"You've got quite the bank account now," Mangetsu commented one morning at the common room dining table. "Let me know if you need us to get you anything."
The spoon of porridge paused halfway to Rei's mouth. "Where's the money coming from?"
"Missions. Donations. That kind of thing."
"I haven't been on a mission since we caught those goats." She abandoned her porridge now, stirring the pieces of fruit idly with her spoon. "Why hasn't the Headmaster figured out anything about a new Curse Mark for me yet?"
Mangetsu's water bottle gurgled as he took a long pull from the straw. "It's not exactly an easy thing to do." He glanced to either side, probably out of habit. "Everything we do has to be covert. You wouldn't believe how many Shinobi are out looking for the answer right now." He stood, pushing his chair back to the table neatly. "Just hang in there. One of these days you'll get to see the sky again."
With Mangetsu back above ground, Rei found herself staring back down at her porridge. She hadn't yet found a way to train her chakra-sucking-whatever-it-was by herself. It had taken several days of working with Koichi and Niko Sensei to even begin to feel the way that chakra entered her body from someone else's. She flexed her fingers trying to find that odd sixth sense. It wasn't present now. There was no one to take chakra from.
The natural questions to ask had come to her multiple times: what kind of person stole someone else's life essence? Was she a monster? Would she be able to drain someone's chakra to absolute zero? Would she be able to kill them?
It was an easy answer. She cradled her right hand in her left and stared at the small scars that dotted her fingers, her palms. There had to be a way to control it. There had to be a way to keep it from draining her friends, her friends. A grin plucked at her lips.
When Koichi returned that night, he knocked on her bedroom door and came in with two small boxes of shrimp and rice. "You really need to start telling me what you want so I can bring it for supper. I don't even know what kind of food you really like."
"I don't even know what kind of food I really like," Rei replied, accepting one of the boxes and inhaling the seafood aroma and crossing her legs under her, leaning back on her pillow. "It's not like I had the chance to try many different kinds before I came here."
Koichi hopped up on the bed next to her, a solid two feet from her knees. She flinched for a microsecond. If he noticed, he didn't comment on it. Instead, he opened his own box and plunged in his chopsticks, shoveling the food into his mouth.
"I guess I'll get my own utensils, then." She set her rice down on her side table and slid to the floor.
"Can you get me a water?" Koichi asked with a smile.
"Maybe." She enjoyed bantering. The conflicting emotions, the warring between her current knowledge and her ingrained instincts were constantly at the forefront of her mind, but she was getting better at tempering them. If she'd lived in the barracks longer, if she'd suffered the way some of the other girls had, she wasn't sure that she'd ever have been able to speak to Koichi like this.
Before she exited the hallway, her fingers began to tingle in the most subtle of ways. An unfamiliar chakra was in the kitchen. She tried to tease out its characteristics, but she hadn't schooled herself on how to do that yet. It felt… spicy, maybe? No, more like ants running over her skin, but through her organs instead. What did that even mean?
She didn't have any weapons on her, so she pressed her back to the wall and sidled along it until she was just outside the kitchen door. Those flighty instincts that she was trying so hard to suppress roared back to the surface, and her hands began to tremble. She should run. Someone she didn't know was in her safe place.
She had just begun to turn back the way she had come when the door slide aside, and an attractive middle-aged woman walked through casually. One look at her face revealed her identity to Rei, who exhaled hard enough to see spots in her peripheral vision. She braced her hand on the wall next to her for support.
The woman reached out and took Rei by her shoulders gently. Rei had never felt such a touch. "Sweetheart, you need to sit down. You almost fainted just now."
"I'm okay," Rei insisted, but she allowed herself to be led into the kitchen and guided into a chair at the only dining table. She wasn't able to take her eyes off of this woman, Koichi's mother. She had the same blonde, almost white colored hair, which was pulled back into a professional bun. A few unruly strands had escaped their confines and wisped around her eyes. Her eyes were darker than her son's, brown, but they were kind and twinkled familiarly. She was probably forty or so, but she was definitely in top physical shape. Her arms were corded with finely tensed muscle beneath her flak jacket.
"I was planning to speak to you tonight, but Koichi insisted on coming straight here. I haven't seen him in over a month, and all he could talk about was his new squadmate." She sat in the seat across from Rei and interlaced her fingers, resting her chin atop them. "The one that I needed to meet right away."
The spots had faded from Rei's vision by now, and she sat a little straighter. "You're his mom."
She nodded, smiling in a way that Rei could only assume was maternal. "Mhm. You can call me Kohana. It's very nice to meet you, Rei." She extended her perfectly manicured hand for Rei to shake, which she did weakly. "I've been told that you are struggling with chakra control."
Rei could only nod. "I'm struggling with pretty much everything."
"I've heard that, too." Kohana stood slowly and came around the table, kneeling next to Rei's chair and looking her in the eyes. Her proximity was uncomfortably close, but Rei forced herself not to draw back. "I understand all of it. I was in the B barracks, too. I was one of the first that the Headmaster rehabilitated in this bunker, dear." For a moment, they just looked at each other. Then Kohana leaned forward and pulled Rei into a hug, a gesture that the girl had never in her life experienced. The woman was warm, strong, and… safe. "I will do everything that I can to make sure that you survive what's happened to you."
The tears came then, the ones that had been dammed up in her for months, maybe years. Kohana just held her, rocking with the sobs that threatened to tear Rei apart. Rei had never felt anything so intense as the barrage of emotions that crashed against each other in her chest now. Rage at the Mist. Sorrow at never knowing a safety like this before. Gratitude that she had it now. Helplessness for her future and those of her new friends. Fear of losing all that she had gained.
When her cries tapered off into embarrassing hiccups, she allowed Kohana to wet a rag and dab at her dampened face. "You've been through more than any child should. All of you at the Academy have," Kohana almost whispered. "And there is more injustice waiting for you. But we're going to make sure that you're strong enough to withstand the storm."
Before Kohana could say another word, footsteps clopped down the hallway in their direction. "The chopsticks aren't that hard to find, Rei." Rei scrubbed at her face, which she was sure was as red as a tomato, and did her best to look normal when Koichi practically pranced into the kitchen.
He took one look at her face and his own began to color. "Um, sorry. I guess I'll go back to your room." He turned to leave, but Kohana said, "Freeze." He did. "Not her room. The common area. Where you'll be having all of your meals in the bunker from this point forward."
"Mom, you just got back, and you're already making new rules?"
What it must be like to grow up in a family like that. Koichi retrieved their food from the bedroom and brought it back to the kitchen, where the three of them sat together and discussed all kinds of different things. Rei found herself laughing when Koichi told them about how he and Utakata had been assigned to escort a noble girl across the village, and Koichi had gotten stuck walking her prissy little dog. It was only made better when Utakata decided that air travel would be faster and encased himself and the girl in a huge bubble, leaving Koichi and the dog behind. The girl had looked down from above and given Koichi a cheeky little wave, and Rei was certain that he had given her some rude gesture in return, but he wasn't going to admit to that in front of his mom.
With the food finished, the trash disposed of, and the table wiped down, Kohana placed her fists on her hips and leaned back in an aggressive stretch. "What a day. And it's only…" She turned to check the clock that hung above the fridge. "Six o'clock. I'm going to see how the Sealing chamber is coming along."
"Can we come?" Koichi asked.
Kohana didn't even hesitate. "Please. I want to try something out with you two, anyway."