Chaos herself's note:

Hi, there!

I hope you enjoy the holiday as much as I do.
I'm glad you found your way here again. So this is chapter three. Let's make it a little more interesting and toss another important character in the mix, shall we?
Have fun reading!

Chaos

...

Chapter 3: A Taste of Blood

The young snake pit was still lively and the venomous vermin were busily slithering and gliding around and about each other like a grotesque living and breathing Gordian knot, that likely sunk all of its fangs viciously into your hand if you tried to cut it. Touka listened to the tidal hum and hiss of its increasingly growing number of inhabitants for any indication of a bite fight and studied their behaviour Argus-eyedly; so far nothing out of the ordinary had happened but the tension was undoubtedly rising with every serpent added to the tangle.

Even after Hashirama-sama and his wife had embarked on their journey to Kami-knows-where the trek of suspicious people didn't cease. Needless to say, she didn't like it one bit.

"Coming in..."

Touka narrowed her eyes and watched closer. The mother of all snakes still hadn't reared its ugly head yet...

"Senju-sama...? Hopefully, I'm not troubling you. What are you doing?" a meekly sedate voice permeated her quarters for a second time. So the curious little fawn had returned; interesting.

"Preparing for war," Touka replied not even tearing her eyes away from her target of interest to greet the Nara girl, "always preparing for war..."

"In here?" Kanoko wondered and let her deceptively sleepy gaze wander while she cautiously approached her worktop. "Shouldn't you go outside and...train instead? Practise your Jutsus some more or something?" she drawled and finally tried to peer over Touka's shoulder.

"A Kunoichi needs to be versatile at the art of war," she retorted calmly while her scrutinizing eyes considered the seething mass. Reaching into a covered basket Touka's gauntlet gloved hands emerged with a dark bluish-gray, orange-striped little snake with an equally orange head and a curiously flickering tongue and yellow eyes.

"Let's see what happens when we add this little spitfire to the toxic mix... or did you want to go hunting hares again, Nara-kun?" She shushed at the rarity and cautiously let it glide between her fingers until she slowly lowered it into the globular terrarium teeming with coiling and writhing serpents.

As expected the fawn recoiled a halfstep, her eyes briefly darting to and fro between the finally stirring venomous snakes in the bowl and the skinned and disemboweled malkin hung up all glassy-eyed at the entrance to exsanguinate and sun-dry.

"Well?" Touka finally put a heavy wooden lid on the terrarium, spun around and locked on the teenager as if she was her next target. "Or do you smarty-pants have another idea how to entertain a bored warrior?" she smirked shrewdly.

By the way bedroom eyes widened a fraction like a deer caught in headlights Touka observed her appearance caused just the reaction she intended to elicit in the young Kunoichi. But there was more than respectful fright flashing through the dark depths, she noted, too.

"Everyone else is talking about this truce...and peace," the girl visibly considered the word on her tongue rolling it around in her mouth like too sweet candy drops. "But you're preparing for war, Senju-sama." Touka nodded briefly. "War against whom exactly?"

She aproached the teenager with one swift gliding move towering the lanky fawn even if they were almost the same height already. "The enemies of my clan and clan chief, obviously," she susurrated in a deathly tone and let her Chakra flicker just that menacing bit.

Touka watched how Kanoko's tiny addam's apple bobbed up and down in her slender throat and how cold sweat beaded up in the pale shadows of her neck and brow; but the girl stood rooted to the ground and didn't re-establish the appropriate personal distance. Neither did she avert her gaze nor connect their shadows despite Touka being toe to toe to her purview. "What about the enemies of your allies, Senju-sama?" the Nara whispered tentatively.

The seasoned warrior arched a brow lips curling into a small wicked grin. Now they were talking business! "Go on," she beckoned calmly.

A little shift in the girl's poise told Touka fright was receding slowly and being taken over by brain-powered confidence and working gears. "You can fight and win troublesome battles on your own, Senju-sama," the Kunoichi drawled, paused, took a deliberate breath and continued with more boldness, "but you can't win a war all alone. The Naras are the Senjus' allies now... I...am your ally, Senju-sama. So let's do this together; let me assist you again. And learn."

Touka could practically hear Kanoko's excited heartbeat thrumming while she let the silence stretch on impassively until she could almost see the unease creep back into the girl. "Your body count is three, you claimed. And you had help," she stated sternly. The girl finally averted her eyes and her shoulders sagged.

She reached out her hand, palm up, and made a nearer waving gesture. "Your weapons, Kunoichi. Hand them to me," she demanded and the teenager hesitatingly obliged stripping herself of all defences against the older warrior; Touka briefly considered the cautious trust implied by these actions.

Inspecting the blades she twirled them between her fingers, tested their sharpness, balance, angle of sharpening and noted on the signs of usage. Blunt. Then again, almost every blade was blunt compared to how Touka liked to keep hers...

But the weaponry was treated with due diligence and handled with care; they told the tale of mostly long-ranged squabbles and bouts and Touka remembered the Nara clan's preferences in combat style.

She tossed the blades back into their owner's hands on her way out. "Alright, Nara-kun. Let's work on that body count of yours,'comrade'," she said with a smirk and the girl followed suit, probably secretly questioning what she got herself into by getting involved with Touka.


The little workout with the fawn had been refreshing and just about right for Touka to get all warmed up and ready for some real bloodshed.

Kanoko was more agile and flexible when it came to evasive skills than she let on, which Touka had already expected, her clan specific Nin-Jutsu was fairly decent and her mind was just as sharp as Touka's blades, which the seasoned warrior also had surmised; but the young Kunoichi was definitely lacking in Tai-Jutsu, overall stamina and Chakra reserves. She had been out like a light thrice during the whole session, once due to a Gen-Jutsu and twice because of the merciless drill Touka applied without really breaking a sweat herself.

But Touka had never been known to treat anyone with kid gloves...

Probably she wouldn't get any more visits from the kid this week because she was beat already into next one; and after that she would see if the fawn still had the guts to want to 'play together'. However, she suspected the Nara lot to be ceverer than to betray the Senju and bring certain extinction upon their house; and Touka had made sure to engrave that notion into the shrewd girl's mind and body for good so the point was driven home til far into the Nara clan chief's bedroom!

Shortly word would get out to the Akimichi and Yamanaka, too, Touka was certain. But she would personally probe their trustworthiness soon enough. No need to haste, even if this village was built in one day.

Striding through the village on her self-imposed patrol she put out her senses for anything that might cause a ruckus so she could vent her pent up energy usefully and eliminate a potential or actual threat at one go while Hashirama-sama and his wife were away and Tobirama-dono busy with infrastructure and administrative issues.

The snake pit had started to simmer with lazy hisses, literal tongue-lashing and ocassional gaping jaws with venom dripping fangs; but once the temperature was rising there undoubtedly would be more action...

Touka's gaze fell on black and red blocking her patrol route like a pharos to an impasse; arms crossed and feet apart he stood tall as a rock in his blazing red battle armour facing her way. Her eyes narrowed dangerously at the sight of the root of all evil, Madara Uchiha.

The man seemed to be standing there as if he was waiting for something, someone... her?

But what for? Touka continued walking straight towards him but slowed her pace, her face inscrutably blank except for her cold eyes; he didn't budge one bit and neither did he blink but faced her right on. Could the devil be sensing her bloodlust, her desire for a life and death battle? Well, she was ready... she was always ready to fight for her clan.

"You don't seem to agree with Hashirama's utopian philosophy of 'one village - one world' and some such..." the Uchiha spoke levelly, subtly tempting her to undermine the truce. 'I know what you're doing,' went unsaid.

Touka stopped on the border of purview of her spear. "It's my clan chief's wish so I will follow his directive regardless of what I personally opine on the matter," she shot back to match his undercurrent and watched him like a hawk. This Kunoichi certainly wouldn't be caught napping, especially if she was facing the Uchiha.

One corner of his mouth quirked upwards in a grim lopsided grin. "But you don't believe in this 'peace'," Madara stated the obvious; his voice was ever so slightly beckoning an ambush. "Otherwise you wouldn't be marching about as if this village was on the brink of war. I understand; I'm suspicious, too..." 'Come. Let's end this farce here and now,' she read between the lines, 'Hashirama is not there to stop us; neither is his brother at the moment.'

Her eyes hardened even more; her fingertips itched for familiar steel to be thrust deeply into Uchiha flesh. But Touka restrained herself and betrayed nothing but a cold stare.

He nodded slightly, just the faintest inclination of his head, as if she had actually said something. "Hashirama does, though," he quietly considered and his bloodred eyes finally trailed over the growing village as if he was attempting to count his foes. "He gathers so many different people from so many formerly feuding clans and forces them to work and live together, forces longtime enemies to face each other day after day after day over bread and butter and mutter a 'good morning' and 'please' and 'thank you' as if the past didn't happen at all... But those few kind words taste but like cold ashes in your mouth, dead and hollow and devoid of blood, don't they?"

Madara turned his gaze back on Touka and it seemed to have intensified all of a sudden as if he could pierce her and see past her mask of countenance. She wanted to scream and hurl her Kunai at him to stab and rip his bloody eyes out of their sockets. Yet she dutifully remained where she was; Hashirama-sama wouldn't approve and Tobirama wanted to appease and indulge his brother.

"You feel it, too, don't you? This...wrongness." His words were but a whisper but they seemed to ricochet and bounce back from every wall and stone and tree; they strung her chords harder than she wanted to acknowledge and she forbade her very soul to hum in applause and sympathy.

He sighed. "And yet I pray this vapid dream may linger on for a while longer. So I may watch how Hashirama's quixotic ideas all pan out...and the Uchiha remain 'peacefully' in this village."

"We'll see," Touka gritted out acidly, forced herself to turn a corner and continue her patrol away from the alluring temptation of combat and bloodshed. She would find a way to get rid of the imminent threat to her clan in due time...she would!

"We'll see," Madara echoed solemly behind her back and leisurely strutted off a different path.


Before Touka returned home to finally unwind and study the snake pit some more she shortly stopped by the future school to check on Tobirama's progress and left some geranium, corn poppy and peach blossoms at a prominent place on his lonesome desk, where she was sure he would find it sooner or later.