Out of the Ashes

Chapter 20

Talk the Walk

Kyuketsu must have read my mind about the things that made me uncomfortable. First of all, fuck his spiders. Second of all, he decided that the onsen would be perfect for relaxing me and taking away any stress that could be causing my nightmares. I told Kyuketsu his idea was stupid but Bu thought it was a great idea. The little shit just wanted to go to the onsen himself. At least Kyuketsu hasn't used fire against me yet, right?

I mean, I'm not complaining. Considering what I learned about Bu and Onna, the upcoming Chunin Exams, and my nightmares I really needed to take a chill pill. I was a walking pile of anxiety.

However it was awkward because there was no way in hell that I would go into the mixed bathing area. I refused when Bu and Kyuketsu suggested it. Typically it was the old people who used the mixed bathes because they didn't give a single fuck. There was a fence separating the men and women's sections so we decided we would just meet up at the fence and talk through it.

I was pretty lucky because there weren't any women washing up when I cleaned myself beforehand. Although a few women did come in as I was leaving so I hurried the fuck out of there. In the actual spring area though there were a few groups of women chatting quite happily. I could already feel a light blush dusting my cheeks.

I hugged my towel tight as I inched around the hot spring. I tried not to stare at the other women, because that would just feel awkward to me, as I edged towards the fence. When I made it I slowly tested the water with my toes and sank in slowly. I removed my towel as I sank in because it was considered rude if you let your towel touch the water. I folded it up and placed it on my head and leaned back against the wall as I waited to hear Kyuketsu and Bu's voices.

I could feel the water soothing my body as I waited and I closed my eyes. By the time Bu and Kyuketsu got there I was dozing off. Of course Bu made sure I was awake before he started talking a mile a minute about something. I couldn't really hear them very well so I started to doze off again pretty soon. It was a pretty long time before Bu realized I was snoozing and tried to wake me up again. Kyuketsu advised him against it as I needed my relaxation to cure my nightmares.

How do you cure a nightmare, by the way. It's not really a condition, is it?

Anyway, Bu and Kyuketsu eventually woke me up because they started messing around and got yelled at by some of the other bathers.

I had a pretty rude awakening after that too. See, I could sleep through Bu and Kyuketsu getting scolded. I could not sleep through what felt like roaming eyes on my body.

So I woke up because I opened my eyes and found someone who could only be Jiraiya perched on the roof of the onsen, staring down at the women's bath. I shrieked on instinct and immediately the other women followed my eyes and also tried to cover up. A few swore angrily at Jiraiya and he just hopped down and casually stopped by me.

Jiraiya grinned down at me with his eyes paying attention to the other, older, bathers, "Your sensei is looking for you and your teammates."

I growled, "And you couldn't have told the boys on the men's side!?"

He laughed and his eyes flicked in my direction but they didn't remain, "What fun is that?"

Long story short about fifteen minutes later we were all at our training grounds with Kinoe looking sheepish. He was probably kicking himself for sending Jiraiya after his students when they were visiting the onsen. Jiraiya looked very proud of himself as he looked between us all. Kyuketsu was about as dead to the world as he usually was but Bu was very disgruntled with Jiraiya after his stunt in the woman's side of the onsen. I was still pretty embarrassed and I was plotting Jiraiya's downfall as Kinoe rubbed the back of his head.

"Hey kids, guess what?" Kinoe chirped, trying to pump excitement into us with his own peppiness, "Chunin exams!"

Kinoe, in an attempt to get a response from us, suddenly had three paper forms in his hand. He fanned them out and waved them like a fan at himself. He rose an eyebrow when none of us responded.

Kyuketsu nodded and hummed after observing the forms for a few seconds, "As expected."

"You expected this?" Bu questioned as his own face lit up at the news, "Man this is gonna be awesome!"

I glared daggers into Kinoe's head as various simulations of what could potentially happen ran through my head and he ruffled my hair without looking, "Don't worry, Hime! Your cute twin will also be in the exams."

I coughed, "What."

How did that make things any better? In fact, as I further thought on the matter, that made things slightly worse! What would Orochimaru do if he had to choose between Uchiha? Also, Sasuke was totally nowhere near ready! Neither was Sakura or Naruto.

Kinoe nodded and as if reading my troubled mind, demurred, "Kakashi is taking them on their first C rank this week and then he'll probably submit them after that."

"Ooh, Uchiha rivalry." Jiraiya hummed while nodding to himself, "Sounds pretty fiery."

Suddenly reminded Jiraiya was here, I asked flatly, "Why are you still here, pervert."

Jiraiya bounced to his feet when all attention was on him. He posed and flexed for a moment and announced himself as the great toad sage Jiraiya. When that got a lackluster response of just stares, he actually somewhat answered my question, "Why your sensei asked me to come!"

"That still explains nothing." I said, flatly again. I looked at Kinoe and he nodded.

"I asked him to come and train Naruto." Kinoe informed me with an oddly mischievous grin. Jiraiya took a moment to pale and the rest of us exchanged brief glances. I was willing to bet the name Naruto had not been mentioned in their agreement.

"Right, Naruto has been trying to get in touch with you sensei." I thought aloud, "Is this your way of pushing him off?" Kinoe looked slightly offended.

"This is my way of keeping him safe." Kinoe stated with no room for further argument from myself. He bowed his head to Jiraiya and begged, "Please, take care of Naruto for the exams."

"I don't know, I'm not a kid person-" Jiraiya began but Kinoe cut him off with a whiny voice, "But rasengan!"

"Kinoe-"

"You know you should!"

"Kinoe-"

"You're his godfather!"

"You're his uncle-!"

"Jiraaaaaiiiyaaaaa!"

From there Kinoe, with the lungs of a god, proceeded to draw out the end of Jiraiya's name for a legendary amount of time. He progressively started to get higher in pitch until his voice finally cracked and there was a pleasant moment of silence. Kyuketsu fell backwards off his perch, possibly dead, and Bu smacked the side of his head a couple times to make sure his ears hadn't broken before Kinoe's voice.

I sighed in relief.

But then Kinoe's mouth opened and he took a great big inhale before starting again. However Jiraiya's huge hand clamped down over Kinoe's mouth before he could even reach the end of the first syllable.

"Fine! But you're teaching him everything else!"

Through Jiraiya's hand, Kinoe mumbled, "Nd' eh teohds?"

Jiraiya moaned and somehow translated the mumbles, "Yes, and the toads."

"Pweasure doin' bwuisness."

Jiraiya looked like he was reminded why he didn't contact Kinoe often. Or visit at all. To be honest I was also reminded why Kinoe was generally thought of as the village pariah.

Back to business, I turned to Bu and gave him an exaggerated thumbs up, "Your ears are still working."

"Are they?" he replied airily, "Honestly still hear a ringing."

From the floor Kyuketsu agreed with a grunt. It was good to see he was alive.

Kyuketsu eventually sat up when Kinoe handed our paperwork out and we spent some time filling things out. By now we all had most of the information we needed memorized, especially our ID numbers, so the hardest part was Kinoe had to fill in our stats. For the most part statistically I was unchanged from training with Kakashi. But really I had vastly improved and I wasn't sure why my numbers hadn't changed. Bu had gone up quite a bit and Kyuketsu jumped up a number or two.

"You were pretty overestimated when you worked under Kakashi. Your numbers won't change for awhile so don't be discouraged, Hime." Kinoe informed me, yet again as if he had read my mind. I gave him an 'aa' for a response.

Kinoe suddenly gasped dramatically, "I almost forgot!"

We all looked at him in confusion. He pointed at me and stage whispered, "The hns!"

"The hns?" I repeated, very confused.

"The hns!" Kinoe insisted again. Jiraiya took this moment to escape with a shunshin. I kind of wished I had been able to do the same. Bu and Kyuketsu shared a glance and stepped back, leaving me to Kinoe's sudden odd tangent. Turns out they were right to step back as Kinoe latched onto me.

Kinoe shook me by the shoulders and in a voice only the two of us could hear, gasped, "The fanfiction Uchiha noises! The hns! The occasional aa or ah!"

It took me a few seconds to figure out what he was talking about. When I did eventually remember the infamous Sasuke hn of fanfiction that I read when I was fourteen I nodded in slight realization.

"I... see." I murmured before a devilish glee rose inside me, "Hn."

"I've created a monster!" Kinoe wailed while not looking upset in the slightest, "Oh the horror! What if Sasuke catches this terrible fate?"

"He probably already has it and I just haven't noticed it." I confessed. Now that we were no longer whispering in conspiracy, my teammates could join the conversation if they wanted to. Kyuketsu clearly did not.

"Can you enlighten us now?" Bu questioned while quirking his brow.

I pushed Kinoe's arms off my shoulders and gave a sympathetic nod to Bu, "Aa, they're apparently sounds Uchiha used to make back in his day."

"Are you calling me old?" Kinoe questioned.

Bu and I were apparently on the same page as together we agreed, "Positively ancient."

Kyuketsu hummed in bemused agreement, "Archaic."

.

When I got home from goofing off with my team Sasu was packing for his C rank already. I quietly stood in the doorway as he packed clothes and camping gear. When he turned around and found me there he didn't even jump, "We have our first C rank."

"Hn, that's nice." I replied, trying to sound as Uchiha as possible. Sasu did give me an odd look but he didn't comment. I thought the hn made me sound very stoic and aloof. Like, that hn clearly meant I was disregarding anyone else's feelings but my own nonexistent ones.

Clearly.

I helped Sasu pack some odd necessities that he didn't think he needed, such as pajamas which was rather odd. I wasn't sure why he didn't think he'd need pajamas considering the time frame they were given to pack for was a week.

Sasu tried to defend himself, "They could weigh me down."

"Right. A pair of pajamas is going to weigh you down." I replied dryly. I didn't roll my eyes at him but I'm sure he knew that I internally was.

When Sasu was all good and packed we started on dinner. Sasu did a double take when he saw I was actually using the apron Onna had forced onto me the other day. Sasu stopped being weird and returned to setting the table when I brought out the food. As we ate Sasu gratefully told me that my side dishes that did not involve my specialty had improved drastically since Onna's boot camp.

I sniffed, "I guess you just don't appreciate me cooking for you."

"No offense sis but you really do need to work on your cooking skills." Sasu replied with an amount of sass I did not appreciate. His punishment was dishes and I went and took my bath. I got out before he could even try sneaking in and that night I slept without any nightmares or dreams. I woke up several times feeling restless but the next morning my body felt better than it had in a long time. It was probably the onsen that did that.

Sasu left for his mission and I saw him off at the gates. The week he was gone was a pretty long one. It wasn't long in that I missed him or worried about him. Not to say I didn't worry about him because I knew he would have one hell of a mission just based off Team Seven's luck with missions. No, my week was filled with Onna.

Onna was like the wind in that she could get through the slightest crack and bother you. But Onna was not just that nice little breeze or the window screaming at you. She could be a goddamn hurricane if she wanted to and that was the week she put me through. I don't know why, and I don't think I will ever know why, Onna put me through an entire week on being a lady. I could say it was because she decided I was going to give her Uchiha grand babies with Bu, but that wasn't quite it. I'm sure if ever asked, Onna would say, "My baby boy needs a wife who can keep up with him!" But that just wasn't the case.

Bu tagged along for the week and day three Kyuketsu joined. Everyday Onna loaded me down with cookbooks and taught me how to make different things. Bu was probably about twenty pounds heavier after that week because Onna didn't believe in wasting food and everything that she and I didn't eat was forced into her son. By that I mean Bu was treated as the garbage can where anything we couldn't finish after sampling would go. The poor guy would probably never look at food the same way ever again.

For the first two days Onna did the basics of everything with me. She taught me how to knit, sew and embroider. Bu, when he wasn't dying in a food coma, loved this lesson because he could assist in it. It was honestly amazing what Onna and Bu could do with some fabric, a needle and thread. Onna walked me through basic patching, how to make a scarf, and we embroidered my name onto a patch that went on one of Itachi's old shirts that I usually wore to bed.

Day three Kyuketsu joined us for the first lesson on acting like a lady. Onna believed in harsh punishment so whenever I did something unladylike I was treated accordingly. She caught me swearing twice and the first time was a warning which I thought was a bluff. I didn't think Onna would actually make me eat soap. Then she caught me the second time and she made me eat soap. Onna did not catch me swearing again.

Onna also decided I needed to learn how to walk in a feminine way. I thought I looked ridiculous as I tried to copy Onna with her swinging hips and peppy step. Bu was smothering his laughter while Kyuketsu did the job Onna assigned him. Kyuketsu was to fuck me up in any way he wanted to try. He could bump into me, throw something at me, talk to me. Kyuketsu did a variety of other things too like detonating one of Bu's horrendous stink concoctions and finding some harmless garden spiders to chase me with.

I almost killed him.

Day four Kyuketsu blossomed. Onna spent that day focusing on medicine, herbs and plants. Kakashi for the most part got me out of kunoichi classes in the academy. Even if he didn't get me out of a class I always said I had to deal with Kakashi that day. I probably went to a grand total of like four classes. Onna was very not impressed and she tried her damn hardest to cram several different flower languages into my lesser brain and I had to taste every herb that wouldn't immediately kill me.

"This reminds me of the herbs from Wave." I gagged as I retched up some unholy poison that Onna swore wouldn't kill me. She tsked and made a mark on a paper.

Kyuketsu looked up from where he was sorting Onna's herb reserve peacefully, "Yes, you're very bad at this."

Bu wasn't too good at this either though so he was pretending he didn't exist and was knitting in the corner. In the basket beside him were three more starts to scarves. One was Onna's and hers was almost done, a good two feet longer than the rest of them. Hers, along with Bu's, looked like the kind of scarf you would buy in the store. Kyuketsu's started off a bit rough but evened out as he got used to it. Mine looked like something the cat dragged in but if you looked at the bottom there were far less strands out of place. Knitting and sewing was kind of cathartic and I found I didn't mind it as much as I thought I did.

"Fushicho-chan pay attention. You're going to try oleander next. Feel the texture-"

I groaned but complied.

Day five Onna made sure I wouldn't kill myself making the medicinal pastes she was teaching me. Alongside the pastes were some simple poisons and Bu gave me some choice recipes for some of the things he could make. Of course Onna just sighed and told me no gunpowder until I could make something else without fucking up. The rest of day five I learned how to do an actual tea ceremony and Kyuketsu was vaguely interested in this while Bu took a nap after finishing his scarf. She also made sure my manners were good and believe me, they were great if I wanted them to be. I had learned basic etiquette from Momma.

Day six was the last day of training and Onna kicked Bu and Kyuketsu out for day six.

Onna looked pretty menacing as she held a cutesy pink box up in front of me, "Welcome to The Talk."

"Oh my god." was my first response. My second response was a repeat of the first when I realized she was serious.

I did try and get out of it after telling her I went through this all before but she blatantly ignored me. I don't want to linger on the topic but Onna walked me through how to handle kunoichi pills when I needed them as well as the female necessities in this world. It was pretty much the same as I was used to though so I didn't particularly care. I honestly lost it when Onna held up a condom and we took a break then. After the basic Talk was done we had lunch.

After lunch, Onna once again stood in front of me with a terrifying look. I scooted back a bit, concerned over what could possibly be next.

"Fushicho-chan, when a kunoichi starts to mature the hospital recommends seduction classes." Onna began and I almost fell off my chair, "Now you learn a lot of interesting things in this class including how to seduce, how to cope if you do enter the seduction corps, how to please a man-"

Onna politely paused when I gave a strangled noise in response. The rest of her lecture included some interesting things when I wasn't screaming about some of the more raunchy, mature topics. Of course I was a high school senior when I died in my last life so you know I had experience in dating and all that. My experiences weren't that great because I wasn't all that attractive and if you think Fushicho is a nasty brat, you should have seen Veronica in her glory. So while I talk the talk pretty well, I haven't walked the walk. Also, do you know how awkward Onna was making this? Really awkward. Beyond awkward. I would be scarred for life.

I did learn some interesting things that didn't make me scream though. Onna explained that the seduction classes covered how to cover as a geisha or a courtesan. Generally they gave assignments to kunoichi to learn instruments such as the lute, shamisen, flute, and harp. A kunoichi's acting skills were polished during the course so that a kunoichi could shed her face like at the flip of a switch. In seconds they could transform into someone else without a single thought to it.

Onna decided she really wanted to see how red she could make my face though and focused on getting me to walk in a feminine way.

"Fushicho-chan, you're going to be nicely figured when you mature." Onna commented as she watched me almost trip over a book on the floor in my attempts to not drop the books on my head.

I shrugged while my face was definitely dusted in pink, "We'll see."

"You're probably going to get your first menstrual period soon too." Onna added as she put her hands on my hips, "You're starting to fill out here and you're starting to get taller than the boys."

I gave her another shrug, "When it happens it happens. It was nice not having it."

"A woman's lot is to suffer." Onna murmured, "Nonetheless, you should start dressing appropriately."

I groaned and lost the books on my head from the instinctual response of throwing my head back in displeasure. I caught them easily and gave Onna what I could only classify as a begging puppy look. But Onna firmly put her foot down.

"Uchiha Fushicho you stop wearing your brothers clothes and wear that nice battle kimono I got you."

I whined, "But it's so much hassle to put on!"

"These," Onna pat my hips again before gesturing to her own chest, "And these will be great assets one day. Your pretty face will get you far but these will get you further."

I sat down on her couch and kicked my legs up. Onna regarded me for a moment before snapping her fingers.

"Right, I got you some things."

I watched curiously as she lifted a few bags and brought them over to me. When I opened the first one I gasped and immediately closed it, "No you didn't."

"I did." Onna, very cheerfully and proudly, responded.

Inside the bags were various bras and underwear. There were boy shorts and what could only be called period panties. Then there were some regular ones that matched the training bras with cute little girl patterns such as polka dots and strawberries. It was clear who did the shopping in this house considering I just got the girl version of what she got Bu for pajamas and boxers.

"Why spend so much money on me?" I whispered, "I have an entire dead clan's fortune."

Onna pretended not to hear me, "I'm a bit late so I got you regular bras instead of training bras. When you start to fill out more you'll need kunoichi no bounce ones to help you but-"

I repeated myself, "Why spend so much on me when I have so much money and a first life behind me?"

Onna pressed her lips together firmly and she sat down next to me. She pushed a bag into my lap and leaned back. I waited a few seconds to see if she was going to say something and she did, "I wasn't lying when I said I saw a lost little girl. You might have had another life but you died young, right? A teenager. Before Kinoe-kun confirmed it to me I thought you had died young. There was a maturity about you that told me you were older than you appeared, but you didn't have the kind of maturity an adult would have."

"I don't need you to mother me, Onna-san." I told her softly.

"I know. But that doesn't mean it won't help you. Mikoto isn't around to help you adjust to this world so I will stand in her place. I won't be your mother, but that doesn't mean I can't mother you." Onna stood up and plastered a smile across her lips. Again, Onna appeared older than she ever seemed.

"Let me see you model some of your new clothes!"

I paused, "Clothes?"

Turns out, Onna bought me actual clothes too. Onna was dead set on me wearing those short battle kimonos because she got me two more like the original. For civilian clothes she found a white sun dress, a red off the shoulder top, what looked like jeggins, and a blue female cut shirt. Onna made me model each outfit before making sure my underwear things all fit.

Onna is pretty good at planning by the way because I just chillin in her living room with panties and half a shirt on while she altered the shirt so that it fit perfectly. The door opened and Bu and Kyuketsu walked in along with a tall man that I didn't recognize. All three of them froze and Onna just kept doing what she was doing as if she was not exposing a young girl to three guys.

I threw the nearest object at them, which happened to be one of the books, and it clobbered a shocked Kyuketsu in the head. He stumbled back into Bu who stumbled back into the man. The man was rather composed and looked more amused than anything else.

"Oh is it time for our date already, Shouta-kun?" Onna inquired casually.

"I can wait, you're clearly doing something important." the man, Shouta, evenly replied. He took a seat after steadying Bu and Kyuketsu. When Bu and Kyuketsu eventually figured out what they were doing with their life they sprinted like they were being chased upstairs to Bu's room and I heard the door slam.

"Boys." Onna demurred quite happily.

My response to this was, "Mothers."

She laughed, pleased at that answer.

.

I expected there to be complications with Sasu's mission so when I was summoned to the hospital I wasn't as frantic as I could have been. Kakashi met me on my way as an escaped patient and informed me everyone was fine, Sasu just ended up with a concussion after getting his head slammed through a hollow tree trunk. That sounded rather awful and I agreed that sounded like a concussion. When I found Sasu's room I got the rundown on their mission from the entirety of Team Seven.

"Fushicho it was amazing!" Naruto was the first to begin when Sasu was too busy apologizing for getting hurt with his eyes, "We were bringing this guy to this little village when this crazy girl came out of the trees and tried to kill us! Sensei did this disappearing act while I saved the day-!"

Sakura cut him off, "Don't be stupid, Naruto!"

Sasu rolled his eyes, "Yeah, moron. What really happened is while Kakashi-sensei was observing, Naruto and I attacked the girl who came out of the trees. She redirected Naruto into me and Naruto's weight made me fall. After Naruto and I got up it turns out the girl was our clients granddaughter and she came to greet him but got scared when she saw us and thought we were doing something bad to her grandfather."

"No but-" Naruto tried to get another word in but Sakura denied him.

Sakura gushed, "And Sasuke-kun got his sharingan!"

"Oh?" I tilted my head to look at Sasu in curiosity.

Sasu looked embarrassed, "When we were on our way back we got attacked by bandits and I thought one of them was going to kill Naruto. I activated it when I blocked for him, the idiot. That's where the concussion came from."

I grinned maniacally, "Aw, you must really love him then to activate your sharingan over him!"

"Hn, shut up! I thought I was going to die too." Sasu barked back. For a moment I hardly caught the hard hn, but when I did I balked.

"Did you just hn?!" I demanded, remembering Kinoe's obsession.

Sasu snickered, "You do it too. You just don't realize it."

"What!?" I was scandelized.

Naruto nodded, "Yeah! You talk funny with your lisp sometimes and then you say hn like the teme!"

I looked between the three of them and my lip twitched, "I honestly feel so attacked right now. I came here to see my brother and now this is happening to me."

"Get over it. It's not like you care." Sasu told me fondly. Then it seemed like he finally realized what I was wearing.

Sasu inhaled, "Is that the battle kimono Onna-san got you?"

I nodded brightly, quite pleased Sasu looked very disgruntled suddenly. Sakura complimented the outfit while Naruto was amazed I wore something other than stolen shirts and shorts from my brother. For the rest of the visit Sasu looked murderous and I listened to Naruto give the rundown of how they helped solve some village Romeo and Juliet feud between the granddaughter that tried to kill them and her family's political rivals. It sounded very Team Seven so I listened and found it pretty amusing.

Sasu was cleared to go after a medic got around to making sure his concussion was healed. We split from Sakura and Naruto on our way home and Sasu kept giving me what I could only describe as dirty looks.

"Can I help you?" I demanded.

Sasu snorted, "Onna-san got you?"

I nodded, "Sasu, I have been scarred for life this week."

"Oh? Cooking is pretty scarring." Sasu said with fake sympathy. I shoved him in a friendly way and he snickered.

"If anyone is traumatized it's Bu. Onna-san made him eat everything that we couldn't finish. He was the poor overfilled garbage can." I relayed. Sasu looked very pleased and I swore I heard him mutter something about how that was a fitting punishment for Bu. I wasn't sure why Bu was being punished but I assumed it was some kind of guy rivalry the two occasionally got into.

When we reached the compound I paused and looked around. There was a chill in the air that was unfamiliar and caused the hair on my arms to rise up. Sasu, also getting goosebumps, stopped next to me. We scanned the tops of the buildings but we didn't see anything and the entire district, as always, was silent.

"We really need to do something about how creepy it is living in the district by ourselves." I broke the silence with.

Sasu agreed with a hn and I cracked a smile and chuckled. We continued into the district but both of us were clearly pretty creeped out. There wasn't anything we really could do though since we lived there and it was silly for two genin to go running because we're scared of the ghost town district. Our house wasn't too bad because it was straight down the main road and was only really a few blocks away from the gate. Despite us living here a ghost town like this was scary when you were feeling spooked already.

I'd like to say me and Sasu dodged because we're super cool ninja. But really we dodged on accident because Sasu dropped his scroll and bent down to pick it up. I leaned back to snicker about it and that's how the senbon carefully aimed for my neck missed. Immediately I flared my chakra and started to flash it in panic. Sasu did the same and my sharingan spun into place while Sasu took a moment to carefully get his to turn on.

Our attacker was fast but the sharingan was a hack. Sasu looked a bit disoriented after turning his on but I was pretty used to it by now and I had my emergency kunai in my hands. While I do complain about Onna's dumb battle kimono it was actually pretty practical since I could hide weapons up my sleeves, in the fold, or on a thigh holster. I would never tell her that though because then she would buy me more of them.

"Asshole!" I spat as the attacker suddenly engaged me and, faster than I could move, clothes lined Sasu. Technically it wasn't an actual clothes line, it was more he ridge handed Sasu right in the solar plexus. Regardless Sasu choked and had the wind knocked out of him. He stagged back against the wall and the attacker descended upon me. I like to think I'm pretty fast considering other genin's abysmal speed. I've also trained for so long that muscle memory controls some reflexes such as parrying a tanto with a kunai.

I stared at the ANBU mask in pure fear that I'm sure showed on my face.

"What-?" I started to ask but he front kicked me and I flew across the road and slammed into a wall. I exhaled to minimize the effect of the wind getting knocked out of me, rather it felt more like it was violently ripped out of me, and I pushed to my feet. The ANBU only sheathed his tanto and pulled out a seal tag. I vaguely caught the symbol for a knockout tag and suddenly my priority became don't get hit by that tag. I kind of wished I had gone to the academy full time because older kids could play tag with kawarimi and the game doubled as training for evading opponents. However I was glad that I did train under Kakashi because his speed training, along with Kinoe adding to my speed, was what was keeping me from getting knocked the fuck out.

Sasu was leaning against a wall flashing his chakra but no one seemed to notice yet. My game of tag with the ANBU lasted about half a minute before he got close enough where I instinctively reached out for natural chakra and sparked in his direction. The tag sadly did not catch fire but the ANBU did falter at the sudden flash of flames before they disappeared. I took this chance to kawarimi with a board by Sasu. I grabbed onto Sasu and hoped I could kawarimi with another person. I hadn't exactly tried it but what was the worst that could happen?

Now the good news is I reached out as far as I could to kawarimi and I made it to the other side of a building. The bad news is both me and Sasu proceeded to feel violently ill. Sasu just went right ahead and puked while I tilted back and forth for a moment before I was sobered up by the ANBU coming through the building at me. Like I mean this guy probably burst through a window then said fuck it and broke through the wall. I gaped as dust and wall exploded outwards and it felt like slow motion as the ANBU reached forward with that tag. I felt it pressed onto my forehead and I thought to myself, this is fucking awful.

Fushicho angrily screamed, "Like hell you're taking a nap!"

And in that split second the tag started to knock me out Fushicho kicked me right back into the world of the living. I stumbled but glared at the ANBU member who took one look at me ignoring his seal tag and decided brute force KO was the best way to go. I dodged a few hits before he clipped me pretty harshly and I probably joined Sasu in concussion land when he grabbed my neck and slammed me into the building.

Why me and not Sasu?

This was my thought as he went to go slam me again when I was still conscious.

Then we were saved by someone doing a flying kick into the ANBU's head. I thought it was Gai for a terrifying moment. But then I realized it was just Kinoe conserving his chakra and making a dramatic entrance. Following Kinoe as support was Kakashi and the ANBU probably took one look at the fight he was going to take and got the fuck out. He disappeared in a cloud of smoke and while a few more ANBU that had been right on Kakashi's trail split up to go after the rogue one, Kinoe knelt next to me.

"You okay, Hime?"

I squinted at Kinoe, seeing something a little bit off.

"Ne sensei, why are there two of you?"

Needless to say, Sasu and I went right back to the hospital with a few bruised ribs for Sasu and a concussion for me. I was pretty confused as they healed me up and right after Kinoe was done healing me, he grinned and promptly knocked me out so he wouldn't have to deal with my attitude or questions.

Asshole.

AN:

I'm kind of disappointed this chapter. The lack of reviews last chapter was... uninspiring. I don't want to sound like I'm begging for them but I thought last chapter was a great one to review. I expected a few comments like 'Called it!' to the Onna thing, and even a few commenting on domestic Fushicho or her breakdown or her being too dense to realize Bu was having troubles of his own due to his first kills. The lack of response was really underwhelming and kind of damaged my desire to write for Out of the Ashes for a few days.

Anyway, off of whining! I finished the Kinoe portrait. Check out my deviantart to see how cute the team is. I think Kyuketsu came out stunning and Kinoe is definitely an improvement. He came out a bit tanner than I wanted him to be but the portrait was also a light source experiment sooooooo.

Fun Fact: Fushicho likes Jiraiya as a character but not as a person.

Thanks to Thomas Drovin for reviewing! (: