I melted into delicate hands as Shizune worked on my hair. The girl was horrible at any kind of styling but could give a magical scalp massage. It was a pleasant reprieve from all the ink-covered paper scattered on her floor.
She had invited me over after our first week of training, and I jumped at the chance to talk to someone who wasn't a 13-year-old boy. I wasn't someone who thought women and men couldn't be friends. I was one of those people who thought moody teens were best handled in small doses.
Thank Kami I'm allowed to hit them in this life.
Coming over turned out to be a double gift. Tsunade had received the first round of fuinjutsu material from Hiruzen. Ninety percent of it was calligraphy practice. Not the best thing to spend your weekend on, but necessary for becoming a seal master. It stemmed from one-third practical considerations and two-thirds mysticism.
A neat script made it easier to add more functions to a seal. Obvious and easy to understand reasoning. What wasn't so easy was how an esoteric process caused seals to be more effective when the lines themselves were neat. It sounds ridiculous, but it's true. Take a seal with shaky lines against one with clean ones, and the difference was obvious. The neater lines were more efficient and more powerful.
It paradoxically did the opposite when a seal malfunctioned. Say an explosive seal goes off accidentally when experimenting or making a mistake while creating a normal one. Since it was an accident, the one with neater lines will cause less damage than the one with worse ones.
Take that same seal but set it off on purpose, and the neater one will cause more damage instead.
The material I was given had been made with beginners in mind, yet already covered a dozen strange elements of fuinjutsu, like the need for handwriting practice. I didn't want to imagine the insanity that had to be learned to become a master.
Shizune had joined me at first. Curious about the art and how she could apply it to her med-nin studies. She lasted about an hour. I made it for an additional five before sore hands, and a headache had me calling it quits. It took two seconds after that for us to set up an impromptu spa day.
"Are you worried about the dinner?" Shizune asked, drawing me out of my stupor.
"Worried isn't the right word. Unenthused maybe? It'll be awkward but it can't go worse than yesterday. Sensei had us work on conditioning all day. It made Naori more annoying than usual."
"Had to be bad for you to complain about Naori first instead of Hide," she said, laughing as I tried to smack her without disturbing the hot towels or face mask. "Quit! Tsunade said if we wasted any more of her good cream I'd have to buy more alone."
A quick peek from under the eye mask (also the good stuff) showed how red Shizune had turned from the threat. Tsunade was a princess at heart and would only buy the best beauty supplies available.
For ninja, that means going to a seduction based specialty store.
They had everything you could imagine. Tsunade had taken us to it after Shizune begged to get her favorite type of shampoo. In fairness, they had more skincare products than I thought existed in this world. And a lot of the dresses were cute and designed to hide weapons easily.
Then, you would look slightly to the left and find a wave of…. things that don't really need to be described. Tsunade cackled out loud once it dawned on Shizune what we were looking at.
It was another oddity of the culture I found myself in. Prudishness and traditional ideals mixed with heavy doses of independence and liberal thinking. Dress codes didn't exist for the majority of people beyond a couple of clans or families. Yet those with strict rules would happily associate with people who didn't follow them.
I saw a Hyuga chatting away with a lady wearing something you'd see on a movie poster marketed exclusively to teen boys.
Not to say there weren't any social situations with a standard dress. Funerals and weddings were the main ones that came to mind. A little leg showing during them was almost the same as spitting on the grave or bride.
Shizune interrupted my wandering thoughts, saying, "I think your team is a good fit for you. I wish you were on mine of course, but we've only done basic exercises and kata. The lack of fighting would probably drive you crazy."
"Why do you say that like I'm a meathead?"
"Compared to everyone else in our class…" she devolved into giggles at my expense.
After getting them out of her system, Shizune patted my head like a dog and said, "Now, now. Don't be a grump. If things go bad, you could beg me to let you join my team."
She laughed at the rude gesture I gave instead of responding to her offer.
"How is being on a team with the Hokage's son?" I asked once she settled down again.
Shizune took a moment to answer, humming in thought before she said, "It's odd. I already knew what he was like because of the academy, but part of me still expected him to be more…. well everything? It makes me feel bad to say, but Raido has been more impressive."
I nodded in agreement. Asuma was destined to be a good shinobi. A great one when you consider how hard it is to become a jonin. That didn't stop me from feeling like it was wasted potential. If my father was the God of Shinobi… "How do you like your sensei?" I said to keep from daydreaming.
"Shikaku-san seems like a good teacher. Tsunade had introduced us before, so it was nice not to deal with a stranger. He's different from what I expected from a Nara teacher. We're always getting feedback and instructions from him. He also said we'll probably have a lot of joint training with his old genin teammates," she suddenly shot up in excitement and exclaimed, "You should ask Takeo-san if your team can train with ours too! I'll ask Shikaku if you can visit us either way."
I readily agreed with her for more than just the joys of friendship. Asuma having a good opinion of me was nice, but Shikaku would be even better. The future Jonin Commander and head of the Nara clan would have connections in the highest of places. Him thinking favorably of me could pay off when I least expected it. He'd also be good to learn from when it came to the political side of Konoha.
There was some sort of clan council and a civilian one as well. How much power and influence either actually wielded was a mystery to me. The clans presumably had some check on the Hokage's power. Maybe more than usual from the little I remembered of Hiruzen's reign from the show.
A big part of me was curious about how other teams interacted. My own seemed a bit…. "Do you get along with your team?"
"Oh Rinko," Shizune said while giving me a hard hug from behind, "Everything is gonna be okay. Worst case is that you don't stick with your genin teammates after making chunin. Well the actual worst case scenario is that you die. Or maybe getting captured and tortured. But besides that it would be…"
Her worried rambles served as the perfect lullaby while I drifted off to sleep.
Wearing a new dress to the Inuzuka compound was an excellent training exercise. The amount of people and animals running around was ridiculous. I've had to catch more than one kid a moment before they ran right into me. Each one was covered in mud despite the lack of rain and no visible bodies of water.
The stress would have me pulling my hair out if Tsunade hadn't made it look so lovely. Shizune had offered, but I didn't want to offend Sensei with the insanity she would've created.
Seeing the finished product had been worth all the time spent today. It was the first time in this life that I could remember dressing up. I enjoyed feeling pretty again, even if it was closer to cute, with me being a 9-year-old and all.
That my adorableness was wasted on two dumb boys and a sensei who barely talked didn't matter. I felt good. That was the most important thing.
My good mood only increased after I asked an older woman with her ninken partner for directions. Sensei had given me a note with an address and little else. The woman had pointed me in the right way and gushed over my outfit.
I'll remember to reward her when I rule the world with an iron fist. Slightly less since I had to keep dodging the ninken's licks to stop my makeup from smearing.
Her directions led me to one of the more prominent buildings in the compound. I thought we were meeting at Sensei's house for the meal. Maybe it was the Inuzuka version of a mall, and we'd be eating at a restaurant inside. I shrugged off the worry and made for the door.
Opening it caused me to be hit with a wave of noise. The inside was filled with dozens of Inuzuka of all ages. Most were sitting around a massive table in the middle, but seemingly random groups were relegated to a few smaller tables on the side. Age and gender had nothing to do with it, and having a ninken didn't seem to matter either.
The answer clicked when I heard the faint cries of children playing ninja. Everyone at the center table had a headband proudly marking them as shinobi. Anyone who wasn't was placed on the other tables. I also noticed a few non Inuzuka scattered throughout the massive hall. They were all near my team's age and proudly wore headbands.
A surge of embarrassment threatened to go through me at my bare forehead, but I shoved it down as much as possible. It wasn't my fault that no one told me what event we were attending. I thought we were supposed to meet at Sensei's house, not whatever this is.
I awkwardly moved to the side, trying to find any of my teammates. It was losing effort as more people poured in from the entrance and moved in and out of other rooms. I had clenched my dress in frustration when a kind, if rough voice called from the side, "You alright there girl?"
My savior came in the form of a horribly scarred kunoichi. Nearly every visible inch was covered in an old wound. The most glaring was the burn mark covering most of her face, crossed by a wicked four-clawed scar. That her eyes were undamaged was nothing short of a miracle.
She looked concerned and kind for a shinobi. However, if she approached a normal kid, I could see them being more scared of her than whatever was bothering them. A touch of sadness at the thought caused me to stumble over my words for a moment before saying, "I'm looking for my Sensei."
An eyebrow raised at the statement, and she looked me over anew. Realization dawned on her a moment later. "First time at one of these huh?" She gave a wicked grin at my nod and whispered, "I'll have to teach your sensei a lesson then. You have to warn a girl about what type of fight she's going into. Who is your sensei anyway?"
"Takeo-san. I couldn't find him or my team."
Her eyes widened and she straightened immediately, looking over her shoulder nervously. "Shit kid. Why didn't you say you were on Takeo-sama's team? C'mon, I'll take you to him," she said hurriedly.
She took my hand and walked so fast it could've been a jog. Whether it be reputation or fear of getting run over, the crowd parted quickly for us.
We made our way through a few different rooms. People slowly thinned until we came into what seemed to be a living room randomly stapled onto the building. The whiplash from a rowdy dining hall to lived in home had my head spinning.
The scarred kunoichi paid it no mind, marching us to another random door. Her knocks were so light that I had to strain to hear it. Hilarious, considering she was stomping like an elephant all the way up to the door.
There was a pregnant pause before Sensei's growl called for us to enter. The door opened to another dining room. Thankfully, this one was similar in size to mine instead of the massive hall we started in.
Team Twelve was at the end of the table. A single empty seat in the middle of them stood out as the only one not in use. The kunoichi confidently walked us over, stopping only to pull out the chair for me.
"Thank you Emi, you can go now," Takeo said with a brief nod in her direction. She bowed in response before turning back. Giving me a quick wink and squeeze on the shoulder. She didn't end up giving Sensei a talking to, but I felt the need to thank her in the future.
'At least wearing a dress was the right idea,' I thought while looking over everyone seated at the table. While not exactly formal wear, my team wore fancier clothes than their standard gear. Hide's was the most similar to his everyday outfit. To be fair, that was formal wear disguised as ninja clothes.
It was a sharp contrast to his two clan members across the table. Formal didn't come close enough to describing how stuffy they were dressed. Think of the most stereotypical conservative clan outfit for meeting with the honored elders, and it should match pretty well.
The random Aburame had on the normal trench coat thing that seemed like a requirement for their clan.
"This is Hyuga Haruki and his oldest son, Hiashi," Takeo said. The son bowed his head at me while his father gave a curt nod before turning back to Takeo. Sensei finished by introducing the last member at the table, "That is Aburame Shibi." The Aburame gave a glance in my direction that could be seen as a nod if you didn't know what a nod was.
I bowed my head low at them and said, "I am Ikeda Rinko. It's an honor to meet all of you." A flash of memory had me glancing at the younger Hyuga. Hinata or Neji's dad I believe.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one trying to recollect something. Hiashi furrowed his brow at my name. It must've activated a Hyuga mind-reading ability because his father leaned in to whisper in his ear without looking at him.
His strange eyes widened momentarily before he turned to me and bowed his head again. "The honor is all mine Rinko-san. We apologize for interrupting your team's meal."
"How divine for one as honorable as yourself to be honored, dear cousin. I can hardly breathe for how much grace is filling my lungs," Hide said in a dreamlike tone.
His words brought a strange tension to the table. My eyes darted back and forth between everyone to try and grasp the situation more.
Sensei looked pained for a moment before schooling his face. Naori was the picture of barely disguised boredom. The other Hyuga completely ignored Hide and the slanted smile on his face.
Please don't ask me to decipher what the Aburame was thinking.
Silence reigned over us for a moment before the door opened suddenly, and a group of people walked in carrying food. No one spoke beyond a quiet yes or no to the servers. In typical Inuzuka fashion, they were all polite but loud. Meat dominated nearly everything on offer. The servers left just as quickly as they had arrived once the last drop of tea had been poured.
The only movement in the room afterward was the soft clouds of steam rising from the tea. I desperately wanted to ask what was happening, but it didn't take a genius to know that was a bad idea.
Sweat threatened to roll down my back even though the room was cold enough to give me goosebumps. Nerves had me reaching for my drink. That was all it took to break the stalemate. Everyone else at the table started eating after my first sip.
What followed was one of the strangest meals I had ever been a part of. The two other Hyuga would occasionally ask me a polite question, and I'd give a stilted answer. Hide would randomly say something off the wall or sarcastic with a tone so odd it was hard to decipher whether he meant it rudely or not.
There wasn't any other communication between the clan members besides Hide's outbursts. Yet when one side spoke, the other gave their undivided attention. Being in the middle of all the drama was ratcheting up my anxiety like crazy.
The worst part was not knowing where everyone stood. Battle lines had been drawn long before I was part of the picture. The Hyuga infighting was evident. Everything else was muddy. Sensei, Naori, and the Aburame danced around the issue the few times they spoke.
All of them just accepted the strange affair with a practiced ease that made me want to scream.
The intense awkwardness led me to try to rope someone else into the conversation. Sensei gave clipped one or two word answers, and Naori grunted rather than speak. The Aburame gave a shockingly detailed description of farmland near Konoha proper. They then proceeded to never speak again.
Somehow, I stayed strong enough that I didn't try to start a conversation with Hide. But it was closer than I'd like to admit.
It felt like the meal lasted for hours, but the clock said it was closer to thirty minutes. Even the refined Hyuga were stuffing their faces as much as possible to get out of the situation. I did my best to keep food in my mouth for an easy excuse not to talk.
A wave of… something passed through the room after we finished eating. The same group of Inuzuka came in to take the food and plates away an instant later.
"Thank you for the meal," the oldest Hyuga said in a rich and velvety voice. "I will await your missive Takeo-san." He rose after speaking without waiting for a response, and his son quickly followed.
The son in question paused before leaving to say, "I appreciate you speaking with us Ikeda-san. It was a delightful meal."
I nodded dumbly at how sincere he sounded when saying that. Have they really been eating these meals in silence? A glance at my team was all the answer I needed. None of them cared, and I didn't sense an explanation coming soon.
The Aburame abruptly stood up, bowed, then left without a word.
Once the door closed behind him, I felt the tension go out of my body. All the sudden shifts had my head in my hands out of habit. Today was supposed to be a team meal at Takeo's house. Not some hidden meeting in the middle of a random party.
What felt like a bear's massive paw flopped on my back. Takeo-sensei was giving me his version of an encouraging pat. "Sorry."
Anger flashed through me at his apology. Sorry? You drop all this on me out of the blue and that's all you have to say? "What was this!" I screeched like the 9-year-old I was. "Why didn't any of you give me a warning about… anything!"
He frowned at the statement and then turned to look at his side. Naori appeared guilty at the attention and said, "I just wanted to mess with her a bit. Then when they showed up, I just forgot…"
"That's it?" I said what white-hot anger. "I had to look all around the compound by myself and get escorted through a crowd by a total stranger, the whole time not knowing anything just because you forgot?" Naori scoffed at my rage and looked away from me.
I wanted to dive over and start strangling him. Hell, I might've still done it if he hadn't said, "I was used to Yuki alright! She never went to Sensei's or Hide's lunches. Couldn't stand them and none of—."
"What do you mean Hide's lunches? Is there even more crap you 'forgot' to tell me about?" I immediately stood up and interrupted once I realized what he had said.
Sensei sucked in a breath and looked at me with a chagrined face. "These meals are twice a month. We rotate who hosts. It goes me, Hide, Naori, and then Yuk—" he stopped speaking immediately after making the slip, staring down at the empty table rather than finish speaking.
He put his face in his hands after a moment in a sudden reversal of our situations. His chest moving with deep breaths was the only movement in the room. Part of me wanted to pat his back to complete the little circle we found ourselves in.
Naori's getting up kept me rooted out of spite. Takeo sensed him coming and put up a hand to halt him in place. His face back to the blankness that I'd become accustomed to over the past week.
"If you have questions… ask," Takeo said with a hoarse voice.
The Yamanaka and I were on the same page for once. Both of us gave him incredulous looks after he spoke. A petty need to talk first won when I saw the blonde start to open his mouth. "What was the party for?" I quickly blurted out.
"Tradition to celebrate new genin. The head invited us once he heard you had joined the team. But your ps—" he paused, realizing that saying psych report wasn't the best plan, and instead said, "personality made me think you wouldn't like a surprise. We were supposed to meet here first."
I snorted at the irony of this being a celebration for me. Hide's small smile at the noise had me frowning out of habit. "What's the deal with your clan?" I asked him.
"Are you an idiot? You were in the academy with him and don't know that?" Naori said. The effort of keeping his stupid mouth shut too tough of a task for him to handle.
"How does that make any sense? I was in the academy with hundreds of people and don't know anything about them."
Naori scoffed at the answer and crossed his arms in defiance. He started talking again, regardless of the look on my face. I made to keep arguing with him when the other two caught my eye. Hide and Takeo had completely ignored us and were talking back and forth. They didn't seem to mind that another question had gone unanswered or that the blonde idiot was still pestering me.
It hurt that some childish prank had made my day go to shit so fast. It hurt more that they didn't care. All the time I spent preparing this morning made me feel so stupid. Why have Tsunade spend an hour on my hair for these idiots? I wasted one of the few days I had with Shizune worrying and hoping for nothing.
My eyes returned to the Yamanaka, but I couldn't hear a word he said. I tried to read his lips but blurriness had taken over my vision. All I made out was one word that could've been leather, feather, or mother for all I knew. A sudden burning caused my hand to reach up and rub at my eye. It came away wet with a touch of mascara. I-I was crying? Blinking rapidly to hide the evidence only made my vision more blurry.
Ice started pumping through my heart at the realization. With it came a want, not a need to strike back and make him hurt. My legs started moving on their own. Hands clenched into a tight fist while my chakra begged to be unleashed. White noise echoed in my ear and was readily ignored.
Naori was still blurry. It didn't matter. I only needed to know where his head was in order to break his nose.
Weight seals released with a flick of chakra. Months or even a year of having them on had caused the first step to come out awkwardly. The second was confident and brought me directly in front of him in less than a blink.
The lack of distance finally unblurred his face. His hands were clasped against his mouth in shock and those odd Yamanaka eyes barely had time to widen in surprise. My arm raised and strained to swing at him.
Something impacted my wrist on the way to its destination and I fought to push past it. No matter how much effort I put into it, I couldn't move an inch closer to my destination.
Reality hit like a gunshot once the pressure on my wrist increased. Naori had scrambled backwards and Hide jumped from his seat in shock. I flinched in shock at the sight of Takeo-sensei being the one holding onto me.
He let go of me immediately after my reaction. Worry was etched on every inch of his face as I fought to get my breathing under control.
"What was—"
"Enough!" Takeo shouted over Naori's words. "Enough…" he repeated in a defeated tone. "We only have a week until missions get assigned again. This constant fighting can't continue. We're a team. No we have to be a team."
An urge to spit cruelty at them built up, but I pushed back it down. Nightmares and phantom pain in my arms were evidence of what happened when I didn't control myself.
Naori went to speak again, and Takeo stopped him once more to chew him out. He pulled the much smaller boy out of the room like he was evacuating an injured comrade. He yelled, "Answer her questions," to Hide over his shoulder before exiting the room.
The Hyuga gave Takeo's back a solemn nod and turned to me, shoulders squared like he was ready for war…. His attitude annoyed me, but it was a comfortable annoyance.
"Well," he said after I refused to speak first. "How about some tea?"
By the time Hide returned with the tea, I had cooled down enough to have some regrets. The two battling for the top spot were trying to hit Naori, and I didn't get away with it.
I also realized that my limbs felt like air because of dropping the weight seals and not an ongoing heart attack. Turning gravity up a few notches was strangely comforting. As was the warmth of the cup in my hand.
Say what you will about how annoying the Hyuga were. They made some quality tea. If only the company were better. Hide made a pleased smile at how quickly I slurped down the tea.
Slamming the cup down in defiance only encouraged the idiot to grin wider.
That smile grew sad when he said, "I won't ask you to forgive Naori, but I hope you can come to understand his animosity. He and Emi were quite close you see," he paused to take a drink. Milky eyes calmly observing my lack of reaction. "It isn't just that we got a new teammate. The thing is, you and Yuki look extremely similar. It can be… disconcerting at times."
"Was she a relative of mine?" I asked, suddenly interested in the long-dead girl.
"No," he began with a coy smile, "Like two perfect snowflakes—" his chair jolted back and scratched the floor from a hard kick. "Her family immigrated from Kiri a few generations ago. If they have any shinobi ancestors, it came from there, not your clan."
How disappointing. For a moment, I thought there were some Ikeda remnants out there I could lean on. Horrible as it was to say, I felt like that girl owed me something for all this trouble. Having my life twisted by something outside of my control was becoming alarmingly regular. At least this one, I understood.
"It's funny how the world works," Hide said to my silence. "Naori thinks you look like Yuki. But when I saw her for the first time, I thought she looked like you."
He shrugged at the strange look I gave him. Content at having thrown me off base again. But two can play at that game. "What was the deal with your clan members today?"
The smile didn't leave his face, even as the muscles around his eyes tightened. The sip of tea he took could only delay his response for a moment. One that I relished for the subtle admittance that I'd gotten under his skin.
"Forgive me. But I believe it would be best to save that for our next team dinner," the slight tension left him as his smile became sharper, "We'll be having it at the Hyuga compound. Easier to… explain everything. How about we work on the genjutsu combo you mentioned earlier instead?"
Hide's attempt to dodge the question was hilariously unsubtle for a shinobi. I let him get away with it without a fight. Patience could be a virtue every once in a while. Especially since he gave away such an enticing weakness.
Maybe this next week wouldn't be so bad.
AN: The next couple of chapters will likely be shorter. I only have one completely done in the drafts and I'd like to get back ahead.