Fallow Fields [Naruto SI]
- Thread starter zarinthel
- Start date
- Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Calling Chakra Chakra is SOOO BAAAD😭😭😭. Especially when Gates (real Chakras) exist in the settings. There are so many options but he had to choose something completely off the wall 😔.
I specifically limited myself to stuff I remember from the manga to keep it to stuff that Kishimoto wrote.
I'm an old veteran of the Naruto FF.net Naruto Fandom Wars. Nothing funnier than arguing with people about what's Naruto "fanon" and then linking specific pages about how televisions are real or how Naruto's canon apartment as an orphan is bigger than the first three apartments I rented lmao
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Out of curiosity, how many times did you show the *yep, that shopkeeper has a shotgun under his desk right there* panel?
Though the main effect of that rule of cool worldbuilding for this fic had to be how the author has to work on power levels between the first few arcs and the end of Shipuuden.
Look, all I'm saying is that if Sakura had grabbed that shotgun, we could have shortened a lot of plotpoints with the ancient art of 12-gauge no jutsu.
- Location
- Leeds
Naruto Shippuden AU where that was her timeskip power up rather than Tsunade training.
So the thing with Manga Seiko is that there's a very common fan theory that she's either Kakashi's ex as he always sends the team to go pick up a mission from her rather than going himself. It's not until the first colored splash page with her in it having the same color hair that this starts to change, although first with "oh no she's his Mom!"
Someone tries to point out she looks too young to be his mom, everyone else just remind them that anime works on trope logic and that absurdly youthful mother is a thing.
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
It's kinda weird with the way ninja ages work that by the time it is ok to show them dating, the ninjas in question are old enough to have already be retired.
I always thought Naruto translations should have just arbitrarily added six years to everyone's age so the stories they were telling would make sense. An eight-year-old prodigy winning against multiple trained adult fighters? Lol. At least 14 is somewhat believable for that scenario.
I always thought Naruto translations should have just arbitrarily added six years to everyone's age so the stories they were telling would make sense. An eight-year-old prodigy winning against multiple trained adult fighters? Lol. At least 14 is somewhat believable for that scenario.
Wow, I just binged this entire story and it is beyond fantastic. I'm more than invested in everything and not ashamed to admit I cried a few times in reading it. You are good at evoking feelings. It's also amusing to think that her students are likely going to far surpass her in perhaps as few as three years and yet, that doesn't feel like a weakness to the story, or a weakness to her at all. It just is and what it is is fantastic.
I can't get over Itachi being the princess of the group lmao
- Location
- Gainful Employment
- Pronouns
- He/They
He really is.
Step 1: Kill the plant.
Step 2: resurrect Rin. (ask a few favors from Orochimaru)
Step 3: Develop a plausible plan for creating a utopia—or at least a sufficiently good society.
For the first step, she needs to ask Minato to use Sage Mode more frequently… and to learn the Mass Shadow Clone Jutsu.
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Appletank
Acquire Cheese
Honestly it's a bit baffling how underutilized shadow clones are for their information recovery. Don't just mention it and forget about it, drop a line about some sort of downside at least to excuse it.
Your brain received 100 times more information than usual in 1 second and melted itself. Or you ran out of chakra and died.
The canon reason, even if it is constantly forgotten both due to Naruto not being concerned by it and because the author himself forgot to integrate it for the characters concerned at times (looking at you, Itachi and Kakashi), is that making a shadow clone is a big investment in chakra that means you are limited in what you can use as long as the clone's out.
But as I said, the author does forget about it and has several characters known for their low chakra reserves use chakra intensive techniques with shadow clones.
As for mass shadow clones, the reason no one but Naruto can use it is the same: It costs too much chakra, and anyone without the monstrous reserves given by the Uzumaki bloodline and being a Jinchuriki will simply find that they and every one of their clones doesn't have any chakra to do anything after using the technique. This one, at least, is semi consistent in that no one but Naruto uses the mass version of the technique as far as I know.
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In short, shadow clones make you vulnerable when out, and that's why normally no one is supposed to be running with at least one out at all times, because that is dividing their chakra capacity by two for everything, and neither they nor the clone can fight at 100%.
Edit2:
As for *why does so and so don't learn mass shadow clones*, the technique is actually useless if your name isn't Naruto, and you will instantly suffer from chakra exhaustion at best if you try using it.
It wasn't forbidden because it was too powerful, it was forbidden because it kills those using it.
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Appletank
Acquire Cheese
Not even mass, even one clone scouting ahead would give you information while being safe. Also, if used for various tasks at home means the lack of chakra for fighting doesn't matter that much since you aren't expecting to be in life or death. You could read 2 books, file a document, buy groceries.
Ninjas, there is no moment that isn't life or death.
I'd also assume that there's a bit of exertion involved in actually expending a lot of chakra. If you have to do the equivalent of deadlifting your weight limit or something every time you wanted to do a shadow clone, you would actually try not to do it that often.
There's also the fact that shadow clones are a bit more independent than the other clones too I think. It wouldn't be out of the question that they'd act a bit differently for trivial tasks and do them with less enthusiasm than their summoner would.
There's also the fact that shadow clones are a bit more independent than the other clones too I think. It wouldn't be out of the question that they'd act a bit differently for trivial tasks and do them with less enthusiasm than their summoner would.
- Location
- Leeds
Gai doing grocery shopping.
Appletank
Acquire Cheese
On the other hand, you could also reframe it as training. It wouldn't be that much different from burning your tanks dry from firing off 2 chidoris.
Gai could call it, running around the village twice as much with a shadow clone.
Can Minato teleport a needle from her leg?
Can the Hugas "safely" live without the seal if they cut out their eyes and return them to the clan?
During the Chunin Exams, she could handle the presence of Chiyo, but what about Hoheto?
The first step in Orochimaru's Reformation is to resurrect his parents. What is the second step?
P.s. Seiko Before she got shot, reminds me of Fenn from Worth the Candle.
P.s.s.
View: https://youtu.be/Vite689AJaA?si=_t-GpuV1kFX5U-55 Imagine a Seiko in his place.
Can the Hugas "safely" live without the seal if they cut out their eyes and return them to the clan?
During the Chunin Exams, she could handle the presence of Chiyo, but what about Hoheto?
The first step in Orochimaru's Reformation is to resurrect his parents. What is the second step?
P.s. Seiko Before she got shot, reminds me of Fenn from Worth the Candle.
P.s.s.
View: https://youtu.be/Vite689AJaA?si=_t-GpuV1kFX5U-55 Imagine a Seiko in his place.
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TimEd
Meteor maker
On Minato, I think if he had any way to help her with the ultimate cause of her injury he already would have, instead of having to invent accessible crutches.
On the Hyuuga eye, I think I recall Hoheto mention or think something about how he'd be willing to remove his eye if he thought it would help him in removing the caged bird seal. It even makes logical sense because a Hyuuga who no longer has the eyes would still keep their bloodline so they can still be used to produce offspring who have chances of getting the Byakugan.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Trust
Nono Yakushi was not someone who helped others.
When she'd opened the orphanage, she thought
This won't help anyone.
Creating another funnel into the ninja academy is not an achievement, it's just a necessary distribution of resources. Someone has to do it, but most aren't qualified for it. Healing people just puts them back onto the battlefield. It would be better to poison every person she healed, cripple them and leave them for dead.
She thought about poisoning the children from time to time. Quieting them down, stopping them from attending classes, withering their ambition with a rattle in their chest.
Then she met Kabuto. Taught Kabuto.
He'd cure them, if she did that.
Then she asked Seiko Hatake to protect him, and was forever left with an exposed, bleeding weakness.
When Seiko Hatake was young-- and Nono remembers this vividly, so vividly, how young Seiko Hatake had been, the twitches of her fingers, the cracks in her bones, the swallowed screams dying in her throat-- Seiko Hatake had been afraid.
Afraid of everything except pain.
Seiko Hatake did everything Nono asked of her. Every exercise, every appointment, every request. The difference between funding an orphanage and forming a seal was negligible.
She took care of Kabuto and taught him to reach out to others and desire companionship and want recognition and now he would suffer forever instead of being empty.
Seiko started making requests of Nono, and Nono did not refuse them. When Danzo gave orders, he had Nono come to him, drop to her knees-- face down so as to not meet his eyes-- and she would report.
Then he stopped asking for her, and began to ask for Kabuto instead.
Seiko's requests were easy. Uproot Danzo's influence in the hospital. Protect the Uchiha patients. After she sent the Hyuga med-nin over, it got easier.
There are people in this world who will never have locks on their tongues.
Instead their locks are in their hearts, where Seiko has promised their child a future.
Is that so? Will that really happen? Is such a good thing possible?
It's a mistake to grow attached to anything in this world, and she'd opened up an orphanage. Taught Kabuto everything she knows.
The poison that tipped the needle in Seiko's knee was not meant for combat, but for torture. Chiyo Poisontongue would have chosen it deliberately before she began to set the trap for Seiko Hatake's team. The report, cobbled together from Hatake and Hyuga's muddled and at times contradictory memories of the event, was used by Danzo as an example of how a properly trained ninja can fight through any amount of pain.
Despite this statement, no ROOT agent injected with the toxin was capable of more than twitching their fingers and attempting to scream. Nerve pain tends to have secondary paralytic side effects.
How did she hold onto a sword? How did she speak? How did she refrain from killing herself, blade at her own wrist, to make it all stop?
All of this is absent from the report.
Will Seiko teach Kabuto that much, at least? That's the only way Nono can be assured.
Her knees hurt from kneeling on cold stone.
"Has your edge dulled, Lizard?" Danzo demands, voice harsh.
"No, my lord," Nono says, as her throat releases. "I owe you everything."
"That's right." Danzo's voice is low, triumphant. "You were nothing when I picked you out. Clanless, orphaned, street rat. The gutters still suit you, don't you think?"
Nono is silent. This is a trick question: ROOT does not think.
"Hatake's C-class proceeds at a snails pace," Danzo says, disdain warring with rage in the snarls of his voice. "Due to her weakness, she wastes the greatest potential of the next generation."
She's going to be late back to the orphanage. She'd already instructed one of the older boys to start cooking dinner without her, but she doesn't like leaving them without supervision. Kitchens are expensive to replace.
"Nothing to say to that?" Danzo snaps.
She has missed her cue. He must be in a good mood, not to punish her for that.
"My lord is wise," Nono says.
"A waste," Danzo continues, resuming his rant. "Of course, the true waste is in the Uchiha heir. The only thing precious about him are his eyes--- carve them out, and any man will do as well."
"Shall I kill him?"
A smirk. She's said something that amuses him beyond the appeasement she intends.
"No, no. Even a waste can be used as leverage. His cousin-- his cousin is afraid for the future of the Uchiha clan."
Shisui Uchiha can see far more than his uncle, but prey that knows it is being herded is still being herded. His mother is very ill, and even with the best care that Nono can provide-- has made sure was provided-- she cannot prevent the inevitable.
His mother is a civilian, and has to be treated with such delicacy. Without a robust chakra system, most treatments that would cure a ninja will kill her painfully.
"Emotions are a shinobi's downfall," Nono says, picking and choosing between aphorisms. Acknowledging when an enemy of Danzo's is making a correct judgement call is dangerous, even when the correct judgement call is that Danzo is dangerous.
Danzo smiles.
"Weaknesses must be eliminated at the root," he says. "Lizard."
Nono stills, caught for a second in the thought that even now, she has failed to see the bear trap until it has closed over her leg. Which point of the leg must she begin to gnaw on to make her escape? The ankle? The knee, like Seiko?
The hip?
"Yes, my lord."
"I have a mission for you," Lord Shimura says softly. "Pack your bags. You make for the Land of Hot Water."
Seiko Hatake is overly fond of the weak and the doomed.
It has long disconcerted Kabuto, because he isn't either of those things.
His future is bright, and it will become brighter. Even working for ROOT, under her wing he has escaped the shade. He will make chunin, and he will make jounin, and he'll become the hospital head like Nono and like Tsunade before her.
He will even earn the Dog contract, despite Yamato's efforts to undercut him and earn favor with Biter.
But Yamato is the team leader, so he is getting unearned credit for lots of things. Suggesting things that Kabuto was going to do anyway.
He'd been prepared to carry Seiko-sensei the whole way, even though she probably wouldn't like it, uncertain as to how his sensei even intended to make it all the way to Yugakure.
Despite everything, he'd underestimated her.
It's just--
Biter has been the same size for forever.
Now, he is the size of a horse, and Seiko had pulled herself up into an ornate, padded side saddle as if that was what she'd been doing her entire life. It was still slower than a full ninja run from tree to tree, as Biter didn't like to jostle her too much, but Kabuto had been resigned to the pace of a civilian cart.
The chakra necessary to maintain Biter at that size-- the sheer concentration needed--
It was the same as saying that she had put every bit of her faith into her genin team to protect her. She won't be doing anything else.
Kabuto looks over to where Itachi sits by the campfire, eyes facing outwards towards the shadow of the trees for any perceived threats. Yamato sleeps relatively peacefully near the fire, only occasionally making an odd, choking gargle in his throat before shifting to a different position. Seiko is curled on top of Biter, using his flanks as her bed and his floppy ear as her pillow.
Like Yamato, sleep does not restore an innocent facade, instead revealing the truth of pain lines deepening into a permanent scowl on her face.
He's tried to look at what Itachi is like when he sleeps, but Itachi, when it's not his turn to keep watch, sleeps beneath an illusion trap.
Paranoid bastard.
Also, the escort part of the escort task had also been more complicated. Not escorting someone to the Hot Springs, but escorting someone back to Konoha?
What type of person can get themselves to Yugakure but wants an escort back, anyway?
Someone privileged and lazy, that's who.
It doesn't really matter. A mission is a mission. No matter what the task, Kabuto will complete it, and complete it well.
He hopes some rogue ninja are foolish enough to attack them. Even Danzo tends to assign him spying missions rather than anything more serious.
Itachi has killed people already. The blood sticks on him, stains him. He's killed people, he's lost a teammate, he's already basically jounin level and is only still a genin due to politics.
Danzo says Kabuto's first assassination mission is coming soon.
He doesn't actually mind it. Working for ROOT. Danzo has let him go through some of the research confiscated from Orochimaru's labs.
It's fascinating.
If Orochimaru had stayed in the village just a little longer, Kabuto thinks Danzo would have tried to have Kabuto get recruited by the Sannin, work as a double agent.
But Seiko had gotten in the way of that. Of Kabuto getting to learn from the strongest of the Sannin. It wouldn't have been a genin-jounin relationship, but Orochimaru hadn't treated his genin well at all. So it could've been better.
From the notes, Anko is marked as a failure. Kabuto wouldn't have failed.
Seiko shifts, and the smallest noise of pain escapes.
If he's gotten training from Orochimaru, he'd have been able to cure her already.
Nono said she'd specifically refused treatment from Orochimaru, but she'd let Kabuto poke her with needles. So--
At one point, he'd wanted to ask her if she even wanted to be healed. Because she had options.
She could have sent her brother out to attempt to retrieve Tsunade. She could have asked Orochimaru to look at her wounds. Asked her Hyuuga teammate if his knowledge of chakra blockage would work to reduce her symptoms.
He'd asked Nono instead.
Nono had smiled nostalgically.
"Could have asked her sensei for help...." she says, and seems on the verge of strange laughter. A tiny hiccup, quickly swallowed down.
Nono never laughs. It rang in his ears for days, the harsh grate of a rusted door that still sounds the alarm even though all the fancy alarm seals have been properly disabled.
She'd never explained what was so funny, and he'd been wary of hearing the same laugh from Seiko.
So he'd never brought it up.
It's better that he be the one to cure her, anyway.
The Land of Hot Water is to the northeast of the Land of Fire, with the Land of Frost beyond it taking the brunt of the last brutal border fights between Konoha and Kumo. The flight between the Hokage and the Eight Tails happened there, turning that snowy land into what Kabuto imagines to be a cratered wasteland.
He wishes they were going there. The grasslands and rolling hills of Hot Water show absolutely no sign anything interesting had ever happened.
"It's so pretty," Yamato says, for the fourth time today about the third new flower species he's seen, as he failed to realize two of the flowers he'd seen were in fact from the same type of plant.
"Stay alert," Itachi says sharply, stealing the words out of Kabuto's mouth.
In the saddle. Seiko rolls her head and shifts positions, bones making ominous little cracking noises. She sighs.
"Pop quiz," she says. "What are we staying alert for? Itachi first, Yamato, Kabuto."
It's all a game to her. She used to shift the reporting order around, but she's stopped. Apparently him going last is optimal.
"Potential bandits or missing-nin in the area," Itachi says. "Research into Yugakure's missing nin shows no significant threats, but Uchiha records say the local Chinoike clan are dangerous and no longer affiliated with the village."
Oh, look at him, access to all of the Uchiha records.
"All of the civillains we've passed seem cheerful and unafraid when they see us," Yamato says. "I've been looking for any surveillance from Yugakure guards, but I haven't noticed any so far. They don't seem to worry very much about security compared to home."
No local ANBU either. Which is strange.
She's still waiting for him, eyebrow raised. Mentioning the ANBU isn't a new angle, it's just a slight addendum onto what Yamato's already said.
Talking to Danzo always gives Kabuto the sense of dodging between traps, a careful, ominous dance where he hears the metal claws close just behind him.
"There's a chance specific enemies unrelated to the mission could target--" not Itachi, Danzo doesn't want Itachi dead-- "Yamato. Or you, sensei. Yugakure isn't the only threat just because we're in its territory."
Itachi's eyes darken, while Yamato shivers.
Seiko just nods.
Talking to Seiko, he always has the sense of being one step too slow.
"All three of you are correct," she says. "There's a chance we could be attacked by rogue elements within the land. There's a chance we could be attacked by official ninjas. And there's a chance for personal matters to bring in enemies from far afield."
"And, of course," Seiko says off hand, "These categories can overlap."
She gestures at her injured knee.
"I was attacked by Sand nin, which is to be expected of war time. But I was attacked by a specific Sand-nin due to a Clan grudge."
She slowly looks between all three of them.
"Do you understand?"
"We'll avenge you, sensei!" Yamato pipes up first.
Kabuto is about to voice his agreement when he stops dead, as for the first time since the three of them had become her students it is proven that they can disappoint her with a sufficiently wrong answer.
"Her son was killed by my father," Seiko says. "What are you going to do? Cripple her grandson?"
Yamato sucks in a cold breath.
"I mean..." He says quietly. "At least beating him up should be okay?"
"Vengeance is natural," Itachi says.
Seiko is silent for a long time.
It's not until that night, her feet drifting through an open air hot spring they've chosen as their campsite, that she resumes speaking.
"I'm actually grateful to him," she says. "Sasori of the Red Sands."
It's Kabuto's turn on watch. He'd stayed silent when Itachi and Yamato promised revenge, and this is his reward.
"For what?"
"Sasori abandoning Suna was the end of that village's active participation in the third war," Seiko says. "Suna had no replacement for Sasori. He was their hope for the next generation. And when they needed him most, he just walked off."
There's a hint of envy in her.
"Also," Seiko says offhandedly. "Just beating up Sasori is impossible. His arts mean he can't feel pain-- so anything less than death is meaningless. He's the opposite of me."
"I could do it," Kabuto says.
"What?"
"I can make it so that he feels pain, and you feel no pain. It's not impossible at all."
Seiko begins to laugh, a low chuckle that vibrates through him as she places a shaking hand on his shoulder.
"You're cute," she says. "Alright, as a reward, I'll tell you a secret."
Kabuto straightens.
"I was lying," she says. "It's impossible for someone to be without pain. Sasori has replaced all his nerves with wood, but there's a nerve he can't replace."
She taps his heart.
"When you lose the will to dodge, nothing else matters."
"That's stupid," Kabuto says.
It's been a while since Lizard has done an assassination.
The target is surrounded by four obstacles with varying degrees of perception and strength. Even her action of pre-poisoning the hot spring water has only done so much to dull their senses, slow their reflexes.
If she had more flexible instructions, she would wait for a better time.
Their escort will join them shortly. There will not be a better time.
Her hands flash into seals.
Temple of Nirvana.
The drifting steam of the spring coalesces into floating white feathers, ghosting through the air to land on all of the already dazed sleepers, anchoring the drug to an A ranked genjutsu.
It won't last long, but it doesn't need to.
"Who's there!?"
Kabuto, still on watch, cleanses the poison from his veins and clears his mind of the illusion, turning his head wildly to detect the threat.
Lizard shifts, a twig breaking beneath her feet.
Ox, monkey, hare.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Missile!"
A technique that should take 42 seals is reduced to three as Kabuto takes advantage of his environment to hurl the entire spring at her, though it also re-soaks his teammates with the poison.
Mistake. He should have prioritized waking them.
"Heavenly Weeping."
The water thrown at her solidifies into thousands of senbon needles, hovering in the air for only a moment before they all hurtle towards Kabuto.
He's quick to dodge, real senbon in his hands used to deflect their watery mirrors as Lizard retreats further away from the camp. A few get through his defense, but don't manage to leave a visible mark on his skin, his body healing fast enough to push the needles back out.
She scans with her chakra sense. In her retreat, she's lost track of him. She stops beside a creek, crouching by the hot water.
She's been cold all her life. Even the air here is warm and gentle.
"Poison Mist Jutsu: Gamanzuyoi."
The poison that afflicts Seiko blows from her mouth, billowing out to turn the entire area around her into a pale violet hell.
Still no movement?
Perhaps he is wiser than she gave him credit for, going back for--
A small hand stabs a needle through her ankle.
As she staggers, a chakra scalpel cuts through the achilles tendon of her other leg, cutting physical and chakra networks simultaneously.
Left alone, both injuries will be crippling. However. She's a med-nin.
"Medical Water Release: Water Mosquito!"
Even one exposed hand is enough.
The steam she'd poisoned coalesces into thousands of parasitic blood suckers. They stab through his skin, stealing life and returning pain in its stead.
He attempts to pull the hand back and he falters, the paralytic aspect of the poison working its way down the arm. She grabs it instead, yanking him up from the earth. Each inch of flesh exposed is an inch of flesh vulnerable.
Dangling in front of her, he can see her clearly for the first time.
"Why is an ANBU from Mist here?" He manages to speak through the pain. "Who sent you? Which one of them are you after?"
She's always preferred Mist's masks to Konoha's. This one she took off the body of one who went by the codename Sunshower. She'd killed them for the name and the mask pattern in a fit of vanity when she was much younger.
The narrative she's constructed demands the answer be Yamato.
Orochimaru is settled in his base to the north of the Land of Fire and west of the Land of Hot Water-- in the innocuously named Land of Rice Paddies. She's been informed by Lord Shimura that the Sannin still very much wants Yamato back. A promising experiment, ended too soon.
And no matter what mask she wears, there's nothing to disbelieve about working for the disgraced Sannin. Power is power.
That is the answer that will make Kabuto let his guard down.
Seiko--
Kill her, Lord Shimura said. She can't live, she's worthless, kill her, kill her, kill her kill her.
Cut her tongue out and bring it to me.
The only survivor should be the Uchiha.
What about the other, my lord?
Ghosts should know their place in this world.
Do you know your place, Lizard?
"All of them are more valuable than you," Lizard says.
Kabuto scowls, fiercely struggling through the pain, his words faint.
"Then, at least--" He pants. "Can you--"
Can she?
In this world, what can she do?
Despite herself, Lizard leans slightly closer to him.
"Can you just die!"
Wide scalpel cuts open up on her hands, her arms, her shoulders, and she shudders and drops him as the Gamanzoyui poison that she'd named seeps in.
She's exposed herself to enough of it over the years that it's withstandable, but that's her limit. Its strength shows itself against other med-nin, because there is no antidote. No matter how good you are at curing yourself, once rooted in bone marrow, this poison will not leave.
"Medical Water Release: Jellyfish."
The poison swells out of her wounds into the dome of a jellyfish mound before pulling itself off, tentacles and all. The poison jellyfish hangs over her head, tentacles warding off Kabuto's testing attacks.
Nono's parents had originally come from the Land of Iron. They had been armorers.
They had traveled to the Land of Fire because the Land of Iron was too cold for her mother, who was frequently sick.
So, it hadn't been the cold that killed them, but the Will of Fire.
The second war took and it took and it took.
What name did her parents give her?
"Yin Reversal Wound Creation!"
This time, when the chakra scalpels sink into her skin, she can't push them out. What horrifying invention has he made this time? Every wound bleeds more than it should, aches and hurts, and rejects her healing as she struggles to stem the flow.
Lizard gasps for air, a rattling sound emerging from her throat.
Nanigashi?
Had it been Nanigashi? Lord Shimura had called her that for years, before she picked her own name, opened the orphanage.
She can't concentrate enough to recreate the mosquitos.
"Water Release...water strike."
He dodges easily, continuing to bleed her out.
One of his hands is still not fully recovered-- he must be holding a grudge.
"Weak," Kabuto murmurs. "I'll show you how it's done. Water Release: Water Severing Slash!"
Is this really the child she raised?
The jet of pressurized water, spat from his mouth, collides with her mask.
She reaches up to the split pieces, uncomprehending.
"This was the prettiest mask in my collection," she says. "How could you...break it?"
Yes, that selfish nature.
Was truly just like hers.
Back at the orphanage, it should be time for her annual rounds to tuck the children in.
Seiko instructed all three of them to stay alert, but only he had been properly alert. Only he had guessed the correct danger.
Getting to fight this opponent one on one is his reward.
But something is strange.
This poison--
Isn't it a Sand poison? Why is a Mist ANBU using a Sand poison?
Isn't the poison that afflicts Seiko-sensei really rare?
It could be Seiko's enemies come to get their final revenge, using a disguise because it's an unofficial, personal vendetta. Chiyo Poisontongue's apprentice, come to match wits with Seiko's genin.
If that were the case, shouldn't there be taunts?
All there is is a dry voice. If he weren't capable of the Mystic Palm Jutsu, of understanding his opponents chakra system from a distance, he'd assume he was fighting a puppet-- either that or a corpse.
The Dead Soul Jutsu could achieve such an effect. He's been researching it. Performing surgery on a corpse to make its heart beat temporarily again, then using chakra to puppet the body and imitate all signs of life.
Puppeting the dead isn't a forbidden technique in most forms. Konoha has no restrictions on it.
Below their feet, he analyzes them.
The moves he used against Itachi weren't wrong, merely ill suited for fighting such a monster. It will work here the way it's meant to.
To combat the water mosquitos, the first thing he does is cut the nerves in his hand off from the rest of his body. As a result he loses the ability for strength maneuvers, but it's a minor sacrifice. The poison's power comes from pain: if his nerves are unable to convey the pain, then it's as if he's unharmed.
The skill he's created, Yin Healing Wound Destruction, reallocates his healing ability to where he'll need it most. The mosquitos simply make it easy. You wouldn't even need to be a genius to survive.
Dangling in front of them, he can finally see clearly enough to guess gender. See the mask.
A dark blue line bisects the white mask diagonally, with the top section a faded yellow. There's hints of amateurish brushstrokes, the color not quite fully matched as repairs clash with the original base coat.
So, not a true Mist nin.
Asking her who her true master is is pointless, but it's good to seem like he's struggling. He'll gain his answers from her corpse.
He leans closer to her, thrashing about and letting his limbs twitch in a mimicry of Seiko's pain.
Every time he injures her, she heals. It's not as good as when he does it, but it's annoying. He's never had to fight anyone so similar before.
Ideas that he'd never otherwise need converge in his mind. Yin Healing Wound Destruction is a personal skill, meant to make him functionally immortal as long as any one hit doesn't overwhelm his chakra supply. Now, it's time to reverse it.
Yin Reversal Wound Creation will make anyone bleed out from the most minor of wounds. It will weaken the cells, using their own chakra against them.
For the first time, his opponent cries out.
Shows weakness. Her blood scatters into the receding poisonous mist that still curls around them both, falling like petals and scattering.
He'd been pulled from the battlefield he'd been orphaned on, able to remember nothing at all. His first memory is of hearing Nono's heartbeat as she picked him up, took him away from there.
He hears an echo of that now.
Why?
She makes a limp seal, throwing barely sharpened water in his direction.
What is this sensation? He's prevented the poison from reaching him; he cannot perceive pain. Has he made a mistake in the procedure?
Has it gotten past the block, seeped somehow into his heart?
He has to kill her quickly, so he can make a full assessment.
"--Water Release: Water Severing Slash!"
The mask cracks, and the water blade continues onwards, scoring a bleeding line across her face, red dripping down and completely hiding one eye.
How could you?
Kabuto performs a one handed seal.
"Kai!"
The genjutsu doesn't break.
She's fallen to her knees, crimson hands reaching out for the broken pieces of ceramic. Her dull green eyes look past him, dismissive.
No. She's lost too much blood to keep her balance, and now her depth perception is gone to the point where she can't even hold the pieces.
"Kai!" Kabuto says again, louder, frantic. He casts a fast wind release to blow the poisoned mist away from their fight. He should've done it earlier, but it hadn't been causing him any unhandleable issues.
"It's late," Nono murmurs. "Go to sleep."
"Nono?" Kabuto says tentatively.
Her eyes aren't focusing.
He drops to his knees in front of her, green energy flaring as he uses physical contact for a more thorough Mystic Palm Jutsu.
It tells him the same thing he already knows: she is dying.
He checks for flaws in an illusion, but she matches his memory perfectly, every flaw and blood vein. The only deviations are all the new wounds he'd inflicted. And the poison. It's gotten into her bloodstream, it's gotten into her bones. He can't let that stay in, he has to--
He tries to heal them, knit all the cuts shut, and struggles.
He's only just invented this technique: this is experiment number one. But he-- can heal his own jutsu. Definitely. Even though he invented it with the specific idea that it would reject healing techniques.
"You knew who I was," Kabuto mutters, a hysterical edge to his voice while he keeps his hands steady. A surgeon's hands cannot shake. "You were sent to kill me. Why would he do that? No, he wouldn't do that, it doesn't make sense. You're loyal. I'm loyal. I'm the best he could have. Why would he do that? Nono, I don't understand. Explain it to me."
He presses his hands against the worst of his chakra scalpel cuts, scrambling to invent a third jutsu, a cure for his own curse. She's dying due to blood loss, not due to any specific wound, so if he can just--
His blood type is AB. He can't give his to her, it will kill her faster.
"Roots cannot know the light," Nono says, her eyes catching for a second on him before she convulses in agony, hands reaching for her throat.
She can't answer, the seal will kill her, he knows that! He knows that!
Kabuto frantically covers her mouth.
What can he do.
If only Seiko were--
Biter's cold nose nudges onto his heart in the same spot Seiko had tapped. It pierces through him like a spike, relief so visceral it just feels like more pain.
"Why'd you go off on your own!" Yamato demands, and Itachi makes a sharp click of disapproval behind him. "You could have been abducted!"
"You could have died," Itachi says.
He doesn't have time for them. Kabuto blinks fast, and grabs at Itachi. Useless bastard has the same blood type as Kabuto. And Yamato's not useful either. Type A isn't good enough.
"Seiko!" He says frantically. "Where is she? You didn't leave her did you? You might, but Biter wouldn't, right? Right?"
Nono is getting colder.
He hugs her.
"Nono, I can heal you," he insists. "I can heal anything. I won't disappoint you. I'll fix your mask. I'll repaint it."
"You...keep using that name," Nono finally responds. Her voice sounds so wet. Fluid in the lungs. "Who's that?"
"It's you," Seiko Hatake says, limping forward heavily on her crutches. "Well, Lizard. It's who you wanted to be."
"Seiko," Kabuto starts, and for the first time he hesitates. She doesn't look good. And asking her for-- when he promised-- but-- "Your blood. You can save her. Will you help me?"
His hands are shaking. They can't be shaking. How is he going to save her like this?
"I think you'll need more than just my help," Seiko says, sinking down to kneel beside him. She smiles.
How can she smile?
"Itachi, Yamato, get over here," Seiko says. "Itachi, copy Kabuto's movements. Yamato, let's get this blood out of me and into my old friend. And Kabuto--"
Kabuto hasn't let go of Nono.
"Yes?" Kabuto rasps. "What should I do?"
Seiko's eyes overlay with the first time she ever met him, and he already knows the answer before she says it.
"Do your best."
A/N: 'Gamanzuyoi', aka, the name Nono gave the poison Seiko is afflicted with, can be translated as 'enduring the unbearable'.
A/N 2: my friend-- that's right, the friend who's art is the header for this fic-- has written a webnovel! And put the first three chapters on their website! If you like my work, you will certainly like theirs. Check it out.
When she'd opened the orphanage, she thought
This won't help anyone.
Creating another funnel into the ninja academy is not an achievement, it's just a necessary distribution of resources. Someone has to do it, but most aren't qualified for it. Healing people just puts them back onto the battlefield. It would be better to poison every person she healed, cripple them and leave them for dead.
She thought about poisoning the children from time to time. Quieting them down, stopping them from attending classes, withering their ambition with a rattle in their chest.
Then she met Kabuto. Taught Kabuto.
He'd cure them, if she did that.
Then she asked Seiko Hatake to protect him, and was forever left with an exposed, bleeding weakness.
When Seiko Hatake was young-- and Nono remembers this vividly, so vividly, how young Seiko Hatake had been, the twitches of her fingers, the cracks in her bones, the swallowed screams dying in her throat-- Seiko Hatake had been afraid.
Afraid of everything except pain.
Seiko Hatake did everything Nono asked of her. Every exercise, every appointment, every request. The difference between funding an orphanage and forming a seal was negligible.
She took care of Kabuto and taught him to reach out to others and desire companionship and want recognition and now he would suffer forever instead of being empty.
Seiko started making requests of Nono, and Nono did not refuse them. When Danzo gave orders, he had Nono come to him, drop to her knees-- face down so as to not meet his eyes-- and she would report.
Then he stopped asking for her, and began to ask for Kabuto instead.
Seiko's requests were easy. Uproot Danzo's influence in the hospital. Protect the Uchiha patients. After she sent the Hyuga med-nin over, it got easier.
There are people in this world who will never have locks on their tongues.
Instead their locks are in their hearts, where Seiko has promised their child a future.
Is that so? Will that really happen? Is such a good thing possible?
It's a mistake to grow attached to anything in this world, and she'd opened up an orphanage. Taught Kabuto everything she knows.
The poison that tipped the needle in Seiko's knee was not meant for combat, but for torture. Chiyo Poisontongue would have chosen it deliberately before she began to set the trap for Seiko Hatake's team. The report, cobbled together from Hatake and Hyuga's muddled and at times contradictory memories of the event, was used by Danzo as an example of how a properly trained ninja can fight through any amount of pain.
Despite this statement, no ROOT agent injected with the toxin was capable of more than twitching their fingers and attempting to scream. Nerve pain tends to have secondary paralytic side effects.
How did she hold onto a sword? How did she speak? How did she refrain from killing herself, blade at her own wrist, to make it all stop?
All of this is absent from the report.
Will Seiko teach Kabuto that much, at least? That's the only way Nono can be assured.
Her knees hurt from kneeling on cold stone.
"Has your edge dulled, Lizard?" Danzo demands, voice harsh.
"No, my lord," Nono says, as her throat releases. "I owe you everything."
"That's right." Danzo's voice is low, triumphant. "You were nothing when I picked you out. Clanless, orphaned, street rat. The gutters still suit you, don't you think?"
Nono is silent. This is a trick question: ROOT does not think.
"Hatake's C-class proceeds at a snails pace," Danzo says, disdain warring with rage in the snarls of his voice. "Due to her weakness, she wastes the greatest potential of the next generation."
She's going to be late back to the orphanage. She'd already instructed one of the older boys to start cooking dinner without her, but she doesn't like leaving them without supervision. Kitchens are expensive to replace.
"Nothing to say to that?" Danzo snaps.
She has missed her cue. He must be in a good mood, not to punish her for that.
"My lord is wise," Nono says.
"A waste," Danzo continues, resuming his rant. "Of course, the true waste is in the Uchiha heir. The only thing precious about him are his eyes--- carve them out, and any man will do as well."
"Shall I kill him?"
A smirk. She's said something that amuses him beyond the appeasement she intends.
"No, no. Even a waste can be used as leverage. His cousin-- his cousin is afraid for the future of the Uchiha clan."
Shisui Uchiha can see far more than his uncle, but prey that knows it is being herded is still being herded. His mother is very ill, and even with the best care that Nono can provide-- has made sure was provided-- she cannot prevent the inevitable.
His mother is a civilian, and has to be treated with such delicacy. Without a robust chakra system, most treatments that would cure a ninja will kill her painfully.
"Emotions are a shinobi's downfall," Nono says, picking and choosing between aphorisms. Acknowledging when an enemy of Danzo's is making a correct judgement call is dangerous, even when the correct judgement call is that Danzo is dangerous.
Danzo smiles.
"Weaknesses must be eliminated at the root," he says. "Lizard."
Nono stills, caught for a second in the thought that even now, she has failed to see the bear trap until it has closed over her leg. Which point of the leg must she begin to gnaw on to make her escape? The ankle? The knee, like Seiko?
The hip?
"Yes, my lord."
"I have a mission for you," Lord Shimura says softly. "Pack your bags. You make for the Land of Hot Water."
Seiko Hatake is overly fond of the weak and the doomed.
It has long disconcerted Kabuto, because he isn't either of those things.
His future is bright, and it will become brighter. Even working for ROOT, under her wing he has escaped the shade. He will make chunin, and he will make jounin, and he'll become the hospital head like Nono and like Tsunade before her.
He will even earn the Dog contract, despite Yamato's efforts to undercut him and earn favor with Biter.
But Yamato is the team leader, so he is getting unearned credit for lots of things. Suggesting things that Kabuto was going to do anyway.
He'd been prepared to carry Seiko-sensei the whole way, even though she probably wouldn't like it, uncertain as to how his sensei even intended to make it all the way to Yugakure.
Despite everything, he'd underestimated her.
It's just--
Biter has been the same size for forever.
Now, he is the size of a horse, and Seiko had pulled herself up into an ornate, padded side saddle as if that was what she'd been doing her entire life. It was still slower than a full ninja run from tree to tree, as Biter didn't like to jostle her too much, but Kabuto had been resigned to the pace of a civilian cart.
The chakra necessary to maintain Biter at that size-- the sheer concentration needed--
It was the same as saying that she had put every bit of her faith into her genin team to protect her. She won't be doing anything else.
Kabuto looks over to where Itachi sits by the campfire, eyes facing outwards towards the shadow of the trees for any perceived threats. Yamato sleeps relatively peacefully near the fire, only occasionally making an odd, choking gargle in his throat before shifting to a different position. Seiko is curled on top of Biter, using his flanks as her bed and his floppy ear as her pillow.
Like Yamato, sleep does not restore an innocent facade, instead revealing the truth of pain lines deepening into a permanent scowl on her face.
He's tried to look at what Itachi is like when he sleeps, but Itachi, when it's not his turn to keep watch, sleeps beneath an illusion trap.
Paranoid bastard.
Also, the escort part of the escort task had also been more complicated. Not escorting someone to the Hot Springs, but escorting someone back to Konoha?
What type of person can get themselves to Yugakure but wants an escort back, anyway?
Someone privileged and lazy, that's who.
It doesn't really matter. A mission is a mission. No matter what the task, Kabuto will complete it, and complete it well.
He hopes some rogue ninja are foolish enough to attack them. Even Danzo tends to assign him spying missions rather than anything more serious.
Itachi has killed people already. The blood sticks on him, stains him. He's killed people, he's lost a teammate, he's already basically jounin level and is only still a genin due to politics.
Danzo says Kabuto's first assassination mission is coming soon.
He doesn't actually mind it. Working for ROOT. Danzo has let him go through some of the research confiscated from Orochimaru's labs.
It's fascinating.
If Orochimaru had stayed in the village just a little longer, Kabuto thinks Danzo would have tried to have Kabuto get recruited by the Sannin, work as a double agent.
But Seiko had gotten in the way of that. Of Kabuto getting to learn from the strongest of the Sannin. It wouldn't have been a genin-jounin relationship, but Orochimaru hadn't treated his genin well at all. So it could've been better.
From the notes, Anko is marked as a failure. Kabuto wouldn't have failed.
Seiko shifts, and the smallest noise of pain escapes.
If he's gotten training from Orochimaru, he'd have been able to cure her already.
Nono said she'd specifically refused treatment from Orochimaru, but she'd let Kabuto poke her with needles. So--
At one point, he'd wanted to ask her if she even wanted to be healed. Because she had options.
She could have sent her brother out to attempt to retrieve Tsunade. She could have asked Orochimaru to look at her wounds. Asked her Hyuuga teammate if his knowledge of chakra blockage would work to reduce her symptoms.
He'd asked Nono instead.
Nono had smiled nostalgically.
"Could have asked her sensei for help...." she says, and seems on the verge of strange laughter. A tiny hiccup, quickly swallowed down.
Nono never laughs. It rang in his ears for days, the harsh grate of a rusted door that still sounds the alarm even though all the fancy alarm seals have been properly disabled.
She'd never explained what was so funny, and he'd been wary of hearing the same laugh from Seiko.
So he'd never brought it up.
It's better that he be the one to cure her, anyway.
The Land of Hot Water is to the northeast of the Land of Fire, with the Land of Frost beyond it taking the brunt of the last brutal border fights between Konoha and Kumo. The flight between the Hokage and the Eight Tails happened there, turning that snowy land into what Kabuto imagines to be a cratered wasteland.
He wishes they were going there. The grasslands and rolling hills of Hot Water show absolutely no sign anything interesting had ever happened.
"It's so pretty," Yamato says, for the fourth time today about the third new flower species he's seen, as he failed to realize two of the flowers he'd seen were in fact from the same type of plant.
"Stay alert," Itachi says sharply, stealing the words out of Kabuto's mouth.
In the saddle. Seiko rolls her head and shifts positions, bones making ominous little cracking noises. She sighs.
"Pop quiz," she says. "What are we staying alert for? Itachi first, Yamato, Kabuto."
It's all a game to her. She used to shift the reporting order around, but she's stopped. Apparently him going last is optimal.
"Potential bandits or missing-nin in the area," Itachi says. "Research into Yugakure's missing nin shows no significant threats, but Uchiha records say the local Chinoike clan are dangerous and no longer affiliated with the village."
Oh, look at him, access to all of the Uchiha records.
"All of the civillains we've passed seem cheerful and unafraid when they see us," Yamato says. "I've been looking for any surveillance from Yugakure guards, but I haven't noticed any so far. They don't seem to worry very much about security compared to home."
No local ANBU either. Which is strange.
She's still waiting for him, eyebrow raised. Mentioning the ANBU isn't a new angle, it's just a slight addendum onto what Yamato's already said.
Talking to Danzo always gives Kabuto the sense of dodging between traps, a careful, ominous dance where he hears the metal claws close just behind him.
"There's a chance specific enemies unrelated to the mission could target--" not Itachi, Danzo doesn't want Itachi dead-- "Yamato. Or you, sensei. Yugakure isn't the only threat just because we're in its territory."
Itachi's eyes darken, while Yamato shivers.
Seiko just nods.
Talking to Seiko, he always has the sense of being one step too slow.
"All three of you are correct," she says. "There's a chance we could be attacked by rogue elements within the land. There's a chance we could be attacked by official ninjas. And there's a chance for personal matters to bring in enemies from far afield."
"And, of course," Seiko says off hand, "These categories can overlap."
She gestures at her injured knee.
"I was attacked by Sand nin, which is to be expected of war time. But I was attacked by a specific Sand-nin due to a Clan grudge."
She slowly looks between all three of them.
"Do you understand?"
"We'll avenge you, sensei!" Yamato pipes up first.
Kabuto is about to voice his agreement when he stops dead, as for the first time since the three of them had become her students it is proven that they can disappoint her with a sufficiently wrong answer.
"Her son was killed by my father," Seiko says. "What are you going to do? Cripple her grandson?"
Yamato sucks in a cold breath.
"I mean..." He says quietly. "At least beating him up should be okay?"
"Vengeance is natural," Itachi says.
Seiko is silent for a long time.
It's not until that night, her feet drifting through an open air hot spring they've chosen as their campsite, that she resumes speaking.
"I'm actually grateful to him," she says. "Sasori of the Red Sands."
It's Kabuto's turn on watch. He'd stayed silent when Itachi and Yamato promised revenge, and this is his reward.
"For what?"
"Sasori abandoning Suna was the end of that village's active participation in the third war," Seiko says. "Suna had no replacement for Sasori. He was their hope for the next generation. And when they needed him most, he just walked off."
There's a hint of envy in her.
"Also," Seiko says offhandedly. "Just beating up Sasori is impossible. His arts mean he can't feel pain-- so anything less than death is meaningless. He's the opposite of me."
"I could do it," Kabuto says.
"What?"
"I can make it so that he feels pain, and you feel no pain. It's not impossible at all."
Seiko begins to laugh, a low chuckle that vibrates through him as she places a shaking hand on his shoulder.
"You're cute," she says. "Alright, as a reward, I'll tell you a secret."
Kabuto straightens.
"I was lying," she says. "It's impossible for someone to be without pain. Sasori has replaced all his nerves with wood, but there's a nerve he can't replace."
She taps his heart.
"When you lose the will to dodge, nothing else matters."
"That's stupid," Kabuto says.
It's been a while since Lizard has done an assassination.
The target is surrounded by four obstacles with varying degrees of perception and strength. Even her action of pre-poisoning the hot spring water has only done so much to dull their senses, slow their reflexes.
If she had more flexible instructions, she would wait for a better time.
Their escort will join them shortly. There will not be a better time.
Her hands flash into seals.
Temple of Nirvana.
The drifting steam of the spring coalesces into floating white feathers, ghosting through the air to land on all of the already dazed sleepers, anchoring the drug to an A ranked genjutsu.
It won't last long, but it doesn't need to.
"Who's there!?"
Kabuto, still on watch, cleanses the poison from his veins and clears his mind of the illusion, turning his head wildly to detect the threat.
Lizard shifts, a twig breaking beneath her feet.
Ox, monkey, hare.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Missile!"
A technique that should take 42 seals is reduced to three as Kabuto takes advantage of his environment to hurl the entire spring at her, though it also re-soaks his teammates with the poison.
Mistake. He should have prioritized waking them.
"Heavenly Weeping."
The water thrown at her solidifies into thousands of senbon needles, hovering in the air for only a moment before they all hurtle towards Kabuto.
He's quick to dodge, real senbon in his hands used to deflect their watery mirrors as Lizard retreats further away from the camp. A few get through his defense, but don't manage to leave a visible mark on his skin, his body healing fast enough to push the needles back out.
She scans with her chakra sense. In her retreat, she's lost track of him. She stops beside a creek, crouching by the hot water.
She's been cold all her life. Even the air here is warm and gentle.
"Poison Mist Jutsu: Gamanzuyoi."
The poison that afflicts Seiko blows from her mouth, billowing out to turn the entire area around her into a pale violet hell.
Still no movement?
Perhaps he is wiser than she gave him credit for, going back for--
A small hand stabs a needle through her ankle.
As she staggers, a chakra scalpel cuts through the achilles tendon of her other leg, cutting physical and chakra networks simultaneously.
Left alone, both injuries will be crippling. However. She's a med-nin.
"Medical Water Release: Water Mosquito!"
Even one exposed hand is enough.
The steam she'd poisoned coalesces into thousands of parasitic blood suckers. They stab through his skin, stealing life and returning pain in its stead.
He attempts to pull the hand back and he falters, the paralytic aspect of the poison working its way down the arm. She grabs it instead, yanking him up from the earth. Each inch of flesh exposed is an inch of flesh vulnerable.
Dangling in front of her, he can see her clearly for the first time.
"Why is an ANBU from Mist here?" He manages to speak through the pain. "Who sent you? Which one of them are you after?"
She's always preferred Mist's masks to Konoha's. This one she took off the body of one who went by the codename Sunshower. She'd killed them for the name and the mask pattern in a fit of vanity when she was much younger.
The narrative she's constructed demands the answer be Yamato.
Orochimaru is settled in his base to the north of the Land of Fire and west of the Land of Hot Water-- in the innocuously named Land of Rice Paddies. She's been informed by Lord Shimura that the Sannin still very much wants Yamato back. A promising experiment, ended too soon.
And no matter what mask she wears, there's nothing to disbelieve about working for the disgraced Sannin. Power is power.
That is the answer that will make Kabuto let his guard down.
Seiko--
Kill her, Lord Shimura said. She can't live, she's worthless, kill her, kill her, kill her kill her.
Cut her tongue out and bring it to me.
The only survivor should be the Uchiha.
What about the other, my lord?
Ghosts should know their place in this world.
Do you know your place, Lizard?
"All of them are more valuable than you," Lizard says.
Kabuto scowls, fiercely struggling through the pain, his words faint.
"Then, at least--" He pants. "Can you--"
Can she?
In this world, what can she do?
Despite herself, Lizard leans slightly closer to him.
"Can you just die!"
Wide scalpel cuts open up on her hands, her arms, her shoulders, and she shudders and drops him as the Gamanzoyui poison that she'd named seeps in.
She's exposed herself to enough of it over the years that it's withstandable, but that's her limit. Its strength shows itself against other med-nin, because there is no antidote. No matter how good you are at curing yourself, once rooted in bone marrow, this poison will not leave.
"Medical Water Release: Jellyfish."
The poison swells out of her wounds into the dome of a jellyfish mound before pulling itself off, tentacles and all. The poison jellyfish hangs over her head, tentacles warding off Kabuto's testing attacks.
Nono's parents had originally come from the Land of Iron. They had been armorers.
They had traveled to the Land of Fire because the Land of Iron was too cold for her mother, who was frequently sick.
So, it hadn't been the cold that killed them, but the Will of Fire.
The second war took and it took and it took.
What name did her parents give her?
"Yin Reversal Wound Creation!"
This time, when the chakra scalpels sink into her skin, she can't push them out. What horrifying invention has he made this time? Every wound bleeds more than it should, aches and hurts, and rejects her healing as she struggles to stem the flow.
Lizard gasps for air, a rattling sound emerging from her throat.
Nanigashi?
Had it been Nanigashi? Lord Shimura had called her that for years, before she picked her own name, opened the orphanage.
She can't concentrate enough to recreate the mosquitos.
"Water Release...water strike."
He dodges easily, continuing to bleed her out.
One of his hands is still not fully recovered-- he must be holding a grudge.
"Weak," Kabuto murmurs. "I'll show you how it's done. Water Release: Water Severing Slash!"
Is this really the child she raised?
The jet of pressurized water, spat from his mouth, collides with her mask.
She reaches up to the split pieces, uncomprehending.
"This was the prettiest mask in my collection," she says. "How could you...break it?"
Yes, that selfish nature.
Was truly just like hers.
Back at the orphanage, it should be time for her annual rounds to tuck the children in.
Seiko instructed all three of them to stay alert, but only he had been properly alert. Only he had guessed the correct danger.
Getting to fight this opponent one on one is his reward.
But something is strange.
This poison--
Isn't it a Sand poison? Why is a Mist ANBU using a Sand poison?
Isn't the poison that afflicts Seiko-sensei really rare?
It could be Seiko's enemies come to get their final revenge, using a disguise because it's an unofficial, personal vendetta. Chiyo Poisontongue's apprentice, come to match wits with Seiko's genin.
If that were the case, shouldn't there be taunts?
All there is is a dry voice. If he weren't capable of the Mystic Palm Jutsu, of understanding his opponents chakra system from a distance, he'd assume he was fighting a puppet-- either that or a corpse.
The Dead Soul Jutsu could achieve such an effect. He's been researching it. Performing surgery on a corpse to make its heart beat temporarily again, then using chakra to puppet the body and imitate all signs of life.
Puppeting the dead isn't a forbidden technique in most forms. Konoha has no restrictions on it.
Below their feet, he analyzes them.
The moves he used against Itachi weren't wrong, merely ill suited for fighting such a monster. It will work here the way it's meant to.
To combat the water mosquitos, the first thing he does is cut the nerves in his hand off from the rest of his body. As a result he loses the ability for strength maneuvers, but it's a minor sacrifice. The poison's power comes from pain: if his nerves are unable to convey the pain, then it's as if he's unharmed.
The skill he's created, Yin Healing Wound Destruction, reallocates his healing ability to where he'll need it most. The mosquitos simply make it easy. You wouldn't even need to be a genius to survive.
Dangling in front of them, he can finally see clearly enough to guess gender. See the mask.
A dark blue line bisects the white mask diagonally, with the top section a faded yellow. There's hints of amateurish brushstrokes, the color not quite fully matched as repairs clash with the original base coat.
So, not a true Mist nin.
Asking her who her true master is is pointless, but it's good to seem like he's struggling. He'll gain his answers from her corpse.
He leans closer to her, thrashing about and letting his limbs twitch in a mimicry of Seiko's pain.
Every time he injures her, she heals. It's not as good as when he does it, but it's annoying. He's never had to fight anyone so similar before.
Ideas that he'd never otherwise need converge in his mind. Yin Healing Wound Destruction is a personal skill, meant to make him functionally immortal as long as any one hit doesn't overwhelm his chakra supply. Now, it's time to reverse it.
Yin Reversal Wound Creation will make anyone bleed out from the most minor of wounds. It will weaken the cells, using their own chakra against them.
For the first time, his opponent cries out.
Shows weakness. Her blood scatters into the receding poisonous mist that still curls around them both, falling like petals and scattering.
He'd been pulled from the battlefield he'd been orphaned on, able to remember nothing at all. His first memory is of hearing Nono's heartbeat as she picked him up, took him away from there.
He hears an echo of that now.
Why?
She makes a limp seal, throwing barely sharpened water in his direction.
What is this sensation? He's prevented the poison from reaching him; he cannot perceive pain. Has he made a mistake in the procedure?
Has it gotten past the block, seeped somehow into his heart?
He has to kill her quickly, so he can make a full assessment.
"--Water Release: Water Severing Slash!"
The mask cracks, and the water blade continues onwards, scoring a bleeding line across her face, red dripping down and completely hiding one eye.
How could you?
Kabuto performs a one handed seal.
"Kai!"
The genjutsu doesn't break.
She's fallen to her knees, crimson hands reaching out for the broken pieces of ceramic. Her dull green eyes look past him, dismissive.
No. She's lost too much blood to keep her balance, and now her depth perception is gone to the point where she can't even hold the pieces.
"Kai!" Kabuto says again, louder, frantic. He casts a fast wind release to blow the poisoned mist away from their fight. He should've done it earlier, but it hadn't been causing him any unhandleable issues.
"It's late," Nono murmurs. "Go to sleep."
"Nono?" Kabuto says tentatively.
Her eyes aren't focusing.
He drops to his knees in front of her, green energy flaring as he uses physical contact for a more thorough Mystic Palm Jutsu.
It tells him the same thing he already knows: she is dying.
He checks for flaws in an illusion, but she matches his memory perfectly, every flaw and blood vein. The only deviations are all the new wounds he'd inflicted. And the poison. It's gotten into her bloodstream, it's gotten into her bones. He can't let that stay in, he has to--
He tries to heal them, knit all the cuts shut, and struggles.
He's only just invented this technique: this is experiment number one. But he-- can heal his own jutsu. Definitely. Even though he invented it with the specific idea that it would reject healing techniques.
"You knew who I was," Kabuto mutters, a hysterical edge to his voice while he keeps his hands steady. A surgeon's hands cannot shake. "You were sent to kill me. Why would he do that? No, he wouldn't do that, it doesn't make sense. You're loyal. I'm loyal. I'm the best he could have. Why would he do that? Nono, I don't understand. Explain it to me."
He presses his hands against the worst of his chakra scalpel cuts, scrambling to invent a third jutsu, a cure for his own curse. She's dying due to blood loss, not due to any specific wound, so if he can just--
His blood type is AB. He can't give his to her, it will kill her faster.
"Roots cannot know the light," Nono says, her eyes catching for a second on him before she convulses in agony, hands reaching for her throat.
She can't answer, the seal will kill her, he knows that! He knows that!
Kabuto frantically covers her mouth.
What can he do.
If only Seiko were--
Biter's cold nose nudges onto his heart in the same spot Seiko had tapped. It pierces through him like a spike, relief so visceral it just feels like more pain.
"Why'd you go off on your own!" Yamato demands, and Itachi makes a sharp click of disapproval behind him. "You could have been abducted!"
"You could have died," Itachi says.
He doesn't have time for them. Kabuto blinks fast, and grabs at Itachi. Useless bastard has the same blood type as Kabuto. And Yamato's not useful either. Type A isn't good enough.
"Seiko!" He says frantically. "Where is she? You didn't leave her did you? You might, but Biter wouldn't, right? Right?"
Nono is getting colder.
He hugs her.
"Nono, I can heal you," he insists. "I can heal anything. I won't disappoint you. I'll fix your mask. I'll repaint it."
"You...keep using that name," Nono finally responds. Her voice sounds so wet. Fluid in the lungs. "Who's that?"
"It's you," Seiko Hatake says, limping forward heavily on her crutches. "Well, Lizard. It's who you wanted to be."
"Seiko," Kabuto starts, and for the first time he hesitates. She doesn't look good. And asking her for-- when he promised-- but-- "Your blood. You can save her. Will you help me?"
His hands are shaking. They can't be shaking. How is he going to save her like this?
"I think you'll need more than just my help," Seiko says, sinking down to kneel beside him. She smiles.
How can she smile?
"Itachi, Yamato, get over here," Seiko says. "Itachi, copy Kabuto's movements. Yamato, let's get this blood out of me and into my old friend. And Kabuto--"
Kabuto hasn't let go of Nono.
"Yes?" Kabuto rasps. "What should I do?"
Seiko's eyes overlay with the first time she ever met him, and he already knows the answer before she says it.
"Do your best."
A/N: 'Gamanzuyoi', aka, the name Nono gave the poison Seiko is afflicted with, can be translated as 'enduring the unbearable'.
A/N 2: my friend-- that's right, the friend who's art is the header for this fic-- has written a webnovel! And put the first three chapters on their website! If you like my work, you will certainly like theirs. Check it out.
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