Swimming was Nachi's preferred way to relax when she wasn't fishing ,or counting money, or holding money, or anything to do with money honestly
Given that her Shinobi Animal was an actual Kappa, she had a natural affinity to water, and had a natural desire to be with her. Being in water felt as natural to her as spending and saving money, and if she wasn't fishing or bathing in a sea of yen bills, she was swimming in the waters of Tohno for as long as she could, and as deep as she could go.
And after the meeting she had this morning, a good long dip was just what she needed. Her private pool had just been cleaned recently, and right now she was at the bottom, naked as the day she was born. The pool's water was drawn from the rivers of Tohno, and as such was energized by the leylines that her home was situated on Those born within it's borders could reap the nutritional and spiritual benefits the water provided by bathing in it, and Nachi, both being the leader of the village and having the power and soul of a water spirit, benefited greatly
One of her men had came back an hour ago and informed her that the scrolls detailing her orders were sent to her leader and the rest of the Tohno Tengu, and with Senpai on the way, that meant his #1 fan was going to find her way out here to meet him once again. 'Mavericks.' Just thinking of them, especially that worm, was almost enough to make her open her eyes. The hell that thing put her and her friends through did a number on all their psyches and it took years to train herself to keep the calm, affable persona the villagers knew her to have.
And right now that persona was close to shattering. She spent so many years building this village back up from near destruction after those robots took her people and mutilated their minds, and now they were going to come back and finish the job. Sure, they were ready, this time and Saginata's victims had been cleared to return to duty just for the chance to kill more Mavericks and their allies, but the fact that the legendary Hattori Hanzō came here to her for help shot down any confidence she had in her people's ability to fight them off. Not to mention the Shinobi benefactors that were giving the Mavericks ample supplies of thrown away and disowned Shinobi for their ranks. Senpai or no, this was going to be a bloodbath.
And she really hoped he got back those vaunted armors he so loathed.
Beep Beep Beep
'Well, it looks as though my meditation has prematurely ended.' That was the silent alarm for the village gate, the one security only activated when there was a situation that required her or her friend's interference. And seeing as how she wasn't sensing a lick of malice, or feeling the bloodlust that came when one was in the throes of combat, or the happiness from seeing Senpai back, that meant there was on probable scenario:
Hyōki finally made it here.
She quickly swam out of the pool, dried herself off with a towel and her chakra, and put back on the clothes she was going to wear today, stored in her scroll for convenience. 'Just what in the world has she been up to?'
Hyōki Saiga, age 14, former daughter of the Saiga corporation, an Akunin prodigy, and was not only one of the most wanted ninja in modern history, but one of the most wanted people in Japan at this very moment. Senpai's continued victories over the girl hammered at the younger girl's already fragile and weak mental state, and now she was 'lucky' enough to have the US Army demanding her head on a platter.
With all that in mind, Nachi perfectly understood how someone with her skills and lack of maturity became this sweaty, dirty, tired wreck of a human being sleeping away in the guard station. She shook her head in dismay, noting the lack of meat on her bones and her heavy, shaking breathing as she slept. 'Of all the things you could have used to survive, you decided to go for Chakra Supplementation?
Just thinking about the way Hyōki used that technique made Nachi shudder. Chakra Supplementation was a powerful tool, an enhancement technique used during combat to increase your physical strength and mental acuity far beyond a Shinobi's already superhuman capabilities. It was an incredibly difficult ability to use, requiring perfect control of one's entire chakra network to pull off, so it made sense that Hyōki mastered it at such a young age.
However, and this couldn't have been stressed enough in the texts detailing the technique, it was never to be a replacement for sleep and sustenance, because once you ran out of Chakra..you ended up like the little panther, weakened and near death. Supplementing Chakra for vital functions of the human body would leave it dependent on the energy far more than it realistically would, and at the end, would utterly break said body once your chakra ran out, as seen with Hyōki right here. Not to mention due to her 'popularity'. she was probably using what little chakra she already had to disguise herself in order keep civilians and unaware Shinobi out of her affairs, which for a genius like her shouldn't have taken much effort, Chakra deprivation or otherwise.
"My my my," She muttered, and upon hearing her voice, Hyōki's eyes shot open like a bear trap. She slowly and painfully turned her body towards the older woman, her tired yellow eyes glaring at her with all the intensity of a drunk puppy. "You made it here in one piece. I'm impressed" Hyōki groaned in pain, Nachi watching as the sweaty dirty girl got off the painful looking wooden seat to look her in the eyes. Akunin endurance training must be on a whole other level if she could manage this. "I'm guessing that you've exhausted all of your Chakra getting here, correct?" Hyōki glared, mostly out of distrust, and the feeling was mutual, but Nachi also theorized that glaring was all Hyōki could do at the moment. Given how skinny and nutrient deprived she was at the moment, it probably hurt to talk. It probably hurts for her to walk, too.
"You were warned about doing that, and you ignored all the warnings. Now look at you." And Nachi knew how far she traveled; she knew the bus routes from the nearest city to the nearest rural town that bordered the forest where her village lay. Hyōki had to escape six Zennin border patrols, 3 Akunin patrols due to the Zennin routes being fortified by the military after what happened in Kodama Town last night, and then take six buses, and she knew that the last three didn't have air conditioning, all while using her Chakra to prevent herself from falling asleep, as well as using it to get her body to stop screaming for her to feed it.
If Hyoki hadn't met Senpai, Nachi knew she never would have been in this situation. Without Senpais 'gift' the younger Shinobi could probably hoof it from Tokyo to Hokkaido without stopping even once for rest! But Hyoki did meet Senpai, and whatever she did angered him enough to put something as awful as the Energen Suppressor on a 10 year old girl. Given how much of a monster the girl was back then, getting that thing slapped on was a slap on the wrist in comparison to her crimes as an Akunin, but even so, Nachi hated imagining the idea of anyone wearing one of those things.
What a cruel world Senpai lived in in order for something like the Energen Suppressor to be mass produced. The effect it had on robots was immediate as seen with Senpai, completely shutting him down and putting his mind into a state akin to a human under the effects of a tranquilizer dart. The effects it had on a Shinobi however, were far more insidious, and yet far less so at the same time. The Hyōki glaring at her and shaking like a leaf was a far cry from the one she could have been, or the Hyōki from 2 years ago. And given how powerful she was back then, it was doing its job 'marvelously'. So marvelously in fact that Nachi didn't see a reason to take it off of her. Not that she wanted to.
The funny thing about Senpai was that he was more Zennin than most Zennin, and at times more obnoxious than the ones who hadn't been broken in by the realities of the Shinobi life. Yet make no mistake, he was a killer, a very proficient one. If someone like him was willing to do something as cruel as crippling a Shinobi , then she didn't even want to know what the child did to warrant that level of punishment. Weak as she was at the moment, the Hyōki was just what they needed.
Nachi shuddered again as she thought of that awful armlet. She didn't even want to imagine how weak and drained she'd be if she wore that bracelet as long as Hyōki did, given how powerful the girl was at half her age, 'What would happen if I put that monstrosity on?' She knew full well what Hyōki was going through, though it paled in comparison to the 2 years the former Akunin endured.
She remembered those days all too well. The five of them were stripped from their homes and way of life, villainized and attacked by their fellow villagers with the clear intent to kill, reduced to Nukenin in all but name as a bunch of parasites paraded around in the bodies of their people for their master's own nefarious ends. It was thanks to Senpai's Shikigami that they were able to get that awful, bug infested apartment, and it was thanks to her that Senpai was able to adopt a form that didn't signal to the Mavericks who he was. But thanks to Saginata's powers, his hosts could track the six of them down with ease, and in Senpai's weakened state and his stance on attacking humans, even they knew it was a death solution to that however certainly felt like death, in that they all wanted to die.
And for a bunch of tired, exhausted, and scared 8 year olds with nothing but crappy cheap TV dinners in their stomachs? That was not an exaggeration.
Nachi looked to the confused guard, the adult getting the message and leaving as she then grabbed Hyōki in her arms, bridal style. "So you know who's coming today, right?" She didn't hear anything from Hyōki, but she felt the smaller girl relax, so that was a yes as far as Nachi was concerned.
With a smile and Hyōki in tow, Nachi left the building and landed on a rooftop on the other side of the street from the check-in station in just 2 seconds. "Well since you know, then it's pretty obvious you know you can't meet him in the state you're in." She began as she jumped from rooftop to rooftop towards her home at the far end of the village. "That's why you're getting a bath, some new clothes and a Chakra infusion ASAP."
Hyōki groaned in protest. "Come on now; You want Senpai to see you at your best right?" This wouldn't take long. Yuyaki-chan and the others should be getting ready to go to the rendezvous point in an hour or two, and a good dip in her pool should be enough to get her Chakra Network functioning properly again. Or at the very least allow her to talk. The latter was what she was going to work on before anything else, because she really didn't like the fact that she could feel Hyōki's spine right now.
