Snap Back To Reality 25

I hadn't been contacted by any ROOT agents in nearly a week. It felt odd. I would run with Guy every morning, practice for 5 hours with Sensei after, and then meet up with Orochimaru mostly to test out my total concentration breathing. I still hadn't managed to get the ROOT agent tailing me off my back. It seemed like they were going to be monitoring me around for a long time. They only ever left when I went to Orochimaru. It felt like, for a moment, my life was going back to normal… well a part of it anyway. Nothing was normal about Orochimaru and our relationship.

"You're looking better. Is everything going good?" dad asked as he pushed more noodles into my plate.

"Yeah, I was really bummed out because having two sensei's just messed up my scheduling, and Orochimaru-sama is a very hard worker," I lied easily enough.

"Too hard," dad said frowning.

"D-does he hurt you anymore?" Taichi asked, looking terribly worried for my sake.

I kind of felt bad for Orochimaru right now. The guy did enjoy torturing me with Genjutsu but really that wasn't why I had been coming home covered in bruises. He did experiment on unwilling people though, so I didn't feel too bad throwing him under the bus for this. It was better if my family thought he was the one who had been breaking my bones.

"No, not after Gaku-sensei set some ground rules," I said dismissively.

I looked at Yua. She didn't buy it. She knew there was something more going on, but every time she approached to ask me, I would dodge her questions or shut her down immediately. I couldn't tell her anything even if I wanted to, but if she asked too many questions now, the ROOT agent trailing me could deem her worthy enough of a threat to take out. My future sibling was in her womb. No way was I risking its life.

"So Inuzuka-san is scary enough to tell off a legendary Sannin," dad mused, and I chuckled.

Oh, Gaku did tell Orochimaru off. He demanded a meeting with the Sannin and then proceeded to glare at his superior and began lecturing Orochimaru for training me the way he did. Then he had the guts to tell Orochimaru that if he saw any more of that kind of training on my body, he'd take his concerns straight to the Hokage. I had just stood there dumbstruck and unable to really think. Suffice to say I had a lot of… genjutsu training that evening.

The first experiment had been the worst day I had with Orochimaru so far. He didn't call me in for experiments anymore, just told me to feed the prisoners he already kept in the cages. I felt bad for them, but I couldn't really save them even if I wanted to anyway. What we did do was try and monitor my total concentration breathing. I would have several seals placed all over my body, recording my heart rate, my pulse, and several other vital chakra points. Then I'd just stand around trying to spike my chakra and increase my blood flow for hours. I'd managed once or twice, but never to the extent I had when I killed Hakanai.

Fuinjutsu was not something I could study just yet. I wanted desperately to jump straight into it, but I had ninja tailing me, scouring my room. They didn't know I knew, but I knew. I wasn't going to risk doubling my efforts into Fuinjutsu until I was a little more trusted by Danzo, and even then, I'd have to find some fail-safes to keep my research under wraps.

My biggest concern however was for Kusari. Without being invited to attend ROOT, I couldn't really protect him. He'd probably been assigned another partner. It made me queasy. I had vowed to make him my responsibility, but it seemed the world had other plans. I needed to take down Danzo somehow and getting Orochimaru to be my pseudo ROOT master was a good way to begin, but not to continue. I slurped down more noodles before narrowing my eyes at my food in thought.

"Is something wrong?"

"Ah, no, no," I said quickly smiling at dad. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just worried you know—"

"What about?"

Oh, you know not dying, and maybe not having a secret ANBU organisation come for my family's heads.

"I haven't grown an inch in the past few months," I decided to say.

"It's because you're not drinking your milk," Taichi deadpanned.

"What am I, a cow?"

"See, that's why you aren't growing. You don't have to like it, you just have to drink it," Taichi said moving his hands in a chop chop motion.

I smiled at him before I shovelled in the rest of my noodles before standing up. I needed to go train until I got down the Wind Walker technique. So far with weeks of practice I had only managed to run about three steps before losing control at full speed. At about half the speed, I'd managed a few more steps before I couldn't stop. It built up speed as I ran and so it was a lot harder to control than a Shunshin which was a start and stop kind of technique. I was going to hound Shisui to help me out.

"Why the rush?" Yua sighed.

"I'm going to go train with Shisui. Gotta get faster," I said excitedly.

"Your obsession with running is so confusing," Taichi said shaking his head.

"Eh, you're supposed to support your imouto's dreams Tai-nii," I chided.

"Only if my imouto learnt to relax once in a while," he retorted.

"Taichi's right Hina. You've been working yourself to the bone. Take a day off," dad sighed shaking his head with a considerably more worried look than normal.

"Ahhhh… no time! Gotta go!"

I pulled my haori over my arms before waving a quick goodbye, before making my hasty retreat down the stairs and out of the house. I took to running across the streets, dodging, and weaving through the crowd, until I ended up in the Uchiha district by the red bridge river. I waved at Shisui who was practicing his katas.

"Yo!"

"Ah Hina-chan," he greeted, turning around as he noticed me.

"Your form is impeccable as always," I complimented.

He blushed and rubbed the back of his head with a smile. "Haha thanks Hina-chan. Let's start on some stretches first."

I nodded in agreement and then we began stretching. Once we were done with our stretches, I was about ready for some advice. Shisui was beginning to make a name for him with his incredibly quick Shunshin. People said it was almost like he was teleporting. I saw him do it once and it was amazing.

"Ok, so how about you show me what you've managed to get so far?"

"I would… but 3 steps in and I'm falling at max speed. At about a tenth of the speed and I can control it well enough, but right now I'm going for a quarter."

"Why don't we start with a quarter of your current maximum speed then," Shisui suggested.

I nodded my head and got into position. I'd done it so many times by now that I didn't need to do the hand seals to direct the chakra around my body. I was just glad that wind was an affinity I had along with fire. I took in a deep breath before jumping forward in a gust of wind the moment I let it out. I ran three steps before once again losing control of my speed and momentum. Having crashed so many times thus far, I managed saving myself the embarrassment of crashing on my ass and instead got on all fours, my body dragging backwards from the force as I tried to stop myself. Once I had stopped the momentum, I let out a frustrated breath and stood up.

"Not so bad. You seem to have it, but I noticed something," Shisui said rubbing his chin in thought.

"What is it? Any feedback is good at this stage," I said eagerly.

Shisui drew one leg back and lowered his centre so he was in a more stable position. Then he held both palms outwards before pushing them towards his waist. He repeated the movement a few times making it look like he was mining a push/chopping motion. "This is what you're doing with your chakra," he said nodding his head.

"Uh… what?"

He repeated the motion again but now he just looked like an idiot.

"Your chakra is out like this, and then you push it in before releasing it. Like a standard forward punch," he explained.

Oh, that made more sense. I scratched my nose as I looked up in thought. That did make sense. I channelled my chakra to my core and then burst it out through the tenketsu in my legs through my feet. That's how chakra slide works.

Shisui continued his explanation catching my attention. "When you push your chakra into your core and through your feet you hold back the chakra there well enough, but you're having a hard time moulding the wind cutter technique at the same time. So you expend a lot of chakra just to create the vacuum in front of you, and then to make up for it, you redistribute your chakra on the second and third steps, which makes you go faster than you need to go."

I was stumped, and my jaw hung wide open in shock. Shisui blushed and then scratched the back of his neck.

"U-Um… what's wrong?"

"You—you just watched me once and you figured all that out! How?!"

He blinked rapidly, a little flustered before scratching his cheeks and looking away. "Oh, that… well I used my Sharingan."

Damn broken doujutsu! I held back a petulant 'unfair' because Sharingan were broken. Seriously how was the average person meant to compete with a competent Uchiha if they had an eye with that many ridiculous power ups? I took in a deep breath. There was no use getting jealous of things I'd never have, and Shisui was trying to help me so going off at the kid would make me twice as immature.

"Ah… that's ok. So what you were saying is that I can't seem to control my chakra in both directions," I concluded.

"Yeah. You have exceptional control when it comes to regulating it to one technique, but the Walking In Winds is something you have to multitask. It's actually a really useful technique… it could probably beat a Shunshin in battle."

I perked up at that. "How so?" I asked.

"Well a Shunshin goes from point A to point B, so it's easier to move quickly and has less room for mistakes. To use a good Shunshin you have to channel chakra to all points of your body rather than just your feet, and so it'd be slightly more chakra intensive than the Walking in Winds technique. While the Walking in Winds allows for a greater range of mobility in battle with less chakra usage since you can cut off the wind vacuum once you've built enough momentum. Then it's really just up to controlling the chakra in your feet and finding your centre of balance when moving your body."

Oh kami, this kid broke me. I gawked at him in absolute disbelief. Was he actually 9 years old or was he some kind of secret reincarnated hack like me? There was no way he was this smart… right? He still looked lost in thought, as if he were just putting to words the book he just wrote in his head.

"The sheer speed you can manoeuvre at during taijutsu combat is insane with this. It's more than just a speed technique, it's a technique that allows for maximum speed at close combat. Of course you'd need to be able to maintain an Inuzuka beast stance to maintain balance—"

He figured that out just from one display. I blinked in shock. Shisui was a genius! It took Gaku-sensei explaining that this technique was more for ninken for me to truly understand why, but Shisui didn't even need to be told and he had connected the dots. Truly the children in this world were terrifying.

"Ah, Shisui-kun, no need to continue. Gaku-sensei already explained those things to me. He got permission to teach me the Beast Imitation form," I said.

"The Inuzuka were always the most relaxed about Clan secrets but that's still impressive," Shisui said amazed.

I nodded my head a little too proudly. "I know right. Gaku-sensei is the best… so what was that about not being able to distribute chakra to two points?"

"Yeah, for you to get down the Walking in Winds technique, you'll need to learn when to add to, and take chakra away from, your wind cutter and chakra slide in tandem. It's about fine tuning the propulsion and maintaining your momentum with wind cutter."

"Oh, so I would have to turn off wind cutter once I got to my desired speed and use chakra slide in timed intervals," I concluded nodding my head.

"Exactly. So why don't we try it together."

"Together?"

Shisui activated his Sharingan and I nodded. He went through the hand seals to get the chakra moulding right for wind cutter, but other than that, when we both jumped, he performed a rather good Wind Walker. I lost my footing after 3 steps but this time I made a conscious effort to cut off my wind cutter and chakra slide, so I didn't lose control entirely. I ended up running a few hundred meters instead of crashing this time. I turned around to see that Shisui had stopped. Amazing!

"How did you—that was your first time," I said in disbelief.

"Well I copied your technique with my Sharingan," he said again.

"No, that can't be it. The Sharingan gives you perfect memory, not perfect technique, and this jutsu requires stability. You're just really good at it," I pointed out in disbelief. "How did you manage to stop? I need to be able to stop to proceed to the next step."

He grinned sheepishly. "Like I said, it's all about control. You've got good chakra control, but you're too conscious about it. You need to be able to let go and let it naturally direct around your body. You tend to focus all your chakra perfectly into one spot, like you're constantly hyper-aware of it."

I did, but that's because I lived a whole life without chakra, so when I felt this warm energy inside of me, I was always aware of it. I was aware of it as a baby and the same could be said for me now. I thought my constant immaculate control of it would be a bonus, but was it hindering me all along? How was I meant to somehow break through years of conditioned practice and naturally direct chakra through my body?

Shisui put a hand on my shoulder and smiled. "Cheer up, people progress at different speeds. You just need to train harder."

I nodded. Of course a child had to be the one knocking some sense into me. "You're right. Hard work and perseverance are a good cure for incompetence."

"You didn't need to put it so harshly," he chuckled weakly.

"I will burn this weakness from my body!" I said exaggeratedly, earning a chuckle from the both of us.

I was too pumped to care about useless things like being too harsh on myself. Guy would be proud of this enthusiastic display. I would get this technique down if it killed me. Total concentration breathing was only the first step.

Faster! Stronger! Better!

I'd never felt the need to improve so much before. The urgency of my task was not lost to me. I may only be 6, and I may only be starting my career, but I needed to be the best of the best because somehow, I managed to get myself involved in things way over my head. I had no time for weakness. Shisui beating me at a jutsu I practiced for months in one single go was just a reminder of that weakness. I wiped the sweat off my face as I closed my eyes.

Inhale, through your stomach, push it in as far as it can go. Exhale through your mouth, slowly and steadily. A good breath is only as good as the person who can control it.

"Your heart rate spiked. Do it again," Orochimaru commented.

I inhaled again. Then it came to me, what Shisui had said about my chakra control. I only ever pulled it to one place at a time, concentrating on one limb and area at a time. I needed to do more, I needed to spike the chakra everywhere. It made sense now. When I went against Hakanai everything spiked and only then did I direct chakra elsewhere.

I ignored the wires attached to my chest and the Fuinjutsu scrawled over my mostly naked body. I put my hands together on my lap and closed my eyes to take in a deep breath once more. This time I tried my best to send my chakra to multiple places.

"That was pathetic. Do you want another session, or are you going to do better?" Orochimaru asked impatiently.

"I'll do better," I bit out narrowing my eyes at the ground.

"Again!"

I would do better! I furrowed my brows in concentration as I pushed all my chakra out at once. I could feel it! My tenketsu flared with chakra and I inhaled just in time to energize it further. My lungs expanded with oxygen and then that intense feeling of power flowed through me.

"It's happening. Keep it in play for as long as you can," Orochimaru demanded.

I didn't think that was a good idea. I had no idea how to control this and my blood vessels could burst if I weren't careful. A bigger part of me was more worried about Orochimaru's punishments though, so I listened despite the red flags of the request. I continued taking in deep breaths, again and again and I felt my skin prickle painfully hot. My chest seized for a moment and I doubled over in pain as my chakra flared unnaturally and my heart sped up. What felt like a dam burst in my body rather than out and my chakra died down replaced with an intense pain around my body.

"No, no that wasn't it," Orochimaru mumbled as he pushed my body painfully, so I was lying on my back.

I gasped for air as he ran a diagnostic jutsu over my body. I ground my teeth together tightly as I cursed my own inability. What was I thinking? I shouldn't have been focused on my breathing; I should have been more focused on my chakra control.

"Your heart rate is too fast. You might go into cardiac arrest. We'll take a break for now."

I shot out and gripped his arm without thinking. He turned his yellows eyes at me, and I grit my teeth, bearing in my pain.

"No"

"No?"

"No, I can continue," I expanded, gritting my teeth, and sitting up. "My heart rate is up right now, it's the perfect time to get it down."

"Try not to die. I will want a report after this."

Orochimaru backed off and I shakily went back to my sitting position. I needed to get into the zone. To feel the world become a blank canvas, for the ground to disappear beneath my very feet so all there was, was that singular goal in front of me. I would feel it once more. I swore on my life I would. Failure was never an option.

Total concentration breathing

Almost like the wind stopped, and the background noise died to a mute, the world around me blanked and I was aware. I could feel my body, it's rhythm and scent, and the pain that had plagued me a moment ago went numb. There was a world going on inside of you that you never noticed, a world of energy and life that maintained the machine that was your very being. I had always been aware of my chakra, but now I could feel it, and every bit of it was unique. Breathing was just a single part of it, a regulation method that kept my blood flowing in tandem with my chakra. I realised now, how to push my chakra to each and every point of my body.

Click click click

What was that sound? And almost suddenly the background noise appeared again, the pain flared through my chest and the world went back to normal. I let out a painful wheeze as I doubled over. I pulled myself together and expelled as much chakra as I could to stop my body from killing itself.

"Interesting, it's like you're simulating the effects of opening a gate without even touching it. How is it possible to be this in tune with your chakra? A kekkai genkai maybe?" Orochimaru mused.

I let out another harsh cough and wiped the blood from mouth. It worked! I did it!

"N-not a kekkai genkai," I managed to say through my shaky breath as I grinned. "A new technique."

For a moment Orochimaru just looked at me before an excited smile took his face. That was the smile of a passionate scientist, and for once I ignored the danger behind that grin, because that same excitement had been bubbling inside of me. It broke through my fear of pain and of failure. It was what drove the inquisitive mind. At the heart of things, Orochimaru and I weren't so different. There was nothing worse than mediocrity, nothing worse than letting yourself fall into complacency, because there were always things you wanted to accomplish. Our specific end goals were different, but we both craved the same thing: power.

"We will continue this again tomorrow. For now follow me if you can stand," he said, voice still as patronising as ever.

"I can stand," I said stubbornly.

I got up shakily, ignoring the pain in my chest as I took off the monitors on my chest. I walked over hastily towards my shirt, not wanting to be shirtless in front of this man for a second longer. I may only be 6, and so maybe I shouldn't be that embarrassed about it, but my mind was still a lot more mature. I threw on my fishnet shirt, before putting on my kimono and hastily throwing on my haori while I ran behind Orochimaru. The bastard never bothered to wait for anyone.

We made our way through his underground labs before he opened the door to a room I'd never been in before. I walked in and paused in my step. A library? The number of scrolls and books stacked on all the shelves made my already dangerously fast beating heart, beat a little faster. I felt an excitement rush through me that I'd quelled for years. The innate part of me that enjoyed the academics squealed in delight.

"This is my personal library. Do enjoy yourself."

I looked up to see Orochimaru's amused expression and I didn't care that this man was a sadist human experimenter with a penchant for putting me in mentally scarring genjutsu, because this was just worth it. A whole library, without the need for 5 years doing menial tasks for a Nara research grant or applying for an impossible position as a Tokubetsu Jounin just to get the bare minimum of resources. A whole goddamn library! There was probably information hidden here that would be impossible to get anywhere else in this whole world.

As much as I felt bad for all of Orochimaru's experiments, it went to say that you got the most accurate results testing on humans than you did on animals. Even back in my old planet, there were human experiments from the old world-wars on enemy soldiers that provided vital information on curing even current day diseases. Whether that research was from the Nazi's, Japanese, Russian's or even the American's didn't matter. In the end everyone was human and all capable of the same level of depravity and creativity. The scientific fields had shunned the human experiments as morally wrong and cruel, but when it came down to it, if they needed to, they still used the data from those experiments they hated so much. Heck, even I had studied a few of the experiment files myself back when I was learning about the human immune system.

This library had that information. It felt like I would never get this level of research notes ever again in my life.

"Amazing," I couldn't help but say a little breathless.

"If you're going to take something out, make sure to take it by me first. It goes to say you are not allowed to show it to anyone else."

I didn't know what to say to the man. I wasn't so sure if thanking him was appropriate, considering the things he'd put me and many other people through. Maybe this was compensation for the amount of shit I'd been through with Danzo and Orochimaru. One tiny bit of karma that actually was in my favour for once. I had abandoned my morality, and whatever right I had to call myself a decent human by joining up with Orochimaru. Some would say that Danzo was actually the lesser of two evils, but I didn't care. It wasn't about who was eviller to me, it was what I needed to do to be stronger, to protect what belonged to me.

"Orochimaru-sama," I said, bringing his attention back to me. I put on a determined expression. I would use him like he was using me, and I would become stronger even if the price was my humanity. "I will not fail."

He just smiled, that hard to pin down smile of his before he nodded and left wordlessly. I had no idea what he was thinking, not like how I could read Gaku-sensei, but I wondered if I saw a glimmer of approval then.

"No it must have been the light…"

I turned back to the library at my disposal and felt a grin pull at my face. It was time to get back in the groove.

A/N Hina is really fun to write sometimes. On one hand she truly does love her family, but on another hand, she sees them as a duty, and can sometimes objectify them. To her it's her pride on the line when people threaten what's hers, as much as it is her being genuinely worried about losing them. It translates into something of a chaotic neutral type of character.

InfernalGenocide- Thank youuu!

gogo bananas- Yup that awkward moment when you realise she's so small she would probably only reach up to an adults knee and they're sending that to war.

M2R- Thanks!

Guest- She will definitely be changed!

Hi Exclamation- Thanks, writing that operation scene was very uncomfortable but necessary! I would legit die with Gaku too. I can't even imagine killing him (not saying that I haven't yet :') ) Anwaaay… there will be other OC and character deaths to cry over too!

Ptbv- Thanks!

FuckingFan- Aghhhh, I'm so honoured! I love that you love Hina and yes, I wrote her specifically to be a grey character cause that's what I believe most people are really! Thanks for leaving a review!

Knetterzak- I do love writing some Hina/Gaku wholesomeness. It gets me through this too ToT

ita123- Thanks!

MonsteraGecko- Yay! I do love Orochimaru and Hina's interactions. It's so fun to write! Yes, Hina is tiny right now cause she's a kid, but soon she will be tall! Mostly because it's very advantageous for a taijutsu specialist

GrumpyFox- Ayee my ao3 readers are here now! Thanks, I liked the idea of exploring war… proper war not plant people war XD

Isuckatfanfiction- Thanks! That's high praise!

nathymarpradauribe1- Nah that doesn't sound pressuring at all! I haven't come to a conclusion on who Hina ends up with right now. Maybe in the distant future XD

RileyBlue00- Thank you soooo much! I'm glad you like the direction this story is going! I can't wait for you to see what happens!

Guest- Thanks! I love demon slayer! I couldn't help myself!

Miss Nanami-chan- Ahhhh your comments give me life!

kurokitsune31- to be fair Hina is mentally 40… but Kakashi on the other hand makes no sense logically XD