Interlude: Instances of Two Individuals Spending a Day Together in Order to Facilitate Greater Mutual Knowledge and Familiarity, Arranged in Anticipation of a Potential Long-Term Relationship, Part 2
The Nara compound was no friend to the light of day (which woke people up against their will and then had the gall to demand productivity), but in the evenings it was a thing of understated perfection. The carefully-planned layout (almost as good as the Mori compound's, though regrettably with fewer fractal shapes) encouraged cool breezes on warm nights, and while ordinarily one's home was a place to enjoy a
lack of other people, there was something soothing about the quiet murmur of a dozen intellectual discussions taking place over two dozen cups of tea, somewhere out of sight but not out of reach. Besides, Snowflake rarely experienced the compound at night, and every time was a memory to treasure.
"She's cute," Snowflake declared, shifting to be more comfortable on top of Tenten's bed. "Kinda shy, but you know, let she who is comfortable with strangers cast the first shuriken."
It was at Kei's request that Snowflake unswallowed the dictionary when they were alone. The agony of having to repeatedly hear their own voice, sometimes four ways at once, could not be salved so easily, but, as with Kei's attempts to steer Hazō away from annihilating the Gōketsu, Leaf, or the planet as a whole, even the illusion of difference was better than nothing.
"Is she worth the time?" Kei asked.
We already hunger for more time to spend with Tenten, and it is an exercise in frustration to live on the next floor down from our best friend and speak only professionally for days at a time due to the exigencies of KEI and clan business. Our family bonds fray as we fail to find opportunities to visit the Gōketsu compound, and though we have little interest in taijutsu practice with Shiori, to refuse her every time cannot be good for our relationship.
"Not to go all nepotism…" Snowflake replied.
But we are bad at delegating, and if Tachibana is competent and invested in the KEI—which is likely, since why else would she be interested in you?—then being able to share work with someone we know and trust would free up time for relationships all round.
The more time Snowflake and Kei spent together, as people rather than training partners, the more they realised that communication between them didn't have to follow normal rules. Snowflake already knew all of Kei's thoughts and conclusions; Kei at minimum knew everything Snowflake had experienced since her birth, and as recent memory at that. As such, they were allowed to simply skip to the parts that mattered.
The barrier was the phantasmal layer, a term coined by Moonlight (who had been assigned abstract creativity). Kei could read the sensory data of Snowflake's memories with little difficulty—she could see through past Snowflake's eyes, and hear through her ears, as if the memories were her own. But Snowflake's thoughts and feelings were unique to her, and when the incompletely human Keiko tried to remember the complete one's inner workings, she found them blurry, not absent but not quite real, a mirage recorded by a slightly different set of senses.
Snowflake, conversely, had perfect access, except to those points in time when Kei was actively using the Frozen Skein. Those were not even blurred but opaque within the phantasmal layer—they belonged to a domain into which ordinary humans such as Snowflake (hilarious, no?) could not and must not trespass. Snowflake was glad not to know the Mori Voice, the predator every Mori knew to be their final end (for when death came for them and their loved ones, who would not dive into the ice one last time to seek a way to save them?). She had more mixed feelings about the crystalline clarity that Kei revered and she could never touch, but in the end she would sacrifice it a thousand times over for the miracle of undistorted agency.
Kei nodded in acknowledgment of her point.
"I like the way she handled herself at the café," Snowflake said, shoving aside the meditation on her nature for which this was not the time. "No scene, no pointless murder."
"Well…" Kei said doubtfully.
The murder would hardly have been pointless.
"You know we'd feel guilty," Snowflake countered. "Civilian lives have intrinsic value now. Man, Hazō sucks."
"Appalling," Kei agreed. "My second most troublesome sibling."
Snowflake rolled her eyes.
They more they spoke, the more they understood that calling each other siblings was just a game. They
overlapped. They were not forced to rely on body language, or tone of voice, or any of the other layers of communication that supposedly came naturally to human beings. They could predict each other from first principles by asking, "What would I think?" and then applying corrections for presence or absence of Frozen Skein (a skill in itself, to be sure, since neither was physically capable of thinking like the other, but trivial compared to the gargantuan task of understanding other people). The creeping divergence of Snowflake's personality increased the challenge, but their growing ability to feel, by means of contrast, the gaps in Snowflake's nature and the chains on Kei's helped compensate. They were completely alien to each other in some ways and indistinguishable in others.
Who else could understand not only what the other thought, not only what the other was, but why? Of everyone in the world, only Snowflake could grant Kei absolution, and only from her could she receive it. They had not dared step into those deep waters yet, but the possibility was there, always waiting.
Again, she was wasting time. She was here for a reason, a reason she was enjoying, and introspection could be saved for breaks during training (it was more efficient with her parallel selves helping anyway).
"Asking her about writing was a bold move," Snowflake told Kei. "Can you imagine if she'd seen through you?"
"Unlikely," Kei said. "I was circumspect. Though I will need to exercise care should I choose to invite her on another instance of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship."
"She says as if she hasn't already made up her mind," Snowflake said with a raised eyebrow.
"I might have reconsidered within the last fifteen minutes!" Kei objected.
"You and what new data?"
A beautiful night wore on.
-o-
Kei yawned. "Apologies, Snowflake, but I should turn in for the night. You will also need me to be well-rested for tomorrow."
It was too soon. Without question, too soon. How often could Kei sacrifice her training to allow them to spend an evening simply together, simply as two people enjoying each other's company? Even if it was selfish, Snowflake did not want to stop basking in this pool of light and return to non-existence.
"Hey," she said, "With Tenten being away and all…"
"I am too tired," Kei said awkwardly (because they were so pathetic that, never mind Tenten, they were capable of being embarrassed in front of
each other). "Another time."
"Then…" Snowflake urgently sat up on the bed. "How about a game? Focused Dominance, maybe?"
Kei frowned. Snowflake waited for her, hoping she would take the time, hoping she would model Snowflake, and understand, because some things were still too difficult to say out loud.
"I lack the cognitive resources," Kei said after a second, and Snowflake slumped in disappointment.
"Unless it were something simpler, such as Agoraphobia," Kei added mischievously.
Snowflake gave her an "I am perfectly aware of what you just did, and am in no way impressed" look, and took immediate revenge.
"Bagsy forces of darkness!"
"'Bagsy' is not a recognised… Oh, fine. You procure snacks; I will retrieve our copy from Shiori."
One of these days, if Kei did not stop messing with her, Snowflake would make it publicly known that Kei occasionally spent entire nights playing with herself, and let the chips fall where they may.
-o-
Today was a special day for Snowflake and the bounded infinity she represented. Granted, she was not exactly Lady Nara Keiko, and therefore not the target of the love confession. Granted, Kei had less given it to her and more surrendered it with the admission that she herself might not survive the experience (whereas Snowflake's trauma would be blunted for Kei by the phantasmal layer). Even so, it was a data point of self-definition that Snowflake would not have refused for anything in the world.
Today would be Snowflake's very first date.
"Hey, Lady Nara. Sorry to keep ya waiting!" Tachibana Minori, their
other unexpected suitor, jogged up to her, waving with far too much energy for this, no, for any time of day.
They would not reject a sincere appeal out of hand. That had been their decision. Even now, with twin perspectives, they lacked self-knowledge. Kei had loved Mari, and even she was aware in retrospect that if by some miracle or curse that had turned into a relationship, it would have brought nothing but disaster to all involved. They loved Tenten, yet still did not understand why that relationship worked (or rather, it worked because Tenten was perfect, but this did not clarify the mechanisms involved). What authority did they have to judge in advance whether a given partner would be suitable?
Besides, to slap away an outstretched hand because its owner had failed to properly present themselves, to break someone's heart on an assumption… it seemed too sad. Too cruel.
"I only just arrived myself," Snowflake said. The literature clearly specified that she was not to admit that she had spent ten minutes of her precious existence waiting, and who was she to doubt a body of knowledge that had led Kei's first date to blissful success?
It would be a lie to say Snowflake didn't feel apprehensive. Whatever hidden depths Tachibana might possess, the energy emanating from her in waves was unlikely to be a façade. In the back of her mind, she had a ghastly vision of dating Akane, except that at least Akane had proved herself in extreme circumstances, both as a comrade and as...
As what? Kei could not accept the words Akane had offered her in the aftermath of her and Snowflake's confrontation. Neither of them could understand them. They were an offer, no, a promise, no, a statement of love and acceptance far beyond Kei and Snowflake's frame of reference, and while Akane was frequently delusional, she did not lie. Kei had come out of that conversation shaken, and she was shaken still, and now both of them were afraid to look at Akane too closely in case what they saw blinded them.
"I suppose I should clarify," she said before any misunderstandings could perpetuate themselves. "I am not exactly Nara Keiko."
"Oh," Tachibana said. "Did she send a shadow clone? Because I saw you guys at the party, and that was so cool, I mean, not Uzumaki Naruto blue-and-orange legion cool, but on the other hand, Uzumaki Naruto's not a hot girl, so I think we can agree I've got the better end of the deal here."
Snowflake's relationship with Kei had made their formerly simple feelings about their appearance
very complicated. Even so, it would be the height of presumption, as well as a waste of Kei's thoroughly-cultivated ice theme, to declare herself a hot girl. Tachibana, on the other hand… A not inconsiderable part of Snowflake's motivation for today was that Tachibana was gorgeous. That flaming red hair. That alluring grin. Those perfect curves. If Kei and Snowflake had been both able and willing to pursue a purely physical relationship (they were neither), Tachibana would have been the candidate of a lifetime.
Kei, of course, would not in a thousand years have admitted an interest in ogling attractive women for its own sake, so it was just as well that Snowflake did not need her to. Instead, Snowflake had gone into her first date in the knowledge that, in the worst-case scenario, she was making a noble sacrifice for the sake of both of them (as well as all the parallel selves who would benefit from the memory in the future).
"Not quite," Snowflake said. "For complicated bloodline reasons, I am in fact my own person. I realise that strictly speaking makes me not the recipient of your letter, but I share most of her experiences and far too many of her personality traits, and I requested to be the one to spend time with you today. If that is not acceptable to you…"
Tachibana tilted her head slightly. "Not a shadow clone?"
"Yes, a shadow clone. Except insofar as I am not. My name is Snowflake." So many Shadow Clone Technique users in Leaf, and Snowflake had to be born the divergent self of one with the social skills of a walnut.
Tachibana took a second to think about this.
"So do I still call you Lady Nara?"
Snowflake did not have an answer to the question. In principle, a shadow clone inherited their creator's social status. After all, it took dōjutsu or prodigious powers of reading body language to tell the difference (one could tell a competent shinobi by the way they did not present openings even before friends or loved ones; still, only a shadow clone
knew that a single misstep would be the end). Besides, no Leaf native would dare risk insulting a shinobi powerful enough to create shadow clones. But for her to also be Lady Nara was a statement of identity she was not yet prepared to make. She shared Kei's preferences for the most part, if only because her own were a work in progress, but
she had never chosen to bind herself to the Nara, even less than Kei had, and it felt like a diminishment of her self to commit to retroactively marrying Shikamaru just because.
On the other hand, she had never been adopted a Gōketsu either, and where Kei had earned that place by forging unbreakable bonds, hers were still paper-thin.
As for the Mori, they would probably burn her at the stake for the atrocious crime of being possible (conditional immortality notwithstanding).
Snowflake supposed she would never be allowed to marry into a clan, or for that matter out of one, even if the gay marriage master plan succeeded (or she found a man she loved; in the long run, Snowflake had no intention of accepting
any part of Kei's self-identification blindly). Perhaps she could choose a family name of her own, or would that be meaningless, like a civilian (suicidally) wearing a forehead protector? Your clan name was what gave weight to your existence; even KEI shinobi, whose names served as eternal reminders of their shallow roots, held to them without question. One whose intermittent existence was devoid of weight could hardly arrogate it by an act of will.
Yet to be known only by her personal name, without the gradations of intimacy available to ordinary people, seemed like a betrayal of the freedom she had been granted compared to her enslaved counterparts.
"Yes," she decided with an inner sigh, "Lady Nara." The problem would not be solved today, and there was no call to make Tachibana pay for Snowflake's existential awkwardness.
"Gotcha," Tachibana said. "So, hey, thanks so much for giving me a chance, I mean, I'm not really sure what it means that you're not
the Lady Nara, but if you're even half as awesome as her, that's already way out of my league, so it's not like I can complain, and besides, worst comes to worst, you can give me a good review, right?"
"We share memories," Snowflake said, then realised what she had said. "Please do not repeat this to anyone else, for your own safety." They never did get that remedial OPSEC training.
Tachibana gave her the confused look of a woman who had been trusted with an important secret seemingly at random, followed promptly by a serious nod.
Snowflake pressed on quickly. "Do you have a plan for what we should do today, or would you prefer to follow ours?"
"Funny story," Tachibana said, "for some bizarre reason, we had a perfectly good unused date itinerary lying around at home, which I figured I might bring along even though some of the stuff on there is very much Yuri stuff we might want to skip today, but it's not like I haven't been up all night being excited about today anyway so I do have some ideas, and how do you feel about Tanzaku Gai?"
"Ah." Snowflake would have loved to see Tanzaku Gai with her own eyes, but neither her lifespan nor her tether range permitted such luxury. "Perhaps something closer to home?"
"All right," Tachibana adjusted instantly, "time for me to show off my expert knowledge as Leaf-born and -bred and think of some cool sights a Leaf newbie like you won't find on her own, not that I'm saying the second most Nara person in existence can't read a map or go buy a tourist guide or something, so actually maybe I'd better try and come up with some off-the-map stuff to show you, except that kinda sounds like I want to lure you into some dark alley and take advantage of you, which I'm not saying I—wait, can we pretend I never said any of this and just stopped at the giving suggestions part?"
Snowflake was already tuning Tachibana out as her misgivings began to come true. Was she truly about to spend precious hours of independent existence with this rambling rip current of energy? Did she have no other people she could spend this time with? Kei and Shikamaru would be busy, and Tenten was out slaying ferns, but there were the Gōketsu, if she could persuade Kei to briefly move her business to the village outskirts, and Ami was always there for—
Her thoughts ground to a screeching halt. No, please. Not now. She would take Tachibana, a thousand Tachibanas, to undo that stray thought.
Too late. One second's error, and she was drowning in darkness, in a world that had no more sun and never would. In the punishment that was her granted wish. In the abyss of Naraka where the daily reset of her mental state was a cruel mercy, restoring innocence only so that some trigger to the memory could bring about another fall.
She envied Kei the possibility of death ever hovering around the edges of her mind, the knowledge that there was an ultimate escape, that her back would never be against the wall. Snowflake could not die. Snowflake's only escape from a human-lifetime of this would be to kill Kei, a possibility barred by something even stronger than the Second Hokage's safeguards.
There was a secret buried in the phantasmal layer that she hoped Kei would never discover. Kei was incapable of loving herself. Snowflake had inherited that trait in full. But among the complex, self-contradicting, nigh-indecipherable tangle that was their feelings for
each other, one thing was clear. Snowflake loved the girl who gave her life, who had forgiven—for real—that first meeting in which Snowflake had hurt her more than almost anyone ever had or could, who, for all her frustration that an agency she'd prayed for had been given to someone else, had simply not had the thought of using Snowflake as a tool after she said she wanted to become a person. She should have hated Kei, the originator of everything about Snowflake that was broken, the source of the self-hatred that defined both their lives. She didn't know why she did not. Instead, this love that was too intimate to be romantic, too passionate to be familial, and too focused to be platonic was the one thing about Snowflake that was beautiful, and a secret she could not confess.
Kei could not love her like that. She was creator, not creation. And the other, who had given them both everything, Kei's own creator in all but flesh, could not love Snowflake at all.
"Lady Nara? Lady Nara?"
The thoughts swirled in circles, in spirals, a self-constructed endless trap. There was no way out for her. Even self-destruction would only bring a day's reprieve. Kei had offered to abandon the technique, and with it the promise of distant godhood. She did not understand how special that made her. Snowflake had refused, because Kei had to live, beyond the wars on the horizon, so she could find true happiness—even if it was too late for Snowflake herself.
"Lady Nara? Ah, crap, I know that look, that is not a good look, that is a flashback look and Sage's ashes I am so so sorry for whatever I said or did to trigger it. Uh, Lady Nara, OK, I don't exactly know if you can hear me, but try and listen to me if you can, not that I can tell you to cheer up or anything because nine times out of ten people who say that should be punched in the face, but if you can maybe pay attention to me and not what's inside your head, that might help. Also breathing, that's important, I mean, that's a dumb thing to say, but slow, deep breaths would be good, and, uh, come on, Minori, think, it's not like you've never seen this before, wait, OK, idea, so Lady Nara, I'm going to take your hand now so please don't kill me with your chūnin summoner village hero powers—"
Suddenly, Snowflake snapped into awareness, just in time to snatch away her hand. Killer instinct spiked.
Tachibana paled. "Sorry, Lady Nara, seriously, so sorry, and again, please don't kill me, that would definitely be a bad idea for both of us, I mean, you'd probably get away with it because you're super important and I'm just a name on a list, but I would be dead and Yuri would be sad and I really don't want either of those things to happen... but you actually responded, so that's good, right?"
"No, I am the one who must apologise," Snowflake said. Unlike Kei, she did have legitimate reasons to fear another's careless touch, but that did not give her the right to place her feelings above other people's. "Mere minutes in, I have ruined the date. I think it would be best for both of us if I removed myself from existence now."
Tachibana's eyes widened. "Nonono. No removing. Seriously no removing. Sorry to be so forward, but you are coming with me now, hand or no hand, and you'll probably kill me anyway for taking you to the worst dating spot in the history of ever, but I'm dumb and it's the best thing I can think of right now, so please don't kill me until we're there."
"I am not going to kill you," Snowflake said wearily. "I am saving threats of horrible death for my brother by metaphysical extension, since it appears to be a natural and healthy part of his sibling relationships."
-o-
"I am beginning to reconsider my stance," Snowflake muttered.
"Welcome to the Yabai Café," the waiter told them with the broad smile of a man who had deduced that he was facing an already-stressed shinobi and therefore his life might depend on a flawless performance (Leaf civilians really were better at this sort of thing).
"Tachibana,
why?" Snowflake asked, a small corner of her mind wondering if her date had decided that it would be an act of mercy to put her out of her misery.
"Because," Tachibana said triumphantly," there is no way lunch at the Yabai Café is going to remind you of anything you've done in your life, even eating, especially eating,
and with what it takes to eat this stuff, you will so not have the brain space for suicidal thoughts or whatever, so two house specials, please, extra frisky!"
"It appears you have miscalculated," Snowflake replied. "Eating at the Yabai Café will remind me of eating at the Yabai Café, surely as traumatic a memory as this continent has to offer."
Tachibana stared. "You've been here what, a year, and you already know about the Yabai Café? Serves me right for underestimating
the Lady Nara, or
a the Lady Nara or however this works, and also I'm glad you're up to making jokes now and that was good and I promise I'd be laughing if I wasn't still sort of panicking right now, and, uh, do you have a favourite dish?"
"Not personally," Snowflake said, "but I recommend the water. I understand it is provided by an external supplier."
That did earn a laugh from Tachibana.
"So I can stay with you for a while, I mean I want that in any case because that is kinda the point of a date, and I did leave today free because I didn't know how long we'd be out, but I will have to go home eventually because I have a mission tomorrow. I guess you could come with… except wait, no,
Yuri would off herself if you saw the flat the way it is right now, and I'm dumb because you're clan and you've got like a hundred people to stick with you at home, but I'm still gonna walk you to the compound when we're done and fill them in if that's all right with you, because removing yourself is
bad and I am not taking any chances."
"Oh." Tachibana's strange behaviour suddenly began to make (some) sense. "Tachibana, I am, physically at least, a shadow clone. Removing myself from existence is both temporary and harmless, and I will be fine the next day or whenever Kei chooses to reinstantiate me."
Tachibana sagged in her seat. "And it doesn't hurt?"
"Not if it is intentional."
"And it won't be bad for the other Lady Nara?"
Snowflake hesitated.
"No more so than the natural cessation I will in any case undergo in a couple of hours."
"Oh. Oh, good. I feel like the dumbest idiot in the history of the world now, but that is so very good."
"I apologise for worrying you. Please do not be upset—it is natural for a genin to be unaware of shadow clone mechanics."
"Are you kidding?!" Tachibana exclaimed. "I'm not upset, I've just found out that I didn't nearly drive my hero slash role model slash potential girlfriend and I can't believe I just said that out loud kill me now to commit suicide on our first date! I'm so happy I could eat a Yabai Café house special! Which I guess is just as well."
"Oh," Snowflake said again. But she had to ask, and not only to take her mind off the incoming meal. "Tachibana... It is not that I do not appreciate your efforts just now, quite the opposite, but... why would you go so far for me when we have only just met?"
"Uh." Tachibana gave her a blank look. "Basic human decency? I mean, I'm glad I misunderstood, but even in Mist, in fact especially in Mist, there must've been ninja who offed themselves because they couldn't take any more of being a ninja, that can't just be a Leaf thing, right? And I can't do much, but you see something broken, you fix it, isn't that the lesson you and Lord Gōketsu have been trying to teach everyone, and maybe I'm not good at that and I sure as hell don't know how to fix someone suicidal, but if I'm the kind of person who just walks away then maybe the world would be better off if I was the one who was dead.
"Actually," she said after a second, "the flashbacks are still a thing, aren't they, and even if you're not suicidal those can and will get you killed if you get one in the middle of a fight, and again, I'm just a random girl who can't even make udon broth without oversalting it, never mind heal people's hearts, but if there's anything you want to talk about, maybe I could listen?"
Snowflake looked at her. What Tachibana called basic human decency sounded to her like kindness, which was not at all basic, nor a trait characteristic of humans.
"I have lost someone," she said heavily. "There is nothing more to it than that." There was, of course there was, but how could Snowflake hope to convey the wonder of Ami to someone who knew her only from a distance, or the place she had occupied in Snowflake's heart that was now forever hollow? How could she even try to put words to it without being overwhelmed?
Tachibana nodded. "That's fine, but I really do think you need to talk to someone, even if it's not this stranger who you only just met because she confessed her feelings for you out of nowhere and, let's be honest, there is no way I come across as mature and responsible, that's Yuri's thing and I'm just basically flailing, but if you don't do something you really might die so please find someone you trust to talk to, and maybe get yourself taken off the mission roster for a while if that's not an insulting thing to say to Keiko the Dauntless, or actually, maybe even if it is, because the KEI needs you and we need you and can we pretend I didn't say that and move on to the part where I babble about random crap to take your mind off your problems including the fact that the house special is here?"
Suddenly, Snowflake realised she was afraid. Not of the house special—well, maybe a little, but conditional immortality did have its perks—but of Tachibana Minori. Kindness was frightening. Kindness burned. Kei had acclimatised herself to some extent, having been gradually bullied into accepting unconditional love by those precious to her. Snowflake, young, fragile, subsisting on borrowed bonds, had no defence against the power that had unwarped her original's soul almost beyond recognition in two short years.
She was on her feet before she knew it. "Forgive me, Tachibana, but I must cut our meeting short. I… truly appreciate your concern, and my memories will surely constitute a glowing review. Waiter, kindly send the bill for both meals to Nara Keiko."
"But aren't
you Nara—"
And then there was only the peace of oblivion… for a little while.
-o-
Happy Snowflake's Birthday (and other festivals)!
Voting is open, and closes on Saturday 26th of December, 1 p.m. New York time.
