Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
Fire
Directly after informing Tazuna of the situation building was halted for the day and the workers would pick back up tomorrow again. They walked in silence back to the client's house exhaustion hunching her shoulders and dragging at her feet as they neared the house. Her appearance was horrendous from the injuries to the clean cut through her dress torso, thankfully she had for once worn a tank top underneath and her hair refused to budge from a slight breeze. Entering stalled all movement from within, it seemed they had just sat down for a late lunch and Naruto's eyes bulged at her appearance. Not that she could blame him as there was still that fresh cut on her forearm that she hadn't bandaged but the salt water had taken care of any bleeding when she had her little foray into drowning someone.
"Sakura what happened?! Are you alright?! Who did this!?" he was all up in her face and just generally irritating with his overbearing attitude at that moment, it must have reflected on her face because sensei came to her rescue.
"Now, now Naruto back up and let her breath." Kakashi admonished and the blond stepped down frowning, "Sit down Sakura and tell us what happened." she did as ordered pulling the chair from the table with her right hand and slumped heavily on the chair.
"There was two ninja at the bottom of the bridge," she started slowly running a hand through her matted hair, the salt water not agreeing with it while dry, "a male and a female the latter of which held an explosive tag, they attacked me while I was looking around," so many tangles in her hair, her right hand started at the ends working through it, it was bad enough that Sasuke was seeing her this way, "the female is a genjutsu user that ran away after I took down her partner."
"Woah- Naruto started as he imagined an awesome battle until he was interrupted.
"Both must have not been that skilled." Sasuke commented suddenly disinterested in the proceedings she stared as he looked at a hang nail a part of her wondering if she had heard right.
Not that skilled? Inner questioned in disbelief because yes they had heard that right, No one from our age group is skilled enough to pull a wide area genjutsu like that and we just learned tree climbing from our sensei yesterday! While both of them were able to walk on water just like sensei during his battle with Zabuza. Sasuke and Naruto are still struggling with walking on a tree. That's bullshit, that guy was fast and used his chakra to enhance his speed in some moments of our fight something Sasuke and Naruto both couldn't hope for yet and if Sasuke or Naruto had been in our sandals they would have been destroyed!
"It's a good thing too," Naruto said suddenly frowning as he looked at her appearance which started a burning irritation filled with shame at not having been a tad bit better to avoid her appearance. "Sakura's already gotten hurt too much."
"That reminds me," Kakashi said as she seethed inwardly as she suddenly thought over her teammates complete lack of faith in her abilities, "those wounds of yours aren't too serious are they Sakura?"
"No sensei," she said blandly as Inner raged for her in the back of her mind something she hadn't done since Naruto and Sasuke had their accidental kiss.
"Take care of those upstairs. Tomorrow I will accompany you to the bridge and teach you the next level of chakra control exercises." Kakashi informed her souring Naruto's mood and Sasuke turns dark blazing eyes to glare at her.
Like it was our fault they couldn't complete something so simple, Inner choked as they fled upstairs snatching the standard medical pouch from her bag and locking herself in the bathroom.
"What the fuck just happened?" She slid down the wall between the toilet and the tub taking no note of her foul language because she wasn't supposed to be better than Sasuke at anything. He was the rookie of the year after all and she was only kunoichi of the year because of her academic knowledge.
Preconceived notions with insufficient data, Inner supplied frantically as her mind whirled.
"Outdated data," she corrected before accepting that it was the same in both contexts, she rested her head against the wall in a daze.
Never had she imagined that Sasuke would ever be topped but every scenario she placed him in against the two she had faced earlier he would have lost. Each situation placed out differently from the beginning since he still had yet to master tree walking so going down there in the first place would have been inaccessible to him unless he used some unorthodox method. Still she was the genjutsu type on this team while the boys were more attack and attack differently if it didn't work the first time seen from the fight with Zabuza.
We also have better chakra control than them, Inner supplied ignoring the vast majority of things they weren't as good at as the boys.
And hadn't that been a shock? For her to be better at something that could be used in battle situations than Sasuke who was previously assumed to excel at anything battle related. It definitely wasn't something she had ever considered when she was placed on a team with her crush and that loser Naruto. It was exciting when she thought of all the ways she had used her chakra control during battle, a battle which she had won thanks to her talent with her chakra.
We should get cleaned up and sleep early for tomorrow, Inner interrupted her thoughts pushing back the niggling of Sasuke's glare as she finally smelt how awful she was.
They deviated from the beginning of the bridge staying just long enough to see Tazuna greet his workers before heading to the shore. Since her dress had been wrecked and she wanted to save the only other one in her possession she now wore one of Tsunami's old shirts. It was styled in likeness to the woman's shirt just with different color scheme and being smaller, a base apricot color for the torso while two inches of the sleeves ending just above her elbow was a nice tangerine. While the material was heavy and thick causing her to sweat it was comfortable and the shirt ended just above her kunai holster, just enough that she didn't have to be conscious with her spandex shorts on.
"Here we are," sensei said as they came to a stop on the sand, "the next exercise is one you have by now already witnessed myself doing which is walking on top of water as if it were the ground beneath your feet."
"Hm sensei-
"Go ahead it's just like tree climbing," kind of put off over not being allowed to tell him right away that she knew the exercise she walked out onto the water perfectly.
"I had to figure this out yesterday sensei," she tells him making him sigh.
"I had figured as much with as little as you told me of the battle," he admits as she remains standing stationary playing with the hem of her shirt. "Well I hadn't planned on anything after that, but I will have you under the bridge all day guarding it. There I want you to work on chakra control and deepening your reserves in preparation of guarding Tazuna for when Zabuza and his accomplices' make their move."
"I'll be guarding Tazuna, sensei?" ignoring the fact he's leaving her to her own devices during her training this week.
"It's imperative he remains alive, if he perishes our mission becomes obsolete and fighting against Zabuza and whoever else is with him becomes a moot point." he seemed to place a lot of importance on Tazuna's survival so she swallowed any stubbornness that wanted to prove herself.
"Do you really think those two from yesterday were working with Zabuza, sensei?"
"It's of little importance at the moment, the thing I need you to focus on Sakura is practicing your chakra control and guarding Tazuna."
"Of course sensei. I will be guarding the under belly of the bridge from any further attempts at sabotage the rest of the week all the while practicing for the upcoming battle and when that comes I am to protect Tazuna while you, Sasuke and Naruto take on any hostiles." she summarized to fish out any questions but all was right in that statement much to her ire.
"Good girl, I'll go back up and stick with Tazuna until then focus on your objectives." and he was walking away back up to the bridge where their client would be all the way at the end. Any chance of him seeing her throughout the week until the moment between Tazuna's house and the bridge gone with his positioning. And it was the whole week left with nothing but herself and the feeling of neglect.
Can we skate on the water? Inner wondered before she started walking to be directly under the bridge, genuinely intrigued with the thought she had something entirely else to focus on.
She owed a lot to Inner, two minds were quickly able to make a schematic of different methods and trying them all filled the time. They were mindful of her reserves never letting it get dangerously close to utter depletion but, as a counter argument Inner had stated that sensei had instructed them to work on deepening their reserves, it came close. The most surefire method of doing so involved using a lot of chakra almost to depletion and waiting for it to recover which she decided to use that time her chakra recovered to climb up the bridge pillars. This way she would be exercising her body as climbing a bricked structure upwards against gravity worked many of her muscles.
Of course that was more difficult than she had anticipated and fell a good half way up which reminded her of the fear from yesterday she turned the fall into a dive. While technically she wasn't supposed to get wet she removed the now soaked bandages from her forearm the scratch was healing nicely having just been given yesterday. Checking the one on her left thigh showed the same improvement, tying the bandages on a kunai she imbedded in a pillar she let her wounds air out after the dip. Deciding to stay out of the salty water's the rest of the day she practiced battle drills under the bridge manipulating her chakra in such a way as to simulate actually using it in a fight.
I wonder how much we can lift using chakra to enhance our body, Inner said just before she started water skating again as it burned chakra the most even with their new design of two watermill wheels on each foot which took fine control and less chakra than previous designs.
It was noon when she delivered her new boulder under the bridge having found it along the north shore, it was nearly ten times her weight and five times her size. Having exhausted a lot of chakra to carry it over to her little guarding post she wasn't surprised when her stomach growled. She wondered what she was going to eat for lunch before she decided to try her hand at fishing with her chakra, a little thought spurred on from her fall earlier that morning. It wasn't easy and she only got three fish the whole hour she devoted to catching them while sitting on a pillar and letting her feet dip in the water, using that as a source of contact she had sent a string of chakra from each foot.
She was actually surprised she had caught anything even if on the last one she had struggled and used a lot of chakra to lengthen the string just to catch it. Reeling back in the strings with the paralyzed fish, something she had learned to do if she let her chakra encase it after it was caught to reduce pulling, she was met with the warm feeling of her chakra returning. Bounding back to the shore with her fish in hand still trapped she went up the rocks to get some wood which she carried in her other arm with the help of chakra strings, having done that she sharpened three sticks after setting the fire and gutting the fish, forking them on the stakes she held them above the flames. It was actually kind of relaxing she realized even if her stomach no longer growled to show it's hunger, never had she really been on her own for the whole day.
Back in the village there was always someone around, either watching or just around the corner in the bustling village and she lived with her parents so she wasn't ever alone at home. Being placed on this team had made her feel crowded in a way that she hadn't realized before, between her crush on Sasuke taking up all her attention to when Naruto tried to get said attention she felt like she was being pulled in different directions. It didn't help that Kakashi's presence wanted her to do better in missions, so make that three directions and her own frustrating irritation with Naruto, sensei's lateness and Sasuke not falling for her yet. Here it was so wonderfully quiet, just her and Inner finally making good progress with something of the ninja variety that she was talented in, it didn't matter that the waves hit against the pillars with loud splashes it was so serene and silent as opposed to Tazuna's own home.
Do you think we can make a chakra rope from our hands to swing from one pillar to the next? Inner questioned after she had finished devouring the fish and her reserves had replenished finally.
It turned out they could, of course since she didn't have a lot of chakra the rope itself wasn't as thick as rope and more of a wire variety in strength from practice. Furthermore on that point due to her not having much chakra as she would want at the time she couldn't elongate the wire that much or risk losing the chakra formation. There was a lot of distance studying using the pillars as a guide, she wasn't going to be able to have the wire reach from one pillar to the next though. This led her to using momentum, a lot of core muscles and expert timing when releasing the wire that was actually attached to the pillar if she wanted to explode off the wire.
Doing so was terrifying at the same time adrenaline rushing as she landed on the pillar across from the one she had swung from on her feet and one hand sticking to the surface. Her right hand still held the wire she slowly started reabsorbing, overall it was a success but she'd need to work more on her core muscles to work such acrobatics into something that didn't have her landing so close to the bottom of the pillar. It just added something for her to do when she exhausts her chakra, spurred by the adrenaline she did a few back flips upwards before sliding and reattaching herself to the pillar. Those few back flips were a workout as she had fought against gravity and having to flex back for her feet to touch the pillar before she released the hold with her hands was strenuous.
She spent a good amount of time practicing running on horizontal and vertical surfaces, since they both needed one foot on the surface at all times. It was good to ingrain the habit when switching surfaces as she always ran with bounding off each foot on solid ground letting momentum carry her forward. She ended up doing a few flips under the bridge and slipped up once sending her plummeting down to the waters' this time though she had managed to land correctly on the water, bobbing up a bit so she didn't hurt herself with her control. It was around this time she took a break from physical exertion coupled with chakra exercises and went about attaching her kunai to her own chakra wire and throwing it.
While she didn't have a target she could at least work on her throwing arm, doing so on both and focusing more on the left since that was where she was weakest as seen yesterday. She threw kunai and brought it back using her chakra reabsorbing the energy like a yo-yo, this way with repetition it would return faster. Shuriken were more difficult compared to kunai as they spun when thrown, using control over her chakra she made a little wheel of chakra inside the weapons hole clamping down on the edges of the shuriken. A little nob on either side of the wheel poking out slightly from the hole attached to the wire loosely before many attempts and successes tightened it just enough it wouldn't slip.
After recovering her chakra hours later she went fishing again using her mastery over the chakra string method to catch six fish with her feet dipped in the water. Since it was nearing late evening she had decided to put her training/guarding away for the day to eat. No one was there to see her consume the fish and she found herself slowly getting better at starting a fire with just sticks at her disposal. Inner had helped shelve away any thought of dieting since she was actively wearing herself out and she was on a mission, logic demanded she consume large portions of food in part of continued chakra usage and strenuous exercise that day.
That night after no sensei to tell her to return to Tazuna's house she did so herself after checking that yes the builders had stopped for the day, after arriving she informed Kakashi that nothing had happened. She was still disconcerted at his lack of reaction before he went back to his book, shuffling that away with thoughts of what she would end up doing tomorrow as Tsunami served them food. Naruto broke her concentration though when both he and Sasuke started gorging themselves on the food Tsunami was providing. Disgusted and annoyed that Sasuke could partake in such behavior she ate the vegetables Naruto shoved off onto her as she had commented on his lack of veggies in his diet, she found she couldn't really complain after a full day of eating nothing but fish.
The next day proved as progressive as the last, she ate a large breakfast with Tazuna's family as her teammates rushed to get back to training. On the way to the bridge she questioned sensei about methods to release genjutsu and realize a genjutsu was cast, the answers were stuff she already knew much to her disappointment. Any question about ninjutsu was evaded with the old 'she didn't have enough chakra to even properly do one and he couldn't under his own conscious teach her something she could kill herself with'. While she knew that she didn't have enough chakra to do a big jutsu that didn't mean little tips couldn't be gleaned from the supposed man who had copied a thousand of them.
Let's try adding chakra to our attacks, Inner suggested after her mind darkened near her boulder over Kakashi's obvious lack of trust in her.
"Yeah," she mumbled after carefully inspecting the bridge underbelly and pillars nothing looked messed with and she even dispersed her chakra around the key areas and still came up with nothing. More relaxed now that her paranoia was put to rest she went to her boulder checked around it because that's where she would most likely spend the whole day, it was good as well.
She went slowly through the katas in front of the boulder, mentally Inner judged the academy fighting style something neither of them had done with most of their time being consumed by the academy and Sasuke. Over all the style was well thought out, unless your opponent was faster and more experienced any slight weaknesses wouldn't be exposed so easily. She would be lying if she said she had used the style form for form against the sword wielding boy, with so little time to think she had just done her best to dodge and find any means to one up him. It probably saved her life she had been too terrified to fall back on the academy form and just free styled it while doing her best to learn everything about his style while she dodged. Again she was thankful about the patterns she saw and her own photographic mind to remember his moves easily.
I don't think the academy style compliments us, Inner hedged hesitant because it took time and devotion to developing a new style and they only knew the academy one.
"Oh well" she breathed as she just started punching the boulder at regular speed with chakra exploding forth.
Each style gave building blocks, she did well enough free styling against that guy so the only thing she could progressively do now was work on her attacks. There was a resounding thwack as she timed one punch just right, the boulder remained unmoving as she hadn't used that much just to get the repetition engrained was enough for now. Hours moved by as she switched to doing the same to her elbows getting varying success from each limb, doing more on the left as the failure rate was largest there but overall there was more resounding thwacks. She worked her way down to her knees and then the flats of her feet sweat pouring down as she panted before breaking.
Catching fish to wind down she hoarded them in a bucket she had gotten from Tazuna's house, after that her chakra was running low so she went about gathering wood again before playing in the sand. It was relaxing she realized again as she went about using the recovering chakra to make a small figurine in the sand, it was an angel from fiction books she had read in her childhood. After that she brushed off her hands stomach growling and went about cooking the fish for an early lunch as it seemed the big breakfast would need to be bigger or small snacks would need to be involved this week during the days. Taking a sip from her canteen that she had the forethought to bring today she went back to the boulder.
Adding more chakra didn't harm the huge rock so she added a bit more before staying at that level and started the repetitions. She switched it up a bit and added some new moves she had only seen others use and thought up herself. Anything too complex couldn't work on a rock since it wasn't human shaped but constantly switching from an elbow strike to a knee kick or other variations quickly while speeding up was good. The failed untimely ones would be used again later on popping up when Inner called off each strike, the faster she did it the more failures which was frustrating but she persevered and continued slowing down a little then speeding up.
Using more and more chakra in her hits since the boulder wouldn't break not even a slight crack meant exhausting her chakra faster thus in those times she either started up the fire and cooked a fish or she did physical exercise. After doing sets of pushups, sit-ups or squats she would practice her battle movements involving jumping up during a crouch or crawling on the sand to run to doing tucks and rolls. Practicing hand eye coordination with her kunai she almost juggled them and there were close instances where she almost cut herself on accident. That's how the rest of her day went and towards the end her timing became much better though her chakra enhanced hits never did damage the boulder much to her disappointment.
Reporting nothing happening to sensei she joined them at the table, Naruto already shucking off his vegetables to her plate in each dish he was served until Tsunami just stopped altogether and gave her his portion. Not minding in the slightest she ate, the boys seemed eager to sleep as if tomorrow would come faster, in their minds it probably did and sensei left the room as well. She ended up eating a good portion of the left overs as Tsunami fretted that she didn't have enough room to place it in containers and the fridge. Thoroughly stuffed she slept peacefully having released the transformation that hid the blossoming bruises on her knuckles, forearms, elbows and knees.
The next day she reapplied the transformation in the bathroom being the last to get up purposefully, eating a larger helping of breakfast Tsunami gave her a bag of homemade snacks, a part of her thought the woman was omnipotent. On the way to the bridge she questioned some about taijutsu only to get the answer of how it took time to 'truly develop the skill and it was much too early for her to be focusing on that'. She accepted that with a polite affirmative and tried to ignore Tazuna's glance in her direction as she fell back with the man sensei leading them. She understood better now that sensei wanted her in a specific position on the team, from her genjutsu aptitude in the academy and chakra control it seemed clear.
I wonder if we can have our thrown kunai's go in different directions or even swipe at places, Inner wondered.
With that thought she forgot about what she had been thinking before and it took much more control but a second string split from the main one and attached higher to the hilt of a kunai allowed her to pull that causing it to turn. It allowed more maneuverability with the thrown weapons whereas shuriken could go from horizontal to vertical with a second string pulling at one end of the nobs, it needed more focus for the first few times but she quickly adapted to the extra control it required and soon barely even broke a sweat over some maneuvers she experimented with. Moving the strings to her finger tips she was able to manipulate, at most, three different thrown weapons adding another required more concentration and almost broke the chakra strings. Progress was being made by lunch as she moved to four weapons in her left hand and five in her right, she used these strings to catch a bundle of ten fish which was getting easier and easier.
Opting to try something different after exhausting her chakra and awaiting the regeneration of said energy she meditated. In her mind she was faced with Inner with their thoughts so synched barely any thought of what to do wasn't touched upon by speaking and they went through a small spar. She worked better with her mind and calculations while her body couldn't do complicated maneuvers on the fly because of the lack of physical ability when her body got to that point it would be easier to practice if she worked out kinks in her mind's eye right now. This was a completely different way to work on taijutsu than to physically go through the motions and finding out what worked and what didn't like most ninja did.
If she was honest with herself she was mostly doing this in spite of sensei saying it took years she didn't have during this week for the supposed battle that would come to climax. Sure she understood in most every ninja's opinion it took years to prefect taijutsu, but right now she wasn't looking for perfection she just needed a template to work with. Her vague idea was based on the sketchy images she had imagined during her fight with the katana wielding boy as she reached for a hair brained and risky plan to beat him. This time she was working ahead of time using her impressive mental power to go through many imagined battle scenarios for close quarters and seeing which maneuver seemed the most likely to work ranging from: red which would absolutely not work, yellow it would work under chakra enhancements with specified enough chakra to complete and green to she could do without enhancements.
If we add the pattern watching into any battle we can win given enough time, Inner stated this could only be possible if she was fast enough physically to lessen chakra usage to her speed since she needed more energy to last in a battle.
On her way back to Tazuna's house she noticed the scent of smoke causing her to glance up to the rapidly darkening sky, barely seeing anything she followed her nose cautiously. The streets were suspiciously empty from all the street dwelling people she had seen every time they went to the bridge, which is until she saw a crowd of people. Even though it was dark she looked around tensing as she felt vaguely familiar with this area, the burning shack at the end of the mass of people was painfully familiar. Rushing forward past the milling people that didn't seem to care all that much over the burning shack and the horrible smell wafting from there she went for the entrance to bust through.
The fire leaped at her as if was possessed causing her to jump back into the throng of people, she saw from the cracking window a figure strung up in a noose. Flames licked at the body long hair gone, wrinkled skin blackened from the fire as it at up along the corpse black smoke rising off the corpse as the frail bones curved in the unnatural heat. Wood cracked and fell as the ropes got ate and the mass of charred skin fell to the ground, finally the roof caved in sending cinders up into the night air like lightning bugs. The horrible smell came billowing at her clogging her throat, the want to puke rolled through her as she realized it was burning flesh and burnt hair, none of the incense held within the shack could be smelt through the overpowering scent.
Someone did this on purpose, get out of here! Inner hissed at her tensing she pushed people out of her way as she escaped the sea of people that had suddenly sprung up.
Stumbling because the smell still hung in the air and nothing of these mass of smelly people were doing anything to the scent. Something happened in the mass of people as someone screamed and there was a thump and the metallic scent of blood mixed in the sickening smells. Whirling she tried to look for a threat but before anything people were running shoving her out of their way in their frantic need to escape the area as another cry of pain settled in and another thump adding to the panic. Getting pushed some more she leaped atop some burly man before nimbly jumping on a wooden pole that gave her a vast out look over the chaos.
The smell only became heavier higher up and it clogged at her nose desperately she wished for a scarf or some cloth to cover her mouth and nose. Coughing and eyes watering from the smoke she tried to glance back down at the scene only three bodies lay in heaps blood pooling in the dark street looking trampled on and every other person having ran far from the area. Scowling she debated whether or not to go down and investigate before something caught her eye a figure standing unbothered right beside the crumbled heap of cinders the wood still beating alive with flames. The person with an odd helmet made of bone looked slowly at her, she tensed before the smoke swirled and the figure disappeared.
What. The. Hell. Inner echoed her thoughts.
Investigating the three corpses left her wondering even more than before as she recognized the guy that had tried to attack her and Tsunami the first day in wave. She remembers having taken him down with the help of chakra and using what the old lady Tsunami had met with that day had told her. So those two deaths connected somewhere, but there was a little kid also lying dead in the street her head bashed in making her face almost unrecognizable aside from the odd dark auburn hair. The third corpse was a middle aged man his throat having been carved out with something grated, so each death was something different as the man that had attacked her had a hole at the base of his skull.
Still waiting for the embers of the shack to cool down she started rifling through their pockets to find something that linked the three together aside from the fire, but also for a reason to their deaths. She didn't find anything much aside from the horrifying revelation of a candy wrapper, the same candy she had given to a little orphan girl after the man had attacked her that day. A coldness started to sweep through her at the brief thought that racked her mind once, surely someone wouldn't murder a kid just because she had given candy out? She shook her head, that couldn't be possible.
Nothing had survived the shack, the old lady was nothing but a burnt corpse and only the vague outline of the shack showed something had been there. She checked where that mysterious figure but as she figured there was nothing indicating something or anyone had been there. There was nothing on any of the other two bodies to show any reason for their death, disgruntled at the lack of much of any reason for their demise she went through the laborious process of burying them. Nobody was out and it was eerily empty but looking around she just decided to bury all four of them in the ruins of the shack since the ground was warm and soft.
She commandeered a shovel which was the proper six feet length and used that to measure the graves which took hours of her night just to dig them. At a few points she wondered if anyone of her team was wondering about where she was and why she wasn't back yet, it was certainly late enough. Shaking her head at those thoughts she brushed her hair once again out of her eyes she felt ash smear and stick to her oily face, she probably looked horrible as a glance down revealed she was covered in soot. Looking over at the four bodies she oddly felt out of place, she didn't know why they were killed and desperately didn't want to forget them for the fear it was somehow her fault for not being able to save them, but aside from all of what happened this night she knew memories weren't exactly full proof.
Take something from them, Inner urged as a few tears streaked down her cheeks as she sank to her knees down beside the child first.
She wondered what she could take from the child, she had only seen the kid's face once and even that memory was fleeting in of itself, if she hadn't remembered the candy she was sure she would have no idea who this girl was. Even then she still didn't know the child's name, exhausted her nose stuffed full of soot it no longer ran with mucus her eyes caught on that odd hair, pulling out a kunai she sliced off a generous amount of length using her chakra to keep the strands together easily. Moving on she did the same to the dark blue haired man who she still had no clue as to how he tied into this, and then the dark haired man which had attacked her. The old woman was difficult since there was no hair what so ever to chop off the flesh would rot before Inner mentioned the bones.
She cut through the charred flesh and peeled blistered muscle away, using her kunai sharpening it with chakra which much to her surprise it worked easily slicing through the bone like butter. Picking one up she tested it with some pressure from her fingers but the bone wasn't soft like how her blade had cut through it. Deciding to experiment with that later she removed three other knuckles before placing them in her pouch with the locks of hair she had held together via her chakra. She dragged each body into their respective grave and went by burying them finally, afterward she gave them each a prayer.
After the prayer she made her way back to Tazuna's house her eyes burning in the slight illumination the moon provided, she held a kunai in her right hand the whole way. She slowly entered the client's house no one was up, she still had yet to decide if that angered her or relieved her that she didn't have to speak about the night's events. Which was stupid and she felt hurt that sensei had dismissed her not returning before midnight struck, he was her sensei he should nurture them to grow and be concerned if something unusual was going on.
Let's get cleaned up, it's gonna take a while to scrub our clothes to look any semblance of not sooty, Inner commented distracting her.
It took an inordinate amount of time to scrub her clothes, the spandex didn't matter much but they'd always feel slightly different and warmer, the top managed to retain its' color surprisingly. Having washed up to her forearms just to do her clothes first she tiredly went about using most of the soap she had brought along with her just to scrub her skin raw of the oily soot clinging to it. Her hair the same and after she scrubbed the tub of the dark residue left over from the draining water. Sleep was pressing down hard on her but she found her eyes wouldn't close and her mind was too busy recounting what had happened.
She ended up mindlessly climbing to the roof with her gear having dressed in her dress and pajama bottoms instead of her drying spandex. Sitting down she took out her weapons and went about systematically sharpening them it wasn't something she was used to but it distracted her enough to get each blade razor sharp slicing through one of her plucked hairs easily. After sharpening them she went about polishing them for hours afterward, to the point she could almost see her reflection in each weapon. Finding it still hard with Inner silent to not think about everything she went through her pouch coming to an abrupt stop.
As buried under three locks of hair still held together by her chakra having infused with the strands, four bone knuckles blackened from the heat but hard as stone and a multitude of dried bandages was a dagger.
A wicked little thing the blade the size of her hand the metal was doubled edged covered in scratches, the hilt curved oddly with a few feathers sticking up from the leather hilt covering.
But what sent a chill running down to her spine and sent her stomach doing flips was the wire poked through a small drilled hole at the base of the handle.
Two teeth attached to the wire clinked as a breeze swept by.