OMAKE: WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
Hazō straightened, putting the finishing touches on the lantern seal that would complete the underground privacy bubble.
Tsunade grumbled, annoyed at having to wait for Hazō to go through his entire list of OPSEC procedures. "So what Clan Secret are you about to let me in on? It must be pretty important to you for you to use an anti-Hyūga seal on it. Bold of you to drag me this far outside of Konoha, too."
Hazō shifted nervously. That wasn't
exactly what he was about to do, but it was a little close for comfort. Time to make his pitch before he lost his nerve.
"I'd like to ask you a favor."
Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Obviously."
"It's about Kei's birthday next month. I have something I want to give her but I'm going to need your help with it. Do you remember what happened at her last birthday? With her shadow clone?"
Tsunade's eyes narrowed. "It would be hard to forget. Why do you bring it up? I can't imagine you enjoy going around reminding others of your sister's shame."
Hazō gulped, fully aware he was about to do something monumentally stupid but unable to surrender the chance to help two of his family members come to an otherwise impossible understanding.
"It has to do with Snowflake. Since bloodlines don't carry over to shadow clones and Kei's bloodline is constantly influencing and skewing her thought process, Kei's clones are genuinely distinct people from her. They have their own interests, desires, and personalities. Snowflake is my second sister and Kei's closest friend, but as close as a bond as they share, Kei and Snowflake can never truly understand each other."
"Hurry it up, kid. I've been humoring you because you apparently just finished saving the world from its latest crisis but if you don't get to the point, I'm going to lose my patience."
Hazō inhaled, readying himself to take the plunge. "It's about what happened while you were healing me after I examined The Great Seal. I kept dying over and over again because my bloodline kept tearing my mind Out of reality. I was about to permanently cross over to the Naraka Path when suddenly, my bloodline shut down. It was almost as if—"
The weight of a mountain came down on Hazō.
Ancient. Unmovable. Too vast for the feeble human mind to wrap around its full size. And in the depths he had been cast into, writhing h̷̭̹̞̓͋̀o̸̬̣̠̯͂r̶͓̠̅̏̕͠r̸̮̣͙̹̈́ͅọ̸̻̹̩̇̾r̵͙̂̔͌͗̎š̵̢̨̛̻̦́ that the sunlit world had never seen, too old to have names and too primordial to know death. Ṱ̷̗̼̏͗͘h̷̜̳̮͉̿́̄͝ȩ̸̡̜̜͔̇͌y̸̹͙̣̤͓͐ perceived him, and in t̵̲͈̤̗͔͌͒͐̃h̷̢̹̣̋̿̔é̸̯̺̺̬̣i̴̖̼̬̹͂r̶̩̟̝͉̜̃̉̈́̏ sight he was nothing but layers of flesh and bone, to be flayed, examined, catalogued, and devoured at t̵̲͈̤̗͔͌͒͐̃h̷̢̹̣̋̿̔é̸̯̺̺̬̣i̴̖̼̬̹͂r̶̩̟̝͉̜̃̉̈́̏ leisure for no better reason than because t̸̳̦̣̱͓͒͊̋̔̅ȟ̷̨͚̽͝ę̵̺̳̦͗͒̊̎͜͠ỹ̴̢͉̩̬̂ were bored.
Hazō was lost, drowning. Unable even to flail helplessly as the Weight of the World Uncaring peered at him from the abyss. An eternity later–or perhaps only a second–The Mountain lashed out, striking down upon his shoulder as he felt the eyes on him vanish. He felt empty inside, like there was something fundamental about him missing.
Hazō stared into the brown eyes inches from his face. Tsunade was no longer directing the weight of herself at him but neither was holding her soul back from spilling into the air around her. He saw Aunt Tsunade as she truly was. No. He could never do that. He saw as close to her as he ever could.
For the longest moment of his life, Tsunade was silent. Then, abruptly, the pressure faded as Hazō returned to his empty self. She muttered something to herself too quiet for him to hear, but he could have sworn he heard her mention "Jiraiya."
She looked up at the accompanying flinch that always came when Hazō heard his name. Something was wrong. Hazō had instinctively reached for the Iron Nerve, he shouldn't have—
Tsunade smirked as the realization broke across Hazō's face. She stepped back and removed her hand from his shoulder as she spoke.
"If you were anyone else…"
Unsurprisingly, Hazō was unable to hide his gulp at her not-so-subtle reminder of how close he had come to being killed a moment ago. Not that he ever hoped to hide anything from her anyway.
"I'll do this
once and you will never bring this up every again or ask me about this. Kei can have her conversation but only family can be there. You'll owe me another ton of that sake, too. I'm almost out."
This time, the expression that flew across Hazō's face was one of relief tinged with gratitude. He had done it.
"It'll be back by the time we make it to the surface. Don't talk to me about this ever again. Maybe one day I'll deem Noburi worthy of the secret and he can facilitate another conversation, but until then you should consider this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
"I will, Aunt Tsunade. Thank you." If he wasn't already on his knees
(when did he end up here, anyway?), he would have been floored by what she just implied. He could barely speak, so he stood up and raised his hands in a gesture of a hug.
Tsunade just snorted. "Yeah, I'm not going to hug you like that. Let's get out of here. I have a lot of your gold-money to blow at the casino." She looked back at him and smirked. "Also, you may want to change your pants."
Hazō paced nervously through the banquet hall, hovering outside the door leading to the room where Snowflake and unbloodlined-Kei were having their chat.
What if he had crossed a line and now Kei hates him? What if this didn't work and it was just a waste of time? What if—
The door opened and Snowflake came out, followed closely by Kei, who studiously refused to look at him. Hazō's heart sank, his fears realized. Now she's going to tell him that he—
Kei spoke up, once again tearing him from his thoughts.
"Thank you, Hazō. I greatly appreciated the chance to see things through Snowflake's eyes. You seem to have done the impossible. Again."
She looked to Hazō's right, where Tenten and Shikamaru were standing, then dropped her gaze to the floor and turned until she could see Ino's and Akane's feet. Raising her head, she nodded at them with a determined on her face.
She took a deep breath, then turned her head to look at her Hazō. As soon as their eyes's met, Kei blushed a deep shade of crimson and immediately tore her vision away from him.
To Snowflake, she said, "As I feared, even waiting until my bloodline came back was not enough to relieve this effect." Snowflake's eyes failed to hide her mirth.
After a moment of regaining her confidence, Kei looked back at Hazō, Shikamaru, Ino, Akane, and Tenten.
"We
may have a slight problem…"
