I watched Otoha's note blacken, then crumple to ash.
On the kitchen floor, I took another big breath. I stared blankly at the big box of ramen I had brought back home.
It was quiet. There was no one in the apartment but me.
My friends were waiting at the intersection outside, gathered around the steps of an adjacent building. They looked up.
"How'd it go with your family friend?" Jii asked.
He saw my distress and unfolded his arms from the railing.
"What's wrong?" Jii asked.
I patted my face, trying to blink myself back to normal. "Ah, sorry, I'm just… still surprised. I learned one of my cousins is half-Lightning."
That got Emu and En's attention. Their faces lit up.
"For real?"
"Which hub?"
"Hub?" I asked.
They nodded. "Which mountain region they from?"
"Ah, the one where K-Kumogakure is?" I stammered.
My friends froze.
"Kumo," Jei repeated, bewildered. "Girl, didn't you just tell us yesterday your family's from…" He looked around. "...you-know?"
I nodded.
"Then how—?"
"It's my aunt. She was married in the clan, but during the war against Lightning… I guess she… With a different ninja, she…" I shook my head. "The rest of my family didn't take the whole situation well." That was an understatement. "So when Otoha saw us together, Jii, she…"
I decided at the last second that I wasn't going to apologize for Otoha's rudeness.
"When she saw us, the past didn't let her see things clearly," I finished.
Jii softened, understanding.
When he walked with me this morning, we had hopes of convincing Otoha that we liked each other and everything was okay. Unfortunately, things were more complicated than we thought.
It was a lot to process. We all sat back down on the curb.
"Damn," Jei whispered.
"Sorry Ayae," Jii said, shoulders hunched. "Is your aunt doing okay now?"
"She's dead," I said dryly. "Her husband killed her."
"What?"
"Right after my cousin was born. My uncle killed her to redeem the family honor… or something."
Jii stared at me in disbelief.
"Your uncle," he clarified, "killed your aunt, for getting raped?"
My mind broke.
I stared blankly at Jii. He said more, but I couldn't hear him.
I thought of what Otoha wrote at the end. Was this what she wanted me to know?
Was this… what Otoha thought happened?
Was this what everyone thought happened?
I looked at my friends talking to each other, but their words were noises.
"Ah, no," I said calmly, interrupting them. "You've got it all wrong. My aunt wasn't raped."
Everyone looked at me, surprised. They waited for me to explain, but I didn't.
"Wait, sorry, then what happened?" Jei asked.
"I don't know," I said.
Emu and En stared at me with furrowed brows.
"You said this was during the Third War?"
"Enemy ninjas don't just…"
I knew that. I knew it didn't make sense.
I also knew denying it was worse. My aunt must not have agreed, or else that wasn't disgrace anymore. That was treason. Which was way worse. The worst crime of all, actually.
I should be ashamed of myself, for even thinking my aunt would ever betray her marriage, her clan, her village, and her country all in one.
Except…
I wouldn't budge.
And my friends couldn't make me budge, couldn't even open me to the possibility. Unable to take their pushing anymore, I yelled with a sudden cold anger, "Sure, except that wasn't what happened!"
Jei lost his patience. "Then what did?!"
I had my mouth open, ready to bury him under a snowstorm of the truth.
Except… I didn't know the truth. No one in my clan did. Aunt Masako never told anyone what happened, not even Aunt Mikoto.
"I don't know," I weakly repeated myself. "Just it wasn't that. I refuse to believe it was that."
Before Jii could speak—and I could tell he wanted to add something, because even he wasn't on my side on this—I broke down.
"I won't believe my aunt was raped and then murdered. That's too much. Just one is cruel enough… I can't… my family wouldn't let… it couldn't have happened. She's my auntie."
They don't understand, she's my auntie. She was my auntie like Aunt Mikoto was my auntie, and it didn't matter I never met her, never talked to her or went over to her house or hugged her in my arms, I couldn't accept anything bad happening to her anymore than I could accept something bad happening to Aunt Mikoto.
I can't accept that, I won't, I won't. I'd rather Aunt Masako be a traitor and a criminal and the worst, most villainous person on the earth than for her to suffer like that, to have not only been hurt by an outsider but by her own family too, her own husband who killed her. There had to be something good before she died, she deserved only good things before she died.
I went into a full bawl, unable to wipe away my tears fast enough.
I knew my behavior was unacceptable, to be crying again. Ninjas weren't supposed to cry, I knew this since I was eight years old, but screw Fugaku and screw my clan, I wasn't a ninja.
Someone needed to cry. It was time someone cried.
Years and years I lived with my clan, and no one mentioned Aunt Masako, no one even dared say her name until the day Aunt Mikoto broke her silence. Years and years, my Aunt Masako was buried, quiet and lonely and forgotten. Years and years I never sent her flowers.
The least I could do now was cry for her.
The very least.
My friends were at a loss.
Jii took one step towards me, then another, before kneeling down in front of me. I leaned into him, sobbing into his chest. He let me.
We stayed on the ground, him holding me while I cried it out.
By the end of it, I could barely feel myself.
I felt like I had evaporated, like I had died too. My body was kneeling on the ground, heavy and solid, being held together by Jii, but what Jii was holding wasn't me.
I wasn't there.
It was Emu who finally broke the silence.
"She's never heard of the word genocide," she told everyone.
"What?" Jii whispered.
"What?" Jei choked.
En frowned. "We tried to talk to her about what was happening back home yesterday."
"We tried all night," Emu said.
"We got nowhere," En said.
"It's not her. It's the village."
"They've done something to the words."
"Words have become unspeakable."
"Words have disappeared altogether."
"Trying to have the real talk with her is like trying to do math with half the equation."
"Or composing music muting half the notes."
Emu and En looked worried. They glanced my way.
"Words shape how we see reality."
"It's hard to see things we aren't given the words for."
"Even when those things are right in front of our eyes."
"Even when those things are cutting us open."
Jii was smart. Realization hit him fast and hard, as he looked at me again in a different light.
"And it's never just one thing either, is it," he grumbled.
Emu and En shook their heads.
They went quiet.
"I think she might be in trouble," Emu said softly.
"I think we have to help her," En said softly.
.
I was in no shape to dance. So my friends ditched school to take me back to their hotel.
I weakly protested. The Expo was next month. And unlike me, Jii was a principal dancer. The principal dancer. I couldn't let him ruin his dance because of me.
"Girl, please. You're selling Z short if you think missing a few practices is going to affect his performance," Jei said. "What is going to mess him up is not taking care of his girl when she's hurting."
I shrunk.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I overreact and… cry easily."
Jei side-eyed me. "Uh, no. That was about the right amount of reaction to that bomb drop. Your 'family friend' is some piece of work to just bail after dumping that on you."
Jei refilled my water bottle from the bathroom sink. He placed it on my lap. His shoulders lowered.
"You think you'll be safe living next to this murder-uncle of yours when you go back?"
"He's already dead. My other cousin killed him."
Jei closed his mouth.
Next to me on the bed, Jii watched me quietly. He took a deep breath. "Ayae, I think living in Konohagakure… might have skewed your perception of things. Messed you up a bit."
I lifted my head. "Messed me up…?"
"I'm worried you might have more trauma than you know."
My eyes went wide.
"Oh, no, no, you have it wrong," I said. "Nothing bad happened to me."
I was one of the lucky ones, I knew. Compared to many people, I…
"Ayae, trauma isn't always about the things that happen to you," Jii said softly. "Sometimes it's what happens to others."
I froze.
"If you're close to the victim…" Emu said.
"Or just open-hearted…" En said.
"Their hurt…"
"Is going to make you hurt."
"It's called empathy."
"It's being human."
I was quiet.
My back hunched.
"Okay, if you think I'm messed up… what should I do? Go get a genjutsu?"
"Genjutsu?" Jei asked.
I nodded. "Are there non-ninja doctors who can do that in this city? Or should I ask the apothecary for a calming pill?"
Trauma was one of the things covered in my textbooks very thoroughly, alongside shock and fatigue. It was common in Konoha, so I wasn't surprised if I had it, any more than if I caught a cold. And just like a cold, if someone told you you had it, the responsible thing to do was to listen and take your medicine.
Jei had to walk away after that. "Oh sweet mother earth save us."
"What?" I asked.
"Ah, no brainwashing, no drugs," Jii said, trying to gently guide me like we were in a clumsy dance. "We know a different technique if you're open to it."
"What's that?"
"It involves talking."
I stared at him.
"Talk-no-jutsu," I deadpanned.
"No, no," Jei emphasized. "That's back to the brainwashing again, and we ain't about that."
They explained the technique was called counseling. Basically, there is someone called a counselor who holds your hand and guides you through your memories. You go revisit the bad ones in particular.
I was confused. I was taught to never linger on bad memories, or else you risked opening your scars and deepening them.
"How is talking about my past going to heal me?" I asked.
Emu and En looked at me funnily.
"It's not."
Now I was really confused.
"Wait, so how does this get rid of my trauma?" I asked.
That was when my friends realized where I was lost.
"Trauma isn't a disease to cure," Emu said.
"It's not a wound to stitch together," En said.
"It's protection."
"Your shield."
I blinked.
"Trauma is your defense," Jii explained. "To an attack. You don't get rid of your defense… you stop the attack."
"Attack…?" I tried to wrap my head around this. "But who's attacking?"
"That's what counseling tries to find out."
Trauma was like a fever. It was a sign that something was wrong, that something was inside you, hurting you, infecting you, and your body was doing its best to protect you from it. By making your emotions run hot or cold. By making you tense up or lash out or burst.
And like how you would treat any illness, the first step was to trace back to the root cause.
And after you find the cause, the second step would be to kill it.
Once you were safe again, your defenses would naturally lower. Only then did healing come in. With food. With rest. With friends. Laughter and song. Time and distance.
But disarming your own defense instead of your attacker? That would be stupid and dangerous. That was how you die.
"Oh." My shoulders lowered. That… made sense, I guess.
"Where can I get one of these, um, counselors?"
"Well, technically, any one of us can counsel you," Jei said, crossing his arms. "But in a case as bad as yours, you'd probably want an expert."
"And who's that?"
My friends looked at each other, before simultaneously digging into their pockets and bags.
"Alright, who has the bank card?"
.
"Welcome to the Fire Telephone Operations Center. May I have your intended address please?"
"Lightning please."
"Sure thing! The cost of transfer is 20 ryou per minute, is that acceptable?"
"Yes."
"Do you have a bank number for us to process the charge?"
"Five eight, two one, nine one, four one, seven seven eight," En read off their bank card.
"One moment please. Thank you, please stay on the line."
I jumped back when the phone in their hotel room screeched. The screeching lasted a long time, long enough for Emu and En to finish another round of their handheld game.
"Welcome to Lightning Telephone Operations Center." It was a different voice this time. "May I have your intended address please?"
Emu and En rolled in the bed back to the telephone. "Kurohyou please!"
"Right on. The cost of transfer is 8 ryou per minute, that alright?"
"Yup. Five eight, two one, nine one, four one, seven seven eight."
"You're clear! Transferring you over now."
We waited through another screeching.
"What up. You've reached Kurohyou. Where can I take you?"
"District 50, block 44, building 182, floor 42, room 4."
"Bet."
To my amazement, the line connected. There was music playing in the background and the soft hum of machinery. The music turned down.
"Hello?"
"Aunt V!" the twins greeted.
"M, N? What's going on, girls? Where's J?"
"Right here!" Jei called. "Z's with us too."
"Wait, ain't y'all in the middle of a school day?"
"Yeah, we're skipping," Jei admitted. "Trying to get some help for Z's girl."
"Whoa, hon, rewind, why the hell is Z's girl—"
"New girl, new girl," Jei hurriedly corrected. "Fire babe. From the school here."
"Oh. Ohhh." A pause. "Damn, your boy's fast."
"Players gotta play," Emu said.
"Slayers gonna slay," En said.
Jii didn't give into their teasing.
"What's her name, Z?"
"Ayae," Jii said.
"Hi," I said, waving before I realized she couldn't see.
"Hi there! I'm J's aunt. Call me Viv, or V."
I tried really hard for about two seconds, my tongue all twisted. "Bv- Bii—iv." Giving up, I said helplessly, "Auntie?"
A laugh. "Auntie works too."
"Aunt V, can you get our grandma?" Emu said.
"We're hoping she can give Ayae counsel," En said.
"We'd call her directly," Emu said.
"But chances are she's not home," En said.
"Counsel you say? Yeah, alright, let me see if I can find her for you, hold on."
Emu and En excitedly turned to me.
"You'll like her," they told me.
"Grandma is the best."
"Helped Z too."
"We all owe her."
Hopeful, I waited patiently.
We waited for a long time. Emu and En were right. Their grandma wasn't in her apartment. Jei's aunt had to search through half the neighborhood before finding her.
Finally, there came a noise as someone picked up.
"Alright, I got Papa Osa over with the game in five. Who you got and what bullshit she eating."
.
Lady Azuka, or Mama A, I learned, was the best spiritualist in Kurohyou, in Lightning, and possibly in the world. When she was younger, she was really into the stars and being able to read the future.
Apparently reading the future got super depressing, so she went into the psychic arts instead and got good at that too. Now she did swing dancing on Sundays and played this competitive tile game that was popular in the Land of Earth.
When I introduced myself, all she said was, "Oh damn, that starting already?"
"Ayae doesn't need me, you kids can handle her counseling just fine. You'll hit a block, it's fine, roll over it and keep going. Her cousin, on the other hand, is a masterpiece of a fustercluck, an absolute shipwreck, a beautiful disaster. Now that one, leave to me."
My brain rushed to catch up. "You're talking about my… half-Lightning cousin?"
"Ha, no, the other one."
My other…
Wait, I had four other cousins. Which—
"You'll know by process of elimination." Mama A cackled at her own joke. "Oh, and Z?"
Jii looked up. "Yes, Mama A?"
"Told you so."
Jii sweated.
"Look at this dumbass, wagering against an oracle!" She cackled again.
"What do you want, Mama A?" Jii said helplessly.
"What your girl gave you! I've waited five decades for that chocolate stuff, you know that? Bring me a backpack full. Oh! And at least ten packs of the matcha flavors. Oh! And the biscuits. The ones with the biscuit sticks."
"Pokkii?" I asked.
"Ayyy, girl knows what I'm talking about. Send that over." Mama A made a kissy noise. "Mama out."
With that, the line disconnected.
I wasn't the only one reeling at the end of the call.
Emu and En looked at me, dumbstruck.
"Grandma recognized your name," Emu said.
"Grandma never remembers names," En said.
Mama A did most of her future readings in her teenage years. The only way she could have remembered my name out of millions would be if I was world-famous or if I was close family.
I was more baffled by how I hadn't heard of Mama A before.
"How is your grandma not a goddess?" I blurted out. Precognition was the most treasured of all skills. To go years, decades into the future accurately… that made you more powerful than all the Kages combined! That was the type of power to become the wealthiest woman overnight, to single-handedly win wars and rule the world! In Konoha, any ninja who could even glimpse seconds ahead were at least A-rank.
Sweating, my friends had to calm me down.
"You're thinking of predictions," Emu said.
"Grandma did future reading," En said.
"Very different things," they said, sweating.
I blinked.
"Prediction is seeing patterns in the universe and estimating its trajectory. Like, you see a ball go up, you know it'll go down. And knowing this, you can go jump and try to catch the ball in time," Emu explained.
"Future reading is like reading a book about a girl playing with a ball. You want to know whether or not she'll catch the ball, so you flip ahead in the book. But no matter how you flip ahead or back, nothing will change what is written on the page," En said.
"In other words, a useless skill," Emu and En deadpanned.
All Mama A did was spoil herself to the ending. She was young and stupid when she did the readings. She had a crush on a playmate named Safaia and wanted to prove they were soulmates. In doing so, she ruined all the happy surprises and prolonged all the sad ones.
"The only times she'd do 'readings' now is if a client has anxiety problems," En said.
"Even then, she mostly lies," Emu said, sweating.
There was one case of a man with a terminal illness. He asked Mama A how long he had to live. Mama A slammed him with bad news, saying he had a year at most. Freaking out, the man quit his job, sold all his possessions, and retired near a mountain-lake. Because he lived as a recluse and the mountain-lake had no seasons, it wasn't until three years later that he realized he lived long past his deadline. Apparently, the fresh air had cured him.
And there was another case of a woman, also with a terminal illness. She asked Mama A how long she had to live. Mama A laughed and said this was just a cold, she'd live to a ripe old age with three grandchildren. Overjoyed, the woman went home, got some rest, and lived as if it were a cold. She got better after a few months, the liveliest she'd ever been. Apparently, her optimism had cured her.
Future reading wouldn't have been able to help either of those people. But paying close attention to someone, and saying what they needed to hear in a crucial moment, now that was a skill that did save lives.
"Wah," I whispered, impressed.
"Anyway, Mama A gave us the okay to do your counseling," En said.
"Do you still want to try it, Ayae?" Emu asked me.
I nodded.
We began after lunch, after I had more time to get ready and relax. A person seeking counsel had to be comfortable, surrounded by people she trusted.
Emu gave me extra fluffy pillows to go under my butt.
Jii closed the curtains and lit some candles.
En decorated my hair with ornaments.
Jei sprayed a nice perfume.
"This is a complicated ritual," I said, sweating. There had to be S-rank jutsu with less steps.
"Oh naw, we just like being extra." Jei stuck out his tongue, giving the air one more spritz.
Once we were all set, I was free to choose my counselor. Each of my friends had a different guiding style. Different styles worked better for different people.
"Since this is your first time, just go with whoever you vibe with the most," Jei said.
I pointed to Jii.
Jii smiled.
We took each other by the hand.
The next step was one I was familiar with: meditation. That was the same in both our countries.
I closed my eyes and breathed.
Unfortunately, I wasn't very good with the whole meditation business. The only times I'd gone inside were during sparring or dance, and those had mostly been by accident.
Time passed and I still couldn't fall in. Jii wasn't discouraged. He looked at Jei, who nodded and came back with the music box.
I was caught off guard but let them play.
A beat filled the room—a simple triple.
I fell in.
Jii was there with me, the two of us linked by the hand.
He started off easy.
"Ayae, think of your village for me?"
I did.
"Tell me what you see?"
"... the road. Downtown. It's sunny."
I talked. Then I talked some more.
As I did, Konoha began to appear more vividly. I could feel the warmth. The breeze through the leaves.
It made me want home again. I wanted to lead Jii down the streets, introduce him to all my friends and family, show him every corner shop and alley cat.
Only we weren't here for that. And there was still a limit to what Jii was allowed to see. I was already tiptoeing on that line.
I squeezed his hand. "I can't go into more detail than this, is that okay?"
"Yeah, please don't pass along any info that'll get me assassinated," Jii teased.
He got serious again. He held me firmly.
"Alright Ayae," he began, "can you think back to a time when you felt uneasy?"
His wording threw me off.
Uneasy.
A pair of golden eyes flashed before me, before bleeding into red.
"Tell me what you see now?"
Swallowing, I told him.
I told him about it, and the thing after that, and thing after that too.
Inside meditation, the memories came in like a flood. Trying to control the flow became impossible, and soon I found tides of them crashing into me, coming faster than I could speak.
Eventually, I couldn't speak at all, just drowning.
Ise's loud scream. Tamaki's soft sob. Gin, silent in the hospital. Hana, dangling off rope. Kou, hesitating a step. Otoha, kneeling outside the gate. Children from the orphanage fighting over pieces of melon. A prison cell, a pair of worn adult slippers, cabbages taken out of the fridge.
Aunt Mikoto, covered in dust, hurriedly pushing an even dustier doll into my arms.
A clearing where no grass grew, a kunai sticking up from the ground.
A rolling bandage on the floor. His hands dripping red, his back dripping red. Us sitting on opposite sides of the couch, a cup half in darkness, half in light. The expression on his face when I told him…
When I promised him…
When I…
My heart skipped a beat.
When we—!
My head was yanked to the surface as if by an invisible hand.
All of my memories were suddenly receding. Draining away.
No, wait.
What was that last one?
In panic, I trudged through the flooded Konoha streets, looking and looking for the lost memory. It was gone. Desperate, I submerged myself.
The world flipped, up becoming down, down becoming up. Instead of sinking, I was rising, one step at a time up the stone stairs.
Beyond a set of temple doors was Tomoe, sitting at the reading table, surrounded by candlelight. Her long hair was pulled into a loose bun, as if she had been readying for bedtime. She never looked up from her book.
"Oh dear. And you brought company."
On the table was a second book.
The cover was new. The ink was fresh.
Inside that book was the memory I was looking for.
I barely got a step closer before I was knocked back by a blast of wind. All the candles flared, too scorching to touch.
"Ah-ah," Tomoe tsked. "You told him your choice."
Before I could scramble back up, the doors had already begun to close.
"You didn't choose him."
"LIAR!"
The door slammed close against me. No, no, no!
I pushed but it wouldn't budge. I pounded with my fist. With each pound against the door was a pound in my head. I ignored the pain.
"Ayae, babe–!"
"Give it back!" I yelled, banging against the door. My desperation changed to rage. I realized what was going on.
My mind had been tampered with. I wasn't being forgetful—I'd never forget, not that, never that. I was being denied.
How dare she. How DARE she! This was MY head. That was MY memory. How dare anyone keep my own memories away from me! Especially that one. My most important one. I didn't have to remember it to feel it. To feel the way I had then.
I screamed, hitting the door with all my strength. It cracked, then shattered, revealing not a door but an eye, spinning in patterns of red and black, black and red.
And when I broke through, I didn't barge into the inside of a temple.
I entered into nothing.
An endless fall of nothing.
