Chapter 4
Kakashi didn't know what happened. Sayuri was just doing a basic jutsu, she looked like every other kid in his class whilst she did it, just smaller. Then suddenly she seemed to spark or crackle, and then she was on the ground. Her voice was inhuman, it was so loud, so haunting. She was screaming. No words, just horrific screams. Sayuri's eyes were open so wide, but Kakashi could only see the whites of her eyes. She was convulsing and all he could do was stare on in horror. There was no one else in the house, he knew he had to go get help, but he couldn't leave Sayuri seizing on the floor.
Her convulsing body managed to knock the table, sending their cups clattering to the ground. Kakashi could only continue staring in his growing horror he watched Sayuri struggle to breathe. Fear bolted Kakashi to the spot. He could feel his legs trembling as he watched his only friend fighting to survive after what should have been a simple justu that nearly every active shinobi was capable of using.
Then she started bleeding from her eyes, ears and nose. Kakashi bolted from his house unsure he should be heading to the hospital or to where other shinobi were most likely to be. His decision didn't matter in the end as he collided head first with someone. He didn't take the time to look at the other shinobi, he just grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him towards his house, trying to explain what had happened. The older shinobi seemed to have grasped the situation as he sped on ahead in a yellow flash.
Once the unknown shinobi took Sayuri Kakashi's hands started to shake, clenched in fists, tears escaping from his dark grey eyes. A keening sound left his throat as he fell to his knees. Finally able to breathe. He was scared, he didn't know what happened. All he knew that his friend, his closest and really only friend was most likely in the hospital and would probably never want to see him again. If she even survived whatever it was that happened.
Jirou was in shock. There was a shinobi he didn't know on his doorstep, telling him that his daughter, that last he knew was safely with her friend at his home, was in hospital having suffered from severe seizures and was currently unresponsive. He felt sick. His little girl, his sweet little princess. Jirou didn't even wait for the shinobi before he took off at a sprint towards the hospital. He was barely passed the front gate when the shinobi caught up and took him to the hospital. Once inside everything felt like it was happening at the speed of light, but also as if time had paused entirely.
The hospital seemed colder than it ever had before, a sense of dread hanging over Jirou, wondering what he would tell Hanae when she came home. What he would tell Ichirou? Sakumo? Time seemed to stop or stretch on for hours. Either way, it dragged on painfully. Each second caused Jirou to suffer more from nausea, he couldn't bring himself to even drink water from the cup that had been handed to him.
Jirou didn't look up when someone sat next to him. He recognised the small form of Kakashi Hatake, Jirou couldn't bring himself to even look at or be angry at the boy, so exhausted by his worry. The silence was both comforting and oppressing. Jirou couldn't move, could barely blink, other people entered the hospital, people visiting, people having check-ups. Ninja being rushed in for surgeries.
After what felt like eternity, Jirou acknowledged the young boy beside him. Kakashi looked just as distressed and exhausted as Jirou felt. Kakashi was shaking in his seat, unable to focus on anything. Jirou knew that the Hatake bloodline had heightened senses, so places like hospitals, where there was a lot of different sounds, a blind light and an over powering smell, were a special kind of personal hell for the boy. Jirou also noted to himself that other clans, like the Inuzuka, also suffered whilst in the hospital. Kakashi had a red face, well at least he had red eyes from what Jirou could see, and he seemed paler than usual.
"Family of Sayuri Akiyama?" A doctor called out. Jirou jumped up from his seat and was quickly followed by Kakashi. "Relations?"
"I'm her father," Jirou responded breathlessly.
"I'm her…her friend." Kakashi was less sure. The doctor glanced down at Kakashi dubiously but nodded in acceptance.
"She's alive. She's breathing on her own. Can we asked what happened, the ninja that brought her in didn't explain it to us? All we know is that Miss Akiyama was in the midst of severe seizure, suffering from bleeding in several facial orifices. Our results showed that the seizures were caused by an ongoing electrical pulse to her brain, the bleeding was the result of built-up pressure in the brain."
Jirou felt sick listening to the diagnosis. His little lily had been suffering badly. He turned to Kakashi, his eyes demanding an explanation.
"I…we… she wanted to know how to do the transformation jutsu. I…I showed her. It's meant to be easy. I learnt it in the academy." Kakashi was a stuttering and shaking mess as he replied. The doctor glared a bit at the boy but her eyes softened slightly when it was clear that Kakashi was on the brink of tears.
"If this is a chakra related injury then her ongoing condition would make sense." The doctor nodded to herself before turning to a nearby nurse and said something to him that made the nurse run off in the direction the doctor had come from.
"Ongoing condition, Doctor?" Jirou asked, already fearing the worst.
"Akiyama-san seemed to have had experienced chakra backlash, it is uncommon but it can happen in underdeveloped systems, it's why civilian children aren't encouraged to activate their chakra systems until they enter the Academy. Fortunately, her main coil is relatively intact, but her tenketsu are badly damaged, and her pathways have been fried raw. She will still be able to live a normal and healthy life, but I would strongly advise against allowing her to become a ninja. Looking at how her chakra system has developed it was likely that this would have happened to her anyway, it's actually better that this happened now, while she's so young, it gives her body chance to adapt and recover. If she had been older it was possible that her coils would have been damaged as well.
The damage has had some unexpected side effects though. Apparently, Akiyama-san is predominately lightning chakra natured, if she had been able to develop her chakra system properly. While trying to help her Akiyama-san literally shocked a couple of the healers. Her skin seems to be able to give off small amounts of lightning release through contact, nothing lethal, yet. Until we can identify where the specific issue lies we will have to restrict the amount of physical contact she has, to prevent any injuries to herself or others."
The doctor then instructed for Jirou and Kakashi to follow her to Sayuri's room, Jirou wasn't sure what he was to do with all the information the doctor had given him. It sounded as if pure luck had prevented Sayuri from accidentally killing herself with something that should have been fairly simple for her considering who her mother was.
They eventually stopped outside a closed door, Jirou noted that the door was labelled with the patients names, and there it was 'Akiyama Sayuri' in clear writing on the door. Jirou felt sick. As if seeing her name in writing made the situation more real than it previously had been.
"I would like you to know that Akiyama-san is currently unconscious, we had to sedate her as she was becoming more violent once we had managed to stop her seizing. We expect her to wake up some time early tomorrow. Please keep volume to a reasonable level so as not to disturb Akiyama-san." The doctor looked at the two of them before opening to door to let them into the room where Sayuri lay sleeping in a hospital bed. "I will remind you to not touch Akiyama-san, she is in a delicate state and we have not determined to cause of her electric shocks. If you need any assistance, or is she begins to wake, please fetch a nurse." And with that they entered the room, and waited.
Ichirou Akiyama came by shortly after midnight, having arrived at the hospital as soon as he could, he sat in the room next to Jirou for a while, before he forced Jirou to leave for the night, but Kakashi stayed. There was no one to force him home, Sakumo wasn't in Village to be worried about him. He stayed in the corner of the room. Alone with his thoughts in the dark of night. Kakashi didn't sleep, he just sat in the hospital chair, oblivious to the nurses and doctors that came in to check on Sayuri.
When the sun began to rise did Sayuri finally stir. It was a slow process, her face creased up first, she turned her face away from the window. Kakashi moved closer and went to reach out to hold her hand when her remembered what the doctor had said and moved back to his chair. Then he thought about it again and went to the door to grab the attention of a nurse, Kakashi didn't know what state Sayuri would be in, and it was possible that she would need medical attention more than she would need friendly comfort in that moment.
It was strange, waking up in the hospital. The last I remembered I was at Kakashi's house where I was attempting a transformation for the first time, after having been studying it for nearly 3 months. The nurses had been in and out of the room I was in, checking my vitals, asking me questions about how I was feeling. A doctor had come by to ask me some in depth questions in regards to my health, and what had happened, what I remembered.
Kakashi was there next to me the whole time, and for that I was grateful.
We didn't talk, but he sat next to me, as if he was just patiently waiting for something.
Tou-san arrived shortly after I woke up, and he was filling the silence, talking to nurses or doctors, or to Ichirou-Oji. He was talking about everything and nothing, and I was learning more about our trading partners than I had ever expected to know at this age.
My diagnosis was the only topic that Tou-san didn't want to talk about. The doctor said that I had suffered from a seizure caused by a sudden influx of chakra to the brain. The chakra influx was caused by malformed tenketsu, which prevented my chakra from exiting my body in the way that it was meant to. The fact that I was young meant that it was unlikely to have a large negative impact on me so long as I wished to remain a civilian.
The side-effect of my condition was that, until I learnt to control it, my chakra would now actively move around my body and was likely to build up in areas that were the most malformed, such as; my eyes, hands, feet, and spine. Otherwise known as the areas with the most tenketsu. These build-ups were mostly harmless, but much like when people click bones to release pressure between the joints, the chakra had to go somewhere, which resulted in small electrical bursts. They were mostly harmless, but even small shocks can kill if in the wrong place, so until I had gone through chakra therapy I wasn't allowed to touch anyone.
There was also the concern that whenever I got emotional, my chakra reacted, turning me from a normal little girl into a small ball of lightning. Even mild emotional fluxes could create tiny storm clouds due to the dramatic change in the air pressure around me.
Fun.
Tou-san seemed to know something about why my tenketsu were malformed, I could tell in the way he didn't talk about it, but even more in the way he wasn't shocked when the doctor said that they were the cause of it all. I knew I would have to ask him about it later, but I was more concerned with how distant Kakashi was acting, even with the no touching rule in place.
He hadn't said anything to me since I woke up, he nodded or shook his head, but no words had actually left his mouth. He hadn't responded to anything Tou-san or Ichi-Oji had said, the nurses just ghosted passed him without Kakashi even acknowledging their existence. While the doctor had been talking about my diagnosis Kakashi seemed to curl in on himself, making his already small self, seem even smaller.
I made a mental note that I had to talk to Kakashi later and ask him about what was upsetting him enough that he didn't even want to talk to me. But until then, I turned back to the nurses that were talking to Tou-san about the routines I would need to follow and when I would be expected at the hospital for chakra therapy.
It's early August when I am released from the hospital. Okaa-san was waiting for me at home as she wasn't comfortable at the hospital, and having now been stuck there for a while I could see why. Kakashi hadn't visited me on his own since I first woke up, always arriving with Sakumo or Tou-san, which made trying to confront him about his avoidance of me hard.
It was nice to have Okaa-san around the house. Since the last time I saw her she was making an effort to really get to know me. While Tou-san was stuck in council meetings Okaa-san would spend the day with me. I was still on restricted activity until I was cleared by my therapist, as too much physical activity was likely to rile me up the same way emotional stress would. I didn't mind much, but I could now fully understand why Ichirou-Oji was frustrated that there wasn't anywhere to go when resting up between missions. I was a civilian and I was bored of not having somewhere to go to just waste my time.
But instead I got to learn about my Okaa-san, I learnt that she preferred green tea over any other kind of tea, but she would always go for a chocolate drink if it was an option. At least I had a valid excuse for my sweet tooth that seemed to travel with me across lifetimes. I also found out that Okaa-san found brushing hair relaxing, was an awful cook, and should never be trusted to clean anything more complicated than a katana. She learnt about me that I love to have my hair brushed, I was a surprisingly good cook for my young age, and I should never be trusted to clean full stop.
I also learnt more about Okaa-sans life as an Uchiha. Only three years older than Mikoto Uchiha they were raised together, turns out they were cousins, their mothers were sisters. Okaa-san told me about the brutal training regime she was brought up through, and how she was glad that I wasn't born into the Uchiha clan as she liked that there was something inherently kind about the way I interacted with people.
Then I learnt about the long running hatred that Okaa-san had towards the Uchiha clan, and how she would rather die than see me taken in by them. It started when Okaa-san was young. We were sat on the garden porch enjoying summer sun when I brought up to topic of Okaa-san animosity towards her clan.
"I didn't always dislike my family, I was brought up happy enough, even if I was trained more than I played, but the Uchiha clan has had a hard history that we don't forget. I was raised with my cousin Mikoto, as her mother, my aunt, had passed away giving birth to her. I treated her like a sister, made sure she was looked after. I even encouraged her to strike out on her own when the opportunity for a different friendship came up.
But when Fugaku turned eighteen the clan elders decided it was time for a bride to be chosen for him. I grew up alongside Fugaku, he is only a few years older than me, we went to the Academy together, I thought I was the obvious choice. And I was, but so was Mikoto. Fugaku didn't care, he knew both of us, thought that either of us would do fine as his wife, so it came down to the elders. Mikoto and I were put through a series of challenges; to test our speed, our strength, our intelligence. To basically see who would produce the strongest heir. We both had our sharingan. Mine already had its third tomoe, Mikoto only had two, but, as she was younger, we were considered equal matches. The only difference was that Mikoto was younger. When I was fourteen it was decided that Mikoto would be engaged to Fugaku, to become the next wife of the head of the clan. She was only eleven. They were to be married once she turned sixteen."
Okaa-san began to run her hand through my hair as she paused to think what she was going to say next. I was glad Tou-san wasn't here for this conversation, he has a tendency to divert to conversation to how he and Okaa-san met whenever I try and ask about her history with the Uchiha clan.
"I continued my kunoichi career, got promoted into the Infiltration Division, so I spent a lot of time away from Konoha, my work was invaluable during lead up to the war, my division helped map out the movements of enemy and allowed us to create counter-attacks. After Mikoto was chosen to become Fugaku's wife I threw myself into my work and was gone more than I was home. I used to travel with a lot of merchant groups to help cover my movements, that was how I met your father. I was going to Suna to gather information about some suspicious movements we had caught wind of. Your father was going to Suna to talk about trade and was expected to stay there for several months, which was the perfect cover for me."
I loved hearing Tou-sans side of this story, of how he was so taken with this strong, beautiful kunoichi, who had been so cold to him to start with, but after being stuck together for both travel and their time in Suna, being able to talk to each other and getting to know each other, they started to develop feelings for each other. Tou-san would wax poetic about how beautiful he found Okaa-san, how he found her strength a little bit intimidating, but was more impressed with her for it all the same. It always seemed like a fairy tale story, of the prince and his knight.
"When we returned your Tou-san petitioned to the Uchiha council for the right to court me. Normally he would have gone to my Otou-san, but by then he had been dead for several years. But he was denied, he was refused to right to court me for a month before I went back to the council myself to ask why he wasn't allowed to court me. Apparently Mikoto had chosen me to be her personal guard, which would have prohibited me from marrying or having children of my own. She probably thought she was doing me an honour, but it wasn't what I wanted in life, Mikoto knew I had dreams of a family of my own one day, I felt betrayed. I had to tell Mikoto that I wouldn't be her guard, she begged me to reconsider, but she couldn't understand she was trying to control me, trying to take away my happiness.
"I continued to see your father in secret. We went on dates, had secret rendezvous. He did everything he could to make me happy. He continued to petition the council. Tried to convince Mikoto to release me from the role she was trying to force me into. We were together for less than a year before we had to be open about our relationship." At this Okaa-san smirked down at me, her eyes shining with hidden mirth.
"Turns out I was pregnant with you. When Jirou found out he was ecstatic, it was a challenge to stop him from shouting about you from the rooftops. The council, however, were less than pleased. The Uchiha Elders ordered me to get rid of you. They told me that I was a disgrace, that I was dishonouring the clan for loving your father. My achievements as a kunoichi meant nothing to them." She sighed. "I refused, and I began to make plans to be legally emancipated from the clan. While I packed, Mikoto found me. I was led to believe she understood, that she wanted me to be happy and have a family. I believed her, she helped me pack, brought me tea so that we could say goodbye. I had drank half a cup before I recognised that something was wrong with the tea. Mikoto, my cousin, the little girl I saw as a sister, had poisoned me. Had tried to kill you, Sayuri-chan, before you were ever born. And she nearly succeeded."
By this point Okaa-san had brought me over to her in a deep embrace, wrapping her arms around me tight enough to convince her that I wasn't going anywhere. I could feel her crying into my hair, but beyond the feeling of her chest shuttering I wouldn't have been able to tell. Turns out Okaa-san is a silent crier.
It took several minutes for Okaa-san to pull herself together. To calm her crying. She slowly pulled away from me and wiped her eyes, before wrapping her arm around my shoulders so that she could play with a piece of my hair while I leant into her. It took her a while longer before she continued with the story.
"I left once I realised what Mikoto had done. I found your father waiting for me outside the main house and we went straight to the hospital. The poison failed, obviously." She huffed a laugh. "I was pulled from active duty, I didn't even see war until you were six months old. Your father married me as soon as I would agree, and I haven't talked to any Uchiha outside of missions since. At the time we didn't know what the poison would do to you. At worst we expected you to be still-born, but then you were born this happy, healthy baby, and all our fears dissipated. You're smarter than children your age, but then so is the Hatake kid, you just seem to understand the world a bit more than he does. Your Tou-san kept an eye on your development in case we missed anything, and made sure you were with someone at all times.
"I know I'm not around much for you baby. But I love you so much, and I work hard to try and make it a better place for you. And I'm so angry that my actions when I was younger has caused you pain. If I could I would go back and stop any of it from happening, as long as it meant that I still got to have you. When I heard the doctor say that you were born with your condition, I knew, I knew, what had caused it, and I don't think I can ever forgive Mikoto or the Uchiha's for it."
Listening to her go on I bucked up the courage to finally interrupt her and ask.
"Are you sad that I can't be a ninja like you?"
"I'm happy that you're you. I'm happy that I ever got to hold you, and that I'm getting to see you grow up into a beautiful young girl. My, too smart for her own good, and far too good at hiding it for my peace of mind, daughter. One day you'll walk into the Clans Council meeting and make everyone listen. You'll be the most powerful civilian that Konoha has ever seen. You might be your Tou-sans little lily, but you are my Lily of the Valley."
"I love you too Okaa-san."