Disclaimer: I own nothing but the general plot and OCs
What even is this chapter. Seriously, I had an idea of what was going to happen in this chapter to progress the story, and then this came out instead. I don't even like it. I just gave up getting this chapter on track after over 3000 and called it quits.
I'll try again on the next one.
Anyway, no editing apologies for mistakes.
English speaking is underlines as always.
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Chapter 33 - I Got The Magic In Me
Despite the fact that I had learned already to suppress my chakra, to direct it toward or away from my eyes to control my dōjutsu, and to stick a leaf to my forehead - all of these things had either no visual effect or one that could be fairly easily replicated with some trickery in my original world. Suppressing chakra was all about internal feelings and senses, and with some know how one could be convinced into feeling the most outrageous things that had no bearing on reality.
Sticking a leaf to my forehead was really not the most outlandish thing I had ever seen, and could easily be replicated with glue or a small amount of double sided sticky tape, or even sap from the tree it was plucked from. The eyes, while too detailed -and frankly quite freaky looking -to be copied by contacts accurately, were still something I could easily wrap my head around thanks to the numerous coloured and patterned contacts that had existed in my old world - and the even better versions that existed in this one. These had been the only applications of chakra I had learned until DFB taught me about henge, kawarimi and bunshin.
Perhaps it happened the way it did because we started with henge first, and although I kept it well suppressed, every time I looked in the mirror I was reminded of my issues with this body and the face I wore. It was difficult enough on some days not to irrationally claw at the pink-toned peachy skin on the too-small shoulders, just to see if I could peel it away like a layer of dried school glue, to find a comfortably familiar wheat colour underneath - of nebulous heritage that so few people had ever been able to correctly guess - that was was the well loved marker of multiple generations stubbornly falling into scandalous marriages to produce daughters and sons even more rebellious than their forebearers.
Most days I could look at the (always too young) face I saw in my reflection and examine it objectively. As nothing more than another tool in my disposal, micro expressions to be honed and practiced just as any other shinobi art. In my best moments I felt a warm curl in my chest when I saw the the Hatake genes so strong and present in me, and was proud to think of DFB and Hatake Sakumo and believe 'that's mine. I carry that with me'. But just as often, I quietly ached for the loss of my family, and saw that loss stare back at me in the paler skin and hair and in the still alien body I wore.
So perhaps it was because we started with henge first. Either way, I was relieved that when I finally managed to wrestle past my own barriers and mentally bash my chakra into submission enough to achieve that first henge, I was at home with only DFB around. Partially out of a secret desire to show DFB, partially out of the intimate detail I could most easily remember out of any possible form, and partly out of morbid curiosity to see if I could, the first henge I achieved was not the face of anyone from Konoha or even the Elemental Nations, but of a dusky wheat toned young woman whose face and body had belonged to my original world.
I succeeded with my first henge with tired triumph, and after DFB told me with a pleased eye smile that I had finally done it he faltered slightly afterward asking who I had henged into, with no recognition for the person I was disguised as. I caught my reflection in the balcony doors with slight anticipation clenching my gut, the fading light outside allowing the glass to serve as a decent enough mirror. My heart yanked painfully against my ribs, and there was a sharp ringing in my ears as I stared at the familiar stranger in the glass. She stared back, her eyes widening with mine, and her body freezing in tandem, as my eyes locked on a ghost.
Adrenaline crashed through my system and I was distantly aware of my pulse beating in my ears competing with the ringing noise, as her face went alarmingly grey. My throat convulsed as I swallowed and I watched as hers did the same.
I had seen DFB and Gai and Tenzō perform seemingly impossible feats - move at speeds my eyes couldn't comprehend, breathe fire with nothing more than a gesture, shape the earth around them at a whim, form water and direct it against the force of gravity, harness and create and control lightening, and weaponise the very air. I had also seen magicians in my old world awe with seemingly impossible feats in the same vein - perhaps not identical and certainly not designed for anything more than showmanship, but visually impressive nonetheless.
I had watched fantasy based films with increasingly advanced special effects until sometimes even the most amazing of them seemed almost mundane. I knew it was all real in this new life, compared the trickery and performance and effects in my old one, but visually they were not so different from each other and I had easily taken it all in stride once it became tangible and even deadly.
This was nothing like that. This was closer to being the magician on magic shows intending to react as though what they were doing wasn't fake to help everyone buy into the act, and then realising as it happened that the magic was real. Or like being a method actor, fully immersed into the role and living it, expecting the special effects to be added in afterward, or to be noticeably fake behind the camera, and caught off guard when it became obvious that method acting wasn't going to be enough because this was reality and had been the whole time.
That wasn't even including the dead girl I couldn't take my eyes away from. If I moved I was certain she would disappear and I would lose everything all over again. Everything shuddered and shook around me, and a flicker of thought raced across my brain that perhaps it the world was in protest of two of the same person existing at once from two different points in time. Her and me. I felt suddenly like I had been stolen from my own body and was looking at it, painfully separated from myself and never able to return. Not to my body, and not to my life.
A warm pressure appeared on my shoulder and it took me a beat too long to recognise DFB's hand. His face appeared in my vision, blocking out my view of the other me. He stared for long seconds and after a moment of pure anger that he was standing in the way of what I needed to see, and had probably made me lose it forever, I was able to think past my feelings and listen past the ringing in my ears to notice that he was talking to me.
His face finally focussed into view and I recognised the sharp concern in his eyes, and the intensity of his voice as he tried to get me to respond. I realised it wasn't the world shaking, but me.
"Su-chan. Su-chan, say something to me. What's wrong?"
I took a stuttering breath, and resisted the urge to lean around DFB to check the balcony doors, keeping my eyes trained on his.
"I- it's me."
"What?" He asked, brows furrowed in confusion.
"I was surprised by the face. It's... my face."
It took a few moments, but I saw the realisation bloom across his features, and then double in intensity. Curiosity warred with lingering concern on his face as he looked over me again, taking in the henge more carefully.
In lieu of saying anything that might upset me further, DFB softened and asked, "Maa, I thought you said you were around twenty?"
"I look about fifteen, don't I?" I asked with a shaky attempt at smile.
"Maybe a year younger than that," he confirmed, "why don't you drop the henge. You can practice more later, and you're still shaking."
I almost said no, scared that if I did I would never see my face again, and I wasn't ready for that. But I was also cold and tired and feeling wobbly inside, so I swallowed and nodded, allowing the henge to drop and seeing out of the edges of my vision the change of colour and shape of my nose and the tops of my cheekbones.
DFB put a hand to the side of my face and commented quietly, "you're pale and cold, and you feel clammy."
I was lifted into his arms, briefly spotting the once more tiny pale child in the glass. I surprised both of us when tears welled up in my eyes and dripped down my cheeks. Frustration at my own tears only made them fall faster, and my chest seemed to twist around itself painfully as I drowned in an overwhelming grief.
DFB didn't say anything - after that first time with my dojutsū activating he never did during the few times I had cried - and sat on to sofa with me, as I hid my face against his chest and ruined his clothing. I didn't know how long it was before I felt calm and empty, if slightly shaken, but eventually I shifted away from the wet patch, and quietly stared off to the side content not to think for a little while as DFB soothingly scritched my scalp.
"Thanks," I rasped after some time. DFB hummed in response, still reading his Icha Icha to give me a sense of privacy in my own grief.
"Sorry," I added.
"Don't apologise."
Regardless, I still felt like I owed him an explanation, "I knew I was practising a henge for my own face, but it didn't really land that it meant I would be seeing it again until I was looking at my reflection. I was caught off guard. And... I miss the people who knew me by that face. I miss my sisters especially.
"But most of all, I miss my face and body reflecting my age. I know I looked much younger, but I knew how to make myself look twenty without much work. I don't mind this body a lot of the time... but I- it's a struggle to be so young physically. I'm never going to be accepted properly amongst those my age because they'll always consider themselves my elders, and I'm always going to feel so much older than those my physical age.
"A lot of the time I feel caught in between two ages, never belonging to either. Maybe it won't matter so much when this body reaches adulthood, but for now it does. It makes me worry... that- that one day I will outlive you and Gai, and Tenzō and Genma and all the other people I feel more comfortable around because of how old they are, and I'll be alone."
There was a long silence, and I knew DFB was thinking over what I had said. It taken a few conversations for us to get there initially, but in time he had come to understand that unless I asked directly, most of the time I didn't want him try to fix my problems - I just wanted him to listen and maybe offer some advice. I too had come to understand that regardless of if I just wanted him to listen, if DFB had a solution he knew or strongly suspected would solve my issue he would do something about it. There wasn't a quick fix to this though, and he knew that too.
"People grow up here faster. I know it's a struggle now, with you being so young in Konoha, but I think when those who will consider you their peer get to the age of around fourteen to sixteen this will be less of a concern to you."
I made an affirmative noise in reply and said nothing more. We sat there for some minutes, me taking comfort in DFB's presence, and DFB enjoying being able to provide me with what I needed just by being there. I knew without him saying that DFB would have preferred me not to attempt a henge again until tomorrow, but after the warmth had returned to my limbs and my thoughts had settled into its familiar tempo a slowly building anticipation grew within me, urging me to try again.
It settled into my mind that I had just cast a motherfucking bonafide illusion. No tricks. No faking. I had genuinely done magic. Chakra. Whatever. It excited the hell out of me and having recovered from the shock of my first success, I was raring to go again.
Despite DFB's reluctance, he made no move to stop me when I made my intentions clear, and although it took me a few more tries to get it right, before long DFB was standing in front of a copy of himself, Icha Icha and all. Of course the illusion was ruined slightly by the fact that I couldn't keep still, and kept wiggling around in my excitement. It made for a strangely funny image when I saw it in the glass doors.
From then on, there was no stopping me from practicing henge, bunshin and kawarimi in my spare time. I was mildly disappointed to discover that my initial breakthrough didn't make the other techniques come to me any faster, but that initial taste was enough to keep my enthusiasm up until I got them right.
Working with Genma on poisons in the midst of all that was a welcome break. Poisons was, beyond practicing with senbon to be able to pierce the correct area, not a physical pursuit. Unlike the academy material, it was challenging too. I had to learn not just what the poison was composed of, not just how to make it or source it, but exactly why it worked the way it worked on the body, how to quickly adjust the amount used depending on desired effect or size of the target. I had to learn the various known poisons associated with different regions, and sometimes associated with different shinobi or teams.
I wasn't allowed to work with a poison until I had learned how to make and apply its antidote at a speed that suited Genma, as well as how to recognise a poison used by its symptoms. His books that he kept at his place were filled with material that I devoured at a rate I knew surprised him. I only occasionally had to ask Genma what certain words meant, and after a while, once I found a dictionary specifically for shinobi medical terminology with a thick section on poisons, I didn't need to ask him any more questions beyond to occasionally expand or clarify on certain points.
Genma was a constant pleasure to work with, and I was surprised he'd not been asked to teach Genin students before. He was always supportive and warm, even when he was acting aggravated by my DFB-like tendencies. Genma excelled at carrying a conversation without almost ever talking in depth about himself, he always sounded genuinely interested by what came out of other people's mouths, impressed by their accomplishments no matter how small, and regretful for their failures.
He was almost always smiling, with a joke hovering at the edge of his mouth, and was constantly one comment away from laughing. He was tactile, but not in an invasive manner, and gentle, but completely self confident in his own abilities and knowledge. He was also a consummate flirt with anyone that caught his fancy, which I knew definitely did not include me (thank god), but that demeanour bled through slightly into his day to day interactions.
It was impossible to get rid of the huge stinking crush I had on him. But at least after a few weeks I managed to shove it down far enough that it didn't get in the way of learning from him too much. It didn't fool DFB, who barely managed to hide his own horror of the situation on some days, but then again, I figured if I had to suffer from an unwanted crush, he could suffer alongside me.
It helped when I wasn't alone with Genma, and had to keep it together in front of another person, and so Tenzō began to join us a lot of the time once I had the basics down, in order to act as a buffer, as well as to help me combine poisons and traps. The debates we got into, while probably disturbing for anyone who might have passed us by while we talked, were highly enjoyable, and something I had missed being a part of.
DFB and I occasionally debated, but with most things shinobi related, he was vastly superior in knowledge and so it was less of a debate and more of a lesson. Tenzō and Genma had not previously combined their areas of passion and so to be able to partake in the conversations with ideas that had genuine merit and were somewhat original, for all that I still knew far less than them, made me look forward all the more to the next time we'd be together.
Once Gai, who had been gone for over a week on a mission, came back and picked up my physical training and conditioning once more, DFB received a summons to the Hokage. It was the same time as it had been a year ago, and all of us knew what he was going to be asked. Unlike last year, when his reluctance came largely from my recovery, this year his reluctance came from his desire to keep training me. Outside of Genma, who I knew was slowly picking it up from the small inadvertent hints we gave away in his presence, we all knew that there was a reason I was being trained so hard, even if only I knew what that exact reason was as of yet.
Like the year before, he agreed on the condition that the Genin team pass the bell test and like the year before, they failed. I knew they would, and DFB had been certain they would, too. He came back from the Genin team test, and whether he had already planned it, or he had seen something in the Genin team that prompted him, I was told he was going to start to different exercises with me that would become two of the most important methods for learning the Hatake fighting style.
They were two methods, he said, that were almost ridiculous in their universal use by almost all shinobi, but the Hatake clan had learned how to train themselves above the others in their application. I was already being taught the Hatake way of learning hand to hand, specially catered for my body shape and size, and I had been trained into the dirt to break past mental barriers I hadn't known were there. Beyond that, it was now apparently time to start putting into practice all the other things I had been taught along the way; henge, kawarimi, bunshin, chakra suppression, traps, kunai and shuriken and senbon throwing, poisons, awareness.
Sorry for the crappy chapter, but at least I got a bit of poison stuff in there.
On the plus side, I've done all the possible prevaricating I could do regarding this section of the story, so next one should do more to progress the story.