8 Chapter 8: Meetings II

28- Year 8 AK

Right after we met with the Hokage, we left the office and scattered. Shin wanted to get a headstart on possible ventures in Iwa his family could get a profit out of, Hana and the Haimaru brothers simply missed the kennels, and sensei was going to search for a friendly spar. Whoever accepted was in for a lot of pain, no doubt. With a side dish of helpful suggestions that managed to sound extremely patronizing without Guy meaning it one bit.

Those were the reasons everyone gave. What I know for sure my teammates did, was find a bed and sleep for twelve hours straight. How do I know? Because I found myself the nearest park, recovered my sleeping bag and unrolled it on the grass. I slept in the sunshine, over my sleeping bag, with my arms crossed behind my head. I probably was the image of relaxing, when I simply shut down, unable to stay awake a moment longer, and feeling the strain of the travel.

I had weathered it better than my teammates, but only because Shin was drunk, meaning that he probably had been struggling to keep his chakra flowing evenly from day one. And we simply put more time in our physical conditioning than Hana, who had to spend a lot of time in learning all the nuances to become a vet, not only a med nin. And she insisted to become proficient in doton ninjutsu too. Along with that, the Inuzuka learned her family techniques, and working with her ninkens, took the bulk of the scouting job. So she always had a lot on her plate. Even if she managed to somewhat keep up with the trick we discovered with muscle regeneration. None in my team was a pushover.

It made me think about how I could enhance my body in other ways. More limbs were out of the equation, they would mess up my balance and I would need to create a taijutsu style from scratch. But Orochimaru was proof that one could do a lot of things to his own body. Even Konan from Akatsuki, the woman was able to become a cloud of slips of paper, for god's sake. But maybe eyes better equipped to see in the pitch darkness? Even if a tail would be cool in some way, mostly because it would freak out everyone.

I awoke in the middle of the afternoon, feeling stiff for the weight of the travel. I stretched myself and sealed my stuff away once more. I reached a cheap hotel and checked in for the following week. It wasn't like I was going to leave any of my stuff around, I liked having all of my belongings on me, but a bathroom was nothing to scoff at. Not after the week I had passed. I took a hard look at my clothes, which smelled by the way, and while they were not in tatters, I hadn't done them any favors during my training. I sighed. Shopping it is.

My most prized possession, and the only one that I couldn't replace, were the weights that Guy sensei had gifted us. They were inscribed with seals, exactly like the ones Lee's would one day wear. I had two sets that circled my legs, and I moved them one day under the knee, one day above. Two smaller sets on my forearms, and a plaque that I brought on my back. It was a narrow thing that fitted in the upper half of my back, allowing me almost complete freedom of movement.

The following morning I had started a set of exercises at 4:00 am sharp, already in the training ground eleven. It wouldn't do to be late after all. If there was something that my team did not lack, it was endurance and the ability to quickly recover.

Training ground 11 had an abundance of water: from a waterfall that rumbled on a rocky cliff, a river broke into small streams that resolved themselves into ponds, puddles, and even a marsh, with its distinctive reeds, and sedges. The rest of the wet terrain was instead an actual swamp, with tall trees hiding the sky from view. It can't be said that the higher-ups don't wish their ninjas to be anything but ready to fight everywhere. I drily noted. I sat down on a pond in what I esteemed was the rough center of the training ground.

The delicate control I was exercising on my chakra made the surface of the water as solid as stone. I started breathing slowly, the water rippling from time to time when my concentration faded. At first I simply thought about what I was hopefully going to learn.

Once I had the single Kage Bunshin down, if my chakra could handle it, I would try to figure out the multiple Kage bunshin part. But that wasn't really what I needed right away. I knew that I had a normal-sized chakra pool, so I wouldn't be spamming more than a single clone anytime soon. What I knew from the manga was that every clone you created started with the half chakra of the original. There was however a minimal requirement to create a Kage Bunshin, and that meant that one needed to have at least double that requirement in his chakra pool. Sure, I could for a brief time open the gates to use more chakra than normal, but I didn't know what kind of effect it would have. After all the bunshin was made of pure chakra, so It didn't have eight gates. It had to have chakra coils since otherwise, it wouldn't have been able to perform jutsus, but opening and closing the gates was not something one could do like a jutsu. It was more like knowing to move only a single muscle on the side of the nose. I knew that the Kage Bunshin was far less complex than what such a scary jutsu deserved to be, since... well Naruto was an idiot. If he could figure it out at twelve from a scroll, I would bloody be able to do the same.

After what the position of the sun told me had been 4 hours, I was still alone. However, I had seen far too many movies of cranky mysterious masters of their art that assigned strange tasks to their students. Being left to wait was far from the worst that could have happened. Besides, it was unlikely that the Sandaime himself would come, he probably had ordered some of the lower-ranked shinobi to come and give me a hand. However, I truly hoped that I was going to be taught the Kage Bunshin. It was substantially different from the mental based. It probably carried within itself a far more heavy Yin component, maybe the ratio would even be closer to 50%.

But I wanted to try my Suiton: Rasengan. So whichever method they offered me to try it out without dying would be more than welcome.

Rooting myself at the moment, I let go of my future considerations and placed a hand on the surface of the water, pouring a silver of my chakra in the liquid.

I lifted my hand slightly, my fingertips still connected to the water below.

Tiny droplets of water rose in the air, floating aimlessly at the height of my shoulder. I could feel each one of them. Because of that wisp of chakra in each of them, they were not simply connected to me, but my chakra was the droplets.

Following a gut instinct, I had them circle me, thinning and joining one with another, they formed a thread, invisible if not for a light sheen, less thick than ninja wire, and far more useful than it. It spun in a circle around me, and it kept expanding, taking the necessary water from the damp environment, it soon reached a thirty meters radius. The feel of it was a cross between trailing my fingers over the surfaces it met and what I imagined would a sonar feel if I had one in my head.

I let myself fall into the lull I found myself in during the travel from the border to Konoha. It had a marvelous effect: my attention was equally shared among regulating my breathing, the feedback from my line of water, the control I had to exercise to keep myself sitting on the pond, and the slow-flowing of the chakra in my gut. I wasn't doing anything with it, it simply was twirling around my body with a steady rhythm. It was running through my veins along with my blood, and my body was in a perfectly balanced enhanced state.

Usually, when someone uses chakra to strengthen oneself, it tends to pool unevenly in the limbs, snapping like a coil upon impact. Sure, the joints are always equally reinforced, it was stupid to throw a chakra enhanced punch only to dislocate your knees. Every hit made leverage somewhere after all.

I froze, going over my last thoughts with a confused frown marring my features. I had thought something that could be... my chakra flowed with my blood.

Suiton user always had one difficulty above all. Taking water out of thin air required either vast amounts of chakra or an outstanding control. I had some of the latter, but why put myself through such a struggle? The human body was 60% water. A male adult had roughly five liters if blood running through his veins. A liter could be shed without risking death. And that was for civilians, a ninja, with enhanced regenerative abilities, without even talking about how I could use medical chakra to increase the blood production, would last much longer. Hell, even a blood pill.

It was a disgusting, but fascinating new perspective. Under this point of view, once I killed an enemy I could find a way to extract water from his body. It couldn't be done before the death since their chakra would naturally oppose mine. Unless I synched myself with them like I do when I heal someone else. I thoughtfully considered.

I wonder if this is how Orochimaru got started. I distractedly commented. I lacked his natural sadism and obsession with red eyes, but the ability to think truly horrific things were there.

I opened my eyes and abruptly raised my other arm upwards, skillfully rising a thick mist around myself. It didn't reach the border of my line of water, but it hid me from view. I rose from my seated position, thoughtlessly circulating my chakra to dispel the stiffness. From the tip of my fingers rose a chakra scalpel, faintly glowing blue. Another strange thing is the blue coloration of chakra. I thought, noticing the difference in comparison with the medical one, which glowed of faint green light.

I nicked my other arm and dispelled the scalpel.

I let the blood drip into my cupped hand. Looking at the cut, I prodded around the area with my chakra, and finding the nearest tenketsu, I poured out a delicate flare of medical chakra. With deep satisfaction, I looked at my wound closing. Even if the feeling was unsettling, the skin is not meant to knit itself together that fast.

I focused on the blood in my cupped hand and pocked it with my chakra. It didn't react, simply starting the clotting process faster.

There is still my chakra in the blood, and gifting more energy to it only makes it work faster. Even if its strength was quickly dimming. I couldn't manipulate my blood, but I only needed to extract the water in it. How could I? Even the single drop I could raise from a puddle was ready-made of water.

After a few minutes, I found my answer. After all I already knew how to separate a toxin from the bloodstream. Now I only needed to tweak it so that it could suit me. Slowly I started to make my chakra spin the blood clockwise, while 'calling' for the water to move in the opposite direction. After the training I underwent to learn the Rasengan, it was easier than it might sound. Soon after, I held a spinning circle of darkish red... something, and above it, one of crystal clear water. The quantity was negligible, however, it was something that I could use in emergencies. I had a stony determination that made me push forward.

"Distasteful." I commented. I dropped the dirty hand into the pond, keeping up the water distilled from my blood. It didn't feel any different than normal.

Thoughtfully, I let it fall.

I popped out a food pill and ingested it thoughtfully. It was late, almost midday.

A ripple in my line of water warned me that something was approaching. Maybe I could layer two lines so that I could estimate the speed of the trespasser. I noted.

"Yo." He greeted me.

67,5 kg.181 cm. Masked. Leaf band. Identified as Kakashi. I quickly thought, the training stopping me from jumping in surprise.

I smiled. "Yo, to you too." I flippantly answered.

Good news: the Hokage didn't order my death. Bad news: I've clearly been too heavy-handed in prodding him towards the Kage Bunshin, and Kakashi is here to question me discretely. I reasoned.

And probably execute me if I am deemed a threat.

I wasn't strong enough to survive an attempt on my life made by any elite jonin, I knew that.

"I'm guessing Hokage-sama sent you?" I asked, forcing myself to remember the honorific.

The scarecrow with gravity-defying silver hair eye smiled at me and stood silent. This is going to get old pretty fast.

I choose to go without displaying my growing fear of being about to be killed. Fear is the mind-killer. I reminded myself.

"I need a way to perform a highly unstable suiton jutsu, which is likely to backfire the first times. I should get the hang of it pretty quickly."

Still, silently, the Copy-ninja brought his hands together in a strange cross-shaped seal. It was probably unique to this technique. I had read about modifying hand seals, but it was very far from my area of expertise.

I copied it, and pushed just a little bit of chakra into it, feeling like I was trying to break through a thick stone wall of some kind. I let go, I wasn't eager to burst my chakra coils due to a misused hand seal after all.

I brought all my attention to Kakashi, pouring all of my sensing ability on him. He was kind enough to wait to form me before actually performing the technique. I couldn't get a read of him. While even guy sensei was somewhat hidden from my reads, I still used to get some kind of feedback. One that spoke of an unrelenting hunter, with Kakashi, I got nothing. I knew he was there, sure, but I got the feeling that I was seeing only what he wanted me to. In this case, only how he was molding his chakra. He pressured was what I started doing.

Then he pushed it so that it would stand taller than the 'thick stone wall" that I felt before, then he started folding it over the edge. The part grinding on the top of the wall got thinner and thinner, while the mass of chakra on the outer side of the wall took shape.

When there was only a strand left connecting the two chakras, with a tiny wisp of smoke, appeared a bunshin of Kakashi, already eye smiling at me.

"This is the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu." The original one said.

"But he already knew that." the copy added, looking at the first scarecrow ninja. They both turned on me, and if it wasn't for the subtle killing intent I would have laughed for the resemblance with the Weasley Twins. Time to start bullshitting my way through this mess.

I shrugged. "I heard of it years ago, I'm an infiltration specialist, ninjas that can't hold their alcohol shouldn't drink."

The shinobi tilted his head, dispelling his clone: "And why shouldn't you be put under arrest for stealing village secrets?"

I blinked. "Because he wasn't drunk? I thought it was a test or a way to train me how to find out information without raising suspects."

The single eye on the face of the older shinobi narrowed. "When. Names. Where." He succinctly ordered me to provide.

"The day Guy sensei told me I was going to be a team 10 specialist in Thieving and Subterfuge. I tried my hand at Subterfuge since I was forbidden from stealing from civilians and not so stupid as to try stealing from a shinobi."

His voice was cold when he answered: "Elaborate, genin."

"I entered a pub in the middle of the night and chatted with a fake drunk about bushings, he started the conversation. His pupils didn't react to the changes of light as slowly as they should have with the amount of sake in his breath." I quickly explained.

"And you didn't report this to your superior in command, namely Might Guy, why?" He asked.

"I already told you, I thought it was some kind of test, and since I never met the guy again, I had assumed I failed." I answered.

"And how did you manage to enter a pub?" He asked, still suspicious.

I grinned. Time to sell my bullshit.

I brought my right hand forward and performed a half ram seal, I carefully molded my chakra into the necessary way to create a bunshin and stored it away in a tenketsu along my spine, before dedicating myself to the henge. When it was ready, I folded it into a tenketsu in the lower half of my back. Finally, I shaped my chakra into a rough camouflage technique. When I was ready I wrapped myself in the third technique, and I unleashed the first technique merging it with the second.

Only I didn't want a bunshin, so I simply overlapped the new, henged bunshin to my body, carefully making sure that my expression would be matched by the face that stood twenty centimeters above me, and that I kept my actual arms folded so that my hands stood in the same position of the imaginary ones. And I snapped my fingers.

Kakashi's lone eye widened. Why?

Because a standard bunshin does cast a shadow, but its movements are limited to be the exact copy of the original one. (Which is why it's easy to distinguish one from the original. The eyes of the original are the only ones actually in line with the target.) And the bushin' steps do not make a sound when they hit the ground.

A henge on the other way overlaps a different image on your own body, and if the user was skillful enough, it could even be used to change his voice. However, the sound originated from the real body, the one hidden underneath the henge, so it was easy enough to spot a henge if one was observant enough. And shinobi, the ones that liked to stay alive, tended to be of the observant kind.

"I am a subterfuge specialist. Infiltration is a good skill to have." The words left my mouth, that moved in perfect synch with the henge, but from an external point of view, or hearing as it is the case, the point of origin of the sound should have been lower.

I walked a slow circle around Kakashi. The adult I was impersonating was the one who rented me my room the day before, so it was fresh in my memory. I let the older shinobi observe my work for a while longer, making sure that the light flapping of my actual clothes left my not-real ones from the opportune places, and careful in placing my feet down heel first, since their point was a tiny bit longer than my actual ones.

"And you have been able to do this since your first day as a genin?" The scarecrow ninja asked me. I could tell that he was suitably impressed.

"Oh, no, at the time I still needed hand seals." I cheekily answered.

"Do you have any other secrets?" He asked tilting his head.

I dispelled my technique "Loads." And before he could kill me, I hastily added: "But none that harms Konoha. I just prefer my skills to be shown on a need to know basis."

His presence then pressed on me, his posture hadn't changed, his eye was half-lidded, and there wasn't killing intent in the air, If not for my eyes seeing him, I would have thought to be alone, only underwater.

I stilled the flow of my chakra, before letting it explode out of my tenketsus in an attempt to destroy the genjutsu. I succeded.

The air turned back to normal, and Kakashi's eye smiled at me. Uh, maybe I'll not be killed after all.

"I believe you." He told me. "When you say that you do not wish harm to Konoha."

Shit.

"We only need to check with the Yamanaka for the rest of your story." He added.

"No." I refuse. No. "I won't allow anyone to make a mess in my head."

Kakashi blinked, visibly surprised by my strong reaction.

"I dislike killing. But I do it for the village. I dislike having to fight. But I do it for the village. I like being alive. But I put it at risk for the village. My life belongs to the Hokage, I accept it. I'll follow his orders, but my thoughts are mine." I hissed the last part. "I love Guy sensei and my teammates, I would never harm Konoha."

"You are a strange kid." He sighed. "It would only be to..."

"If I feel someone in my head I'll kill myself." I cut him. Cutting off an official your superior was stupid under every single aspect, but I needed to stress it. "I am my mind, if someone but me is in it I'd rather die. How would I know after that if my thoughts are still mine? If I am still me?" And I am sincerely scared about it. I know it's possible since Shishui has the Kotoamatsukami... I wonder if Danzō has one of his eyes or not...

Kakashi looked at me strangely. Then shrugged, as to say that he heard worst fears, and dug out his trademark orange covered book.

So all my very cool and reasonable lies were just... useless? How the fuck do shinobi lie to each other? My heartbeat was steady... my voice didn't falter...

"So I am not going to be arrested? Just because you say that I am not a threat?" I asked after a while. I was expecting... more intimidation.

"There has never been a single account of you going against orders, or do anything to damage Konoha. Your sensei words hold weight. As he is an extraordinary judge of character." He answered without raising his gaze from his book.

Taking it as the suggestion it was, I promised myself that I would find my sensei to take him.

That evening, while the sun was setting, I spotted my sensei on the top of the Shodai's stone head. Since it was unusual for him, I already knew that he was waiting for me.

I landed near him. "Sensei," I spoke quietly.

"Daiki-kun." He quietly greeted me, and that, more than anything made clear that he was mad. No youthfulness in the air tonight. I bowed at the waist and said: "I'm sorry sensei." It was the truth. Team 10 was the only people I cared about in that world, even if I would always remember Chihiro's lessons and Itachi's stories with fondness. I hadn't thought about what to say to him, more busy trying to learn the Kage Bunshin under the teachings of Kakashi. Which had been: don't keep a clone for more than thirty minutes, or three clones for more than ten minutes. It turns out that the brain isn't equipped to deal with more information than the ones he naturally receives. So overdoing it would turn my brain into mush. Not that I was able to summon more than two clones at the same time, their chakra cost was prohibitive.

The good part was that once a clone dispelled, along with its memories came back all the chakra that it-he had still left, so I had been able to try the technique several times. The bad part was that the Copy ninja was a lousy teacher. His first demonstration of the jutsu had also been the last. No explanation whatsoever. Son of a bitch.

After a couple of minutes of random thoughts on my part, that I spent bowed, Guy sighed.

"Clouds come from time to time,

and bring to men a chance to rest

from looking at the moon."

I kept bowing, and since my face was hidden, I didn't bother to hide my surprised expression. That was some kind of haiku wasn't it. After a couple of minutes, he uncharacteristically sighed another time.

"As shinobi, we often deal with secrets, Daiki-kun. Secrets we steal, ones we craft to trick the enemy, secrets we build to protect ourselves, others that we cling to. Like my love for poetry, for example."

I saw his feet turn in my direction. "Some secrets do not exist for the benefit of anyone but our sanity, and often have no logical reason to be secrets at all. When the risk to be exposed, it's not uncommon to react... stupidly."

I flinched. Not because I hated being called stupid, but because it was Guy sensei who was... scolding/berating me. I wasn't used to it.

"Stupidity however, is something only experience can help with." He went on. "Trying to manipulate your own Kage, for no other reason than feeling proud of your skill to do so is utter foolishness." His deep voice almost growled the last word.

"If you weren't my student, you would have made yourself a dangerous enemy where you could have found an ally. Only because you are proud of your secrets. Shinobis know the value of secrets. Sandaime-sama knows more about being a shinobi than anyone else alive and instead of asking for guidance, you try to lead him by the nose? How dare you."

He grabbed my shoulder and righted me. He looked me in the eyes for what I could tell was a long time. His hand wasn't exactly giving me an option either.

For the third time that evening, he sighed. "In many ways, you are a wonderful student. Do you remember what you told us when Shin joked about your feeling unwell after every encounter during which you have taken a life?"

I shook my head. Whatever I said to him after a situation during which I had killed was foggy at best.

"You told him that you preferred to feel sick every time you kill than forget what is exactly that you are taking away from the world."

He grabbed my other shoulder and shook me lightly, forcing me to look in his dark eyes. "That is a student that I am proud to call mine. Whoever was the one in the Hokage's office... I'd wish I had nothing to do with him. You have this ambivalence in you, that is, quite frankly, worrying."

He left my shoulders and turned back, looking over the village. "I warned you once to not lie to your teammates, do you remember? On your very first day. This is the second warning. There won't be a third."

Once he said that he jumped off the stone head and vanished from my senses.