Disclaimer: I own Naruto just as much as I did before the hiatus. That is, zero percent of it.
Chapter 7
I made my way to Konoha's General Hospital, feeling a bit wary. This was my first visit to a hospital since I died in one, and it didn't evoke good memories. The white walls, the soft purring and beeping of machines, the constant nausea of chemo, that unidentifiable smell of hospital, the bland food, back when I could still feed myself... all were etched in my mind.
The building was bipartite, with a civilian and a shinobi ward. I headed towards the latter. It was smaller than I expected, dwarfed by its civilian sister. The doorway was huge–made it easier to carry in the infirm, I guessed.
On my back, I carried a pack with my study materials–some paper, a couple scrolls, writing implements–as well as half a dozen kunai. I had used to take a notebook everywhere, in my past life, both for note-taking and sketching; one never knew when inspiration might strike. The kunai were a recent addition, a suggestion from a certain redheaded worrywart.
Inside the hospital (and it was such a shinobi thing that I, a four year old, was nonchalantly carrying knives into a hospital), I asked the reception lady for training room 12, where I was supposed to meet Rin-chan. If the woman was surprised to see an unattended child roaming around, she gave no sign of it. I followed her instructions through a corridor, thankfully devoid of patients and treatment areas, and into a small room furnished with a table and four chairs.
Rin-chan sat at the farthest corner of the table, facing a small potted plant. To her left was a kunoichi I hadn't yet met, holding brush and paper. Her blank eyes marked her as a Hyūga, and boy was it creepy to have them pointed at me. I stared back at her.
"Hi, Hinote-chan!" Rin-chan waved at me, then pointed at the chair to her right. "Come on in and take a seat! This is Hyūga Yomogi, a friend of mine and an accomplished medic-nin. I thought it might be better to have her observe while we experiment."
Realizing how rude I was being, I bowed down slightly and said "Pleased to meet you. Please take care of me." Yomogi-san nodded and gave me a smile.
Once I was settled, Rin-chan turned to me. "Okay, Hinote-chan. First, we're going to investigate how your chakra affects things. Then we can see how medical chakra interacts with it. Alright?" I nodded. She plucked a leaf from the plant." Can you channel some chakra into this?" I assented, and she handed it to me. "When I say 'go'."
I took the leaf gingerly, then removed my left glove and touched it with a bare fingertip. Rin nodded at Yomogi-san, who made a hand seal. Around her eyes, veins popped out. "Go." I channeled my chakra into the leaf, more than I had done before, in hopes that it would disintegrate too fast to burn me. There was a small flash, then a puff of ash.
We both looked to Yomogi-san. "I think your chakra is corrosive," she began. "It broke down the leaf's tissues completely." She annotated on her paper. "Let's try the old leaf."
I was handed a dry leaf this time, long dead. When I channeled my chakra into it, nothing happened. "Should I keep going?" I asked, apprehensive. "This is already twice the chakra the green leaf took." Rin-chan said "yes", so I maintained a steady flow of chakra into the leaf. Three, four, five times...
Suddenly, Yomogi-san said "Stop!". I let the leaf go just as it exploded with a snap. "Apparently, your chakra doesn't like being confined. How do you keep so much of it inside you?" Her eyes might have widened, but it was hard to tell with the Byakugan active. "Either way, the corrosive effect appears to take effect when your chakra encounters the plant's own. In the dry leaf, all residual chakra has already dispersed, so it doesn't burn. Your chakra simply accumulated, since you were pumping it in faster than it could dissipate. Once there was enough of it, it exploded. Can we try a live plant now? Channel it in as slowly as you can–don't want something this size blowing up in our faces."
Rin-chan handed me the potted plant, and I once again channeled chakra into it. At about 8x (if "x" is the amount I used to burn the first leaf), Yomogi-san told me to stop. "I can see where this is going." I took my hand off the plant, and she explained. "The plant seems to have recognized the problem, and is attempting to isolate your chakra in a pocket of its own. Our bodies do this with some poisons, and it does stop the corrosion. However, shutting it into an enclosed space creates the dry leaf problem all over again–even faster than with a dead plant its size, since the chakra is building up under pressure."
We tried several more times, with leaves of different sizes and ages, trying to determine how much chakra was needed depending on various characteristics. Yomogi-san seemed truly interested, and was apparently familiar with experimental methods. This was very welcome, since I missed talking to scientists. They have the most interesting points of view… although they generally use mathematics like barbarians. I told Rin-chan as much, as we walked back:
"Yomogi-san seems to really know what she's doing..."
"Yeah, she's been involved in quite a few research projects before. It's a pity she's going to retire soon… she's been making so much progress!" She sighed. "They marry so young in the clans."
"Can't she keep working if she loves it so much?"
"Well, Hinote-chan, some kunoichi choose that path. But for some, marrying the man they like and bearing his children is more important."
What.
"I'm surprised you're asking. In a large clan like yours, one would expect you to have been engaged already, especially since there is a male heir."
What.
I spent a life fighting through sexist bullshit, both in my family and in academia, only to be reborn in a medieval society? Me and the policymakers in this place are going to have a talk.
I had calmed down a bit by the time we met auntie for lunch. There wasn't much I could do right now, either way; this kind of thing took generations to change, and banging my head against society wouldn't help anyone. Either way, my current social condition made it unlikely that I'd be a highly sought-after bride. Never thought I'd see that as a positive.
Auntie had returned from a mission just the other day–she apparently gave no thought to what was "proper" of a soon-to-be married kunoichi such as her. She might retire if she had children, though; okaa-san, if I recalled correctly, had only turned in her hitai-ate once Itachi-nii and I were born. In a way, I also understood that attitude. Given shinobi death rates, a retired parent drastically reduces the chance of orphanhood.
I had noticed she was home more often than uncle. I had originally thought it might be due to the Kyūbi, but with this knowledge… maybe it's my fault. Had she aborted her career to take me in, be my surrogate mother? I might never know.
We ate at auntie's favorite Ramen shop, Ichiraku's. It was quite popular with shinobi in general, from what I was told, but auntie was some sort of VIP. She and Teuchi-san, the owner, were trading commentary on variations on noodle recipes. Now, I did have some notion of cooking, but all this shoptalk was going way over my head.
I turned to Rin-chan, who could commiserate.
"So, Hinote-chan. I hear you're an artist?" She inquired.
"I see my fame precedes me", I started, with a smile. "Yes, I like to draw. Oh! I'll make one of you while we wait." I reached into my pack and took out a pencil (thankfully, Konoha did have those, although I wasn't sure what the core was made of) and started sketching her. By now, I had adjusted to drawing with my gloves on, so I didn't need to take them off.
I took my subject in carefully. Rin-chan was a pretty girl, with hazel in her eyes and chocolate in her hair. She had purple square markings on her cheeks, maybe some clan insignia. The Rin I drew was laughing, with that large smile that came so easily to the real one's face. It was an expression that drew in the viewer, invited them to laugh along with her.
The food arrived just as I was putting the finishing touches on the drawing–shading and some details to her hair. The finished work included he bare neck and shoulders below her face, suggestive of what lay beyond the margin. I handed it to her.
"Here you go, Rin-chan!"
"Thank you, Hinote-chan. You're really talented, especially for someone so young. Although… why am I not wearing anything in this?" She seemed a bit flustered.
"It would take away from your natural beauty, Rin-chan!"
She muttered something I didn't quite get, and turned to her food. I decided to follow her example–no sense in letting the ramen cool down.
Once I was finished eating, I asked permission to go to the library. I had a surprising amount of freedom for a child this young, but that just went to show how little crime there was in Konoha. It's much harder to get away with a robbery or kidnapping when there's a ninja around every corner, and even a random child might be a killer in training.
Since I'd been reborn, I had met two people I recognized from my fanart. The first had been Kakashi-san, although he looked much younger than I remembered. This had caused me to conclude this was probably before the original plot, whatever it was, took place. It had also made me wary of him, since people's tendency to ship him with younger girls did little to recommend him.
The second had been Rin-chan, who I vaguely remembered seeming to be a kid. She must have been a very minor character, since there weren't that many requests for her. Maybe she was a love interest for Kakashi–she seemed to appear most in conjunction with him.
The man I was staring at now, however, was vividly familiar. I had gotten a great many requests of him–mostly involving a young Uchiha boy. It was a bit weird meeting the subject of so many of my explicit drawings. Calm down, I told myself. There's no way he'd know.
"Hello, Uchiha-chan."
He was a study in contrast: shiny black hair framing sickly pale skin, bright golden irises set around glossy dark pupils. He narrowed his eyes at me and I shivered, even in the harsh sun of a Konoha afternoon.
"Um, hi."
"Were you going somewhere? Allow me to guide you", he said, with a faint smile.
"I'm just going yo the library", I squeaked, "you don't need to trouble yourself."
"Oh, but I insist. Such a precious little child, all alone in the village..." He paused, and that shadow of a smile surfaced again. "Who knows what might happen?"
I was nervous to my core the whole way. There was an intensity to him that speared through me like Kakashi-san's Chidori. My heart beat fast, so loud I feared he might hear–and who knew? In this world full of magic powers and other weirdness, he very well could be listening in. I was ready to bolt by the time we arrived.
"It was a pleasure to meet you, little miss", he declared, and he did look pleased. "I hope to see you around..."
I didn't really manage to get any studying done that afternoon. I did, however, manage to find out his name: Orochimaru of the Sannin. Although, to me, he'll always be Ninja Voldemort.
A/N: University life got unexpectedly hard in recent months, forcing an unforeseen hiatus. I hope I can keep to schedule from now on... With maybe a few extra posts to make up for it?