There were good days and there were bad days, but the one thing that was ubiquitous across all of them was bad mornings. There was no magic that could cure the fact that I still woke up with Shuu's walkie talkie chucked aside my bed. No divine realization changed the way our memories together were engraved into the walls with each dent and scratch in the floor.
In the mornings my hallucinations were particularly severe—hearing static in the walkie talkie when there wasn't any, or the squeaking of bare feet against the wood that would precede Shuu bursting through my closet door. Seeing a head of dark hair in the shadows at the ends of hallways.
Today was just another one of those especially bad mornings when I woke up with my face already primed with a slimy layer of tears and my eyes so swollen I could barely see. I mentally readied myself for another day of somber quiet—
"Good morning, Futaba!"
My swollen eyes cracked open with a start. The apartment had been utterly silent for over two weeks now, with Imiki near-catatonic and dependent on Waki's treatment, so how was she bent over me right now, smiling so cheerily? "Imiki-nee…?"
"Get up, silly, breakfast is getting cold!" She smiled brightly, patted me once and left me to balk after her.
What the hell?
I couldn't help the spike of something red—irritation, betrayal, confusion—as I watched Imiki flounce out of my closet like the past few weeks hadn't even happened. Was I the only one that had lost their best friend less than a month ago?
Once I applied my ointment and replaced my bandages, I joined Imiki at the table, where a couple dishes were already laid out for us. She hummed a tune, oblivious to my growing panic. Had Waki slipped something in her tea, too?
I poked at the rice with my chopsticks a little warily. "I-Imiki-nee, what's wrong…?"
"Hm? Nothing's wrong, Futaba-chan. What do you mean?" She turned from the mirror she had been looking into. "Well, besides my hair. Or lack thereof."
"You're so…" I failed to find the right word for it. Creepy? "...chipper."
The smile was back again. "Why wouldn't I be?" She turned away, wiping the counter with a cloth and hummed under her breath. "Things are going to get better soon."
When Imiki wasn't looking, I checked my rice for poison.
If I thought schools in my other life were unaccommodating, the Ninja Academy was even worse. Deaths and other such incidents were the norm in a village constantly at some sort of war, and it had already been a few weeks, so I had little excuse to not come in, even on the bad days. But today was almost unbearable for whatever reason. My eyes kept drifting to the window where Shuu's class would have been playing during our morning routines. Then the empty seat near the middle-front of the class would catch my attention. My mind wandered uncontrollably, but all roads inevitably led to red eyes, red eyes burning bright into my retinas before a sharp pain bloomed at the base of my neck and could do no—
"Futaba-chan?" Hinata whispered, and my proverbial thought bubble burst. All of my classmates were staring at me. My neck prickled with the beginnings of a nervous sweat.
Hyouroku tapped the board with a piece of chalk impatiently. "Asagiri, tell the class what the most accessible lethal neurotoxin is." My eyes scrambled over the other characters that had been scrawled across the board, trying to find a hint or clue that would save me from this situation, but none of the strokes and lines were making any sort of sense to me in my muddled mind. When had things ever made sense, actually? Had I ever been able to read?
"I don't know, sensei," I intoned quietly. My throat ached from disuse.
"Hm," he grunted. "Page 8 of last week's reading. Hyuuga."
"Y-yes!" Hinata cried, flushing beet red. She held out her notebook in front of her, hands trembling slightly. "A-according to recent s-statistics, cyanide is one of the most commonly util—utilized lethal toxins, owing to its widespread availability in common shinobi marketplaces a-and…"
"That's enough." Our teacher cut the poor girl off with a sharp interjection. "This is material that will most definitely be on tomorrow's unit exam, so it would be wise of you all to write a note of what Hyuuga just said." Cue the chorus of pencils scratching against paper around me, while I sat there with the prospect of an upcoming test I would most definitely fail churning in my head.
Hyouroku continued to speak, but his voice began to sound like distorted nonsense as my eyes drifted over to the window once again. Dammit, snap out of it. I pinched my arm through the bandages, trying to fixate on the sting instead.
Hyouroku continued speaking. As my eyes drifted over to edge of the training field visible through the window, his voice admixed with ambient shifts and clicks and buzzing hums until my ears rang with a mess of sounds and sensations. I screwed my eyes shut and blinked a few times, but while the pandemonium in my ears faded, the residual dizziness remained.
As if having noticed my plight, Hinata pushed her notebook over to me. I didn't know how to tell her that I just wasn't functioning. The words were stuck in my throat and ears and eyes no matter what I did. Instead of actively taking notes, I resigned myself to staring at the page and pretending to look studious for the rest of class, praying that Hyouroku would just leave me alone now that he'd humiliated me already.
Lunch break couldn't come soon enough. I had reached my breaking point. I had been trying to keep up with classwork lately, trying desperately, in fact, but it just wasn't working today. I craned my head back to survey who was left in the classroom, my eyes landing on none other than a very shifty-looking Naruto near the back of the classroom. Before I could figure out what he was thinking, he grabbed his notebook and dashed out of the classroom. As Hinata flitted out of the classroom to use the bathroom, I gathered my sparse belongings—a notebook and pencil—and tucked them into my satchel before following him.
I tailed him at a distance until he stopped by a window, sticking his head out to survey the sloped roof immediately below it, and it was then that it finally clicked for me. "Hey, Naruto." He jolted back, nearly dropping his notebook in shock. "You're ditching, right?"
"So what…?" He narrowed his eyes at me. "Are you gonna tell on me, 'ttebayo?"
I shook my head. "Let me come, too. I need to get out of here."
The boy's face lit up immediately, clearly excited to have a co-conspirator. "Oh! Alright! Follow my lead, okay?"
No questions asked, huh?
Naruto set a clumsy path to follow down the hallways, conspicuously sneaking around with a face twisted in deep concentration. Every now and then he'd stop to strike a subtle pose, all part of the big game that was skipping class. I followed him from a reasonable distance, forgoing the poses but managing to meet him once we'd made it to a fairly deserted part of the hallway. We clambered out of the window here, running along the roof until we got to a messy network of pipes leading up and down the side of the Academy.
"Almost there," Naruto assured me before jumping and sliding down the crooked pipes with the effortless confidence of a child going down a playground slide. Naruto, who usually had such difficulty with chakra control in class, was a champ when it came to using his powers for mischief. I wondered if he was even consciously aware of his chakra usage as he scaled walls.
Briefly, I recalled an old memory of a recess dare that had gone around when I was in primary school in my old world. The challenge had been to go down the metal slide on a rainy day by sliding down while perched on your heels in a crouch. I'd of course been pressured into trying it by my oh-so-wise friends, and sure, I'd enjoyed the rush of gliding on water for half a second before I careened forward, lost my balance, and crash-landed at the bottom. I'd sprained my wrist from the ordeal and had to write with my left hand for a month.
"Come on!"
The memory faded, and I swallowed before sliding down the pipes, channeling a moderate amount of chakra into my hand to maintain a slight anchor to the wall as I did so. Half a second later, I dismounted from the pipes without issue, plopping down onto the dirt of the courtyard. Naruto grinned at me in approval before beckoning me to follow him and taking off. I made sure to blow on my hand, which was slightly warm, before obliging.
After a little jog through the woods, we clambered onto the roof of the nearest shop and enjoyed sweet freedom. It was all I could do to not get lost in thought again, instead focusing on the tingling burn in my hands and feet as I pumped chakra into them with each jump and wall-climb we did.
"Woohoo—wagh!" My train of thought was interrupted when Naruto attempted a somersault as we leapt over the gap between buildings. The effort was a resounding failure and he splatted across the next roof in a heap of limbs.
My mind emptied and I swiftly landed next to him, dropping to my knees. "Naruto? Are you alright? Hey!" I tried to find the best place to poke him that wouldn't injure him any further.
He groaned, rolling onto his back. "I almost had it that time," he mumbled. "Dammit!"
A subconscious smile had formed on my face as I flicked Naruto in the forehead—carefully away from the forming bruise—and sighed. "You're lucky I got bandages on me all the time, dummy. Why don't we find somewhere to get a snack so I can wrap you up?"
"This place is the best, 'ttebayo," Naruto whispered to me. "They don't even ask if we're skipping school!"
I accepted a stick of dango from his outstretched hand with a weak smile, but it felt like chewing rubber. I could hardly swallow my bite before I'd had enough.
"Good, right?"
I shook my head minutely and offered the rest to him. "'M not really hungry. Want it?"
"Well, if you're offering…"
I let the boy snatch the stick of dango away from me, averting my eyes to the streets visible from the window next to us. People bustled about at all times of day, going about their own private lives as the world kept turning. Did any of them know their destiny hinged on the sticky-fingered blonde with a bandage on his chin?
Belatedly, I realized that this was a familiar area to me. I had walked through these streets many times when I was a toddler, though the memory was more than a little hazy at this point. Still, this place was notable to me somehow—the place where my clearer memories started. The place where…
I could just see the playground through the window here if I craned my neck a little…
"What're you lookin' at, Futaba-chan?" Naruto attempted to follow my line of sight, apparently noticing how I'd just dropped out of the conversation.
"It's nothing," I dismissed, taking a sip of tea.
"Really? 'Cos you've been kinda weird all day…"
I shook my head wordlessly. How does one discuss the death of your best friend with a child while still upholding the facade of being a child yourself? Even in my current state I couldn't help but find the idea of a would-be should-be adult like me venting my troubles to a kid to be amusing in a pathetic way. I'd decided to cut class because I wanted to have fun, and that's what we were going to do. "Really, I'm fine. Let's get going if you're done."
So we took to the skies again. This time, we leaped from roof to roof at a more carefree pace, and Naruto filled the silence with stories of various shenanigans he'd gotten into with the various people of Konoha. I tried to listen, but the words didn't make it all the way into my brain before fading away. I still appreciated the white noise, though.
"You're so lucky you decided to come with me today, 'ttebayo," Naruto declared as we roamed. "Idiots like Kiba can't tell left from right!"
I wondered if he and Kiba had gotten into an argument recently, by any chance. It was usually him, Kiba, Shikamaru, and Choji that would be mysteriously absent from our classroom after lunch, but I supposed it said something that Naruto was planning to sneak out alone today. "I like Kiba's dog, though."
"Who, Akamaru?" Naruto scoffed. "Yeah, he's a good lookout. But he bit me!"
I managed a laugh at his outraged expression as he stopped in his tracks to show me where he'd been bitten. "I don't see anything."
"It's gone now, but he still bit me!"
"He's just a dog, Naruto," I lightly reminded him. As far as I was concerned, Akamaru could do no wrong. I still remembered how soft his fur had been when I'd petted him that day after school, when I was waiting for—goddammit!
My change in mood must have been evident by the way my smile suddenly became strained, because Naruto suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled. "Come on, let's keep going! You never know who's out here watching!"
I nearly let myself get pulled along before a building at the periphery of my view caught my attention. "Wait, I'm stopping here."
Naruto followed my gaze with a tipped head. "The hospital…? Why? Are you hurt?" When I shook my head, Naruto scrunched his face up in thought. "Is it…that Sasuke guy?"
I nodded. I hadn't seen Sasuke since our confrontation a while back. I'd been meaning to check up on him, but before I knew it, days had passed and I had still failed to make the trip. Time was a strange, fluid thing when you weren't in your right mind. But now was as good a time to see him again as any.
Sometimes the best thing you could do during a bad day was to find someone who needed care even more than you did.
After a begrudging goodbye from Naruto, I parted ways with the boy and made for the hospital, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. I had not come remotely prepared. Digging through my pockets, all I could find on me were several expired grocery coupons, packaged snacks from our last stop, and—oh, score! One unexpired Shiro's coupon.
Shirotane and his wife Kogou had been right about more than a few things in my time, and just another one of those things was how soup was a grieving food. For the first week and a half after I returned home, I was unable to swallow rice and keep it down. Chewing anything made it tasteless. Even drinking water felt nearly impossible. But whenever I had walked by Shiro's on the way back from school, Waki's errands, wherever, I could count on one of the concerned staff seeing me, mummified as I was, and determinedly treating me to a bowl of today's special. That free serving would usually end up being my only meal of the day, and I had a feeling Shirotane knew this, because I would always find a few extra globs of mochi in my soup these past few weeks.
With a satisfied nod, I dug through my grocery baggie of miscellaneous goods and decided to slip my notebook in for good measure. It's not like I was using it very much these days. My notes were barebones at best, but I had written down important dates and…most of the subject headers of what we'd covered in class. Not much more beyond that, but Sasuke was a much better student than me, so hopefully he could see past the few miscellaneous doodles and take it for what it was.
As I stepped into the hospital lobby, the sterile smell of antiseptic flooded my senses and with it came a barrage of unwanted memories of the day I had been given the news. As I shook my head, forcefully dispelling the remembrance of the sensation of searing flesh and I may have given the Naruto show a hard time for its gratuitous flashbacks back in the day, but I was starting to understand where it was coming from now.
No, there's no time for this. I held the baggie up in front of me resolutely. Just drop it off and take the long way home. I wasn't sure what was stopping me. The receptionist with the resting-sour-face wasn't even looking my way, and there was no one in the waiting area. I just felt a strange chill in my limbs that compelled me to stay still.
"There you are."
I whirled around on my heels, stumbling back a few steps in surprise. Standing before me was none other than the weathered face of my beloved teacher, Hyouroku, who was currently glaring at me something fierce. "Asagiri, just what do you think you are doing here during class hours?" When he noticed the eclectic assortment of food and gifts I'd collected in my hand, he added, "Don't you think the boy has enough as it is?" With a nod toward the completely full counter behind me, he directed my gaze to the counter next to the hallway that led to the in-patient ward. Somehow, I'd failed to notice that the entire countertop was dedicated to gifts, cards, and other well-wishes from both classmates and girls from other classes…all for our resident golden boy.
I guessed my pathetic little baggie paled in comparison. I ducked my head as I responded, "Sorry, sensei."
"First, that Uzumaki Naruto brat, and now…" He opened his mouth with a deep-set frown, but slowly closed it again. The sting of disappointment burned worse than his angry ranting, but only just. "I don't have time for this. Hurry up. Leave it and go."
I muttered a yes, sensei as I left my bag on the one blank spot on the counter, wondering if it would even reach Sasuke before turning tail and leaving.
And so ended my little outing. I numbly trotted the whole way back to the Academy in silence only to be chewed out by the instructors. A slightly more verbose Naruto made sure to emphasize how criminally boring our lessons had been and how there was really nothing else we could do but find our own fun, but I kept mum, mostly because there was nothing I could say in that situation, but also because I feared that they would attempt to contact Imiki if anything else were to come of today's incident. They must have taken pity on my scuffed, shabby, and bandaged appearance, though, because they didn't shoot me so much as a troubled glance in my direction and a short you should know better before ushering me out of the office.
Our sentence? Cleaning duty, starting today.
"Those old fogeys," Naruto grumbled under his breath after the last child had filtered out of the classroom. Sunset cut across the empty room in a harsh beam of orange sunlight. I stuck my bandaged hand out into it experimentally, noticing the callouses and scars that were already present along the exposed fingers of my wrapped hands. It seemed that the scars of my breakdown were starting to fade, bit by bit, but I couldn't say I was feeling any different than yesterday, or the day before that.
And yet, time soldiered on while I remained still. The warm evening sunbeam on my palm reminded me that summer in Konoha was nearly upon us again. Last year at this time, what was I doing? Had I been with Shuu? Nearly every memory I'd made in the past seven years had been connected to him in some way. I was a little lost as to how to go about making new ones now that he was gone.
Naruto's bandaged face dipped into view, blinding blue eyes peering at me. "Don't leave me to do all the work, Futaba-chan!" he whined. "If I stand on your shoulders, I should be able to reach the top of the board!"
"I'm not sure about that," I replied.
"No, trust me, I'm really light!"
As it turned out, Naruto was rather light. My knees, however, were pathetically weak after skimping on my daily training sessions and hardly eating for the past few weeks. We made it one step before my legs buckled and I sent the blonde boy tumbling down onto the ground for the second time that day.
One thorough and chaotic board-cleaning later, I entered my apartment, half-expecting to hear Imiki humming and be hit by the scent of her cooking, but it was completely quiet when I closed the door behind me. The lights were off, too. Maybe this morning had been a freak one-time occurrence after all.
I set my empty satchel down by the door and started flipping on light switches, searching for Imiki.
After scouring the whole apartment, I entered her room with an inexplicable apprehension. It was as empty as the rest of the place was, but even more strange was the noticeable lack of weapons in the racks that framed the window. "Not here, either…" I huffed. "That's weird."
I doubled back and returned to the kitchen with growing concern until a piece of paper on the fridge caught my eye. It was in Imiki's handwriting. I immediately stood up and snatched the note from the fridge.
Futaba-chan,
Meet me at the gates of the village when you see this.
Imiki
"The gates…?" My worry had quickly morphed into alarm, and I dropped everything I had on me and made a beeline for the front door.
The sun had already disappeared below the horizon when I briskly made my way down the main street of Konoha, meaning the whole way was drenched with shadows that grew darker and longer with each passing moment. I had a terrible sensation of deja vu that I just couldn't shake, even if I knew that the situation was different this time, that there were no other significant genocides I had to be aware of at this point in the timeline, that this was Imiki we were talking about anyway.
When I approached the main gates that towered over the surrounding buildings, I first noticed Waki standing in the alley between two buildings, his bright hair identifying him like a beacon. Gritting my teeth, I jogged closer, seeing Imiki standing behind him.
"Imiki-nee," I called once I was close enough, wandering into the alley. "What's going on?"
"Futaba-chan, you got my note," Imiki said gleefully. Were her eyes glowing? No, it must have been a trick of the light. With a bright smile, she rested a hand against the wall of the shop on one side of us.
"Why is Waki…?" I glared at the man before I could stop myself. Whenever he was involved, it couldn't be anything good. "You shouldn't be outside in your condition, Imiki-nee…"
"Don't worry, Futaba-chan, I feel fine—in fact, I feel better than I have in ages. You know why?" Imiki smiled even wider, if possible. "Because we'll finally be leaving tonight."
Thud.
My heart stopped for a moment. I couldn't conjure up any sort of response, gaping at my aunt who seemingly just lost it.
"Yes, Futaba-chan. We're leaving Konoha." Waki chipped in like he had any say in this at all.
"L-leaving? Why…? For how long? I-I have school tomorrow." The questions finally found their way out of my throat.
"Forever," Imiki stated simply, drawing closer to me and clasping her hands around my shoulders gently. "Listen, Futaba—forget about school. Waki knows of a place that will be so much better for us than Konoha. We'll go there together, and then we'll call that place home—doesn't that sound nice?"
I shook my head numbly, Imiki's grip on my shoulders suddenly feeling suffocatingly tight. "I-I don't understand…"
With a forlorn look in her eyes that clashed unsettlingly with her strained smile, Imiki spoke. "You know, after we left Ame, my sister and I thought our troubles were over. But little did we know this place was no better than Ame, even if it pretends to be a shining example of all the ninja villages. Well, here, we shinobi are still just their tools, their nameless weapons, to be thrown away without honour once we break! My sister…your mother fought against the expectations of the bastards in government, fought against all the accusations of her being a spy and eventually died for this village, but nobody even knows her name," she spat venomously. "Sent last-minute on a mission she was nowhere near prepared to take—it was practically suicide. But she still did it anyway, because she…she loved this village. Turns out she loved it much more than it ever loved her—all she got for her sacrifice was her name on a rock in the middle of the forest!"
The silence that followed Imiki's words was deafening. Her hands on my shoulders were getting concerningly shaky.
After collecting herself, Imiki continued in a lower, resigned tone. "I can't stay here in this wretched village. First, I lost Rurae, then Tairo...I can't stay in this village that discards its shinobi like pawns, even going so far as to premeditate the extermination of one of their most valuable clans…"
Imiki knows.
The world came back into sharp focus as the floor gave out from beneath me. She knew? How did Imiki know that the Uchiha Incident had been an inside job? Only a handful of people in all of Konoha knew that—and all of those people were extremely high-up in the village government. She could have been killed for this information.
My aunt finally released me and righted herself, glancing up at the sky as if gaging the time. "We're leaving."
It finally sunk in that this was no joke. "N-no," I exclaimed before I could stop myself. "I'm not going…!"
"I'm not losing you too, Futaba. You're all I have left. Don't you see?" Imiki advanced toward me with a dark look on her face. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears and strained in that strange half-grimace, half-smile expression, but I could see earnestness in them, too. "This village never cared for us. Where Waki says we can go, everyone is just like us, outcasts of the five great nations, and we'll be safe there! They'll even make sure we never burn ourselves again! Doesn't that sound great? Hm?"
I no longer comprehended what Imiki was saying, my mind running a mile a minute to try and figure out how to get out of this. I was unarmed, outnumbered, and vastly out-powered, meaning I couldn't just flat-out make a break for it—one academy student wouldn't last a second against two jounin.
"I can't go," I repeated lamely. Clenching my fists, I watched as my aunt flinched as if stricken, but I still stood my ground.
It was strange. I'd come into this world desperately trying to avoid anything to do with canon out of fear, but what had I been afraid of? It all seemed so small now. Everything I'd agonized over a month ago was as inconsequential as the dust in the wind, because the worst thing that could possibly happen to me had already happened. I'd tried to give up on all of this once before, and all I'd gotten to show for it was swimmer's ear. I was done.
The cold facts were that trying to run away from what I knew led me here. And for that, I'd always have blood on my hands. But it didn't have to be that way for others I knew—Hinata's face flashed through my mind, then Naruto's, and even Sasuke's. Shirotane—people I didn't want to leave behind. People that I had forgotten in my delirious would-be last moments not long ago, people that I could still do something about if I held on.
If I stayed.
I may have been useless so far, but I'd be even more useless if I left. And I may not have known what exactly it was I could even do, but I'd be utterly powerless if I wasn't here. Konoha was all I knew. This was the only place I had even a faint glimmer of hope of surviving in.
My hands shook as I maintained my glare at my aunt. "I'm staying."
"Don't be unreasonable, Futaba-chan," Imiki argued. "You'll make friends wherever we end up going. It'll be better for all of us in the long run—"
"No!" I insisted, backing away. "I'm staying in Konoha! I—I'll scream!" As soon as the threat left my lips I knew it was a mistake.
Imiki's shoulders dropped in disappointment before she nodded at Waki, who surged forward so quickly I could hardly process it. He reached behind my neck in the blink of an eye, and after a brief sharp pain, my eyes rolled to the back of my head, a spiteful thought about just how much I'd gotten knocked out in the past year died before it could fully form, and things went black.
apologies for the lack of updates recently, my best friend very suddenly and unexpectedly passed away two weeks ago and i sort of shut down for the rest of the week. then the next week was spent getting my ass kicked by school and trying desperately to catch up with what i'd missed ..
then over the past few days i managed to finally rewrite this chapter, it's a little longer so i hope it makes up for the absence a bit
please stay safe and healthy out there
alts
