Chapter 34 – Results, Part 2

We were right; Kakashi came back to us that night.

He was late, not appearing until midnight, with us still sat around the dying fire with growing circles under our eyes. But he arrived all the same.

I felt the brush of static chakra approaching the house before either of the boys and was surprised when I noticed the other chakra with him. Warm, sweet chakra that seemed to seep through you to linger in your bones. A rare chakra that didn't hold an elemental feeling. It reminded me of…

"Sensei and Inoichi-san are here!"

Sasuke frowned up at me, pushing himself swiftly from the floor. "Who?"

I had to hold myself back from darting out the door. "Ah, Ino's dad, he works in T&I and-"

In a heartbeat both he and Naruto were in front of me, yanking the door open. I pursed my lips. "And he's really nice!" I called after them.

Sensei and Inoichi were already walking up the path to the house, footfalls unusually loud to signal their approach. Sensei reached forward to ruffle both of the boys' hair, to their obvious annoyance. He peered up toward me.

"Sakura-chan." One of his dogs, the larger one, rushed up to rub its head eagerly against his legs, tongue lolling out. The smaller dog that had been guarding the outside sat next to me, stoic as a statue.

"Sensei," I greeted, my stomach beginning to churn again. "Do we have news?" The small dog moved just enough to give my hand a single, dignified lick.

Inoichi spoke up first. "We do. We're going to ask that you come with us to speak privately, Sakura-chan." His face held a soft expression, his eyebrows pulling very slightly inward. For the first time, I noticed that his chakra was not radiating naturally- it felt somehow charged with emotion and intent. It gave a supporting impression, as though the chakra itself was trying to steady me upright.

Ever distractible, even in the most vital of situations, I opened my mouth to ask how he did it when Naruto cut in.

"Not alone! We're not doing that anymore."

Sasuke looked back at me and nodded. "We hear everything together now. New team rule."

I looked between both their faces and nodded.

Sensei sighed. "I'm sure Sakura has already told you what happened, so you should understand that this-"

"Consider it a team-work exercise," Sasuke cut in.

Sensei deflated. "Well, we can't argue with that, can we, Yamanaka?"

Inoichi raised his eyebrows at him. "We absolutely can. The security implications of this incident reach far beyond what has occurred here. There's no good reason-"

"We believe Kabuto was a spy sent by the Hidden Sound village."

Inoichi scowled at him. "Which even Sakura doesn't necessarily need to know."

"It turns out, Tsunade specifically asked him not to visit you today; she was confused to hear about it but didn't think much of it at the time. The receptionist even had him signed into the building under a completely different name."

I blinked. "Who the hell is he and what does the Hidden Sound village have to do with this?"

Sasuke made a strangled sound. When I looked to him, he had the most apologetic expression I'd ever seen on him- actually, probably the only apologetic expression.

"We thought you knew. The ninja who attacked us had headbands from Otogakure- the Hidden Sound village."

I twisted my hands together, less in anxiety so much as thought. "So that's where Orochimaru is?"

Sasuke looked between Naruto and me and nodded. "Has to be, if we're putting everything together right. Which means my brother is likely still there, too." He crossed his arms. "When do we leave?"

Inoichi gaped. "We're not sending you out there. Having the three targets they seem the most desperate to harm step foot in their base of operations? Do you think we're idiots?"

Naruto scowled. "Exactly! If we're the three biggest targets then why weren't you gonna tell us what's going on? This is bullshit! The Fire Lady was right. Keeping all these secrets is what's gonna get people killed!"

"We weren't going to tell you to prevent you from doing something as foolish as this!" Inoichi snapped. "You are first-year genin! You're still young enough to think of yourselves as immortal! You've barely taken any missions, and you've not had enough experience to learn how to survive such a mission. Something on the scale of infiltrating another shinobi village- if that's what we decide to do- would be the work of a jounin team."

"Or ANBU," Kakashi agreed softly.

"Fine," I said sharply. Sasuke and Naruto gave me startled looks. "So tell me what happened to my parents."

Inoichi gave me a flummoxed look before regaining his footing. "Ah- we are… We are not sure yet. We will inform you if we get any news." Kakashi crossed his arms and looked away.

I gritted my teeth. "So what, exactly, did you come here to tell me? That my therapist gave me a trapped-scroll? I figured that out for myself, thank you." As much as I'd been trying to deny it, there was no ignoring the obvious.

Kakashi let out a breath. "Yes. We are fortunate in that, at least, he seemed so willing to blow his cover so soon after making contact with you." He furrowed his brows. "Which tells us that he had no information he cared to gain from you directly, and any harm that he's done was already considered finished. We're working through the roster of other ninja he's seen."

"How did he manage to infiltrate so far?" I asked. "He told me he was a chunin; wouldn't he have appeared in the exams under another village?"

Inoichi shook his head. "Not necessarily, no. He paperwork was entirely in order; he's had the most convincing fakes I've ever seen. The paper trail works back to his birth. For all we know, he may well have been born and raised in Konoha. The Sound Village was only recently founded- they only have infrequent contact with the other hidden villages, the oldest record we found was little over a decade ago." He frowned. "Of course, they may be much older, and merely staying out of the affairs of the lands outside themselves. Not all ninja villages have their sole income through running missions. We think they may be self-stable."

Kakashi nodded. "And if Orochimaru and Uchiha Itachi have indeed made a home there, it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that it is granting asylum other missing-nin. We have a contact in some underground circles who has agreed to try to find more ties." Inoichi glowered at him; this was probably more information we weren't meant to have.

"Where is the Sound Village anyway? I've never even heard of it before now," I said.

"Most Hidden Villages are exactly that, Hidden. We know the general area of most, and a few we are on good enough terms with to know the exact location. Otogakure is not one of them," Inoichi said.

"We've had conflicting reports," Kakashi added. "Either their information control is top-notch, or they have multiple outposts of unknown size." His eyes slid over to meet mine. "But nice try."

I scowled. "My parents, Sensei!"

His expression didn't waver. "We're working on it. I know it's not your style, but please rely on us a little. We know what we're doing."

My anxiety bubbled over into frustration and I whirled around, driving a kick into one of the large, decorative rocks that lined the walkway. My foot seemed to press into it like clay before the stone fractured and burst outward, littering the ground with tiny shards.

I didn't feel any better.

"Tell me when you know whether my parents are dead or not," I shot at them, storming back into the house. I knew even as I said it that it wasn't fair, but I was past caring. This new life was the first time I'd had the opportunity to not be helpless, and somehow, it kept happening time and time again.

So very much outside of my control, and yet, somehow, my fault.

I collapsed back in front of the fire, my hands curled into fists. "Dammit," I muttered, teeth clenched and eyes burning. "Godverdomme!"

It was a long while before Sasuke and Naruto re-entered the house, by which time I hadn't so much calmed down as run out of energy. Without a word, they began rolling out futons.

"Anything else?" I finally asked.

"Nothing useful," Sasuke said, dropping my bag beside me. Sensei must have retrieved it from my house; I could see Ten-Ten's scroll peeking through the top. "The Sound Village will be banned from the upcoming Chunin exams, but that's about it. We're hoping Sensei will be more talkative when Inoichi isn't around." He rubbed at an eye. "Get some sleep. We'll figure something out in the morning." He walked over to the couch and collapsed on it, barely pausing to draw a blanket over himself. Naruto took the futon closest the door and was snoring within seconds.

For long minutes I sat quietly between the tide of their chakra, the soft warm thrum of Sasuke's and the cool flow of Naruto's, listening to the sounds of their breathing steady and even out, the fire still crackling before me.

I crawled onto the futon in the middle of the room and continued concentrating on their chakra, trying not to let my mind wander. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

It may have been hours or only minutes before my eyes opened again. My sleeping mind, free of the iron control I'd been pushing over it, had become a forest of thousands of sprouting thoughts, all twisting their own way.

One of them was stronger than the others, and I grasped it with both hands, so concentrated on the idea that my mind thrust its way out of sleep.

And so there I was, sitting quietly in Sasuke's kitchen, several books arrayed around me and rapidly scrawling into a notebook. I was so focused on my thoughts that I didn't even sense Sasuke until he pulled out the chair beside me.

I gave him a look askance.

"I woke up in a cold sweat," Sasuke admitted, crossing his arms. "It doesn't feel right, as a ninja, to leave nobody on watch when there's an obvious danger." He raised his eyes to meet mine. "And you?"

"I woke up in a cold sweat, too." I wrung my hands in agitation. "I just realised molecular genetics and chakra might behave similarly as self-regulatory systems."

He was silent a moment, before: "We're both very different people."

"Not really," I shrugged, mind still whirring as I flipped through my copy of Chakra: Form and Function. Eventually, I found the chart I was looking for. "Anyway, do you happen to own a bulletin board, multicoloured push pins, and string?"

Sasuke ran a hand over his face, shoving his chair back. "I'm going back to sleep. Wake us up if anything extreme happens."

"Sure." I began rummaging around in my bag for another notebook.

He walked toward the door before pausing. "Conclusions about chakra do not count as 'extreme'."

"Goodnight, Sasuke."

Okay, so Chakra is information that hasn't been processed yet. What else is similar to this? DNA. Forget my earlier ideas- forget computers, forget neurons- boo, blah, boring. No, DNA fits much better.

Ninety-five percent of DNA doesn't create proteins until it gets an outside signal, like hormones, right? And even those strands can be cut and combined in different ways, depending on what particular enzymes are around.

Which sounds an awful lot like Chakra. What changes what Chakra does?

Shape. Makeup. Intent. Container. Position.

Which is something a ninja can influence, but what does the environment do?

Chakra is already whirring in the background of a normal human body, after all- even plant bodies. What is normally sending cues to the chakra to tell it how to behave? What role does chakra play in day-to-day living?

The memory of healing Lee, the chakra helping to send out signals throughout his body's cells.

What if Chakra is both the signal and the signalled?

My mind whirred faster.

Checks and balances. Hormone A is activated, causing more production of Chakra A which performs Function B. Chakra B notices too much production of Chakra A, so it influences Hormone B…

Okay, so maybe Neurons weren't such a shit example, after all. But still. It's wonderfully, deliciously multi-purpose. With so, so much room for different functions and expression.

And Sasuke even told me in the beginning that the reason we form hand-seals is because they mirror the shape chakra makes as it's formed in the body. So by focusing our intent, we must be signalling to our body what chakra needs to be produced... which would be similar to how the amino acids in DNA influence protein shape. Proteins do different things and fit in different places depending on their shape.

And if something goes wrong and there's a mutation in the gene, the effect goes awry.

Like exploding foot technique, if you're not focusing your chakra correctly.

Or ripping open a man, instead of healing him.

Like changing a full system, instead of concentrating on healing the sub-systems that you should be working on.

And all living things will have DNA or RNA- So perhaps where there's DNA or RNA, chakra follows.

But Sensei told me non-living things have chakra as well, even if it's less. Why would a rock- Oh, duh.

The same way a rock can be warm on a sunny day, dumbass. You've literally read about how putting chakra into a kunai can linger in its molecular structures.

I stared down at my blank notebook. "I should be writing this down."

I did so and beamed at what I'd written. Then grimaced.

"Then why," I muttered. "Why and where the hell do elements come in?!"

Is it like how there are twenty variants of amino acids? But why would they display as elements? Is this something ninja just decided because it was the first thing they thought to use chakra for-

No, very bad. Don't keep assuming everyone else is a fool. Cut the hubris, that's how you die.

Not to mention, when I feel chakra, it always has some sort of elemental tone, whether loud or quiet. Even if other ninja might feel different overall, they would similarly have that elemental undertone.

There were very few exceptions to this, and even chakras like Inoichi's may still have an underlying element to it. I hadn't been around him often enough to become familiar with his chakra signature.

What function of the universe decided on those very human-sounding categories?

Think bloodline abilities. My chakra nature is clearly toward water and earth. The first Hokage had the same, but he skillfully learned to mix them and form Wood Release.

It was eerily similar to how enzymes might cut and paste a strain of DNA to make a particular protein, but only under certain circumstances.

… But still, why elements?

"Maybe," I said to myself hesitantly. "I should ask someone."

But it's not just elements. Other strange things are happening. Like, for example, giant chakra monsters. Like the Kyuubi.

Not only that, but souls exist as well. If souls exist, there's no way chakra isn't involved.

I groaned. Why is chakra so weird? I recalled some thoughts I had previously and flipped back my notebook to the page in question. It read:

'Is chakra some quantum bullshit?'

I really, really hoped not. I hadn't been lying to Ten-Ten; while I wasn't exactly bad with maths, it was hardly my strongest subject. And weird reductionistic physics not only included a lot of maths, but it was unlikely the ninja world had any books on the matter...

I paused. But if my memories are a construct made by Orochimaru, then I have to assume everything I know about the world is something he already knows.

Scooting my chair back slightly, I rubbed my palms over my eyes. I was trying not to think about him, about my parents, trying to focus on something I might have some modicum of control over- but unfortunately, that just wasn't how brains worked.

Funny how I feel like I'll have better luck figuring out the true nature of the universe than finding out what happened to my parents.

The saddest part was if Orochimaru's mind did work similar to mine- if my personality really was supposed to be based on his- then he was the person most likely to have the answers to my questions.

What a fun meeting that would be. "Say, Orochimaru, I know you want to murder me and stuff, but would you mind letting me know what's going on with my parents and explaining to me what chakra is? Thanks."

I noticed the sky was beginning to lighten. I glanced down at the heavily scrawled chaos of my notes, filled with many lines, arrows, and question marks.

I snapped it closed and shoved my work to the other side of the table. I got up and walked through the other side of the kitchen into a small study filled with bookshelves; I was sure Sasuke wouldn't mind if I borrowed an atlas.

I'd just have to track down Tsunade tomorrow to ask my questions; getting answers out of her, at least, wasn't like pulling teeth. She'd not mind teaching me something so fundamental, and we were supposed to be meeting that evening anyway.

Before that, of course, I'd have to see the Hokage.

I set the atlas down on the kitchen table, as well as a few other map scrolls. The different dates of publication were going to be vital.

Now, what territories have shifted recently, and what seems like a strategic place for Konoha missing-nin to gather?

It was several hours before the boys awoke again, and when they did, I had the beginnings of a plan.