "I thought I was about to go crazy." Like a stubborn spiritual flu, my 'illness' had surged to a climax before starting to wind down. I could only hope that I was now in the calming-down, overcoming phase of whatever this was and that it would soon be out of my mind for good. "But if I'm finally able see you again, that means I must be finally getting over this stupid spiritual blockage thing, right?"
It would appear so. Enma didn't sound thrilled. I suppose I must bid my days of peaceful silence farewell.
I ignored the god's almost whiny complaints and sat down cross-legged in front of him. "So how's life been? Oh, let me go first—I'm still trying to figure out what caused the spiritual blockage in the first place, I had an argument with my aunt, I won my first fight...I'm almost done with my first term at the academy…"
You have been getting involved in petty squabbles with others in my absence? Enma drawled, unimpressed.
"No, it was a spar," I corrected. "And I may have won, but I'm still probably gonna get a shitty mark on my report card this term because my teacher...doesn't like me." My voice faltered at the end, something unsettling shifting in my gut as the words 'report card' left my mouth.
Sure, every kid was bound to feel some anxiety whenever report cards were brought into question—it didn't matter what universe. But this was a different sort of anxiety altogether, the same sort that I was prone to feeling whenever an important memory wasn't coming back to me.
Why were report cards making me so anxious?
I am no human counsellor. I have no time to spare for your trite grievances. Enma's voice broke my train of thought straight off, and like all bouts of deja vu, the feeling of anxiety quickly dissipated. I am starting to wish whatever caused your little vacation from pestering me had been a little stronger, but it unfortunately appears that as the blockage continues to clear, I will only be seeing more of you in the near future.
One word in particular stuck with me in wake of Enma's tireade. Stronger? Like it could be ingested…? An idea was wiggling itself into my head. "Hey, Enma-ō, could there be a spiritual blocking agent in the form of something edible…?"
What are you thinking, mortal?
My thumb was worrying my lip now, deep in thought. "Something that can be given in doses, like cake, or noodles...or tea?"
A little thing about planning versus execution.
I'd never been a very proactive person in either life—whatever risks I took never seemed to pay off very much, especially in the athletic category, and eventually I'd just gone with it and chalked it up to a lack of natural athletic talent.
Now, in this life, I couldn't afford to take my natural inabilities lying down. I had to be better, better than anyone I'd known before just to keep up with the kids here. So I focused on planning intuitively, moving with fewer pauses, striking with less hesitation—but obviously, all that was much easier said than done.
Prime example: Say I decide to go in for a kick to my tall aunt's shin, hoping it will bowl her over. It connects, but I don't put enough force in it to even do more than bruise her. Theoretically? A sound plan. In execution? A pathetic flop.
Which leads us to the current situation.
"Again." Imiki removed her hand from my shoulder, letting me up. I wheezed and pulled myself to my feet, the dirt I inhaled on the fall-down making my throat itch. "Futaba-chan, you've gotten rusty since the last time we trained."
"It's been a while," I rasped, cricking my neck before settling back into my first bōjutsu kata. It had easily been a few months since I'd touched my beloved bō, and the katas were taking longer to come back to me. This was the one thing I had any amount of natural finesse with—my trusty glorified attack pole, which came to me much more naturally than hand-to-hand combat—but alas, weaponized combat wasn't going to be covered until next term at the academy.
Imiki twirled her own bō around like a baton, showcasing her talents like a true show-off. "Alright, when you're ready, come at me!"
I'd suggested to my aunt that we should spend the morning training, since it'd been so long and all—and I was now beginning to regret that decision deeply, so deeply I could feel it in my aching bones.
The whole reason I'd convinced her to train with me was to hopefully talk to her about the Ame-style thing that had been scratching at the back of my consciousness ever since Hyouroku mentioned it, but it didn't take a genius to figure out bringing that up now might snap the already tenuous state of our relationship, especially since my prying had been what had set her off in the first place. That same stale atmosphere of our once-comfortable, now-recovering relationship was stopping me from asking about a lot of recent discoveries, actually.
Like why she had smelled like Waki's tea that night.
I could only thank the gods (excluding Enma) that the effects of whatever may have been in that tea had started to wear off—I couldn't believe I had actually been happy to see the big boss of reincarnation's fat face again, but life sure was funny that way. Even more reassuringly, this meant my memories would also soon slowly come back to me, one by one.
But before I could begin celebrating, I had to confirm my suspicions for sure. After all, what if something like this happened again in the future? Or what if this was indicative of the fact that someone around me may not be as trustworthy as I thought? Call me paranoid, but anyone that wanted to get themselves through life here had to be.
Building off of the idea that had sprouted whilst in dream-meeting with Enma just hours before, I was already constructing a plan of investigation. My best bet at the moment was Waki's tea, which naturally lead me to consider casually dropping by Imiki's teammate's place and simply asking about what kinds of tea he had. But that was a definite no, because I had my limits as a child—Waki terrified the shit out of me, and what if he really had been trying to drug me? For what cause? Who was to say he wouldn't pull something much more drastic if I essentially confessed to having figured him out to his face?
Where Imiki fit in all of this was giving me a headache, too—she would have me believe that as my aunt, she'd never let any form of harm come to me, but…
"Oof!"
The air was knocked out of me as my side made contact with the ground. My bō tumbled out of my fingers, the pain in my waist temporarily rendering me helpless. My aunt had just swept my legs in my moment of introspection.
Imiki tutted from above me. "Futaba, you need to focus. You're behind in taijutsu training as it is, and I won't pretend like it's not partly my fault, but no more head-in-the-clouds business today, okay?"
I felt the beginnings of a snide retort build in my throat, but just as I was about to talk back to my aunt, a voice interrupted our little exchange. "Hey, Imiki!"
My head snapped in the direction of its source, dread creeping into my gut as the voice registered. It was the star of last night's nightmare himself, none other than Uchiha Tairo. I forced my face into a neutral expression, burying the grimace that almost jumped out by instinct.
Strangely, Imiki's reaction seemed a little questionable, too. She tensed visibly for the briefest of moments before righting herself and facing the sunny Uchiha man. "Tairo, what are you doing here?"
"It's my day off today, so I thought I'd just swing by," Tairo drawled, stretching an arm behind his head. He suddenly pouted at my aunt, the expression echoing eerily similar ones I'd see on Shuu's and even Sasuke's faces at times. The Uchiha Pout. "Why're you avoiding me, Imiki? Treating your beloved teammate like this, how cruel."
Imiki swallowed, her fingers twitching around her bō in a way only I could notice from my position. How interesting. "I'm not avoiding you, Tairo, you're just imagining things...in fact, I…" She trailed off, face far more forlorn than I thought this situation called for.
Tairo approached her, niece forgotten. I scowled at the man's back. "You what?" he prodded, finally catching onto Imiki's strange state.
The woman remained silent this time, prompting me to duck around Tairo's form to see the situation for myself. Tairo sighed through his nose and made to walk away from us, but just as he stepped back, Imiki grabbed his sleeve.
"Wait, I have to talk to you about something." She didn't sound too sure of herself, making me frown even more deeply. Where was the cunning, confident Imiki? Had she simply disappeared forever?
Tairo suddenly glanced back over his shoulder at me, eliciting a jolt from me, and turned back to look at Imiki. A silent question.
Imiki caught on and immediately looked at me over Tairo's shoulder. "Futaba, I need you to run those errands for me right now, ne?"
My own bō had become tightly clenched in my hands without me realizing it. One mystery 'resolved' and another one springs up in its place. My situation was quickly starting to resemble a hydra of troubling uncertainties. "Okay," I finally acquiesced, dropping my bō onto the grass and stalking into the house to grab my coin pouch, but not before giving Tairo one last hard look.
I had no choice but to leave this mystery alone for now. Besides, I had another mystery of my own to solve, too, and I'd just been handed the perfect opportunity to get started with it.
It was unclear how much time my aunt and her teammate would need, so I didn't hurry too much in wandering through the market district of downtown Konoha. The errands Imiki had been indicating were simply a few necessities and groceries as well as paying our respects to the memorial stone, which we made sure to do at least once a month. Now I was downtown, though, I had a whole lot of researching to do.
But as it turned out, bookstores didn't seem to think books on spiritual blockage—not the chakra kind, but the, er, spiritual kind—were in high demand.
Well, I have a high demand for them, so there, I bitterly mused to myself as I walked out of the last bookstore I'd found in defeat. I'd been all over the area by now, even ducking into bookstores that carried more...adult-targeted stock before being shooed away by a flustered shopkeep.
With a weary sigh, I gave up and made my way towards the fresh foods market, deciding I could take a break from my investigating for the time being.
As I completed errand after errand, I mulled over what my next course of action should be—who on this Earth would know anything about spiritual blockage in the most hippie-typical sense? I was all but positive whatever established my connection with Enma and my past life wasn't linked to whatever spiritual chakra happened to be, because chakra wasn't a universal concept across all worlds—or was it? Maybe it was and I just didn't know it in my other life…
My feet brought me to my final destination, the flower shop, but my brain took a few more moments to catch up with reality. It was time to complete the final task on my list.
I walked in and immediately had my arrival announced by the tinkle of the doorbell. The girl behind the counter sat up suddenly at attention, clear blue eyes locking onto me before darkening.
"Oh, it's you," Ino said, a tad cold.
Feeling a little put off, I scratched the back of my head awkwardly and moved to look at the displays of flowers that adorned the walls of the shop, pointedly avoiding eye contact with the disgruntled Ino that I must have pissed off without knowing somehow. I wouldn't be surprised if I had. It was me.
Then something clicked into place in my mind. I had beaten up her best friend not too long ago, hadn't I? Sakura looked pretty downtrodden after our in-class spar, and no one holds grudges like spited elementary school children. I shuddered, ducking even further into the taller flower displays in an effort to hide from the disgruntled shopkeeper.
"White carnations...white carnations…" I muttered to myself as I scanned the area. The smells and colours were hitting me all at once making for a sort of sensory overload—I wondered briefly if Ino was just immune to it at this point or if my other senses had just become sharper thanks to the loss of one of my 'senses', so to speak. Usually Imiki was the one to take care of buying the flowers beforehand, as this was a monthly thing, so I wasn't all that familiar with the shop's layout.
Turns out there were a lot of white flowers that weren't carnations. I felt frustration starting to build as I checked the label of yet another similarly frilly-looking flower only to find that it was not a carnation. Who knew finding flowers could be so frustrating?
It would probably be easier if you asked Ino for help, Rational Futaba's voice chimed in my head.
That's clearly not an option, Paranoid Futaba's voice chimed back.
I continued poking around helplessly until a strong fragrance—one that miraculously stood out from the myriad of floral scents—caught my attention. It was hauntingly familiar, but I couldn't say for sure that it was what I thought it was. I tried my best to follow my nose like some kind of bloodhound and came to a shelf that extended to the ceiling completely chock-full of strange flowers I couldn't identify. The scent seemed to be strongest here. The question was, do I stick my face in every flower until I find the one? Was I willing to stoop to that level of public embarrassment?
Hell, I was a six-year-old here. I was allowed to be somewhat embarrassing, right?
So I began my search, sniffing cautiously at each unusual flower. Most of the flowers on the rows I could reach were scentless, to my dismay. Did that mean that what I was looking for was on the top shelf? No ladders were in sight, either…
"Can I help you?" A voice that was most certainly not Ino's made me leap out of my skin and away from the flower my nose was currently buried in. I whirled around with all the coordination of a kunoichi-in-training and was met with the friendly weathered face of Yamanaka Inoichi. He smiled evenly, the epitome of good customer service.
"U-um," I stuttered, looking helplessly between Inoichi and the top shelf. "Could I...get a ladder…?"
"Oh, no need, I can fetch whatever you need for you," Inoichi assured me, probably not too keen on the idea of giving a six-year-old a tall ladder.
I worried my bottom lip. "I'm not really sure what I want...there's just a flower...that has a specific smell?"
"Can you describe the flower for me?" Inoichi asked patiently. From behind the counter, I noticed Ino perk up in interest.
"Uh…" This was a fantastic spot I'd gotten myself into. I should've just gone for the carnations like I was supposed to. I decided to grasp at my final straw and asked, "Do you know any flowers, or just plants in general, that could cause…er, spiritual blockage?" My voice got thinner and thinner as I spoke.
"Spiritual blockage?" Inoichi repeated, bewildered. He blinked for a few moments, seemingly at a loss for words.
I scrambled to explain myself. "My aunt! She thinks she's been really spiritually blocked lately, but not in the chakra sense, uh, she's just a really spiritual person! So I was wondering if she might have been slipped something in her tea…and I can smell something that smells like the tea she had one time." My genius idea seemed so much sillier out loud than it did in my head, and I hoped that Inoichi wouldn't see right through me with those eerily clear blue eyes.
To my relief, Inoichi's confusion seemed to clear up as he smiled again. "That does narrow it down to the edible flowers, at least. Now, as for spiritual blockage…in the superstitious sense, we do have a few plants that fit that description. One moment, please." He disappeared behind the counter and returned with a stepping stool. With flowing motions, I saw him step up and reach the top shelf easily. Damn superior adult height.
He stepped back down after a few more moments, holding one flower pot in each hand. "These two are the only edible plants we have from this part of the shop." He held them out for me to examine.
One was a light yellow-petaled flower, something that reminded me of a lily, but smaller and unfamiliar to me. I supposed that as this was a different world entirely, there were bound to be differences, however minute.
The other reminded me of a lily of the valley but with much smaller, black flowers. There was no mistaking the fragrance that slammed my senses as soon as I directed my attention towards it, though. The fragrance was so strong from this proximity that I could already feel myself getting slightly woozy. I eyed the grey, peach-fuzzed leaves warily, narrowing my gaze. "I think it's this one."
Inoichi set the other pot down and looked at the flower I'd selected appraisingly. "Ah, this is what we call gallow-weed. Ugly name, but beautiful flowers, don't you think?" While I continued to glare at the plant, he continued, "It's not a very popular buy, but some people use its leaves in herbal teas when they're having nightmares or sleeping issues. I do believe I've heard of a superstition that says gallow-weed is like toxin to your spirit. It's just an old wives' tale, though—it doesn't seem to actually affect your spiritual chakra." Inoichi had gone off on a tangent at that point, muttering things that I really shouldn't have been able to understand at my age in this world, but I was too distracted by my roaring thoughts to really notice.
It can't be, one part of my mind insisted. The naive side of me, the side of me that refused to grow up and face this world's reality didn't want to believe that someone would actually target me with harmful intent. Up until this point, I had been fairly lucky. No one had tried to stab me in an alley, mug me for my lunch money, or even trip me in passing as of yet, nevermind try to drug or kill me. It seemed surreal that I was even considering this a possibility. This really was the world I had been drop-kicked into.
"Thank you, Yamanaka-san," I mumbled somewhat numbly. "That's all I needed."
Inoichi righted himself with the same calm smile and picked up the other flowerpot. "It's no problem at all."
I stepped out of the flower shop, still stuck in my thoughts. If it was true that Waki had slipped gallow-weed into my tea, was Imiki aware of this? Considering the fact that she had smelled like gallow-weed the other night, my suspicions were only growing. Luckily I hadn't ingested any more tea served by Imiki thus far.
Would my own aunt really drug me?
Why?
"Hey, what're you doing standing around?"
I snapped my head around. Ino was standing behind me, holding the store door open with an impatient frown. "N-nothing."
"You're blocking the entrance for other customers," Ino huffed. "If you're not buying anything, get lost already."
Her words barely stung me in my current state, and all I could do was trod back onto the path that lead home, carnations all but forgotten.
heya…
...i'm back ;;
