It turned out that magi had interesting reactions from chakra.
"SIRIUS OH SIRIUS HOW COULD YOU DO SUCH A THING!"
By interesting he meant horrible. It was worse than the tantrums from his two year old grandson. His papers kept flying out of their files and attacking his guards, there was a pile of vomit somewhere in the room, and his robes had been set on fire for the second time in the last 15 minutes.
"Trusting Pettigrew of all people!"
Hiruzen rubbed his temples as he watched the mildly amused Inuzuka alpha try to pry the babbling witch away from her partner. The village witch had shrieked at the top of her lungs when she caught sight of the black dog and flung herself creature. Normally Kuromaru would've been able to dodge it, however he had been trying to recover his hearing and did not notice the witch's approach. The girl then wrapped her arms around the dog and gave a hug similar to the ones Uzumaki Kushina used to give, painful and suffocating.
"Majo get yer paws off of my partner!" Barked Tsume as she attempted to remove the girl's vice like grip. "You're suffocating him!"
A hand waved the fanged woman away. "Nooo... Stupid Ministry. No touchy my bro." Moaned the witch. She screwed up her face in a way that resembled a constipated pug, snorts and sniffles included, and resumed her wailing. Kuromaru at this point seemed resigned to his fate of losing his hearing and spending the rest of the day having a witch wrapped around his stomach.
"We really ought to get some rat traps. They look like giant clipboards! For clipping heads!" Giggled the witch. "RAT HEADS! Or dickheads? What do you think padfoot?" She pulled away slightly to get a look at the dog's face.
Kuromaru just faced blankly forward, a numb panic slowly filling his eyes as the air was pushed from his lungs.
Of course, nobody could understand what the woman was raving about. Only a handful of them recognised it as the same language she spoke when she arrived two and a half years ago. Aoba recognised some of the sounds being similar to the ones that came from the moving paintings.
Judging from her behavior she was also hallucinating a great deal. There was no other explanation for the rapid mood swings and odd behaviors. At least, No other explanation that he wanted to think about. Hiruzen decided to carefully back away and summon Inoichi. Perhaps he could have some insight on dealing with the witch. The head of intelligence had already been in her mind once. Surely he could disable her.
"Riddley? Cass? Claudia? Nikita? Lucien's stuck in detention again. Sirius was too but he snuck out." Burbled Mina. Then she blew her nose in the fur beneath her with a loud honk.
Tsume found the whole thing to be enormously funny, now that her partner was no longer being strangled, even if it was an inconvenience. She had a mission to complete after all. Her partner, Kuromaru didn't seem to agree. He was steadily doing his best to escape from mina's clutches. Then again, the dog was the one being cried on and things like that were always uncomfortable.
"Fucking self righteous bastards. Can't say nothing but crucio. Like a parrot." Mina then let go of Kuromaru leaving her arms free to flap about as if she was imitating a chicken. The dog and ninja promptly took the opportunity to disappear from the area.
Earlier that day, word of the witch's date had spread through the village and out of morbid curiosity he had taken a look through his crystal ball.
Correction, Hiruzen had watched Shisui and Naruto through the crystal, giving him a look at the witch by proxy.
His crystal ball had been one of Uzumaki Minato's contributions to the office. It would take a small chakra sample from anyone who visited his office. With it, he could track their locations within the village. Generally, the larger the sample taken, the clearer the image from within. The crystal could only hold the samples for about a year before it had to be renewed. This wasn't usually a problem since every shinobi in the village had to go to his office at least a few times a year. It was no help in detecting infiltrators though. Hiruzen intended to ask the witch for a larger version of her door sign to help with that.
His surrogate grandson had the clearest image. Civilians, as they didn't typically end up in the Hokage's office regularly, and the few that did had too little chakra to leave behind a clear sample. Consequently anytime he tried to view them through the crystal the image was extremely blurry. Hiruzen had recalled the Hyuuga have commenting on the girl's apparent corpse-like state he had assumed that Oribanda had no chakra.
However when he tuned in the crystal the images with in shifted but did no more then that. This suggested that the witch did indeed have chakra but it was so little that it may as well be nothing.
Interesting.
So he sent orders to the hospital to do a full medical exam if she ever appeared, to gather more information.
While the Witch's tax returns were being processed he looked through the medical file. He resolved to give the money to the witch himself since it seemed that her mail was being tampered with.
There is no reliable way to measure chakra in people. There are many differences in the size of coils and chakra density between individuals. The only way they currently test for chakra exhaustion is with a machine that spits out numerical digits for the total capacity of the coils, and that was still in development.
According to the scanner, kage level nin and Jinchuuriki read in the upper thousands to ten thousands. Jonin, with the exception of Maito Gai, Hatake Kakashi, and Hatake Sakumo, tend to hover around the lower thousands. Chunin and genin landed in the mid to upper hundreds and Academy students even lower on the scale. Chakra exhaustion being defined as numbers that fall below 40. His eyes returned to the form in front of him. Oribanda Mina had a five for a chakra value.
Clinically dead according to the medics.
For a moment Hiruzen had been inclined to believe her an edo tensei resurrection. He quickly dismissed the thought. The fact that she needed medical attention at times, proved that it was not the case.
Her broken right arm, the root of the current problem, had been incredibly difficult to heal. He suspected she may have injured herself again when she did her chicken impression. Her hand wasn't lined up properly anymore.
According to reports from the hospital, it had taken quite a bit of effort to infuse her arm with chakra. The medics recorded that it was a lot like trying to wash something covered in petroleum jelly. It refused to settle properly due to the lack of chakra pathways in the patient, which meant that an extremely large amount of chakra was needed to get even a small change in the injury let alone get it into functioning order. Unlike the rest of the people in the elemental nations. The chakra in Mina's body was stagnant and absolutely no help to the medics attempts at healing her. If anything it hindered them more then the lack of pathways since they actually had to remove it first.
(The head nurse promptly sent it to R&D. Chakra like that was unnatural. It was supposed to circulate the body, like blood. Not sit atop of the bones like a tumor.)
Once the chakra was applied to the injury, Oribanda instantly became delirious and had to be restrained.
It started as comments about creatures floating beyond the walls. Then it turned into mad rambling, half in japanese, half in something else. It got even worse as they gave her transfusions to fix the bone. She started pointing at the moon outside the window in alarm and attempted to stand and leave. It all came to a point when the windows shattered by themselves.
The medic nin jumped back, expecting an attack while the witch disappeared down the hall.
Her date had to chase after her to make sure she didn't hurt herself, anyone else, or do irreparable damage to the village infrastructure in her attempts to create a furu back to magical London. The task was made much more difficult than it should've been given that the witch didn't have enough chakra to set off security systems and she had enough wits to summon whatever she thought she might need.
Mina ended up staggering into the classified archives in the Hokage tower while shouting something that Shisui, who had picked up a bit of english from his secondary job at the Flying Blackbird, had translated as insults to her government and an overall distaste for rats. She then proceeded to summon a quill that apparently wrote everything she was thinking, and wrote a list of demands which included calling on a number of friends, one teacher, and storming a telephone booth with a barrel of fried tofu and a giant flaming fox.
Hiruzen made a note to request a pen charmed like that to write in kanji so as to save time on paperwork after this mess has been sorted out.
Things got worse when a team of ANBU showed up to guide her out.
Mina stared at them for a few moments before lunging at them. The witch made to draw the wand from her purse but grabbed a stick of dango instead. She waved the dango stick in two arcs in front of her mumbling something even the shinobi, with their enhanced hearing, couldn't make out. Suddenly the chairs lining the hallway for visitors jumped to life, and began to circle around the wary shinobi. It was one of the strangest things he had seen in his long career. The furniture continued to dance, spiralling and pirouetting around the room.
An unfamiliar energy began filling the room.
"HOW DARE YOU DEATH EATER FUCKS SHOW YOUR FACE!" Roared the witch. She hurled picked up a drawer from the ground and threw it at the closest ANBU. The operative dodged to the left and glanced warily at the hole the drawer left in the wall.
"Mina. Please calm down." Shisui begged. It was no use. It seemed that the white ANBU masks had triggered something from the past.
Inoichi had warned Hiruzen about this but he had dismissed it after she didn't react to Kakashi constantly showing up in her store.
Mina jabbed her finger at the rest of the ANBU and opened her mouth to speak.
Shisui recognized the motion from the spar drew his sword.
"OPPUGNO!"
The shinobi, seeing Shisui's reaction drew their weapons just in time for the seats to start attacking their feet. The chairs went only for the ANBU squad and completely ignored the rest of the company. No harm was done to the present company since the they had all worn shin guards.
The shinobi did the wise thing and pretended to struggle with them while the witch continued to scream gibberish at them.
"I'VE BURNED THE LESTRANGES FOR WHAT THEY DID TO GENEVIEVE! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I WON'T DO THE SAME TO YOU! BELUO IGNIS!"
Followed by more funny stick movements. Fortunately this spell seemed to be beyond her mental capabilities at that point since the only thing that happened was the dango flying off the end of it.
"What a waste of a perfectly good dango!" Lamented Anko as she snuck around behind the witch and tossed her out the window into a garbage dump outside.
It was at this point that Tsume and Kuromaru made their appearance and got the surprise of their life when the woman popped out of dumpster. "Moony! You have to go to the whacking tree!"
Kakashi probably shouldn't be doing this.
He hated hospitals with a passion. They held nothing but bad memories for him and most other shinobi. Probably for all shinobi except medics, and even then only a rare few. So why was he here sitting just out of sight of Mina's room?
"What happened?" A flute-like voice made it's way to his ears "I don't remember much after the owls started appearing." the sounds of sluggish movement against dry sheets following close behind the witch's voice.
"Ah. You didn't react well to the chakra used on your injury and became delirious." Replied Shisui. "You also caused a mess in the archives"
"ARGH! I'm going to be fined again aren't I?" she groused
"No actually. Hokage-sama gave me this to pass on." The sound of shifting paper passed through the window. "It's your tax return. Hokage-sama deeply apologizes for the delay in processing as several issues have been found in the system."
"...Great!" It sounds like she had intended to say more but changed her mind at the last second.
"Er... You went off on some ANBU too. And a clan head." Continued Shisui "Inoichi had to be brought in to uh calm you down."
Mina makes a loud strangled sound "I have to schedule another appointment don't I?"
"Actually, he's been hospitalized too. He's been out of it since he dove into your mind. The medics want to know, what happened in there?"
There was a pause as the cogs turned inside Mina's head. "Ah. I think I know what the problem is."
"Do tell."
"I am rather accomplished at occlumency. If I don't want someone in my head, it would be very unpleasant for someone poking around in there." She shrugged. "For him it was probably like repeatedly slamming into a wall at high speeds. Then again, I don't really know how my mental defenses are perceived by invaders aside from involving blast ended skrewts and acromantulas. You've seen them in my books"
The boy shuddered. "You are one scary lady."
Well that explained why the Ino-Shika-Cho trio were so persistent in keeping good relations. Shikaku had visited the shop many times to poke at her mind for ideas and play chess. Kakashi knows that Mina saw Inoichi as a therapist once a month.
Something about the casual way she said that made him extremely uneasy. Like having you mind invaded was akin to finding raccoons in the garbage, a recurring nuisance that was eliminated with minimal fuss.
Mina talked as if she had experience keeping other people out of her mind. Experience keeping her secrets to herself no matter what how she was tortured. She sounded like a shinobi. More specifically, she sounded like Ibiki after he got his scars.
Kakashi wonders if the raging howls he heard earlier had anything to do with it. He couldn't understand most of what she said, but he could recognize the names. They were the same ones Mina told stories about over tea and across the dinner table. The ones she had packed pictures of right next to her food and necessities. They were probably family.
He remembers the tone she used. Mostly because it came out of his mouth the day after his sensei…
Silence reigned in the short hallway, no sound coming from the small room behind him or himself. He wondered if Mina knew he was here. Somehow, she alway knew when someone had entered her shop, even when the door sign was out of sight.
(Shisui once asked how she did it and she responded in singsong tones "Magic!" Neither of them could tell if she was being honest.)
Kakashi could sympathize it. That pain of losing everything, he knew what that was like, so he wouldn't say a word. Something like that, that was personal. An oak leaf flew past him and vanished into the elongating shadows of the evening. He would never ask. Just like how Mina would never ask anything of himself either.
It was like the time she found him at the graveyard a year ago. He had been cleaning Rin grave again like he always did. He had been telling her about Naruto and how he had just moved into the Blackbird shop when the witch came up to him. "She cries you know. The one with purple marks on her face." She told him as she stared hard at something beside the grave.
He raised an eyebrow and glanced warily between the witch and what she seemed to be looking at. There wasn't anything behind the grave, or in front, or anywhere near it that could be worth staring at. Just the stone and the flowers he had just put there.
The witch noticed him looking and cocked her head curiously. "She has one of those snail headbands, A black shirt, A white apron, and black leggings."
Kakashi stiffened at the description.
"-Brown straight hair, just past the shoulders. She also has her hands over her chest."
His mind instantly flashed back to the day she got kidnapped. The day he ran her through with his Chidori. He still feels her blood staining his fingers no matter how much he washes them.
Of course Rin would weep. She was kind and compassionate. She was everything he wasn't and he was her killer.
His eye widened when the implications of the statement hit him. He could feel his heart racing Not even ANBU training would have ever prepared him for this. The idea that someone like the witch could see-!
Mina could see the spirits of the dead! Rin could tell her the things he did. Mina would know how he killed his teammates, how he wasn't there with sensei when he died, and all of his other failures.
She would keep Naruto from him because he was the teammate killer. She would take him away.
Then again, that might be for the best. Knowing him, he would kill the boy himself. But the thought leaves him feeling cold no matter how hard he tries to convince himself.
The witch surprised him when she picked up a stick and began to write in the dirt. She would scratch out something, frown, and then erase it. She even erased the whole thing at one point and started over. It was incomprehensible, like everything else she did, until he realized that she was writing the characters upside-down.
'I'm sorry Kakashi. I never meant to hurt you when I stepped in front. -Rin'
Thunder boomed in the distance, mirroring the the pounding of his heart in his chest. Kakashi stared at the witch, silently demanding an explanation. The request would be ignored as the woman stared curiously at the words she had written. She narrowed her eyes as if she could command the words to do something.
Eventually she threw up her arms in aggravation and turned to him. "Do you know what any of that means?"
He had no words for the woman. Kanji wasn't something you could write without knowing it. "You mean you don't?"
"Can't read Kanji." Shrugged the woman. She turned back to the words on the ground and began tracing them like young toddlers learning to write. "Not enough presence for me to hear what she was saying, so I followed her hands."
"I thought magi could talk to ghosts." Maybe she could talk to Obito for him. Maybe she could tell him that he was sorry for leaving him behind.
"Normally I can, but she wasn't a ghost. She was just waiting for something." The woman sighs heavily as if she had picked up a heavy burden. "She's gone now. So I guess she just wanted the message to be passed on to you."
Kakashi isn't sure if he was supposed to be disappointed or not. He had never thought he would be absolved of anything in his life, let alone by someone he had killed. He wished he could guess how Sensei and Obito felt about him.
"You're pretty lucky you know. You can visit them anytime you want." Sighed the witch. She pulled her hood over her head just as the first drops of rain began to fall from the sky. "I wish I could do that." There was a heavy pause before she gave him a sardonic smile and walked deeper into the graveyard as the water from above washed away the words on the ground.
He wonders how Mina found the strength to keep feeling, to be herself. He couldn't do that, and he was surrounded by familiar faces, he was at home. She had no one. It made him feel slightly inadequate when ever he thought about it.
Voices drift out the window again pulling him from his thoughts. "Now that I have the money to do so. I want to open up a bank account."
"I know a good one but it's a shinobi bank. You might have some problems registering since it asks you for your mission history and stuff."
"I have no intentions of putting my money in a civilian bank. There aren't any goblins there. If they can break into my post I bet they can break into my vault."
"...Your vault?" Questioned Shisui. "What do you mean? Your vault?"
Kakashi was thinking of the same thing. His one visible eye wrinkling at the edges in confusion.
What came after was the strangest monetary system he had ever heard of. Goblins? Vaults? Guarded by dragons? It sounded awfully inconvenient.
"I AM NOT LETTING A BUNCH OF MUGGLES AT MY MONEY." Barked the witch. The hospital blankets rustled as she tried to get up. she huffed "Ugh. My sister never had to deal with any of this when she was 19. Why do I have to?"
"You're 19?" Asked Shisui Surprised. "I thought you were my age."
Kakashi could almost see her raising an eyebrow at that. "Which is?"
"Erm…. I just turned 14."
"... I thought you were 17. You look older." Mina grumbled as she stared at Shisui. "Now I feel like a paedophile."
"U-Umm-"
"That does explain you relative lack of experience in the dating department though." Suddenly the floundering he showed regarding the date sabotages make a lot more sense. "Was I your first by chance?"
"I- what? No?" He squeaked in response. "Why'd you say it like that?!"
"Come on now. There's no need to be embarrassed." Teased the witch. "We've all been through it."
"Er- Obviously you still need rest soooooo…" Stammered the boy as he dashed out the window, not noticing Kakashi snickering in the shadows. "...I'll just see you at work after my next mission."
"HEY! WAIT! YOU COULD AT LEAST GET ME OUT OF HERE!" Wailed Mina. More frantic rustling came from the room followed by a soft thud as she flopped back down on the bed. "Ugh! I give up. I need my wand."
"Maa. Maa what's all the noise about?" Asked Kakashi as he stuck his head through the window. "I could hear you shouting from your shop." That was only partially a lie. His clones had dispelled sometime earlier and they could indeed hear the angry howls from the hospital and the Hokage tower.
He had initially thought she had been tied to the bed. It's what they did to ninja under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs combined with chakra suppressing tags. Mina however, did not have any chakra to suppress and after the incident today, really ought to be kept away from anything chakra related.
"Hat cake. I know what you're going to ask-" Warned the witch.
Kakashi ignored the deliberate mispronunciation of his name and gleefully began needling Mina. "So how was your date?"
"Oh screw off." She shot him a baleful glare in response and tried to give him the finger.
Tried.
Apparently the hospital staff decided that the shinobi grade bonds were overkill. Instead they opted to use the hospital blankets to swaddle the witch until she looked like a spring roll. While this wouldn't stop any decent shinobi from using hand signs it worked to stop Mina from waving her hands and causing more physical and psychological damage.
She was sitting up and her hair had been mussed up from what must've been numerous attempts to free herself from her bindings. It stood up in odd angles as if pair of birds had attempted to make a nest and abandoned it halfway.
He smiled at the sight, not that anyone could tell of course. Such was the beauty of masks.
"Unwrap me please?" Pleaded Mina.
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Not going to demand it like you usually do?"
"Not the boss here." She shrugged and as if reminded of her current lack of mobility, began wriggling again in an attempt to either roll off the bed, or slip her arms free. "Now could you please release me?"
"Aww. But you look so cute like that." He teased. "Like a slug." She really did look like a slug with that many blankets wrapped around her or like one of those long body pillows that people liked to hug in their sleep. No don't think about it. She'll hex you.
"This is for the wood jokes isn't it?" Sighed the witch.
Kakashi simply grinned at her from behind his mask. The outline of his outrageously large grin visible against the cloth. Because Yes, yes it was.
Kakashi had no intention of letting her live down her horrendous first date. That isn't to say he was going to ignore Uchiha Shisui, but since Naruto lived with Mina she was more accessible. Plus he didn't have to worry about being hexed since her wand and purse were on the stand, out of her nonexistent reach.
"Say my name first."
"Hm? It's Hatake right?" Mina cocked her head in confusion.
"My given name."
She narrowed her eyes for a moment before complying. "Fine. Please get me out of here Kakashi. I'm kind of hot in all these blankets.". After a few moments pause she added. "I still think that's a silly name."
He chuckled lightly before making his way to her and untying the knot that kept the sheets wrapped and bound to the bed. Mina then took advantage of the sudden lack of resistance and wriggled out of her wrappings.
The medics had taken the garbage and mud covered dress off of Mina and replaced with a thin, short hospital gown.
It's rude to stare. Stop that.
"At least I didn't jinx my name." He chirped as he turned to look out the window. It wasn't really the first time he got that comment. The Hatake clan had farming origins as well as samurai. The odd names were always a homage to their agricultural roots.
"I knew I was going to regret telling you that story."
Apparently the Noble clans of Magi also had such naming traditions. The Oribanda clan all had names beginning with the same character. Mina mentioned that her great grandmother had named her something very old fashioned and was very inconsistent in the spelling and pronunciation. Which meant that she grew up being teased about it until she threw a tantrum and jinxed it in a fit of accidental magic.
"Anyway, Thanks for that. I kind of just want to go home and go to bed." Mina stepped off the heap of hospital blankets and began rummaging through her pocketbook. After a few moments she pulled out her wand and changed her gown into something more like what the typically wore. "I think I'll refrain from dating in the future. It's too much of a hassle with all the sabotage and the date peepers."
Kakashi carefully refrained from pouting. He had been looking forward to watching more chaos and teasing her about it. Plus it was fun to spy on her date. He had thoroughly enjoyed it even if he spent a good chunk of the time shushing Naruto. It would've been one of the few times he saw her without one of her cloaks.
It was oddly disappointing to know it wouldn't happen again.
AN: I hath finally found a Beta! His name is Halfway To Reality. Thou must honor his name! I think my chapters are going to be a lot longer now with more time between updates for all the editing and what not. Hopefully the improvement in quality and length will make up for it. Go and check out his channel!
I've also made a few mostly accurate pictures of Mina One from her hogwarts days with one of her male friends. And one of what she looks like now. I'll post them on my profile as soon as I can figure out how to make a link.
Someone should definitely draw a Mina moment she has a lot of them that I don't write about. Most of the mental images I get from Mina's interactions with the rest of the villagers are entertaining. I'm curious to see what anyone else comes up with. Like for Example, the reaction to the Howler summons during the peace conference. Imagine the Hokage's reaction to it all.
I'm also thinking of naming the chapters. Ideas?
Manaliac: Kakashi was jealous for all of 15 minutes before he noticed everything starting to go to the dogs. Then it turned into something of a train wreck for him. It's horrifying but he couldn't look away.
Lurking Pheonix: The blank faced ANBU has indeed gifted Danzo with a conjured bird. Take a guess as to how that works out. There are too many birds to capture at once. Unfortunately for the genin, the bird catching mission is ranked D.
Reviews are love~~