Reading this chapter made me think about how she could have actually won. Here it is.
—
"Ensui," she says again. She knows he can hear the warning. But his aim was this moment, so naturally it doesn't phase him. "I'd like to go home."
"You know how it is, Seiko," he says. "We're understaffed."
She gets it. She gets it she. Understands.
A chunin exam.
She could fail it. All she has to do is fail to get past him, and she's unqualified. It's the type of exam most could only dream of having-- no risk of dying. A simple task.
Ensui did it like this as a kindness. Because he knows she doesn't want to.
She hates him. He doesn't understand at all-- she has to go home. There's no option. Kakashi's birthday is next week. He could make chunin any day after that. Their dad is .. waiting.
To die.
And then, she finds the answer.
Seiko closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath, and remembers the despair she felt that day. The feeling of watching people she cared about die. The pain, so intense she wanted to do anything to make it stop-
She opens her eyes, but they are empty. A shaky hand rises to her neck. Her fingernails are sharp enough to do, in a pinch.
"If you don't let me go home, I'll kill myself."
If that threw Ensui off balance, she wasn't focused enough on him to see it. "Nice try, Seiko, but I'm experienced enough to tell when someone's bluffing."
"Am I?" Her lip curled. Funny. "I'm not sure myself. But regardless, can you really afford to risk it? After all, you're understaffed." You're, not we're. Distancing oneself, a warning flag. She has no doubt he picks up on it.
Ensui switches tacks. First point, first blood.
"Do you really think stabbing yourself with your fingernails is enough to kill you? Give me some more credit, here. Stabilizing you is well within my capabilities, and a small wound like that is something the med-nin can easily handle."
"Once, yes." She nodded. "But can they do it again? And again? How much resources will I drain before it's not worth the effort? And even if I don't right away, do you propose putting me on constant watch? That makes your manpower issues worse, not better."
A second point. A second victory. Her fingernails press harder into her flesh.
Ensui goes for her jugular, metaphorically. Her finger's already pressing into the literal one, so it's only fitting.
"What about your family? You'd really crush them like that? Don't pretend you don't care for them."
Seiko falters. She knew this was coming, but it was still difficult. Remember the despair.
"Sakomoto will commit suicide in a matter of weeks regardless of if I'm around. People like you don't do anything, because 'it isn't your problem', and the people who do act will pressure him past the point of no return. Kakashi will take it horribly because he bought into the propaganda, and throw himself into training to compensate. He'll be fast-tracked into ANBU, and that'll compound his isolation issues. If I try to help him, he'll lash out at me, making him feel even worse.
"So really, me killing myself is probably the best thing I could do for them. After all, me dying like this will make Kakashi think, make him wonder. And that might just be enough to get him to think about why it's better to die than become someone like you."
Distantly, she could feel tears beginning to form in her eyes. Ensui wasn't saying anything, just looking at her.
Three points. Three strikes. She smiles at him.
"Five."
* * *
The next day, Seiko returns to working the mission desk for the foreseeable future.
So basically, Sakumo is planning to go through with his suicide in a better head space since his daughter is strong enough and has a decent job to raise Kakashi, and he believes that by doing this his shame and the hatred he had accumulated from the people will not be transferred onto his children--saving them the pain and discrimination one would have as the children of someone who started a war by breaking with the rules.
With Seiko now chunnin with a jounin sensei, in his mind---there's no need to agonize or worry about their fate, he can kill himself in peace knowing that others will take his place. Kakashi's hatred and love towards Sakumo will eventually fade and be replaced by his sister.
Can someone explain to me what's the Hokage game here, felt like the whole thing is a emotional mess for her, would be nice if Seiko hit him with all guns blazing around ableism and PTSD considering his intervention in her promotion.
So basically, Sakumo is planning to go through with his suicide in a better head space since his daughter is strong enough and has a decent job to raise Kakashi, and he believes that by doing this his shame and the hatred he had accumulated from the people will not be transferred onto his children--saving them the pain and discrimination one would have as the children of someone who started a war by breaking with the rules.
With Seiko now chunnin with a jounin sensei, in his mind---there's no need to agonize or worry about their fate, he can kill himself in peace knowing that others will take his place. Kakashi's hatred and love towards Sakumo will eventually fade and be replaced by his sister.
Sakumo's headspace is so far gone its not even funny. Like, they are freaking chuunins in a war where jonins die regularly. How can he be rest assured about it?
Like dude, dying now is a coward's way out. Leaving his children behind to bear the burden of war. If he really is sorry about being the one to restart the war, he should fight in the war and be the one to end it.
Can someone explain to me what's the Hokage game here, felt like the whole thing is a emotional mess for her, would be nice if Seiko hit him with all guns blazing around ableism and PTSD considering his intervention in her promotion.
I think the Hokage just thinks she has the skills to be a chunin and so she should be one; it'd be a resource left to waste otherwise. Seems a perfectly legitimate way for the Hokage to see the situation. We have plenty of canon examples that Konoha, as a whole, doesn't care about PTSD and wants people to simply power through it with the will of fire, so this feels very in character to me.
I think the Hokage just thinks she has the skills to be a chunin and so she should be one; it'd be a resource left to waste otherwise. Seems a perfectly legitimate way for the Hokage to see the situation. We have plenty of canon examples that Konoha, as a whole, doesn't care about PTSD and wants people to simply power through it with the will of fire, so this feels very in character to me.
I interpret it as-- Hiruzen, like many of the people who survived the founding of the village, just doesn't genuinely see the problem of PTSD. Konoha back then was a "Get good or die" kinda place, where if you don't pull your weight and don't get over the horrors of war you die. He sees a psychological problem and pushes people, knowing they have problems and not caring much if he has to make them worse in order to get results and get them back in gear, see Orochimaru.
He knew Orochimaru had deep problems with his parents dying, and his way of getting him out of grieving was making up a story about a shed snake skin and telling him that maybe his parents were reborn, that after he had grown up he could meet them again. Which fed into orochimaru's focus on death, but boy did it get him back in the game.
I think the Hokage just thinks she has the skills to be a chunin and so she should be one; it'd be a resource left to waste otherwise. Seems a perfectly legitimate way for the Hokage to see the situation. We have plenty of canon examples that Konoha, as a whole, doesn't care about PTSD and wants people to simply power through it with the will of fire, so this feels very in character to me.
Fair, I bet he would change his mind and understand what Seiko going through over time with the pain of losing his son, Biwako, Minato, Orochimaru and the Uchiha clan.
Fair, I bet he would change his mind and understand what Seiko going through over time with the pain of losing Biwako, Minato, Orochimaru and the Uchiha clan.
I think it's the other way around, actually - he's already lost plenty of people, such as both his teachers, one of which gave his life for him, and he just pushed past it and shouldered the burden of the whole village without flinching, so he likely expects everybody else to be able to do the same he did. In fact, that would explain his approach to a lot of things fairly well - he knows they all can get over it because he did, and it doesn't even occur to him that some people might be unable to.
Although, to give Hiruzen some credit, even if he believes that, he does at least recognizes that it might takes others more time and the occasional help to make it through - I imagine that he considered this little confrontation to be just that, a light push forward. A mindset of "I managed it immediately, but I know I'm a prodigy and a lot of people are slower than me" as the reason why Sarutobi is more patient then the average military commander, while still being arrogant enough to assume anybody can do it eventually, would fit his psychology pretty well.
That does, however, serves to contrast the main character with the stations of canon. It's a very welcome spice to the narrative, giving more substance to Itachi's idiocy.
Can someone explain to me what's the Hokage game here, felt like the whole thing is a emotional mess for her, would be nice if Seiko hit him with all guns blazing around ableism and PTSD considering his intervention in her promotion.
Hiruzen needs to show off the power of Konoha and having a prodigy fight in the Exams will do so. He's trying to squeeze all the use he can out of the MC, and she's very expendable given her age and parentage.
Hiruzen needs to show off the power of Konoha and having a prodigy fight in the Exams will do so. He's trying to squeeze all the use he can out of the MC, and she's very expendable given her age and parentage.
I interpret it as-- Hiruzen, like many of the people who survived the founding of the village, just doesn't genuinely see the problem of PTSD. Konoha back then was a "Get good or die" kinda place, where if you don't pull your weight and don't get over the horrors of war you die. He sees a psychological problem and pushes people, knowing they have problems and not caring much if he has to make them worse in order to get results and get them back in gear, see Orochimaru.
Can someone explain to me what's the Hokage game here, felt like the whole thing is a emotional mess for her, would be nice if Seiko hit him with all guns blazing around ableism and PTSD considering his intervention in her promotion.
You're trying to impart modern morality on a society that is a military dictatorship. Children are sent to the battlefield before they turn 10. You have to look at it from the perspective of someone who's in that society - he doesn't accept and doesn't care that she's injured or whatever else is going on. She's a soldier. Imagine being in the military and telling your superior that you'd rather read a book instead of being deployed, as an analogy from his perspective.
I enjoy these exploratory looks at a darker world because it's the type of thing you can't solve in a smooth stroke - how unsatisfying would it be if Seiko just said that she was injured and traumatized and they let her go see a psychologist? It's hard to find a good fix-fic for a reason.
I think it's the other way around, actually - he's already lost plenty of people, such as both his teachers, one of which gave his life for him, and he just pushed past it and shouldered the burden of the whole village without flinching, so he likely expects everybody else to be able to do the same he did. In fact, that would explain his approach to a lot of things fairly well - he knows they all can get over it because he did, and it doesn't even occur to him that some people might be unable to.
Although, to give Hiruzen some credit, even if he believes that, he does at least recognizes that it might takes others more time and the occasional help to make it through - I imagine that he considered this little confrontation to be just that, a light push forward. A mindset of "I managed it immediately, but I know I'm a prodigy and a lot of people are slower than me" as the reason why Sarutobi is more patient then the average military commander, while still being arrogant enough to assume anybody can do it eventually, would fit his psychology pretty well.
Reading this chapter made me think about how she could have actually won. Here it is.
—
"Ensui," she says again. She knows he can hear the warning. But his aim was this moment, so naturally it doesn't phase him. "I'd like to go home."
"You know how it is, Seiko," he says. "We're understaffed."
She gets it. She gets it she. Understands.
A chunin exam.
She could fail it. All she has to do is fail to get past him, and she's unqualified. It's the type of exam most could only dream of having-- no risk of dying. A simple task.
Ensui did it like this as a kindness. Because he knows she doesn't want to.
She hates him. He doesn't understand at all-- she has to go home. There's no option. Kakashi's birthday is next week. He could make chunin any day after that. Their dad is .. waiting.
To die.
And then, she finds the answer.
Seiko closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath, and remembers the despair she felt that day. The feeling of watching people she cared about die. The pain, so intense she wanted to do anything to make it stop-
She opens her eyes, but they are empty. A shaky hand rises to her neck. Her fingernails are sharp enough to do, in a pinch.
"If you don't let me go home, I'll kill myself."
If that threw Ensui off balance, she wasn't focused enough on him to see it. "Nice try, Seiko, but I'm experienced enough to tell when someone's bluffing."
"Am I?" Her lip curled. Funny. "I'm not sure myself. But regardless, can you really afford to risk it? After all, you're understaffed." You're, not we're. Distancing oneself, a warning flag. She has no doubt he picks up on it.
Ensui switches tacks. First point, first blood.
"Do you really think stabbing yourself with your fingernails is enough to kill you? Give me some more credit, here. Stabilizing you is well within my capabilities, and a small wound like that is something the med-nin can easily handle."
"Once, yes." She nodded. "But can they do it again? And again? How much resources will I drain before it's not worth the effort? And even if I don't right away, do you propose putting me on constant watch? That makes your manpower issues worse, not better."
A second point. A second victory. Her fingernails press harder into her flesh.
Ensui goes for her jugular, metaphorically. Her finger's already pressing into the literal one, so it's only fitting.
"What about your family? You'd really crush them like that? Don't pretend you don't care for them."
Seiko falters. She knew this was coming, but it was still difficult. Remember the despair.
"Sakomoto will commit suicide in a matter of weeks regardless of if I'm around. People like you don't do anything, because 'it isn't your problem', and the people who do act will pressure him past the point of no return. Kakashi will take it horribly because he bought into the propaganda, and throw himself into training to compensate. He'll be fast-tracked into ANBU, and that'll compound his isolation issues. If I try to help him, he'll lash out at me, making him feel even worse.
"So really, me killing myself is probably the best thing I could do for them. After all, me dying like this will make Kakashi think, make him wonder. And that might just be enough to get him to think about why it's better to die than become someone like you."
Distantly, she could feel tears beginning to form in her eyes. Ensui wasn't saying anything, just looking at her.
Three points. Three strikes. She smiles at him.
"Five."
* * *
The next day, Seiko returns to working the mission desk for the foreseeable future.
She and Kakashi's birthdays are only a week apart, her turning 10 as he turns 6. So it goes like this; he has a birthday; she gives him a notebook. For writing down all of your half baked jutsus. It has an embossed paw print on the cover. She has a birthday; he gives her a modified harness for Biter, customized to look like the chunin vest she doesn't wear. At least the dog has some pride. The stitchery on the leather has such a vast array of quality it is impossible not to notice which parts Kakashi did, and which parts Sakumo had taken on himself.
She goes home from work, and Sakumo is there, weeding their garden. He hasn't taken another job since he got back. There's a quietness in him.
"Hi, dad," she says. Biter barks from behind her legs.
He looks up, greets her with a gentle smile.
"Hello, Seiko," he says. "It's good that you got back. I wanted to talk to you about your brother's promotion gift."
He'd tried to give her a promotion gift. His own saber. It's still there, sitting on his desk. Waiting.
"He's already got everything," Seiko says. "Just give him the saber."
Sakumo looks hurt.
"That's for you, Seiko. Your mom would have wanted you to have it."
She is never going to touch that sword.
"Another dog then. Pakkun's meant to have a pack."
Seiko already knows the issue even as she suggests it. That's something Kakashi's going to need to do by himself. Not much of a gift, telling someone that they need to go out and do something that they'd been putting off.
"I was thinking we could do something a little more.. Celebratory," Sakumo says, the word fitting oddly in his mouth. "Invite him and any of his friends out to a restaurant."
Seiko stares at him. Birthdays had been family only for forever, and now this?
"Friends? Who?"
"He has friends," Sakumo says, optimistically. "I met one of them. Young Might Gai. A remarkable young man."
Kakashi may be permanently scarred from this exercise of fatherly devotion. Thank the gods Sakumo had not tried this on her. But if he's going through with it, then... sure. Why not.
In her head, files start to flip back and forth. Let's see... genin who would have overlapped with Kakashi's one and a half years in the academy.
"Aoba Yamashiro," She says, eyes going distant as she taps her fingers against her numb wrist. "Shimon Hijiro." Is there anyone else...? Not Obito or Rin, they haven't graduated yet. "Daen Nara."
She'd given out their D-ranks so recently. A babysitting one for Shimon and his group. Lost pet tracking for Aoba's group. Training grounds clean up for Daen's group. He'd complained the loudest.
"Seiko-chan?"
"Graduated Genin or chunin who may have overlapped with Kakashi's schooling who aren't completely out of his age range."
He's still staring at her.
"Aoba Yamashiro was first in his class when he graduated. He's currently my age, so a little old..? Forget him. Shimon Hijiro is much better, he's only like 9 months older than Kakashi. Just made genin earlier this month. Daen's also part of that same last month graduation.... He's out on a C-rank, though. Return time unknown."
Shimon is also civilian born, making it unlikely that he'd turn down an invitation due to Sakumo's reputation. Nara is much more risky.
"Invite their parents as well," Seiko says. "Might Guy's and Shimon Hijiro's. I'm heading in. See you."
"Congratulations on making chunin," Seiko says to Hoheto, sitting across the table from him as his white eyes attempt to burn through her skull. One of his new teammates had been an early loss in the new war, but he'd earned a battlefield promotion out of it.
That's one sensei and two teammates in three years.
"You--" Hoheto spits out, back rigid and straight even as his anger ever consumes him. "They're letting you just hide behind that desk while the rest of us die in the field!"
His voice is clipped and low, even with all that rage. He can't endanger his new rank.
Biter growls anyway.
"Aw, come on," Seiko says, voice shifting into the drawl that she used to use all the time. Strange... where did it go? "Someone's got to live, 'Heto. It might as well be me."
That gets him going. He slams his palm against the desk, breath hissing in behind his teeth as he struggles to take a deep breath.
"They promoted you," he says, voice full of disbelief. "For what? Dereliction of duty?"
Seiko nods along.
"Yes, exactly," she says. "They were so proud of me that the Hokage came down in person to proctor my trial."
From behind her, another set of footsteps that can truly only be summoned through having an unpleasant discussion lets itself be heard.
"What's this about your pride, Seiko?" Ensui Nara says, popping a huge pink bubble of gum as he peers over her shoulder at Hoheto Hyuga. "I didn't know you had any."
She'd liked it better when he used her last name.
"I don't,"
"She doesn't," Hoheto says at the exact same time. "And who are you?"
Ensui wouldn't get this reaction if he bothered to do any shifts down here.
"I'm her..." There's a long pause. For some reason, Ensui has a worse reaction to the words jounin-sensei than she does. "Supervisor."
"You should fire her," Hoheto says. He's more comfortable around hierarchies than anything. Or maybe just more used to a specific form of torture.
"I can't fire her," Ensui says mournfully. "All of the rest of my staff is back out in the field. Who would do the work?"
Even Chobee has finally left the office, though not for anything Seiko would define as field work. He'd been pulled to cover the required Akimichi guard duty shifts and free up whoever had been previously doing that for actual fieldwork. But it worked out the same for this office, in the end.
"Can't you just requisition some Nara?" Hoheto says.
She should care more that he's trying to get her fired. It's dangerous, being an unattached chunin in wartime. Doing messenger duty with a limp? It might not even be her brain that gives out first.
But instead--
Her eyes are caught on the shadows that swirl around Hoheto's feet.
Ensui leans forward, and Hoheto leans forward too, so naturally that he doesn't even realize he hasn't done it of his own free will.
"I know who you are," Ensui says softly. "Hoheto Hyuuga, age 11. Branch family member. Recent chunin. Maybe I should arrange for your next assignment to be a full Hyuga clan brigade. Since you're so enamored with clan arrangements."
Hoheto's face goes so white that his skin matches his eyes. He tries to step back, but can't.
"I--"
"Shut up, Ensui," Seiko says. Her scars are pulsing, or maybe that's just the headache. "If you've got time to do that, then you've got time to fill out that calendar that I keep--"
"I get it, I get it," Ensui mutters, taking a step back and breaking the shadow's hold. "Oh, look, something just came up. I've got to go."
He ducks away, leaving them both as quickly as he came.
"I hate that guy," Seiko says. The only thing worse than talking to Ensui is fighting with him.
Hoheto's fists clench.
"Your chunin trial," he says. "What was it."
"Here's your next mission," Seiko says, pulling out a scroll and handing it to him.
Kakashi bolts into her room and looks around for some place to hide, eyes wide.
"He ambushed me," he says, perhaps to her, perhaps to the unjust world at large. "He invited some random kids to the restaurant, and he ambushed me. He disguised his scent so Pakkun wouldn't be able to tell he was there! Why would he do that?"
"Did you stick around long enough to find out?" Seiko asks, yawning as she stays sitting on her bed.
"I'm not good enough to outrun dad," Kakashi says, as if this is obvious, and not something that will cease to be true in the coming years. "And there was barbeque."
So he'd kept his complaints bottled up until that party was over. That's good.
And their dad seemed to be... doing better...?
"He told me you told him you had friends," Seiko says instead.
Kakashi scowls.
"I do have kids I play with. Sometimes. Occasionally. It's none of his business. Not that I do much of that anymore...."
He looks away from her, arms still crossed.
"You don't have friends at all, so you wouldn't know."
Ouch. There's this odd pain in her left wrist, where she usually can't feel anything.
"I saw you got assigned a new jounin-sensei," Seiko says. She's technically not supposed to be able to see jounin files, not that that matters.
Kakashi hesitates.
"He's still out on a long-term mission," he says. "Something super secret. And cool," he adds, a bit defensively. "It'll be official when he gets back. Soon."
While most of the village hates their family right now, the Hokage has gone out of his way to ensure that Seiko and Kakashi are taken care of. Her promotion, Kakashi's promotion and subsequent attachment to Minato....
Giving her brother a direct mentor to student lineage claim on the Hokage's seat is not a small matter. He is doing everything in his power to assert that the Hatake clan is still a part of Konoha. To reassure Sakumo the village remains behind him.
Biter thumps his tail on the floor.
"Where's dad now?"
Kakashi gives her another annoyed look, as she's lost track of whatever he was ranting about.
"How would I know? Probably doing boring stuff in his study. I didn't walk home with him."
It's late, and she doesn't want to have to walk up the stairs...
Seiko groans.
"Did you tell him you need to get a bigger uniform size...?"
Blank look in his eyes. He sinks his chin a little further into his scarf.
Great.
"Don't mind me, limping all by my lonesome..."
Kakashi huffs and ignores her. Brat.
Halfway through her painful climb up the stairs, Biter howls, bounding ahead of her to burst through the closed sliding door.
There's a rope, hanging from the ceiling. When his hands twitch, is it a phantom twitch, like how hers---
On her lunch break, Seiko makes her slow way up to the second floor of the tower, where Ensui hides from people with schedules and urgent requests. Tragically for him, she has both.
"I'm busy," Ensui says, before she can even knock on his door. "Talk to my secretary. Downstairs. Can't miss her."
"I'm taking the afternoon off," Seiko says, one hand clenched around Biter's harness. It's been strangely difficult to stand up today. Her balance is off.
"You can't do that," Ensui says. "There's no one to replace you."
"I have to attend a funeral," Seiko says. "I was just informing you that no one would be downstairs. I'll be back tomorrow morning, usual time."
Biter has a black ribbon wrapped around his neck.
She's halfway back down the stairwell when the door swings open above her.
Ensui follows her down, the creep of his shadows almost strange in his absence as he keeps them tightly controlled, not even a hint of his constant paranoia allowed to shine through in the space.
However, he doesn't sit down on the desk, following her to the front entrance and out into the sunlight before he turns around and sets his hand on the wall, a huge seal appearing and twisting into the air.
No one is entering the tower today, it seems.
"You're on the wrong side of the barrier," Seiko says. "The people are on this side."
"Oh, whoops," Ensui drawls. "I guess I'm stuck out here."
He's got bags under his eyes.
"It's easy to get confused when you're stupid," Seiko agrees. "I'll be going, now."
A hand on her shoulder.
"Wait. you might.. Get lost on the way to the cemetery. It's kind of hard to find."
They're burying him next to her mom. She knows the way.
"You--"
It's weird seeing Ensui outside the tower. The only other time was when he was at her house. Talking to Sakumo.
In daylight, his twitching eyes that track the civilians that mill around them, his ticks-- his youth. He's eighteen. She always forgets.
She lost track of her sentence somewhere along the way.
"Yes?" Ensui says. The longer they just stand here the more uncomfortable he gets.
Seiko blinks, coming back to her body.
"Why not," she says. "Dad liked you."
Perhaps that's not what he wanted to hear. His hair doesn't pineapple-spike like some Nara, always drooping as it's forced to obey the laws of gravity within the confines of a ponytail. The rest of him drops now alongside the hair, as if she's told a man standing on the edge of a cliff that the rock's already fallen out and he's got no support but the air.
She lets him lead her to the graveyard.
Kakashi had been sitting by the grave when they arrived, hastily standing up and brushing the dirt off his knees as he sees she isn't alone.
"You're late," he mutters, eyes low. He hasn't been sleeping well, it seems. Pakkun peeks out from behind his legs.
"Hello, Biter," Pakkun says quietly.
Biter ignores him. He doesn't speak to other dogs. Or anyone, really. He noses at the dirt around Sakumo's grave before his ears twitch, picking up on heavy steps over loose soil as a black clad ninja approaches, funeral urn wrapped in white cloth held in both hands.
She watches them bury it beneath the small stone monument. Receives the smaller box of ash for the house. Feels the wretched pause in the expected ritual as neither she nor Kakashi say anything about their father.
What's she going to say?
'He was a man who couldn't abandon his teammates, but easily managed to abandon his family...' No. 'I should've missed the funeral the way he missed my graduation'. A little tacky.
She doesn't have anything kind to say about Sakumo right now.
Kakashi's face is hidden behind his mask, but his shoulders have begun to shake.
Seiko touches the stone.
"Bye, dad," she says.
Her eyes hurt.
She spends the next day listening to people complain about the fact that the tower was closed without notice.
"I had my full mission report filled out, you know!" A special jounin tells her. "Fully filled out! Ready to go!"
"You can put it over there," Seiko says. Her hands have been visibly shaking so badly that she has to keep them tucked under the desk. She's smudged the single piece of paper she attempted to sign this morning so badly that over half of it somehow became harder to read. More work for Ensui, then.
"You know, I remember when Chobee was doing this," the guy says, staring down at her. "He was really good. Helpful."
"He's out doing gate duty," Seiko says. "You could join him there."
"You're such a rude kid. What are you? Twelve?"
She's ten.
"I'm eighty three. You've fallen for my illusion."
He almost brings his hands up to form the Kai seal before realizing she's joking.
"You-- ugh. Whatever. It's not my fault that the reports are late, alright! Note that down!"
And behind him, more and more.
Kakashi takes a longer mission, and doesn't come back for three weeks.
No reason to take vacation days.
Except--
Academy Student Asuma Sarutobi ducks behind her desk.
"Tell them I'm not here!" He whispers furiously.
A year has not done much to improve his personality. But the gaggle of girls and boys that bolt into the room after him is almost enough to endanger sympathy. If she wasn't the one who had to talk to them.
Dozens of high pitched voices spike through her skull as they all desperately try to convey to her that they-- and only they-- are looking for their classmate, the young, handsome, talented, only living son of the Hokage. A bit young for this, no? Seriously?
"There's certainly no one like that around here," Seiko states. "I think if I'd seen someone young, talented and handsome, I'd know it."
Asuma glares at her from his position of cowering behind the dog.
It takes almost half an hour to kick them out.
"Thanks," Asuma mutters, an embarrassed read tinge not well concealed by his floppy hair spikes. "I was just messing around at the Academy training grounds and I-- I don't know what happened."
It's normal that he's an Academy student at 7. Or is that still oddly young? Seiko had become a genin when she was 8. It can't be that young.
"I remember you bragged you were good enough at stealth to dodge ANBU," Seiko observes.
Beet red.
"I-- well....!!"
"Hm?"
But of course, eventually, you always have to go home.
"Hey, genius," Seiko says, one handedly dumping some rice into a pot on the stove as Kakashi shifts uncomfortably at the edge of the room. "You're blocking the door."
He hadn't used to flinch at the title, but she can see it settling in around him. Nothing like humility, just a sensitivity to her own tongue. As if he's lost the shield that kept her words from harming him. Poor baby.
"No I'm not," he mutters, hands buried in his pockets.
He straightens up.
"I've got to tell you something."
"You forgot it was your turn to do the laundry this week," Seiko says.
There's a scent of burning in the air. Come on. Not this pot too. She can't wait until Chobee comes back and brings his food back with him.
"I'll get around to it," the little liar says, before coughing again. "Not that."
"You found a secret scroll that was an inheritance of one of the old Hokages," Seiko says. "You've received a divine revelation and need to go hide in your room for two decades to think about life."
"Seiko."
She scrapes some of the burned rice off the bottom of the pan.
He takes advantage of her turning her back on him to speak.
"I'm moving out."
Her hand jerks, the pot falling to smash onto the tiles, pottery shards barely missing her feet as Biter surges into motion to bat them away.
"What's wrong with this house?" Seiko asks, before she can really gauge the question.
Kakashi stares back at her, shoulders rigid. Unwittingly, his eyes creep towards the stairs.
But they're all from the same stock, him and her and their parents.
Rather die than admit weakness.
"The chunin dorms are closer to the training grounds," Kakashi says. "I don't want to be late."
The laughter catches her by surprise.
Biter curls uneasily around her legs as the chuckles burn her throat on the way out, and seem to burn Kakashi's ears as well.
"What!?" He snaps. "I'm-- I'm not some slacker. You're the one who always dozes off in the afternoons!"
The surge of laughter finally subsides as quickly as the flinch of her hand that dropped the pot to shatter.
"I know," she says. Slowly, she knees down, and begins to sweep up the shards with the edge of her sheathe. "So. When are you leaving?"
There's no need to ask him for help, with the shards or with standing back up or with washing the dishes. She's going to have to do all of this alone, soon enough.
"Academy sign ups don't open up until next month," Seiko repeats for the second time to a nervous looking mother and her really excited kid. "Please come back in a month. We don't do advanced reservations."
"Yes, but..." The lady mutters. "Are you sure there's going to be room in her year?"
Seiko flips through clan-submitted quotas in her mind, since doing it manually would probably mean she'd drop them. There'd been a push for more teachers for the school recently, due to the increasing number of clan kids who would automatically receive a spot.
"I am positive, ma'am. Konoha has always prized its children highly."
The woman seems at least a little bit settled by this blatant lie.
"Next month!" She says sharply turning around. "Don't forget me! My name is--"
"Is that Seiko?"
Suzume's voice cuts right through whatever the lady had said as two kids from Seiko's own year both stepped into the room. Well. They were a year or so older than Seiko, since she'd graduated a little young. Potato, potahto.
"I thought you'd quit working here for sure," Akame says, his arms crossed as he follows Suzume up to her desk.
Suzume has black, curly hair and glasses. She ignores Akame along with the lady.
"You're a chunin already?" She says. "Wow... I mean, I can believe it, I saw you in the Academy and all. Maybe you could help me up the ranks after you're discharged from this place."
"Poor Suzume. Always out of the loop," Akame scoffs. "Seiko's--"
"What happened to your third teammate?" Seiko asks.
Akame's glare turns venomous.
"None of your business."
"He's dead," Suzume says. Her hands wring a little. "Do you have a sink somewhere around here, Seiko? I need to wash my hands."
Her hands are cracked from harsh scrubbing. And perfectly clean.
"You're fine," Akame snaps. "Knock that off, already. Ninja's don't let a little dirt bother them."
Seiko was going to ask them if they had mission parameters, then changed her mind. They would take whatever she pulled out.
The scroll slaps down onto the table, instantly drawing Akame's ire back onto her.
"A D-Rank? You want us to--"
There's an explosion of green from behind them.
"A Direct Request from the Youthful Maiden of Valor!" Might Duy announces, cheerily taking the scroll from Akame's loose grip. "Might I have the honor of taking this, young lady?"
"No, I've got a better one for you," Seiko says. "That's for them."
"You can't..." Akame trails off. There's a world of difference between getting in an argument with someone you went to class with and someone who's your dad's age, even if he is, technically, the same rank as you.
"We'll take it," Suzume says, voice tight. "Come on, Akame."
Sour faces fade from memory easily. Every day people come here and leave unsatisfied.
But Might Duy is still giving her a very intense look indeed.
And then he gets down on both knees, hands braced on the floor, and bows.
What--
"I! Am! Sorry!"
He's crying tears that seem to echo as they hit the floor, there's so many of them.
"To have such a cruel thing happen to you!"
What?
"To have been forced to stand on your own!" A fist smashes down at the floor as his own anguish grows ever louder. "TO HAVE LET MY OWN JOY BLIND ME!"
Seiko shoves her way around the desk, letting stuff scatter everywhere. Her knee clips a corner and pain curdles in her as she slumps down in front of him.
"Please, stand up," she mutters. "Sir--"
"To have spoken with him at his own son's wonderful birthday party! To have stood next to him, unable to understand his pain!!"
Ah.
Seiko hasn't felt the visceral failure of her ability to truly grip things in her hand for years in the way that she can't manage to pull this man off the ground.
"It's not your fault," she says. "It's--"
Hands grasp onto hers.
He stands up, helping her back to her feet with a charisma that implied he'd had no doubts at all about her ability to stand back up without assistance.
"Young maiden," he says. "Last year... why did you help me?"
Seiko stares at him.
"No reason," she says.
He hasn't let go.
"I am proud of my son," he says. "I believe him when he says he will break through his limits to become an outstanding warrior. But that's not why I wanted him to believe in youth. In spring."
From the corner of her eye, shadows twitch.
"Even if he couldn't become a ninja. Youth is about joy! It is about faith! It is about keeping spring in your heart! It is about working as hard as you can at the things that you love!"
He's crying again, loud sobs that can safely conceal her as his back blocks the view of the door.
"It is about persistence, even if you are mocked," he says. "I am sorry that the nobility that he so successfully passed onto his children could not see him through the winter."
He presses a black funeral pouch into her hands.
Seiko breath rasps on the way out. What's with that? Her throat isn't one of the many places where her injured nerves are. It should know when to stay quiet.
"... I set aside an appropriate mission for you a few days ago. Let me find it."
Without Kakashi or Sakumo at home, no one weeds. She can't grip the plants to pull them out by the roots, so the garden is... ugly, now. She was going to add Sakumo to the family shrine, but the shrine is in his office, which is--
Seiko closes her eyes and then opens them again.
Anyway, it's upstairs, which is already asking a lot of her. There's no rail on the staircase, making it in many ways more dangerous for her than the stupid one in the tower. Only it's much shorter, nothing truly would happen to her if she fell aside from a few bruises. Or she could make Biter carry...
She looks at the dog, then at the box of ashes that sits on the kitchen table. A stick of unlit incense is propped up against it. Seiko puts the black pouch on the other side of the box and sighs.
It can just stay down there. She doesn't eat at that table anyway.
Biter sneezes at the dust and gives her a sour look.
"You clean, if it bothers you so much," Seiko mutters back. "I'll tie a dust rag to your tail."
The dog butts his head against her shin.
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
She's hungry, but not in the mood to cook. Biter's food is always put out ahead of time, so he can eat whenever he wants. He's a smart dog. She believes in him.
There's a chair at the edge of the porch where she can stare out at the grown over grass where she'd gotten into a fight with Hoheto more than a year ago. Biter rears up, putting his paws all over her lap as if he thinks he can pull off the lap dog effect.
"You'll break the chair, idiot," Seiko says.
With a whine, he sits down on her feet instead.
He's been stressed lately. No one except her around the house means he's constantly on alert. No one in close range for him to summon through a sharp bark if she drops something. No one else to keep watch while she sleeps. No one too--
"I've got a hospital check in next month. Hope Ensui gets off his ass and finds more staff before then, because I'm usually in there for at least overnight while they all stare at me. Last time it took three days."
The sun slowly fades into twilight as she sits there, dull voice interweaving with the beat of Biter's tail against the floor as she speaks of nothing and remembers nothing and feels...
Her head snaps up at the same time as Biter's as an almost distant scream seems to be coming closer and closer.
"IFIDONTMANAGETODO5000LAPSTHENIWILLWEEDMYRIVAL'SSISTER'SGARDEN! IF I DON'T MANAGE TO TO 6000 PULL UPS THEN I WILL SCRUB MY RIVAL'S SISTER'S HOUSE TOP TO BOTTOM! IF I--"
There's a small green hurricane in front of her, breathing heavily.
"Hello, Sister of My Rival! I am Might Guy!"
He's very short.
"You can just call me Seiko," Seiko says, mind still catching up. "I know you. You're Kakashi's friend. He doesn't live here right now, though. I can give you his ad--"
A bow making his waist parallel to the ground as he continues to pant for breath..
"Miss Seiko! It would! Be an honor! To help you! Weed your garden!"
It's...
"Did your father tell you to do this?" Seiko asks. "You don't have to. I can just--"
Well. She can't, really. She can just sit here and have the garden not be taken care of. It's not like anything terrible would happen if she did that.
Or she could have help.
How odd.
"It's kind of a mess out there," Seiko says, quietly. "And you have to watch out. There are flowers somewhere underneath the weeds. I don't want those gone." She'll have to figure out some way to pay him.
Might Guy's eyes practically burn with fire.
"My months of D-Ranks have prepared me for this!"
It's--
He runs through her whole garden, and then he heads inside her house while she's still staring at the neat rows, the lines that had already grown distant in her memory restored.
It's--
He'd dusted the table where she keeps Sakumo's ashes, and lit the incensce, and left a freshly cut flower there. And underneath the flower, a note.
To: Seiko Hatake
If you're anything like my great Rival, you probably don't remember this at all! But I remember when my dad came home the day after he met you. He was smiling so brightly that I thought he'd blind the sun with his brilliance. He picked me up and danced around and said see! You could become a wonderful ninja just like her! Someone who fights for the dignity of the human spirit! Someone who carries spring in her heart!
In some ways this goal was so much harder than my goal of beating my Rival that I was shocked. But Goals are How We Improve!
And lastly, written in the same awkward, stilted hand:
I wanted to challenge you to a match as well, but my father said that wasn't appropriate. But! If it Ever Is!
--Might Guy, Genin of Konohagakure.
The paper crumples in her hands as she stares at the box of ashes.
"You hear that, dad..."
Damn it all.
She wouldn't be crying if she'd remembered to eat.
"I should start calling him the genius, instead of my stupid brother," Seiko sighs. "What do you think, Biter? Too much favoritism?"
