Kakashi hovered between the rooms of Konoha general hospital, visiting the
bed-bound genin he brought over after the bell test.
The hospital was as he remembered; just with less gore. He would know. He
was in and out of the hospital constantly during the war, and patients littered
the blood-stained like parasites to rotting meat. Surgeries were carried out at
the check-in desk while a long line of soldiers clutching their guts and face
from falling to the floor waited at the side. Many of them ran out of time
waiting.
He had never been critically injured. Obito's Sharingan prevented him from
ever being too slow to save himself from spilling his guts on the floor.
He saw pregnant women cry tears of blood, crying over the corpse of their
child who was stabbed in an attack. Civilian lovers, taking back the deformed
bodies of their loved ones to cremate who would swallow their tears at the
burnt off skin or the hacked off cheek and stride out with pride.
It was pointless. It might sound hypocritical for him of everyone else - Kakashi
no sharingan, a dedicated Konoha shinobi - to complain about the
pointlessness of the will of fire. Motivation-wise, one might disagree with him
on the basis of morals, but what for? For old fools like Hiruzen to make the
same mistakes over and over again until he is prompted into action? To make
the same mistakes that will kill more kids like the genin he assigns him?
Like Sasuke, Naruto and Akira?
No more. If he accepts a team, he will damn well make sure that they will be
as little a liability to themselves as possible so they will survive old men's
idiocy.
He slid open the door to Akira's door and went inside to find the girl awake.
"When did you wake up?" He closed the door and sat down next to the
unresponsive girl
She was staring at nothing, eyes wide and staring off into an unseeable
distance. He nudged her and her snapped around immediately, chest shaking
with forced breaths.
"Hatake-san? How long have you been here?" She muttered, not quite in the
realm of reality yet.
"Not too long. Did you have any difficulties with the genjutsu?"
"The genjutsu..." She seemed more alert, "How did you do that?"
"It was a basic illusionary jutsu. Did you have trouble dispelling it?"
"No, no, no. You don't get it. How could you know my mindscape?" She
stared at him, still shaking, "How could you show me my mindscape in an
illusion when you've never seen it?!"
Kakashi put up his hands and nodded. Akira leaned back on the bed and
grasped her hair.
"I'm sure whatever it is it's nothing Akira-chan. You might be just tired from
test. It's better if you just rest and I'll visit your other teammates."
"Sorry Hatake-san."
"No offense taken. Anyone who passes my bell test doesn't do it easily."
"Wait-"
He almost giggled at the girls tone as he walked towards the nearest open
window and jumped out.
He did say he would take on a mission if they passed after all.
Akira stayed at the hospital, voluntarily for the first time in a long time. She
didn't particularly feel like getting out f bed. Even though Kakashi had told her
that he'd passed them, she still felt heavy. Almost as heavy as Sakura's bag
when she dropped at Kin's Wagashi store.
Speaking of the devil...
"Hope you're in the mood for some Dorayaki! Kin has this new thing she calls
'Ice cream' and she stuffed some Dorayaki in it. Just careful you don't spill
any! It's melted a bit." Sakura held a Dorayaki to her mouth with her hand
below to catch any spills. Akira caught the Dorayaki and put it on her lap,
gripping her sister's hand.
strawberry and cream
"You don't have to be here Sakura. I'll be okay."
"Oh shut up!" She shook her hand off and dug inside her backpack for an 8-
pack of mochi, "Try! It's this thing called 'chocolate chips' with crushed mint
leaves and cream." She held out a green mochi.
Akira, defeatedly took a bite and instantly grabbed the mochi out of her hand
and moaned.
"this...deserves a pedestal with Kami."
"Kin is Kami Akira. Don'y insult her again. Ever."
"duly noted. How ddi you exam go by the way?"
She laughed and pulled on her hair, "funny thing about that...you know how I
get this inner person sometimes popping above my head and all?"
"Inner! Your repressed sexual energy as a hormonal preteen!" Sakura squinted
at her sister, the squint slowly morphing into a killer glare.
"I have a fist strong enough to fracture your spinal cord and I'm not afraid to
use it."
"I mean...your shiny beautiful personality not many people are civilised enough
to appreciate. yet. What about this rainbows-and-sunshine personality of
yours?"
"Close call Haruno. And it turns out that I've been casting genjutsu since inner
existed."
Akira slapped Sakura's arm and smirked, "No way! Are you some hidden
prodigy the world didn't know about before?!"
Sakura rolled her eyes with a wavering frown, "It's actually more common than
you think. one in ten children working with chakra or educationally exposed to
it have experienced this at some point, something to do with genetics and
inheritance."
"Well who knew. Your smarts actually are useful." Sakura whacked Akira on
the head and glared while Akira whimpered and whined.
"See?! This is why you're the smarter one!"
"Exactly you idiot! Now look in the mirror." Sakura nodded towards the mirror
across the room, showing an abnormally large inflation where she had hit her.
"I'm doing it."
"Of course dumbass. we're twins, so it's pretty possible we share the same
recessive gene for this."
"You should work for the world encyclopedia. for real."
"Too bad for me, I passed my sensei's test and She's starting training
tomorrow. Did I mention how cool Jingu-Sensei is?! I mean...She's done
everything! She's had medical training and she can hold her own in a battle so
well! Oh and she also does counselling besides actual psychotherapy!"
"honestly? I wouldn't want to deal with psychos all day. I'm enough of one
already."
She hit her on the back of the head
"Oh is this another insult-kami-sama-and-be-punished thing like Kin?"
"Look at you. Using your brain for something other than decorating the inside
of your skeleton."
"Gee I don't understand a word of that with all technical smarts sis."
"...That's it. I'm disowning you as my sister." Sakura made a dramatic show of
getting up and slowly walking out of the door.
"THEN WHO'S GONNA FEED ME KIN'S MOCHI WHEN I'M HALF A FOOT
CREMATED?!"
A nurse passing by her room threw up her eyebrows and shushed her
violently.
"This is a hospital not a family carnival kid!"
"Sorry..."
She waited until the nurse walked far away to stick her tongue out at the
empty door frame.
And then the heaviness overpowered the beating of her heart and she fell back
onto the bed again.
Heavy.
As if she were carrying a backpack filled to the brim with stones.
She put her arm over her eyes, shielding her view from the painfully white
ceiling she'd seen many times before. She knew she wouldn't cry; she'd been
in the same position hundreds of or even over a thousand times before and
now her kidney was starting to hurt and a warmth was flooding her heart oh
god it beat fast-
The chakra scanner went haywire, blaring like the alarm of retreat in the middle
of a war.
Footsteps stormed into the room, removing her arm and revealing a mass of
people, dressed in sickly greens and hypothermic blues, shielding her view of
the white ceiling. They looked rushed, drenched with sweat and smelling of
sterile cleaners. Green flashed over one's palm and she rushed it across her
chest, stopping at her heart chakra pathways.
"The cardiac pathways are being flooded by the neural pathways." She
decreed as a matter of factly, "disrupt the flow and force retreat the excess
chakra into a seal container. sealing medics?"
"what's wrong with her?!" Naruto pushed back against the hospital chunnin
security holding him back from bursting into the operation theatre they had
moved Akira into.
"Kid stop struggling! Your friend will be fine." The chunnin shouted in between
Naruto's screams
"Naruto! Stop it you're just gonna make it worse!" Sakura yanked him back by
the wrist, "they didn't do anything. This happens a lot."
"How can you be so calm when your sister is being operated on Sakura-
chan?"
"It's not the first time. Definitely not the last."
"but she was fine! Kakashi-sensei visited her and she was fine!"
"Well your sensei isn't a medic is he?!" She intensified her glare, the venom
crawling over his face like a second skin, sending goosebumps down his neck
and beating drums of blood in his ears.
Killing intent.
She blinked, the killer intent disappearing along side her glare, but the tone of
her voice remained grave.
"This is our family matter Naruto. I would appreciate it if you left this to us. Our
parents will be here soon and I'm not having you worry them even more with
your unnecessary screaming. Go back to your ward please." She let go of his
wrist sharply and turned towards the operation theatre.
Naruto couldn't get that word from repeating inside his head.
family.
That's right. He wasn't family. He hadn't even known her long, or enough to be
deserving of waiting along side her family.
Who did he think he was, trying to look like he cared, when he didn't even
know who he was caring for? No matter how friendly, or likeable someone
was, you didn't care for everyone. No, you either gave so much of yourself
away as a person, or cared yourself into slavery as a hero.
And everyone knew he was no hero. Especially himself.
After all, no hero has a monster inside them self that can unleash hell on
everyone.
and so he left and lay on his bed,
And forced himself to sleep.
"Neurtal chakra pathways were flooding the cardiac
pathways...yes...expanded coils...arrhythmia...unfiltered chakra seeped into
heart tissue."
"Is she going to be alright?"
had mom cried?
"her coils have expanded. Exponentially. She might cause an overload on her
heart again if she uses chakra intensively."
"Is there anything that will aid with the healing process?"
"No severe chakra draining exercises. we need to keep the chakra levels as
stable as possible to minimalise coil activity aside from bodily function
drainage."
"Understood. Thank you."
She opened her eyes when she was certain the medic was gone.
"Akira-chan...you're awake." Mebuki speed walked to the bed.
"Disappointed?" She raised an eyebrow jokingly, but instantly regretted it
when her parents' faces twisted painfully like they were just shot in the
stomach.
"Too soon. Sorry. Can I just hug you?" Without a question the man and wife
wrapped around her, trying and failing to conceal the little drops they were
wiping off her hair when they combed her hair.
The kisses didn't lie. They were expecting her to die any moment, and maybe
a part of what made her feel like this...was this exact reaction. This feeling of
being suffocated in her mother's lavender scent and her father's coffee
breath, when she thought she would be comforted. Wanting to feel any love
for them at the moment, or any pity, but instead having an intense hatred
boiling inside of you like a volcano ready to explode and rain magma over the
living for centuries of a burning hell. It was like she was drowning, in her own
hatred and guilt of it and she couldn't say anything because of everything she
would be labelled as if she lashed out at her self-sacrificing, lovingly
affectionate and wholly dedicated saint-like parents the world din't seem to
get enough of.
Don't get her wrong, she loved them.
But that didn't stop the resentment from growing, nor the lines keeping her
strings of sanity from tying together and threading manically around her
consciousness.
It didn't stop a part of her, albeit small, from resenting them because of how
much they enjoy being admired at her expense. Of how much of a victim they
made her out to be instead of supporting her and letting her choose her own
path.(They lost contact for a while after Aurora took her because they
disagreed with the pathway Aurora wanted her to take as a kunoichi.)
She broke away from the hug and covered herself with the duvet, smiling at
them both.
"It's getting pretty late out there. I think it's better if you all go home and visit
me tomorrow."
Mebuki and Kizashi exchanged a look and then nodded, leaning closer to give
her a kiss each, "If you wanted us here just call the house phone will you?"
She lingered.
Akira watched them disappear into the hallways of the hospital and then let
out a sigh she'd been holding for a while, hands trembling and fists pressuring
her eyes so tears wouldn't escape. She urged herself not to think about it, that
she already had lived a lot compared to some people, but nothing could stop a
steady stream of tears and the inaudible whimpers.
Sasuke had already woken up when Naruto went back to their shared room.
He was sat up in his bed with a scroll open on his lap that seemed to talk
about advanced Gokakyu control.
"Where were you dobe?"
"Running from my pyromaniac teammate. For real though, Akira just had
surgery."
"How did it go?" he didnt seem shocked.
"I...didn't stay long enough for that. Family only." Sasuke nodded with
understanding.
"Why are we talking?" Naruto raised an eyebrow.
"I decided to try out what you usually refer to as 'kindness'."
"Wow. I'm blessed. Sasuke-kun just blessed me with his firstborn."
"Don't make me regret it dobe. One sarcastic loser is enough for this village."
"Gee you bastard. what ever made you use your brain to socialise?"
Sasuke huffed and turned his eyes on the scroll again, "I didn't think you had
the required intelligence to comprehend sarcasm let alone use it."
"My sarcasm is limited to everyone who isn't you. Recently including you
'cause who doesn't love being paired with the person you've hated for the
whole of your formal education."
"I don't particularly like you either, but I suppose if we're going to survive each
other we need to come to an understanding."
"What happened to your, 'I work alone you foolish mortals!' attitude?"
"Do you think I would ever work with you given the choice?"
"And you're saying?"
"We don't have a choice. We work as a team until we all make Chunnin and
then we never have to talk to each other again." He held out his hand, "Deal or
no deal?"
"Sounds good to me. But I'm accepting on one condition!" Naruto
grinned, "We'll have a match after making Chunnin."
Sasuke looked at his hand and smirked, "Don't count on winning dobe."
She had just been discharge form the hospital and folding her clothes when
we heard a tap on the balcony door.
A toad and a butterfly both waiting behind the spot-less balcony window. the
toad had unusually vibrant colour for his skin and had blue paint marking the
outline of his mouth and eye sockets. His butterfly companion was unusually
proportioned for a butterfly, appearing more as a moth than anything. She
knew from Aurora's rants that Aiya was a skipper butterfly, and specialised in
guerilla tactics and message delivery, but the butterfly summons relied more
on swift poison application than direct attacks.
After a few years of being with Aiya, she still couldn't not laugh at Aurora's bad
naming skills. She remembers how excited Aurora was when Negawa had
sent her apprentice to her "to get acquainted with the summoner world", and
how the first thing she shouted when the summoning smoke cleared, was
"You could be a fur model goddammit!".
Hence the name 'Aiya'. Essentially 'beautiful silk'.
"Gamakichi. Aiya. What's up?" She opened the balcony and a wave of cold air
seeped her body heat
"You look rad. What happened kid?" Gamakichi crawled inside and Aiya
landed on Akira's bed, crawling under the blanket.
" got my ass handed to me by this guy." She pointed at a drawing of Kakashi
she had thrown into her basement box, "'Twas fun."
"Bet it was. do you have any nectar per chance? it's getting really cold at
nights."
"Sure. You're delivering my medicine, yeah?" Aiya's antenna pointed to the
balcony and Akira went over to get the package. She almost jumped when the
new Icha Icha book caught her eyes (it wasn't even on the shelves yet!) but
managed to hold herself back just as Gamakichi remarked on it.
"Jiraya sent the new book kid. He was hoping you would write him about the
unedited content."
"I wish he would stop sending me his perverted novels. How come Aurora-
Sensei didn't knock some sense into him?"
"She did, that's the thing. Three punches and the boy was out cold, but he
insisted that you should read it."
"I'm not even at the age of consent yet that blasted..." She huffed
"I could always take it back and tell him you don't want it." Akira shook her
head trying not to appear as if she enjoyed the novel at all, "It's fine. He did
ask me to proof-red it for him after all."
"Gah kid!Just say if you like them!"
"Of course I don't! What do you think I am, a pervert?!"
"If you could both shut up and get me some nectar?" Akira took the
chance and dashed out of the room into the kitchen.
Her mother kept the small kitchen extremely clean. it was her safe place and
she would be caught dead if she allowed a single stain to find its way in her
territory. She frequently kept flowers and left the window open so stray bees
would have a food source, and most summers she would buy berry bushes
from the local gardener and plant them beneath the kitchen window so she
could always refill the fruit bowl by the window.
She opened the filled kitchen and took out a large packet of nectar she had
isolated earlier for Aiya knowing she would ask for some. She noticed that her
delivery was still in her hands, so she opened the letter stapled to the pack.
Akira,
Congratulations for becoming a Genin, I heard you got Kakashi as your Jounin
teacher. I hope you kicked his ass for the survival test! You didn't write to me
to tell me about your team, so write to me soon. You're missed in Kusa. Jiraiya
is missing you too, but you know he won't admit it. Knucklehead. Anyway, you
are a Kunoichi now. You are going to come across many events that will
define your visions as a Kunoichi, and in developing these ideal you are bound
to get hurt. I don't doubt in my teachings or your ability to take care of
yourself, but do take extra care of yourself dear, your career will mean nothing
if you are too weak to carry out your missions and that also includes your
mental health. I sent you some medicine, it will take away your pain and help
you restore your chakra, and your usual pills are in the bigger container along
side a bag of solider pills (don't worry about the costs, it's nothing compared
to my shopping). If things are good for some more time in Kusagakure, I will
come and give you a visit (and possibly drag Jiraiya along with me, but no
promises) .
Take care,
Aurora-Sensei.
Gee she went all out, thought Akira. She would have to go all out on her
birthday. now, the butterfly mistress loved her birthday as it was both a day
she could celebrate her age in reverse and spend non-stop without her
financial advisors complaining about her thinning inheritance. Akira made the
mistake of telling her that she would like it if they didn't celebrate her birthday
when Aurora called her in for birthday plans and oh boy...did she get an earful.
In short Aurora is a birthday maniac. Mostly because of the unlimited spending
and the cake. The cake especially with extra cream. It could get heaving
carrying cash around so she had been, for the last few years dreaming about
virtual money that could be stored in a slip for long periods of time.
Maybe one day, electricity was proving to be useful for more than fridges and
powering homes and ninjas had been taking up a surveillance method with
hidden cameras powered by electricity connected to powerful computers.
Perhaps one day.
She walked up to her room with the nectar and sat down next to Aiya on her
bedsheets, punching a hole in the plastic container with a metallic straw. Aiya
took long sips from the nectar, letting it dissolve in her mouth and for the
flavour to kick in. She shot Akira a look of gratitude and she smiled. Violets
and roses were her favourite mixture and it wasn't too hard juicing them for
nectar with chakra.
"Gamakichi...do you know when Jiraya will be here?"
"What? Wanting to review his work in person?" Gamakichi let out an
obnoxious snort
Akira rolled her eyes, "For this boy I'm friends with. He taught the fourth
Hokage didn't he?"
"Yeah. And?"
Akira paused to choose her words, "He idolises the fourth. I thought some
motivation might do him some good, he's my teammate after all."
"The blond one who was being huggy with you?"
"yeah the huggy colour clash." She feigned a shudder, "A true horror
manifestation."
"Got you kid. I'll tell your teacher and she can write to you first chance."
Gamakichi got up from his resting position and moved towards the balcony,
"For now, we have to go. It was nice seeing you again kid. Don't get killed."
"How moving. Don't forget Aiya." She looked at the butterfly glaring at them
from behind the straw.
"Move it moth." Aiya rolled her numerous eyes at the toad and clung onto her
nectar harder.
"Kami...how do you put up with her kid?!"
Akira swallowed a snicker and replied with feigned unknowing, "What do you
mean? Aiya is an angel."
Aiya widened her numerous eyes obnoxiously at Gamakichi.
Omake:
Kakashi almost flipped, come the morning of their first team training session.
Akira was still hospitalized (did he feel any guilt? nooooooo) and he didn't have
nearly enough time to train all of them to an acceptable level of proficiency
until the Chunnin exams (when he would hopefully be rid of them once and for
all).
Then Kami decided to play a little bit. A string pulled here and one there, he
was staring at Naruto and Sasuke mentoring each other before he had even
arrived for training.
He repeated.
Naruto. Sasuke. Working. Together.
He stressed.
Working together doesn't belong in a sentence where Naruto and Sasuke are
used together.
for that stunt he decided to appear earlier. He was met with Naruto screaming
at him and Sasuke glaring at him from a few metres away but the point stood.
They went back to working together after Naruto was done screaming at him.
It was peculiar to say the least, but he didn't complain. The two obviously still
hated each other, that must was apparent from how they were basically trying
to kill each other with 1000 Shuriken-throwing clones and consecutive grand
fireball executions. Whatever they were doing though, he wished it would go
on forever. His ears were having a beach holiday from the arguing.
Fast forward one week, they have mastered the tree walking exercise and
Naruto's aim has improved significantly (he suspected the 1000 Shuriken-
throwing clones to have something to do with this development). Sasuke had
improved his chakra control and was trying to move onto water walking.
Oh and did he mention that Akira was late for training?
He swore destruction on the girl. He was determined to test their chakra
natures by the end of training today and cover some elemental manipulation
theory so they could move on to more advanced elemental chakra
manipulation than just 'winging it' so to say.
fast forward one hour later at 8 am, a disheveled Akira appeared on the other
side of the bridge leading to the training ground, and ran in desperation just so
maybe if her sensei saw her attempts at being on time despite an alarm clock
prank pulled by Gamakichi that toad- ahem, she wouldn't receive any
punishment.
that, or maybe Kin's new mochi flavour would do the trick. Either way, for any
of those to work she would have to find Kakashi first.
Objective: Find Kakashi
Reward:10% chance of escaping punishment if he's feeling generous or is in a
good mood
Actions:Look around
You looked around
Kakashi found. Mission complete.
Akira ran towards Kakashi with an apology planned out in her mind, when she
saw Naruto and Sasuke reading together under a tree's shade.
She repeated.
.Together.
She stressed.
Working. Together. Also Naruto reading at all.
"What drug did you slip them Sensei?" She whispered loud enough only for
the Jounin to hear.
"I share the exact same notion."
"Does that mean-"
"You are still running your twenty laps. every minute above 15 minutes is
another lap."
"Evil."
"Five extra laps!"
Akira dropped the mochi and rushed.
*(Just forcing the chakra back would both overflow the chakra pathways and it
would burst out of the coils and damage them and also damage the fabric of
the pathway. Solution would be to make a small indent at the base of the
chakra pathways to place a seal that the excess chakra will escape
to(concentration ratios) Concentration ratios are basically what keep the
chakra(ratio) flowing inside the pathways. Even if there's more chakra
somewhere, if its ratio is uneven it keep flowing. For this to happen, the chakra
pathways should be at least a little empty and that's where the bodily
functions come through. That's why people in the Narutoverse are generally
faster thinkers and have sturdier bodies. Their bodies take off the cap of their
chakra from their pathways and vessel(vessel connected to pathway, where
chakra starts to go in another direction ad changes halves between the body.
located below the heart where the most concentration is. chakra pathway runs
through the vessel and delivers chakra to the other side. There are much
smaller internal coils that transfer chakra from the vessel whenever the
immediate pathways are emptying and the body takes a small amount to keep
the flow and this is the chakra flow). Her neural pathways are flooding her
cardiac pathways. When she was feeling tired, it was her empty cap slowly
being filled and her chakra flow slowing down. It was filled for a moment and
then it filled over the limit and started to stretch her cardiac pathways which
stretched her coils and chakra came in direct contact with her heart without
being filtered and when it was much more intense than the heart can handle.
An enemy can send a surge of chakra filtered closely to the enemy's type and
flood the chakra pathway to the cap, essentially stopping the flow and killing
an enemy by filling their empty cap with chakra. It can't be their own foreign
chakra because chakra retreats(becomes more concentrated and goes deeper
into the pathway and further away from the coil so you actually have to
practise calling on chakra when someone is infiltrating your network since it's
harder to call on chakra that's further away than normal.). Intense chakra has
more energy per cm cubed and is stronger. It's easier to manipulate since it's
easier to feel and locate it. Intensity increases through training so chakra will
get accustomed to holding more energy but that also means a faster
metabolism and a bigger need for food. But you can only improve until a
certain point. Children from shinobi backgrounds have a more intense chakra
than the ones from civillian background since intensity is also inherited from
parents. Chakra is inside the sperm and the egg in the womb, but it remains in
the storage tissue inside the womb, until the pathways develop and it can flow
into the pathways to make the chakra network. INtensity is a mixture of both
parents' chakra then. It is harder to hide, so most recon and assassination
shinobi tend to dilute their chakra, but increase their reserves to make up for
the lack of intensity.
Wagashi: Japanese sweets
And this is everything i spent my energy on figuring out when I should've been
studying. Sue me. But it was worth it (loreal ad: Because you're worth it).
Anyway, hope you missed all of my spelling, punctuation and grammar errors
for I am much to overworked and much too stressed to edit them on my own. I
also almost posted spoilers on the parts we haven't re edited yet so that was
close.
until another excessively delayed chapter my lovelies,
Ara-chan.