AN: See below for actual A/N, lol
Chap 18 Settling in
Kinme tip #14: Everything is actually probably connected, but, you know, don't blame the conspiracy theorists. Blame the physicists instead.
~The Frazzled Kinme Propaganda Specialist
Returning back to full consciousness was quite a bit more jarring than usual, what with suddenly being that much more aware of each sense and all. The fact that Dōsukēru was also repeatedly slapping me in the face with her tail might have also contributed to the sudden confusion.
Seeing me blink awake in the low light, she hiss-whispered at me, "what the hell did you think you were doing?"
I shrank back into the futon like a particularly cowardly caterpillar. "Um, meditating?"
"Then why the hell did you stop breathing? Better yet," all visible signs of anger drained out of her and she peered at me solemnly, "why are you crying?"
"Pardon?" I reached up to my cheeks, only to find the barest remains of tear tracks, which were just patches of skin that bit stickier, as she had slapped away the tears itself. Not what I expected, but... ok?
"Follow me," she said, and slithered silently off to the direction of the bathroom. Easy for her to say, Orochi was clinging to me like a limpet, and Sugiryuu was already beginning to show signs of stirring if the increased circulation of his chakra was an accurate predictor.
I managed, but barely, and it was only by moving slowly and distangling each limb and wrapping them around my pillow did I pry my brother off. Sugiryuu was a lost cause, as he had already huffed at me before settling back inside the covers and only leaving the tip of his snout out. It was chilly in the orphanage, and the insulation wasn't always able to keep heat in during the night. Hence the only activity then being sleeping, I thought sourly.
Indeed, it was freezing outside of the covers, and stepping on wooden floorboards with bare feet was quite chilly. It didn't get much better in the bathroom either, even if by then I could direct more of the chakra dedicated to keeping myself silent when walking than in circulation to keep warm. Closing the door helped keep the chillier air out, but it'll take a while for the effects of cellular respiration or whatever to warm up the space. Hopefully.
A few silent moments dedicated to settling into a comfortable sitting position against the shower door later, I blinked up to my partner who was curled up on the sink cabinet.
She gave me a little wave-motion with her tail to get me to start the conversation, but the only thing that came out of my throat was a croak. Screw emotions, honestly.
Dōsukēru sighed, her tongue flicking out the only sign of agitation. "Would it help if I just asked you questions?"
I nodded, wiping at the crummy residue on my face.
"Was it about the Last Day?" A shake of the head. "Was it… because of ninjas and or Konoha?" A moment of guilty hesitation, and a glitched-up shake of the head. "What else could it be?" She wondered aloud. "Whatever, come here you big oaf."
Probably seeing smelling my tears or something, the little blue snake sighed, and instead slithered over to the edge, scrunched up, and leapt over. I caught her, because that was what we both expected, and what should be proper. Dōsukēru wound herself around my arm, the cold of her scales pressing even through the somewhat thick clothing, and so I held open my other sleeve to which she slipped into. If cats are water, then snakes are just very long water balloons with excess rubber.
It tickled when Dōsukēru squirmed her way up, and when she finally reached where she wanted to, the cold snout pressing into the base of my throat had me giggling.
"Shuddup," she muttered, "it's your fault we're up right now. Its cold."
I snickered a bit more, before I tasted salt again and there were tears streaming down my face. "M'sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry–"
My partner reached up and gently batted at the side of my face with her tail, "shhh, it's ok, it's ok, we're alive, in Konoha, and Orochi and Sugi are right over there, ne? We'll be fine, you're alive, intact, and you will be staying alive lon–" she froze her soft mutterings. "Ah, it's about your previous experiences, right?"
Well, that was one way to put it. I blinked away tears and nodded.
"Is it…" she blinked her green eyes, and I realized with sudden clarity how much she must've felt out of her depth. Generally on the extraordinarily few occasions where I spoke of Before, it was of a memory, a touch of 'otherworldly' knowledge that they didn't question the source of, or just scatterbrained thoughts. However, I was always the one to initiate any conversations that might have Before attached to it.
Despite being young summons with a somewhat mature mentality, and young children with even younger mentalities, my remaining family knew enough tact and respected my boundaries to not talk about it. I loved them for it, but sometimes it gets a bit tedious, especially when all I want is to share a bit of another world and then gets treated like veined-glass for the rest of the day, even week if I'm particularly unlucky.
"Is it, perhaps, how, how–" if she wasn't whispering before, the pitch that she dropped to now must've qualified– "you died?"
I snorted, if only. Shaking my head, I gave her a little rub over the top of her scaled head which was responded to with a little pleased hiss.
"Apparently they burned–" my voice cracked, and a little muffled cough later, I continued in a whisper. "They burned money for me."
Her chakra ticked up the few shades that indicated alarm, but it quickly smoothed back like the her scales, lying flat along her form and becoming a mask. "Well. That's new."
It was harder to conceal a watery chuckle, and her snort even more so after witnessing my failed attempt. "So did it just happen recently? Or, um?" Dōsukēru gave a little wave of her tail, encompassing the shit ton that could be described with the movement.
"The paper that I fished up from my mindscape's pond turned out to be fake money that my grandparents probably burned. That… sounded less weird in my head."
My partner slowly bumped her head against my shoulder. And repeated the motion. Perhaps it was just my ears, but she might've been muttering along the lines of "why uuuus". Or something. Then she froze, and slowly lifted her head to glare at me.
For the record, being glared at by a snake that's three inches away from your face should be rather disconcerting, especially when it is a known fact that this snake can probably kill a small team of bandits with the venom in one bite. Science and white mice, screw ethics.
"You tried going into the murder pond?"
Oh dear.
"You said you wouldn't go check it out before becoming a ninja! Because teammates! Why– why would you do that?"
Oh kami.
"Curiosity killed the cat," I stuttered–
"This isn't making me feel any better."
"But satisfaction brought it back?"
She groaned and laughed a snake's sad, soft laugh, "why are you like this."
"Love you too!" I ventured, bopping her on the snout with my own nose.
Suddenly the bathroom door slammed open with a crack, nearly braining me in the process, and little Orochi and Sugiryuu appeared out of the gloom, positively incensed.
"Nee-chan tried going into the murder pond?"
Oh shit.
"For, uh, science…?"
We fell out of the futons the next morning looking like pandas.
Scratch that, the humans fell out looking like pandas with eyeliner, the snakes were wet murder noodles, and the flash-bang-like chakra flare right outside our room's door was less than necessary.
The night had stretched on with me explaining the concepts of how multiple cultures could coexist on a single landmass somewhat peacefully, how the cultures actually differed a shit ton, and how the culture that my grandparents belonged to believed that by burning money, the dead can receive it in whatever afterlife they are in.
It was a very disturbing conversation, as Orochi was the only one that didn't notice that implications of money for the dead appearing in my mindscape either meant that this world or my mind was the afterlife, or that some portion of my soul was tethered to an underworld that accepted joss money. Just the concept that I'm already with perhaps a foot in the grave was chilling, and our body temperatures are cold enough as is.
Somehow the conversation ended up with Sugiryuu asking if I ever left a will in my previous incarnation, which ended up with me dazed and tired and my partner running a shorter fuse than staying past midnight usually brings.
It hurts, remembering that yes, I did leave a will. Unofficial as it was, with no lawyers or whatever, all but a titled document on my laptop. Meaning that if anyone was to find it, they would've needed to browse through the laptop of a dead teenager a year from graduating high school.
Gods above, that will was merely a project born of paranoia and boredom.
It was at the point where I felt my throat getting clogged up and souring sinuses that Dōsukēru reared upwards from her perch on my head and gave us all a glare, telling us to "get back to sleep and think later."
We had obliged woodenly, and I had eased the door close behind Orochi before we all crawled into different ends of the same futon.
If my internal clock around that time was correct, it was probably past midnight and edging its way into tomorrow, which… is always, technically, today. Nevermind, tomorrow is today and we won't be getting enough sleep.
And wonders upon wonders, today was also the ever-so-delightful day when the ninja recruiter that was supposed to come yesterday popped by to pick me up for the supposed "orientation". Pleasant. At least the ninja was someone we had met already, despite my not actually remembering her name. A shame, really, considering that remembering the name of our sort-of interrogator Yamanaka would be… would be something. Respect, maybe? Or a better second impression? Screw it, I'm not awake enough for pleasantries.
But her being the one showing us around also poses quite a few more problems with how she has proven capable of entering at the minimal my mindscape, and how she has a very basic rudimentary impression of how we act. Also considering the fact that Orochi was (unwillingly) left behind at the orphanage so that we could talk "one-on-one" meant that I was two buffers less from social interactions. She might not have thought of Dōsukēru as her own person as well, as she had pretty much dismissed my partner from our conversation.
Therefore, pleasant.
"So Suijami-chan, what would you look for in a teaching institute?" she asked after a long slew of other just-barely probing questions on our walk over to the academy, her pale green scarf fluttering in the winter breeze.
"Competent teachers, intelligent peers, and a space promoting education," I wheezed from beneath two layers of thick scarves.
"A space without dimwits, racists, sexists, and a curriculum tailored to the appropriate age group." Dōsukēru added, her snout just barely poking out from all the clothing.
Sue us, the sun isn't out, it's too early in the morning, the weather has decided on being frickin' freezing, and our brains haven't yet booted up without breakfast. Judging by the way our "tour guide's" chakra stuttered, she was probably either amused, or confused. Hell, probably just perplexed if I'm being honest with myself.
"Those are logical requirements, yes." She agreed without a hint of hesitation. "May I ask why it seems to concern the two of you that your education may not be handled fairly?"
My partner let out a snort of misted white air, and burrowed back into the scarf, leaving me to deal with the question. Fair enough, my temper was the one that got us into this mess to begin with. In fact, this was a question that didn't even need words to answer. All I had to do was tilt my horrible and currently useless sunglasses down and point at my eyes, then Dōsukēru, for the Yamanaka lady to give an exaggerated wince.
"That may prove a problem. However," she continued brightly, "just inform your senseis of any problems you might have and they'll do their best to address it. If they cannot solve the problem, you can bring any further complaints or inquiries to me at the T&I, and if I cannot help, I'll bring it up to Hokage-sama the next time I see him!"
Dōsukēru peeked out from the scarf and gave me a stare of disbelief, because seriously? Isn't... isn't this overreacting a bit? We aren't even the legit last last Kinmes, like, our clan leader is out there in Uzushio along with a number of other kids, and there's also a few scattered pretty much everywhere else.
Screw it all, bringing our little problems up to the most definitely overworked Hokage was anything but a good idea, and should be avoided at all costs. Especially if he finds that we're too much trouble and uhh. Yeah. Troubling the military dictator of our current village is not a good idea.
I passed a nervous little smile up to the Yamanaka lady, "thanks, but problem solving skills are a must know for any scientist in training. Right?"
There was a muffled "right" from my scarf just barely audible above the sounds of Konoha's early morning streets. Her chakra being the only actual familiar one in my slowly growing range suddenly shot an unnecessary block of ice down my spine.
Damn it I miss my little brothers (face it, Sugiryuu was just a brother lacking a few genes that makes him a human) already. The last time they were out of my range, I couldn't sense them for days, and then had quite a few legit concerns regarding whether or not the two of them were actually still alive.
Our ninja escort lady must have sensed my anxiety or something, because she stopped asking us questions and decided to point out some of Konoha's infrastructure instead.
"The small wooden building that looks like this all over the village are the public latrines where genin teams are tasked with the cleaning-" yes lady, we noticed that they smell bad.
"Those restaurants with a gaudier appearance are generally for civilians, but ninjas go there anyways. However, ninjas overall prefer the restaurants where they can only access from doors located a floor above ground level." She gave me a conspiratorial wink. "You know civilians, overreacting to anything weird." Yes lady, that we've also noticed.
"Civilians don't sell a lot of more... intense ninja ware, so you'll have to go to the rooftops and access the village-grounded ninja shops for those. Sometimes the civilian merchants get some decent stuff from all over the nations too though, so..." she gave a shrug, and there was a hiss of air from the resident nestled around my neck. Honestly, it was almost like she was trying to feed us information of no importance, information anything could deduce with two eyes, nose, ears, and a working brain.
Perhaps my face being too expressionless during her tour was a bit off putting, because her chakra gave a twitch that may spoke of annoyance and the wind carried away a few muttered words.
The rest of the way to the academy was spent in relative silence, as the more innocent side of Konoha started waking up.
She lied to us.
She goddamn lied to us.
When the dainty lil' Yamanaka lady came to us in the wee hours of the morning, before the sun was shining and before the majority of the orphanage was up, she had scared the crap out of us with a chakra flash-bang. That may have accounted for a part of my foul mood, but the door opening before any of us were prepared to deal with the day may have taken the second piece of the cake.
Then she proceeds to point at me and has the gall to order us to be ready to leave in five minutes. When Dōsukēru inquired as to whether or not Orochi and Sugiryuu could be part of the "us", she had seemed amused, and promptly declined.
The last piece of cake was the person sitting right in front of us, a retired ninja who apparently was the headmaster/principal character of the academy. Or rather, the slice of cake was the packet of paper he was holding, which I will be given as long as required to complete in a room separated from all human contact.
For all purposes and intent, the packet was a placement test designed so that they know what level of intellect I had and how much tweaking and adjusting I would need to undergo to become a loyal ninja of Konohagakure. It also seemed to be mostly mass-produced, with only a few questions out of the three hundred or so scattered in to accommodate each person's... differences.
Those questions included ones that questioned the ethical treatment of ninken and summons, and possible rights that they would have. It also asked in a veiled manner about clan loyalty to a clan that might not officially exist anymore.
Being able to skim-read roughly thirty pages of questions was really, really useful, especially if there were two heads together solving the three hundred questions. Even then, however, it took nearly ten minutes in itself to just read the questions. If I presumed that the school board allocated around a minute to a question, then... I would need a three hundred minutes to solve the entire test. That would be five hours. Taking in account that Dōsukēru should be able to do the questions at around the same rate, that would chop the time in half, but still a whooping two-and-a-half hours.
Since this was a placement test, they probably assumed that I wouldn't be able to do quite a few of these questions, like, perhaps half, not to mention the simple arithmetic questions that I jotted the answers down to during the skim reading, which in their eyes would chop that time in half again. Hence them giving me a total of three hours to complete whatever I could.
All in all, by the time I read the entire test back to front and was about to officially start on my terms, I would estimate only a required time of two hours, the actual two-and-a-half if I'm stretching it, and they would assume that I would need about three-or-so hours.
Having done probably hundreds of tests by the time I became deceased the first time around, this would be annoying, but easy.
LINE BREAK
An hour and forty-two minutes was the time it took between me sitting down and opening the test, and finally knocking on the door to the headmaster's office. There was a grand total of five questions that I omitted and didn't do due to ... reasons such as not wanting them to think they needed me to do another one of these tests, and twenty seven where I wrote the sappiest answer possible. Sue me, if they want to drown Dōsukēru and I in propaganda, we'll do the same.
Perhaps doing the test to what nearly my full capacity allowed was a bad idea, but I'll blame it on spite. If they wanted me to be reasonable and pretend to actually be my age, the headmaster shouldn't have popped by and laughed at me after I finished speed-reading it the first time I looked through the questions, assuming that the boring math questions that I barely remembered doing being the extent of my capabilities.
Ha.
Thank gods for Dōsukēru as well, as she was the one that was actually able to deal with all the geographical and political questions and some of the bio ones as well. Also thank gods that my clan had special utensils especially crafted so snakes could write as well, even though it looked like she got a bushy tail.
Anyhow, the two of us were then told to sit in a fluffy cushion couch while waiting for the test results that three harried looking chunin were frantically trying to churn out. They probably had better things to do at this pleasant time in the morning, but whatever. Their random sparks of surprise and growing sense of astonishment (or horror) was quite amusing for our breakfast deprived brains.
Speaking of breakfast, I think I can smell food from through the door. Me wants food. Food.
Fifteen minutes was what it took for the three chunin to mark the test, and give us a whooping 276/300. Out of habit, I converted that to percentage and hissed to Dōsukēru that we got 92%.
That's pretty damn good if I dare say so myself.
But frankly, I know that if we didn't speed write it out of spite, we could've done just a bit better.
The headmaster seemed to pause a bit when one of the chunin, one that wore a green scarf, announced the mark. He rubbed his face and sighed, briefly flicking his eye up to give us a once over before gently settled his face down on the table.
"It'll be simple, they said." He muttered. "Just make sure the brats don't kill each other, and hire somebody to do all the work for you, they said. How troublesome."
On second glance and feel, his hair was in a spiky ponytail and there was quite a substantial pool of chakra around the man's feet where his shadow was. The poor Nara.
"Kinme Suijami and Kinme Dōsukēru, the two of you worked together on a test that was designed for a single person. However, as the two of you are... 'attached' at the hip due to summoner and summonee purposes, the board will probably agree with me that the test was done by a single functioning entity. Your test result is well above the age average–" lol "– but we will place you two in a full year course targeted for the physical aspects of the shinobi job, as you seem to have the intellect part down pat."
One of the chunnins coughed rather falsely, and sidled over to the Nara headmaster to whisper something into his ear.
"On second thought, you two can also choose to attend a half-year course centred around physical conditioning and chakra conditioning if you are willing to talk to a counsellor on a weekly basis during this period of time. With any of the two options, you can choose to move out of the orphanage into an empty townhouse for a designated fee of…." he peered at a scroll that was rifled up from some dark depth of his desk. "a million ryo."
I choked on my spit. Wasn't that… actually… that's only a hundred thousand dollars, right? And since this is still a growing village, prices are going to skyhigh eventually. Besides, in our combines pockets we probably even have enough spending power to purchase an entire street of houses just on the inside of the outer walls.
An actual, large house would be better suited for our needs, and the larger the area covers, the better.
But for now, an townhouse would do. Best not to show off too much wealth in the hand of two orphans, right? Three million is understandable though, considering in their eyes we probably have everything that our parent's left for us. They aren't wrong per say, but only because they vastly underestimated what accumulated wealth of a clan nearly completely dedicated to science would look like.
Given a moment to digest the facts, Dōsukēru tapped my collarbone twice with her tail, and I nodded incrementally. If we can get an townhouse alway from some of the brats in the orphanage, there's quite a lot I would be willing to give.
"What sort of counselling?" she asked, tongue flicking out to taste the air for lies.
The headmaster's face was impassive but replied all the same. This time though, he directly addressed Dōsukēru, which gave him a few extra points in our books. "The counselling would be for any past trauma, and will be in conjunction with a research group that works directly under the Hokage."
She tasted no lies, and my senses told me the same.
"The second option works just fine," she said, a touch of pain entered her tone of voice, "isn't a million ryo a bit much?"
"Would you prefer staynig in the orphanage?"
She sniffled, "fine, deal. But shouldn't you test us on the physical aspects as well?"
Honestly, if possible, we would like to skip the academy step altogether, as sticking around brats the actual physical age that we were and not related by blood would probably drive me to homicide by the second week. The homeless ones back at the orphanage were already a handful enough and it's only been a few days so thank gods for the house, but close contact with other six year olds for the foreseeable future would forcefully drag my IQ to the pits of Tartarus.
"A three-hour test before the sun even rises isn't enough for you?" the Nara exclaimed, aghast and with a twitching eyelid, "no! Go back to where you came from and take your energy with you!"
Done his little spiel, he motioned to the Yamanaka lady who might've been trying to ambush Dōsukēru and I from behind the door (and might've gave her a stink eye while he was at it), and she proceeded to lead the two of us out of the building that can now be labeled in my brain as "baby ninja school".
Or rather, that was what I thought she was going to do.
Instead, she picked us up like a sack of wilted produce and hurtled out of the open window, bouncing across rooftops of all shapes and sizes. I wanted to cry a bit, what with the nice smells of food wafting up and taunting my stomach, and us being at the minimum three floors above it all.
Yeah.
I wonder though, if I chose to cry, would the tears hit random passerby? Because that would be amusing.
Instead of the awkward half-hour walk it took us to get to the academy in the morning, roof hopping only used around an exhilarating five minutes. It would've been so much more enjoyable if I was doing this under my own power with Dōsukēru and my little brothers, but perhaps we soon will be.
The village being now fully awake, the bustle of passerby below was plenty colourful in the five quick minutes. If it wasn't that even my horrid sense of direction could tell that we were bouncing in a relatively straight line away from the academy, I might've assumed that she took the scenic route as a detour. Perhaps to build up empathy or or curiosity or the like towards this village? She's a Yamanaka, who knows.
By the time we were back at the orphanage, even standing at the doorway meant I could feel the giant splotches of anxiety that denoted my little brothers. Everyone else, however, still could only be barely felt. This would be a phenomena worth looking into, as if familiarity with a signature allows its detection beyond my normal range, then all I would need to do was get familiar with someone's chakra and I'll be able to track them from a further range away! Or hopefully that's how it works, more testing would be required for a reliable conclusion.
A quick tap on the burrowed lump in my scarf and Dōsukēru poked her head out. High wind speeds at low temperatures were nothing to sneeze at, especially if one is cold-blooded. As it was, we only needed five quick under-the-breath sentences to converse, and share a hypothesis regarding the false expansion of my range.
The hypothesis being: Long-term exposure and familiarity to modestly sized chakra signatures can be sensed within reasonable distance outside of the normal sensing range.
Additional notes to this being: If hypothesis not proven incorrect, find average range of said "reasonable distance".
Now we'll just have to find an opportunity to test it out by seeing if we can replicate it, and put the ability into use.
Wonderful, barely a week in the village, and I already have a research question.
Actually, following that vein of thought… Would I be able to latch onto Oro's signature and expand to "see" what's around him? Or use this method to permanently expand my range like an elastic? If a non-sensor nin could locate their relatives or very close comrades via what megar bit of chakra sensing that they have, would it be possible to train into them actual chakra sensing with this method?
On the other note, it was hard to notice before as Orochi and Sugiryuu's chakra presence was rather close by all the time, but after the unreasonably lengthy test and a trip through a marketplace where most chakra signatures when I could detect them could be compared to fireflies, well. Orochi's is a beacon, like a lamp at dawn when the sun's at one's back. Sugiryuu's was a touch weaker, what with being physically smaller and suffering from the aftereffects of the Suna poison.
Actually, almost all the kids in the orphanage were like that, like little fireflies surrounded by giants. Except for us and a select few other orphaned clan kids. No kidding, but there definitely was an Aburame kid that was clinging to the matron once, not to mention the near feral pack of Inuzuka children that pop in and out. Since the matron lady was an Inuzuka herself, it was no wonder that the kids clung to her or her partner when they weren't out doing… whatever the hell they were doing. Of course, the matron, her partner, and Yamanaka-san who were all right beside me were also a beacon of bright chakra, but that was to be expected.
Point is, just from the quantity of chakra in an untrained kid, it's possible to tell whether or not they belong to a clan.
Insert counterpoint, there are always exceptions like Jiraiya. The brat has been trying to avoid us ever since we showed him our fangs (quite literally) the first-ish time we met. However, his chakra was... large. If Orochi's was a contained lamp that he can muffle a shade when needed, then Jiraiya's was a small packet of matches constantly burning. Constantly. It was at least three to four times greater than the other kids that surround him, and considering how the orphanage takes in kids in a variety of ages with him towards the lower end of the scale, well. It makes people wonder.
Why was it possible for a current nobody who was the last in class able to get on a team with the heir of the Senju clan, and an already proven genius? The teachers and others in power must've seen potential in him despite his young age and his lackluster... other traits.
It was just a tad unfortunate that none of the potential was currently showing itself, or we might actually try to approach him with intent to form a friendly relationship. He will eventually end up on my brother's team, after all, and it would suck if he was scared of us the whole time. But yeah, at the moment, he's just a loud-mouthed klutz that runs away whenever our faces are shown.
If two of the last Kinme approach him for no reason other than to make small talk or something, there would be a lot of unneeded suspicion, especially since people think we bear a grudge towards him.
What makes it worse is the fact that most that know of us and not know us are convinced that our clan snatches orphaned children and otherwise lonely people to experiment on.
Which isn't true. Really.
Fine, apparently my clan used to occasionally snag orphaned kids off the streets, but it was more of an instinct than anything else. Some that studied behaviours in our clan hypothesized that it was like how sometimes a hen might "adopt" kittens, or how mother dogs might "adopt" pups or cubs of different species when their actual, blood-related parental figure were sorta... indisposed.
Too many of my clan's children die young, or aren't hatched alive at all, that a lonely pair of parents might see a not-so-well off kid on the streets of a small town and volunteer to take care of them. Of course, the kid has to agree to it, and once they grow old enough, are allowed to leave the clan if they wish to. Or contract with the snakes and swear fealty to the clan. Of course, the swearing fealty part could be done earlier, but later is encouraged so the kid doesn't close away opportunities that they might not get to otherwise choose.
There's also the fact that back then before villages were formed, the curiosities that our clan brought around as a neutral power caused children to flock to us. The clan wars weren't the best of times, sure, but back then the Kinme didn't need to live a life as shadowed as we did. Neutral powers were respected, like how the Akimichi-Yamanaka-Nara clan were respected as neutral judges, and how our status as those that seek and spread knowledge was also a told story.
Now though, now that those allowed to remain neutral are dwindling as villages grow larger with each joined clan, what with the Shinobi War proving to all how brutally efficient it is to have entire clans of specialized kekkei genkai at a village's beck-and-call. Or rather, how valuable when the clans on the battlefield are not those of your enemies.
So, no approaching the little stinker without any obvious incentives in the near future, because misinterpretation of good intentions can lead to quite a bit of unneeded hassle.
Therefore, no dragging Jiraiya to the townhouse that my little family will soon be sharing instead of the small hotel-styled room in an orphanage. Speaking of our new townhouse–
"Yamanaka-san," I said, yanking on her sleeve to get her attention, "can we find a house in the area? Or within walking distance here?" It would be quite unfortunate if the bar that I just found a job in was too far from wherever we're living in the future. Despite the few short days we've stayed here, I've grown attached to the matron and the big, gruff wolf-dog that shadowed her every step. That just means that sooner or later I'll have to somehow remember her name. Frick.
Just as the Yamanaka lady was about to answer though, a heavy hand thumped on my head and gave it a vicious rub. If my everything wasn't hidden under numerous layers, than my hair probably would've frizzed up from all the static running through it.
"Don't worry your little head over it," the matron said, "you might've not been with us long, but we'll continue to take good care of you brats!"
That… wasn't exactly what I meant, but hey, having someone that can keep another few pairs of eyes on my brother while I'm in the academy can only mean good, right? Now I really need to remember her name. Damn it. I think my eyes are watering.
"Fu-dge," she held back a swear, crouching in front of the two of us, "no crying on me ok? If you want to cry, do it on the mutt over there, Sage knows he needs a wash."
I laughed through the tears in my eyes. How odd, our clan wasn't even that popular with Konoha, our only real connection being through Uzushio and a bit of Takumi. Suna had a written allegiance agreement with our clan for peace, protection, and freedom of passage. And now? Look at us. Look at us.
What irony.
Yamanaka lady ended up explaining to Orochi that we would be moving out of the orphanage today into one of the townhouses just two streets away while I scarfed down the food that he had hidden away for me. Bless.
My little brother was nearly vibrating with ecstatic glee, as having our own slice of land, however small it might be, meant that we could either scratch out a basement to open our boxed rooms into, or just tunnel a shed in the yard. Either way, we would have access to our portable underground home. The pipelines below might be a problem… but whatever.
As I was chewing through the very last bites of food, a genin ran up to Yamanaka lady, visibly out of breath. He handed her a folder, saluted, then whipped out a pen and another form that the lady signed without hesitation.
Swallowing, and just as I was about to ask about whatever the loving fuck just happened, she said "can you pay the million now, or would you rather chunk it over the next few years?"
Having eaten nothing and needing to eat nothing for the next few hours, Dōsukēru answered "now would do." Then she proceeded to disgorge a little black box, flick it open, whip out a page from the binder inside, and swallow the box again.
She handed the page to me, visibly trying to angle the box so as to fit it into the throat-seal correctly. Whelp, that was efficient.
I looked at the page and the seal on it, the very cramped English handwriting on the bottom proclaiming it to be four seals of a million each. All it took was plugging a touch of chakra into one of the seals for it to spit out a gigantic wad of cash, all with thousand yen face values.
Wordlessly handing the page back to my partner who shot me a glare of disgust, she got to placing the page back while I handed the literal million yen that just came out of a snake's mouth to the speechless Yamanaka.
"Well. Give me a moment," she said. It really only took her a moment to count out that there was indeed a thousand notes in the wad, an ability that I would really want to acquire in the near future. She hummed, then flipped through the folder, removing a few pages that would probably have to do with mortgage, before passing it to me.
The weight in the folder screamed "key" at me so I shook it out and gave it to Oro, he was better at keeping track of things anyways. The food must've been high in brain sugar or something, because I swear I've never read through something so quickly in this life.
Even then, it felt like a decade before I reached the last page where it desired a signature, thumbprint of blood, and smidgen of chakra.
The signing part was easy, what with me having the neatest handwriting out of the lot of us, but for the rest of the confirmations had two messy fingerprints and four tiny, glowing specks of chakra.
The house wasn't going to be mine. Hell, it won't even be ours. We still have a clan out there, and if one day, one day, they decide to come to Konoha, there will be a home ready for them, the only difference being how much I can expand it before then.
AN: ... I'm back? (f*ck its been over half a year) Blame university, procrastination, travelling, and my muse that went off to look for Narnia in the wrong country.
Anyhow, to old readers, thanks for sticking with me till now! To new readers, welcome to the hellhole that is my brain!
Y'all can thank my sister for this chapter, otherwise I might've spent another month or so procrastinating on editing it lol.
This year I'll be trying my hand at NaNoWriMo again, except with this fic instead, fingers crossed!
(sorry to those that reviewed that I didn't reply to, I was procrastinating and then it was at he point where replying might've been... awkward, thanks for reviewing though! Each one of them reminded me of why I wrote this in the first place!)
Happy Halloween, please leave a review on the way out!
~Cadriona Morningwing
Uploaded October 31, 2018