。。。
4, [Mito-sama]
Smothered in red and white fans, Konoha's police station was practically a Uchiha propaganda shrine. The halls were decorated with fan motifs, the door to my holding cell had a large fan scorched into it, and the only piece of furniture inside- an iron stool that looked like a torture apparatus- had a small fan insignia smelted on.
Once strapped to the weird stool, I was left with my thoughts for what seemed like hours. My alarm had faded into a fluttery, nauseating sensation in the pit of my stomach. Meanwhile, burning pain and soreness covered me like a heavy cloak. Thanks a lot Sakumo-asshole. You could've just talked to me in private.
A steady supply of adrenaline kept my thoughts whirring and my senses sharp, but it didn't help me understand- understand why Miko was dead, why there was a seal on me, or why I sat here- shackled, and charged with her murder. Did she set me up? Even if she did, how? Sakumo was right- I shouldn't have given my trust to a complete stranger so easily.
And I couldn't even begin to fathom how Sakumo factored into all this. Sure, he wasn't exactly fond of Miko, but there was no way an academy student could've killed a jounin-level ninja, Hatake scion or not.
I had a feeling that something big was going on, and I was caught in the middle of it, blind-folded. I clenched my hands.
"Don't even try," my guard warned, mistaking my sudden tension as a sign of struggle. The uniformed Uchiha woman was leaning against the wall, one sandaled foot kicked up behind her, arms folded in front in the signature teenage douchebag pose. Somehow, it made her seem understatedly lethal.
"I'm not," I blinked innocently.
She made a noise of vague amusement. "Why haven't you wet your pants yet?" The pressure in the cold room increased minutely. "Aren't you scared?"
I shrugged as much as the straps allowed.
She tilted her left side away from the wall, revealing an angry-looking purple bruise on her shoulder. I thought of Katō's scarred chest, and prayed that he'll still be my friend after this.
"You're strange," she commented.
"You're boring," I countered.
"There are 179 people in this building who can kill you in less than two seconds. I'm one of them. You shouldn't think I'm boring. You should be scared. You should be shaking. Or doing something besides looking like you're...bored."
"But you won't," I said self-assuredly. "Because I'm innocent. I didn't kill Miko-san."
She smiled. "I'm a shinobi. If my job is to kill an innocent child, I wouldn't care."
I almost flinched. The reminder that ninjas operated on a completely different morality scale slapped me in the face.
The door of my holding cell swung open, and a tall blonde woman walked in. I stifled a gasp.
"Inod- Yamanaka-san?"
Inodan's maternal warmth had all but disappeared, replaced by professional seriousness. She was twice as intimidating now, and her piercing blue eyes bore into mine.
"Ryūto." She addressed as she stood before me.
"What, you're on first-name terms with all our murder-charges now?" The female guard jeered.
Inodan's unforgiving face turned to the guard. "It's expected of me to know everything about special prisoners before interrogation. If you want to be promoted from guard duty anytime soon, you should try learning from your commander. Do you understand, Mikage?"
The female guard seethed.
"I asked," Inodan repeated slowly, voice sharp as a freshly sharpened blade. "Do you understand?"
"Hai, Yamanaka-taichou." Mikage forced out.
"Good. Remember why you were demoted, Mikage."
I watched their exchange, entranced by the sharpness of Inodan's tone and the rebellious Uchiha. Mikage must've been in a higher-ranking position before, I realized. And now she's pissed because Inodan's her superior.
With one final stern glare, the T&I captain turned to face me. "Now, I will be performing a precursory scan of your mind to check for foreign sources. Your head will feel hot, but try not to squirm."
Her palm gripped my head, and before I could even blink, she was in my mind.
Calling it strange was an understatement. I could still see everything, but I felt Inodan- a completely different entity wrapped in completely different thoughts- inside of my head, seeing through my eyes. It was like an unbearable itch, and I could only helplessly squirm against her iron grip. Soon, my forehead grew hot, so hot that my vision blurred from the sweat that began to permeate my hair. All I could do was pray that she'll finished before she discovered some of the more...interesting parts of me.
Finally, the itch faded. Inodan removed her sweaty palm, wiping her hand on her leg. I collapsed in my seat, grateful for the straps and hooks that held me in place. The room swam around in my eyesight, blurring with random memories.
"Well, that was unexpected." I heard Inodan say. Panic fluttered through me. Did she... "Ryuko-chan, is it?"
I nearly sighed in relief. That, I could deal with. "Yeah. For safety, you know?"
Inodan nodded slowly. "Sooner or later you will have to tell, but I will leave it to your discretion for now."
"Thank you, Yamanaka-san." I breathed.
The woman was already half way out the door when she paused, turning her head only slightly over her shoulder. "Don't worry, Ryūto-kun. I know."
The lock clicked quietly behind her, and I swallowed.
"What was that all about?" Mikage asked, staring at the door with enough intensity to burn through it.
"Dunno," I muttered under my breath, though I understood. I was innocent, and she knew it.
So why was I here?
Uzumaki Mito was one of those rare powerful women who had such a strong presence that you wouldn't expect anything- not even the death of the love of her life- to dull her spirit. Thus, Nara Shikae was shocked to the core when her former teammate shied away from the public eye, and withdrew herself from her wide circle of friends after Hashirama Senju's death.
That was almost three years ago. After the Shodai's funeral, Shikae tried everything to coax Mito out of her self-imposed isolation, but to no avail. And it wasn't just Shikae who suffered in Mito's absence- the entire Tactics & Intelligence Unit felt the loss of their Uzumaki seal prodigy.
As a high-ranking woman in the Uzumaki clan, Mito grew up saturated in fuuinjutsu- the matriarchal clan practically revolved around the art, after all. But Shikae knew that Mito had always been more of a thinker than an artist, more of a leader than a wife. So when Hashirama Senju arrived in Uzushiogakure 25 years ago and declared that he was in love with her, Shikae knew that the reasons for their eventual marriage extended beyond Mito's bold beauty and fiery power. The union of two renowned shinobi clans brought Konoha an excellent seals master and tactics expert as well.
So, when the former Tactics & Intelligence Unit captain strolled into Uzumaki's townhouse, decked out in full battle regalia, freshly minted sense-heightening seals dangling from her buns, every single shinobi on site dropped what they were doing and stared.
"What a mess," Mito sighed at the grotesque corpse of her younger sister, ignoring the reactions of the other shinobi. She paused at the body, narrowing her eyes at the blotchy face and swollen, scale-covered limbs before whirling around to face the flabbergasted nin. "Get back to work, all of you."
Shikae watched as the shinobi went back to sampling and searching and tracing, too stunned to speak for once. She stood frozen as Mito finished her initial inspection, stood in a flutter of robes, and strolled over to the mute Nara matriarch.
"Has being away from me dulled your wit, Shikae-chan?" Mito teased good-natrely.
Shikae shook her head. Her curly black hair bounced other shoulders. "Mito." She managed.
"Yes, glad to see you haven't forgotten."
She's here. Out of her house. Voluntarily. Sniffling dramatically, Shikae threw her arms around the redhead, crushing their bodies together. "MITO-CHAN!" Her declaration was half-wail, half-sob.
Mito sighed over Shikae's shoulder, patting her on the back. "Yes, Shikae-chan, I know you've missed me. But I have to scan Miko's body."
Shikae sniffed, giving her friend one final squeeze before releasing her. Shikae knew that adopting a childish, dramatic personality will subconsciously remind Mito of Hashirama, and thus make her feel more at ease. Whenever possible, she tried to amp up her already outgoing nature around the redhead, like now.
Mito crouched down beside her sister's horribly mutilated body, trailing a hand gently over the strange spikes that protruded from her back, her gnarled fingers, and her glassy eyes.
Shikae settled back, watching the sensor-type work her magic. After collaborating with Mito for so long, she knew that she would be done soon- ah. The redhead stood again, a troubled expression on her face.
"Senjutsu," Mito announced. Shikae cocked her head in a quirky gesture that Hashirama would use when listening to his wife, waiting for her to elaborate. "She overdosed on sage chakra, foreign sage chakra, which is extremely lethal for people whose bodies aren't compatible. But how? Miko can't-"
A flash understanding flickered across her features. In a sudden motion Mito swooped down, rolled Miko's limp body around, and pushed back her tank top.
Shikae paled. On the dead woman's scaly stomach, there was large hexagonal seal. Mito's jaw clenched in anger. Not good. "It's a chakra-siphoning seal, the receiving end." She quipped to Shikae, voice cold. Ah. So that's how she died.
Mito stood, raising her voice. "Have any of you found sealing materials? Brushes, chakra-infused ink, paper?"
"Yeah." Someone answered from the small dining room. "There was a whole box of sealing supplies under a floor tile in here, and a really big seal hidden under the wall paper."
"Miko, you little-" Mito swallowed her growl, stepping over her sister's body to storm into the dining room.
Shikae followed, quickly processing everything she'd just learned. Miko's strange deformities were a manifestation of taking in too much sage chakra. The chakra's source was the seal on her stomach, which was connected to another seal on someone else, who probably wasn't even aware of it- oh.
Shikae frowned at the implications. Miko wasn't really murdered- it was more like she committed accidental suicide. But just who could her chakra source- someone with sage chakra- be?
"Ryūto's the one with the seal, not me."
Uzumaki Mito stared at the silver-haired child, her eyes strangely unfocused. She muttered "Not even an pinch of sage chakra in that boy," and stalked away before even stepping foot in Hatake Sakumo's cell. A curly-haired woman that Sakumo recognized as the strangely energetic Nara clan head trailed after her, bouncing with excitement and twittering about being able to work with "her beloved Mito-chan again, mou".
They were very strange for two of the most powerful shinobi in the village.
Many, many years ago, I found a tattered copy of Naruto: Volume 1 at a thrift shop. I flipped through it, decided that the mediocre art and childish storyline was worth being a dollar less rich, and brought it home. A month later I had a copy of every single volume in print, several posters of my favorite characters, and a rather suggestive pillow case.
However, being reborn into a very well-constructied, fully thought-out, and uncensored parallel universe that resembled a fictional world was too much. It was too much the first time I realized just whose body I'd inherited, too much the first time when I saw the two faces on the Hokage Monument, too much the first time I witnessed why Orochimaru had such a sadistic personality.
And now, speaking to Uzumaki Mito- a living, breathing Uzumaki Mito with hair so red it glowed and fine lines of age around her eyes- it was too much.
"...come again?" I asked slowly, my throat dry.
To her credit, Mito was patient. Then again, she wasn't very expressive, especially compared to her curly-haired- curly-haired! imagine that!- Nara companion, whose doe-black eyes, wide smile, and round diamond earrings did nothing to hide the cunning in her face.
"You killed my sister," Mito repeated. "But it was her fault."
"Oh." What.
"Last night, you arrived at Miko's house to reconcile for a prank, right?" I nodded, and Mito continued. "Then, she invited you inside. She acted friendly, served you tea, and you two chatted. A little bit later, you ended up pinned against the wall of her dining room."
"Yeah," I confirmed. How did you know? went unasked- Mito was a competent ninja, considering she had sealed the fucking nine-tailed fox inside of her in the middle of a very stressful battle.
"Miko pushed you against a very specific portion of the wall. Under the wallpaper, there was a seal array used to help put seals on humans." Mito explained. "She must've made contact with your ribs, because you have a chakra siphoning seal there now." She pointed to the same spot Sakumo had touched earlier.
Chakra...siphoning? "Wait, why siphon my chakra? I mean, I don't think I'm the best source. I can't even use it."
The Nara woman chuckled. Mito looked at me like I was stupid.
"Well," Mito began. "That's not surprising, considering you've been in a constant sage mode for the past eight years of your life. Ever wondered why you looked like that? Or why you can never feel your chakra?"
Her words hit me like a ton of bricks.
Constant sage mode. God, it made so much sense. My pale skin, my eyes, the weird purple eyeshadow, memories of chakra being cycled through me as an infant-
"How much chakra do I have?" I asked, voice quiet.
"As much as you can pull from the environment around you." Mito informed me. "Which is potentially unlimited, once you're trained. See, because your body is so used to having nature chakra inside of it, your chakra composition is half nature chakra, half spiritual and physical chakra. This is a much greater proportion than normal people could retain, even after decades and decades of training. Miko, on the other hand, was never trained as a sage. She overdosed and died immediately when she tried to drain chakra from you."
I nodded slowly, still shell-shocked at my discovery. Orochimaru had an advantage over the other sannin from the very beginning, I realized. He was born a sage.
"I'm surprised you even know what she's talking about," the Nara woman commented. "Mito-chan's always sprouting these big words about chakra and seals. Sometimes I can't keep up, mou."
If it weren't for my enormous revelation, I would've slammed my face into my hand. On top of her personality, she just had to have a cutesy verbal tic, didn't she?
"As if you can't, Shikae." Mito gave this newly dubbed Shikae a dry look.
"Wah! So scary, Mito-chan." Shikae squealed, scurrying backwards in a bounce of black curls. Seeing a grown woman act like that was disturbing. She reminded me of Hashirama.
Mito sighed and turned back to me again. "Anyways, it's not your fault Miko's dead, but please be careful the next time you enter someone's house."
I dipped my head in shame. "I'm very sorry, Uzumaki-sama."
"Don't be. We never got along. If anything, I have to thank you for alerting us of Miko's behavior. There was a reason why I sealed away her chakra, after all. Shikae," Mito called, voice suddenly commanding. At the tone, Shikae's smile faded, and she stood a little taller. "I want you to trace all of Miko's recent activity. Find out everything- her contacts, where she got her supplies from, other people she's siphoned, and most importantly, why she needs chakra."
"Hai, Mito-taichou." Shikae gave her a salute, and burst into thousands of tiny black flecks. I gaped at the display.
"Did she just...?"
Mito waved her hand at the black flecks in dismissal. "That was a fancy teleportation jutsu combined with a shadow-solidifying technique. She must've liked you if she showed off a little. But never mind Shikae. Now, I will tell you about your mother."
ANOTHER CLIFF HANGER MWAHAHA
On another note, I'm happy to see this story's been so well received! Also, did this chapter flow well? What about Shikae and Mito?