Iwao, Daigo and I, all conscious and lucid once more, sat in a circle across from team Oe. Although I was disappointed that we lost, I could take satisfaction in that our seniors looked (almost) as bedraggled as we did.
Tsuga looked like they lost a wrestling match with a grizzly bear, and since Hanabi showed so much skin—not that I was staring at her skin, fuck you—I could see she was covered with bruises. I must have exceeded her resistance bloodline's limit with some of my hits—maybe because the considerable amount of force behind my strikes was concentrated into smaller points of impact. Her arm, where I slashed it with my shuriken, was expertly bandaged already, but she would see a medic to get that fixed because it was actually a pretty good lick. Her eyes were bloodshot, either from the flashbang itself or from her rubbing them so aggressively after the fact, and I bet she still had tinnitus.
The only one of us who looked near pristine was fucking Aki, and he always looked like that. I would try to communicate as much to Iwao later—the poor kid looked disheartened.
Biwa-sensei and Oe were leading them through a performance review, of sorts. Daigo had just detailed his fight against Tsuga—after a long distance faceoff, they had gotten close and baited him into casting a genjutsu. That was when they pulled out their trusty blowgun, ignored the symptoms of the genjutsu, and sniped him using their active chakra sense alone. Granted, they shouldn't have been able to do that, since the genjutsu they were trapped in was disorienting by nature, but Teramoto had impressive mental fortitude. Daigo concluded that he should be more mobile in a fight, and to not let his guard down once his opponents were trapped in his genjutsu.
Iwao went next, and spoke on how Aki had him on the back foot since the very beginning.
"Every move I made, he countered," Iwao said despondently. "He just always knew what to do. It was like he was reading a script. I don't even know how I could have beaten him. More jutsu? Better chakra enhancement?"
Biwa-sensei seemed displeased by the response. Or perhaps he was displeased by the melodrama.
"Tomori-san is a quick-thinker with a formidable knowledge base, and he instantly commits to every one of his actions without indecision," Biwa-sensei stated. "That is a rare talent, and one that I hope to help you pick up. Unfortunately, there is no one shortcoming that contributed to your failure. No grand mistake that lost you the match. After this, I will analyze the fight in detail with you in depth."
Iwao nodded in gratitude, though he still seemed down.
"Compare that to your teammate," Biwa-sensei said, turning his baleful eyes upon me. "Who decided to spend precious moments posturing to her opponent, which gave Teramoto-san and Tomori-san time to finish their fights and intercede in her own. Which cost her victory, against her singular opponent at least."
"Oi, sensei!" I protested. "I was stalling for a technique! It wasn't meaningless."
"You didn't have any clone seeds gestating. It was a break in the action. You weren't molding signs for a jutsu."
"I was molding my chakra internally. It's something I've been working on for a while. Chakra enhancement two!"
I held up two fingers in a peace sign.
"Chakra enhancement…two," he repeated
"Yeah! Like, a more advanced version," I explained. "It's what let me hit through Hanabi's lightning armor." I held up my fist for them to see, I pried the electricity-blackened bandages apart to see my skin. It bore few marks. "It uses Yang chakra as a kind of shield."
There was a moment of silence. Then Oe, the opposing sensei, whistled.
"You cannot use Yang release," Biwa-sensei said, his voice strangely reminiscent of a plea.
"Of course not. Are you crazy? No, I can't use Yang release." I paused. "I can, however, encourage my body to release Yang-skewed chakra, and direct it wherever I want. It's not fun, though. Hurts like a bitch."
"Does this have something to do with what you said earlier, regarding your chakra reserves?" he asked tiredly, and I blinked in surprise. How did he come to that entirely correct conclusion? My High Tide tricked my Keimon into producing chakra by siphoning it out of the gate at a substantial rate, whereas my Flash Flooding worked in tangentially the same way. Except it was the Seimon that I tricked in this case, using pain to facilitate the process. However, to a layman, those two two things should seem to have no correlation.
"Kinda, yeah," I admitted, impressed. He just sighed.
"I can't with you," he said, turning away.
"Aren't you going to review my performance?" I cut him off as he was about to open his mouth.
"Why bother?" He responded. "You're currently weak to offensive Raiton Jutsu. In a week you won't be. I'm sure you'll pick up a Futon jutsu soon too, if you haven't already. And I'm sure you'll use this experience to make a million cruel and unusual tag variations, like you always do. Am I wrong? Do you not understand where you went wrong, and what you have to do to overcome this situation in the highly unlikely event that you find yourself in it again?"
That was fair enough, I supposed.
"I won't lose again," I promised, and that was my answer.
Oe-san addressed his team as well, but I didn't get much out of their conversations. The only one with any substance was Hanabi's, who declared her intent to dive into sensory deprivation training. She also asked her sensei about jutsu to lock down an enemy's mobility as well. A visit to the archive was likely in her immediate future.
"Oi chibi," she said to me. "After this, I'm going to go to the hospital. Once they fix me up, we should grab dinner."
Frankly, I'd rather not. My thoughts were too messy right now, and the older kunoichi was the problem. But at the same time, I liked Hanabi. Not like that; as a person. I hadn't seen her in a long ass time, and if I brushed her off, I probably wouldn't see her again for another long ass time. So even though the sight of her made me feel a little gross inside, I really only had one option.
"Fine," I said, as if the thought of being in her presence physically pained me. Which wasn't far off the mark. "Hot pot. South end."
Hanabi grinned.
"It's a date."
Which sent me into another breakdown as I tried not to watch her saunter away.
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
Biwa-sensei called me and Iwao to stay behind, but I was rewarded with his attention first. Away from my teammate, he grilled me first about my instant jutsu learning talent. He was mad I didn't explicitly tell him what I was capable of, which personally sounded like a him problem.
It wasn't like I was trying to hide it. Clearly. It just wasn't often relevant. I had too much on my plate to seek out and perfect new jutsu through this method, though I never forgot that it was on the table. Biwa-sensei would never condone the act anyway, so what was even the point in discussing it?
Biwa-sensei was blowing this out of proportion, so I tried to explain to him my restrictions. I couldn't instantly and perfectly cast just any jutsu whose hand seals I saw. I had to first understand its mechanics. How its chakra behaved. If it wasn't straightforward, or if it was nothing like any jutsu I already knew, then it would take me time and effort to tinker with it until I got it right.
I had my own personal limitations as well. My external chakra control was still shit, so jutsu that required micromanagement beyond the hand seals that formed it—like Iwao's Trailblazing Drill, for example—were off the table for me. So were Raiton techniques, which is why I got nothing out of my fight with Hanabi.
Aki's Wild Water Wave, however. That was as straightforward as it gets. It wasn't dissimilar in several key respects to my Iwadeppo, and without it our team would have lost the exercise immediately and pathetically. So I had no qualms about whipping it out.
I burned the hand seals into my memory—Ryu, Tora, U. I was happy to finally have a water jutsu in my arsenal. I would have to try harder to get Daigo's Wind Style: Great Breakthrough
next—it would have really helped against Hanabi. But that wasn't due to any shortcoming of my own. My teammate was shifty as hell. It was habitual for him to disguise his seals at all times, and he wore billowy, long sleeves to assist in that endeavor.
Biwa-sensei made me promise to tell him whenever I picked up the hand seals for a new jutsu, so that we could put aside time to master them. I agreed readily, since it was to my benefit, glad that was his response. Other proud individuals would try to get me to stop altogether on principle, even if it was to my (and Iwa's) detriment. He even promised to teach me memory tricks specifically to help me recall long strings of hand seals I might see.
Then the topic switched to my self modification, and I was thrown for another loop. Biwa-sensei made me explain everything I had been doing to myself over the years, and, to my genuine shock, he understood what I told him. I didn't even have to dumb anything down.
This was incredibly strange because Biwa-sensei professed before that he knew little about medicine beyond what was expected of an elite jonin, and I believed him. So why did he know so much about the Gates?
Even an accomplished medic would start frothing at the mouth if I so much as insinuated I planned on tampering with one of them, but all Biwa-sensei spared me was a grave frown.
"If you have any more ideas like those, come to me before you start experimenting," he ordered. "Especially your Shōmon. With your late obsession with elemental chakra, that's your next focus, isn't it?"
"Honestly, no," I remarked with a frown. "It wasn't."
Out of all the gates, the Shōmon was the one I least understood. I didn't even have a solid grasp on its function; none of the material I had access to gave me a clear answer either.
"I don't even know how it could be modified. Do…do you?"
Though I had a strong feeling that the answer to that was yes, he shook his head decisively.
"Don't even think about that. There are better things for you to spend your time on."
He was probably right, but this entire interaction fanned the flames of my intrigue. What did sensei know? Why did sensei know it? I burned to find the answers to both questions, but I held my tongue and left to meet Hanabi for our definitely-not-a-date.
I got there first, and though I was taught in another life that it wasn't polite to order, much less eat, a meal before the person you were meeting did the same, I ordered and paid for an extra-large yosenabe, which I promptly dug into. I had used more chakra during our spar than I had in a long, long time, so I activated High Tide, which sped up my metabolism tenfold.
Hanabi arrived just as I was tipping back the bowl, draining the last drops of broth. Easier said than done, as the bowl still had now-empty clam shells in it.
"Yo," she greeted, trademark grin in place as I wiped my chin with the back of my hand. "Classy, as usual."
"Pot, meet kettle," I grumbled. "You're late."
"I don't remember setting a time," she shot back. "It's your fault, anyway."
"Aww, baby got a wittle boo-boo?" I mocked, falling back into our old rhythm. Damn, it was so easy with her. I had no one to be a real dick to lately, and it was stifling. "Want me to kiss it better?"
"You'd like that wouldn't you?"
Fuck. Walked right into that one. I changed the subject with a disgusted scoff.
"So, how's your sister?" I asked. "Still alive?"
"Haya? Yeah, she's fine."
"Shame," I muttered. If Ichikawa Haya died, I would laugh in private. But in public, I'd be there for Hanabi. She loved her sister, for some godforsaken reason.
Hanabi sighed, pursing her lips.
"She told me what they did to you, recently," Hanabi said, quietly. "She had to—she's been forced to pick up extra hours to compensate for your loss."
"Oh, boo hoo!" I mocked. "The girl with irreplaceable skills that we blackmailed instead of asking or paying like a normal person ditched us the moment she could, and now we have to work more hours! That's so sad! Consequences are only supposed to happen to other people!"
That got a chuckle out of her. Good; the situation was hilarious, and she should find humor in it like I had.
The revelation that the Explosion Corps was floundering in my absence was music to my ears. I knew that I had come along at the perfect time for them. A couple years into my…tenure, let's call it, I learned what prompted the Corps newfound reliance on Exploding Tags. Right before I fell into Gari's lap, the younger generation of the Bakuhatsu had fucked up their bodies, attempting to recreate their legendary kinjutsu. The one Deidara used in the anime. Now, the Explosion Release had all but disappeared from Iwagakure, changing the entire trajectory of the Corps.
I was their one light in the darkness, the single thread that kept the organization afloat and relevant. And, while I was with them, I did create enough seals to form an unreal surplus of tags. But if they couldn't keep up that rate of growth, said surplus would soon diminish in the face of war. Still…
"I…apologize…no I don't. It sure as hell isn't my fault. But it is too bad that you don't have as much time with your sister," I choked out.
"That hurt, didn't it?" Hanabi said with a small smirk. "It's not like I have any free time myself. I'm out of the village more often than not. But you're right. They brought it on themselves. What clan head lets an entire generation of his people mutilate themselves on his watch? What a fucking joke. I can't stand the Bakuhatsu clan, but they still have strong combat potential. Had. They fucked us all over with that stunt."
Sensing drama, my ears perked up.
"You have something against the Bakuhatsu too?" I asked. "Beyond that?"
Hanabi exhaled heavily around a mouth full of meat and vegetables. "Let me eat first. I'm fucking starving."
She was likely running on a Yang-chakra deficit too, and not just from the match. Iryo-ninjutsu worked by guiding and spending the patient's own physical energy, and that would manifest as extreme hunger. As she ate, I used the restroom and ordered another bowl, even though my appetite was mostly sated.
"You know about my family?" Hanabi asked when she finished. "How we're an offshoot of the Bakuhatsu?"
I nodded.
"It was a relatively recent split," she said. "It was my grandmother who was born without the Doton affinity, and Gari's predecessor cast her out because of it. Kicked her out of the compound, made her leave her parents. Didn't even give her any money to buy a house or start a life. Couldn't have her inferior genes corrupting the bloodline," Hanabi scoffed.
"Apparently, she was fine with it. Said she understood the logic. Married a chunin with a little money and retried, never amounting to anything past genin. My mom, though, she didn't take it as passively. She was more like me."
"You don't do anything passively," I said, and she flashed me a grin.
"Exactly. She realized she still had the Akiyama, but she didn't feel like she owed the Bakuhatsu shit. Once they realized she could still use part of their bloodline, the Bakuhatsu decided they wanted her back under their control. They expected her to be grateful they finally deigned to notice her after they threw away our family like trash, but they had another thing coming. She spurned them every step of the way. We were persona non grata for a while. I knew this as a kid, but I didn't understand it."
She shook her head. "My parents died at the end of the second war. They were meat shields for the Explosion Corps. My dad didn't even have the bloodline; he just didn't want to leave my mother's side when she had a more dangerous assignment."
I could hear the fury in her voice. I felt it too. But that raised more questions.
"Then why is your sister one of Gari's biggest bootlickers?"
Hanabi chewed her food for a long minute before covering her mouth and lowering her voice. We were in public, and though I couldn't see any shinobi around, but this was Iwagakure. You could never really know who was listening in.
"I love my sister," Hanabi stated. "But she doesn't have any pride. She knew my grandmother before she passed—I was too young to remember her. I think she poisoned her mind. Made her think that the Bakuhatsu clan wasn't completely in the wrong. And she butted heads with our mom a lot before they died, especially regarding the Bakuhatsu clan. She didn't care about how they wronged us, that they only sought to use us once we proved we had part of the bloodline. All she saw was that we had a pretty crappy life with the Bakuhatsu sabotaging us, and that our parents were willingly keeping us in that shittiness by not bowing down to them. So, with mom and dad out of the picture, she approached Gari and denounced them. And that's that."
I didn't know it was possible, but my respect for Ichikawa Haya plummeted even more.
"What about you, then?" I said, matching her volume out of respect. "You sister's told me time and time again how you're going to follow in her footsteps and join the Corps. Why, if you hate them so much?"
Hanabi sighed. "When I was young, I was confused. I had my mom telling me one thing, and my sister telling me another. I respected them both, but, well. I saw Haya a lot more. Her ideology won out, for a time. But I didn't forget what my mom told me. I observed, I listened, and I came to my own conclusion. And that conclusion was…fuck 'em."
She tipped her own bowl back and drank.
"I'm not going to join the Explosion Corps. I'm going to rule the Explosion Corps. The Bakuhatsu clan is going to be sorry for how they treated my family."
My responding grin was positively demonic. "Then it sounds like we have a common goal. You'll find me to be a useful ally to have."
I was pretty damn sure that I was the only person with the inclination and the ability to come up with new shit. From what Hanabi just told me, the Corps were already feeling the effects of my withdrawn support. If Hanabi came through, with my intellectual backing, she would rise through the ranks that much more quickly.
"Huh. What a delicious offer," she mused throatily, and I cringed. Why that particular adjective?
"Of course, your involvement will come with its own challenges. If ousting the Bakuhatsu clan from the Explosion Corps is our goal, through legitimate means, both of our family histories will play against us."
I pursed my lips. "So you know about that. Your sister has loose lips for a kunoichi."
"Again, she considers it relevant for me to know. Especially since I've associated myself with you. She wants me to publicly disavow you, despite all you've done for the division."
Ichikawa Haya was a bitch for that, but I understood the wisdom in the move.
"Do it if you want," I said with a shrug. "Doesn't mean we can't collude in private."
"Oh, I'm all about colluding in private," she said slyly, leaning forward to rest an elbow on the high table. Which must have been uncomfortable in…one respect, so she adjusted her posture. Instead of the table pressing into…her, she…rested atop it. Seriously, she had to be doing this on purpose.
"It just sucks that this is even something I have to think about," I said, not dignifying the comment with a response and looking everywhere but down. "Seriously, I never even got to meet that fucker, and he stays ruining my life. I didn't ask to be born to a psychopath. I in no way condone his actions."
"You still carry his last name," Hanabi pointed out.
"What am I supposed to do? Change it now? A little late for that, don't you think?"
She shrugged lightly. "Maybe. Maybe not. You could always change it legally, and cite your brother as a reason. Say you want to honor him; Services will eat that kind of sob story up."
They probably would. The logistics, which would be a huge problem for most, weren't my biggest issue.
"But what kind of message would that send?" I asked. "Gari and the other assholes will know I did it to suck up to them. It would be the same as agreeing that I owe them; that I have accepted responsibility for my father's crime. That I need to change my lifestyle to atone for it. Not the message I want to send."
Hanabi hummed. "I suppose. You know, as pissy as we get when other people say as much, they're kinda right. We do have a hell of a lot in common."
I had to acknowledge the truth in that. It wasn't just our personalities that were similar; she had inherited problems that she shouldn't have to deal with from her parents as well. And she was going to solve them in the same way as I was.
By giving the affected parties entirely new problems to focus on. Problems that we could take full credit for as individuals.
"We'll make them wish they left us the hell alone," I promised, and Hanabi's smile was full of sadism.
"Sure we will," she said. "But that will have to wait. I'm with Oe-sensei now, and I'm not going to compromise my future for a grudge. Besides, with the Explosion Corps' new modus operandi, studying under such an accomplished saboteur will only help get me where I need to go in the long run. So enough of the angst shit. I haven't seen you in a minute. How's life as a genin treating you?"
I fucking loved it, and I told her so. She was, understandably, quite interested in Biwa-sensei, and wanted to know what it was like to study under him.
"Honestly, he mostly leaves me alone. Focusses on my other teammates who need it more."
Hanabi frowned. "That's a little shitty. I would be pissed if I snagged such an infamous sensei and he didn't do shit to teach me."
"I got what I needed from Biwa-sensei's infamy the moment he became my sensei. If not for his name, I'd still be Gari's slave. But it's not like he ignores me. If I need to know something, he'll either teach me himself or, if he doesn't have an answer, find me a book that will explain it. He has access to a lot of material that most people don't, and I'm pretty sure he has people to find it for him, so shit's pretty instantaneous. I just don't need a lot of direction in general. I already know what I need to do to get strong."
"You were always a freak like that," she said. "What were you going to do at the end? It must have been something if your sensei felt like he needed to stop you."
I grinned. "An original technique. It's a combination Nin-Fūinjutsu. A near undodgeable and unblockable series of explosions. It's still in the works, but it's beautiful."
"Shit, you're already working on originals?" She shook her head. "Well, you're not the only one."
"I figured you came up with that lightning cloak thing you used," I said. "Mainly because I think it would kill anyone without your bloodline, and everyone else who has it is too stupid to come up with something that only uses lightning."
Too stupid, and too narrow-minded. I held the opinion that most clans were blinded by their traditions and established techniques. Few even considered the notion of discovering new applications of their bloodlines.
"You did totally rip off the Raikage, though, so I'm going to have to dock points for originality."
"Oi, it's totally different from the Raikage's! In fact, I'm working on an improvement that will really make it a departure."
"Oh? Do tell."
Hanabi shook her head in mock reprimand. "Now, now. I don't want to ruin the surprise. Or give you time to counter it by the time we fight again."
I snorted. "Fine, then."
"But, uh, hey. I was wondering if you could help me with something." She gave a chuckle. "Some of those exploding tag variants could really help me in my line of work. Do you think you could teach me how to make them?"
I quirked an eyebrow. "Do you even know how to make the standard one? And are you licensed? I don't want to get into any legal bullshit again."
"Yeah, and yeah. I'm not too shabby either. After a shit ton of practice."
That last part was muttered. I remembered Hanabi having terrible handwriting, so I'm sure it was difficult for her.
"I'll teach you one variation," I decided. "Your choice."
"Stingy," she said, pouting.
"You're literally asking for my original techniques, here," I pointed out; she probably forgot these qualified as such because they weren't jutsu. "Most people would fight you just for asking."
"Right, right," she said, sheepishly. "Thank you."
"Besides, it's going to take a long ass time just for you to get one," I reminded her. "I think I'll be in town for a couple days still. If you okay it with your sensei, you can swing by our training ground, and we can get started tomorrow."
"Would that be okay with your sensei?" she asked.
"It should. Because I'm not giving you this for free. You're going to help me with one of my projects, which he gave his approval for."
Biwa-sensei, of course, knew some Raiton jutsu, but it wasn't his most comfortable element. He claimed the techniques weren't conducive to my chakra-sealing experiments anyway; I took that to mean they were too destructive to be safely constrained even if my seals worked perfectly. He'd been promising to find me someone to lend a hand, but I had other stuff to work on in the meantime, so it hadn't been a priority. Now, our spar brought to the forefront how weak I currently was to lightning release, and the perfect little assistant had just fallen into my lap. A fire had been lit under me, and I wasn't about to pass up on this opportunity.
"I'll talk to Oe-sensei," she said. "I bet he'll be all for it, after that little demonstration you gave him. Maybe you can give me a list to choose from, so I can get his opinion?"
"Sure."
I already had one handy; it was in my fuinjutsu chest.
"So, I'm curious," I began. "Tell me about the life of a saboteur. What kinds of things does Oe-san teach you, exactly?"
We talked about training, and some of the missions we'd gone through. In terms so broad that we may as well have not said anything at all; even though they weren't officially classified for the most part, it was still bad form to talk about any of our past missions—the ones we'd consider interesting, in any case. Especially since we were in public.
Here's what I did get out of her vague explanations, however. War was coming, and everyone knew it. The Sabotage Division was preempting our enemies' preparation efforts, hindering other villages' supply chains, ruining the businesses of wealthy merchants with foreign sympathies. An emphasis was put on targeting farms in hostile lands as well. A food shortage was what really ended the last war, after all, so as a military stratagem it was common sense.
Of course, since it was common sense, everybody else was expecting it, and set up counter measures. Hanabi told me that they had a lot more freedom to drop missions at their discretion, because it wasn't time to act overtly yet and jumpstart the conflict. Around half the time, they'd go out on mission, making the dangerous trek through enemy territory, just to turn right back around if Oe-sensei decided their target was too well-guarded. Sometimes they were given a checklist of targets that were close by to one another, and they'd run through them, doing whatever they were able. It was fascinating to learn about, since it was so different from how ninja were normally expected to operate.
I didn't have nearly as much to share, since I had only been a genin for eight months, now. I did decide to share with Hanabi my conflict with the Suna Puppet Corps, which excited her to no end. I told her about Sasori, though I didn't share his name since I wasn't supposed to know it, and I told her how I had stolen a puppet as a souvenir and was learning from it. I also told her how I had hung it from the ceiling of our living room with ninja wire.
(I didn't tell her that I rigged it to a security system. If an intruder broke in, they'd be greeted with a face full of senbon, shot from a grotesquely unhinged jaw.)
"I hope I get to fight someone noteworthy soon," she griped. "We've taken out some nobodies, but our whole thing is avoiding fights right now. Which is too bad, because we're total badasses."
"I'm sure you'll get your chance once discretion isn't as much of a focus," I said, blithely.
Once the war officially started, it wouldn't matter if they were seen and identified. Team Oe wouldn't be abandoning any of their missions then; they wouldn't hesitate to mow down any opposition standing in the way of their goals.
If they could. No shinobi's job could be considered "safe," especially during a time of war. But Team Oe's? Fuck.
I couldn't help but worry about her, for a moment. I'd always (begrudgingly) liked Hanabi, but after that little heart to heart we just had, I was beginning to actually feel close to my self-proclaimed senpai. And, well, there was no Ichikawa Hanabi mentioned in canon.
Then, the moment passed. Like she herself just pointed out, Hanabi and I were too much alike; if she were to die, it would be a death worth celebrating.
"Well, you're right about that," the kunoichi I admired chuckled, reaching back and using her fingers to muss up her hair. It was clear she had just been in a fight; sweat clung it together into clumps. With her chest jutting out, she looked positively erotic.
I had been painfully distracted this entire time. I did my best to maintain eye contact, but, though I hated myself for it, I couldn't keep my eyes from wandering. Especially when she did shit like this. I prayed she hadn't noticed, and that she wasn't doing it on purpose.
But I should have known by now. The Kami hated me.
"Like what you see?" Hanabi asked with a grin, and the chopsticks shattered in my grip.
"Don't," I pleaded, averting my eyes upward. Of course she noticed; she was a ninja, and not a particularly shit one at that. "Please, just don't."
Unfortunately, my initial comparison of Hanabi to a shark, which I made when I first met her, was accurate more often than not. When she smelled blood, she went for it.
"Don't worry, kiddo, I'm only five years older than you. Yours will grow in soon enough. Maybe."
I blanched at the reminder of our ages.
"I don't give a shit about that. Please, for the love of kami, please shut up."
She was silent for a moment, my sheer panic giving her pause. Then—
"Oh. Oh. Really?"
I ignored her.
"That's…interesting. I noticed you looking during our fight, but I thought it was just jealousy."
I stood up abruptly, but under the table she hooked her leg around my ankle and yanked it out from under me in a flash. I landed hard on the unforgiving, wooden bench, and my coccyx protested as I glared daggers at her stupid, unapologetic, smirking face.
"Sit," she demanded. "I'm enjoying this. I needed the self-esteem boost."
"Like you need a hole in your head," I sniped.
"You think a lot about my holes, don't you?" She asked, and my skin crawled.
"Please?" I whispered, the fight leaving me as I slumped. "This is genuinely distressing for me."
Hanabi raised an eyebrow at my defeated tone.
"Why?" She asked, perplexed. "It's only natural."
I almost didn't answer. But hell, if not Hanabi, who could I go to about this? Biwa-sensei? Kazuhiro? Fuck, no.
But even once I got past the sheer mortification, I still struggled to find words. I couldn't begin to explain how, to me, Hanabi was a literal child and that I felt morally corrupt for thinking about her in that manner. Instead, I settled on a smaller but still significant facet of my issues.
"My mind developed to maturity from an early age," I blurted out. "Because I awakened my chakra during infancy."
She hummed, suitably impressed as most people were.
"Wow. Like using it and shit?"
I nodded. "I didn't know it was special or anything. I just did it because I was bored. But I developed a consciousness before I could fucking speak. I've always had a strong grasp on the workings of my mind. In retrospect, I've noticed that there were times that my body—my hormones—have impacted my decision making. But I never noticed in the moment because that was my natural state. I've been continually getting better as I aged. I've felt myself improving. Felt myself becoming more stable."
I blinked hard, surprised to feel tears of frustration in the corners of my eyes.
"But now I feel myself regressing. Feel my mental state slipping. I've lost control of my mind and I hate it!"
I forced eye contact, seeing the uncomfortable look on Hanabi's face. Emotionally constipated ninja, right.
"What did you do?" I half begged her. "You're like me, right? You must have figured it out. How did you get yourself under control?"
She hummed, and I appreciated that she was actually putting thought into her response. Until she opened her mouth.
"Well, I masturbate a lot," she said nonchalantly. "Like, a lot."
I cringed at the image, and what it elicited in me.
"Come on," she laughed. "You're not telling me you're a prude, are you?"
"No, no. I'm not," I said, which was in general true. "That's…thanks for the advice, I guess."
"You're trying to fight your body," Hanabi said. "You won't overcome shit doing that. You have to work with it. Give it what it wants."
Right. Hanabi really was a genius under all that boorishness. That statement was genuinely profound.
Then, as always, she just had to go and ruin it.
"You know how, right? I can show you, if you want." She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
"Absolutely fucking not."
She laughed. "That was just a joke. For now. When you're not a chibi anymore, then we'll talk."
I shuddered, terribly regretting that I'd already made plans to see her again tomorrow.
- - - { ワナビー } - - -
AN: Hey guys! Another extra long chapter after an extra long wait, which you can read while pretending to watch the Super Bowl! And I'm sorry, I was planning on going straight back into weekly uploads, but I've done some more story planning of the next two chapters, and they're going to be long af too. Therefore, I'm gonna do the two-chapters-in-three-weeks thing again right away. Next chapter will be uploaded on the 21st. But I'm cookin' here, don't worry. They will be worth the wait, even more than the last two chapters.
I got several notes. First, timeline. The Naruto timeline is incredibly murky and difficult to parse out. Everything I've found has been compiled by various individuals who must have a lot of time on their hands (who I appreciate the shit out of). Not every one of these timelines match up though, so obviously some of them must be wrong. But there's no way in hell I was going to analyze every episode of Naruto to figure it out for myself, so I had to just pick one and roll with it.
It has been pointed out to me a couple times that the source I went with must not be completely accurate. I'm not going to say what led me to look into this most recently, because I don't want to spoil what's to come. But I think I've spotted the error now. The source I based mine off of has the second and third war farther apart. In my story, the two wars are currently around a decade and a half apart, but apparently the gap was far less than that. I should have, when I began the story, had the second war last longer, well into Kasaiki's childhood. I'm still trying to decide if I want to fix that in the early-story edits I'm loosely working on. Let me know what you think.
The Third war will still happen on schedule. Kasaiki will be around 15. Minato is the same age. However, I had already decided that the war's exact start and end dates would be nebulous. Conflict will be happening long before an overt declaration will be declared.
Okay, second big thing. Those of you who have been with me for a while will remember that, when the movie came out, I was absolutely obsessed with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. I even stated that I was thinking about writing a fanfic for it. Well, what I didn't tell you was that…I did. I started and finished a moderately lengthy (not nearly as lengthy as Float) fic. I've held on to it all this time, not posting it for personal reasons. But I've been thinking I should. It holds a special place in my heart and I want people to see it.
I'm looking for some people to Beta this story. It's ~ 160000 words, so not a huge commitment. I just need someone who knows/appreciates the source material. Bonus points if you're a comics nerd like I am—I take a lot of inspiration from the Spider-Verse comics line as well.
Soooo, yeah. Exciting stuff.
I don't have a Ptrn. If you've gotten five bucks of enjoyment out of this story, please consider buying my original work on amazon (information in my bio). Between the two sites this fic is posted on, I have over 2000 readers. If even half of you choose to support me in this fashion, I would have considerable bargaining power when it comes to getting future books published. More publishing deals means I can quit my day job, which translates into more time for fanfiction. It's a one time thing, and you even get more of my writing out of it.
See you on February 21st for the next chapter! Peace!