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Chapter 46:​

There was something wrong with this girl.

There are aspects of shinobi life that never get brought up. Much like many professional careers, there are a series of unspoken rules and guidelines that you don't exactly need to follow, but that make your life infinitely easier if you do. These rules are very difficult to explain to an outsider because they just don't get it. Even if I never served in the military during my previous life, I'm given to understand there were a great many similarities in the differences between a civilian and an enlisted individual.

One of the many things you didn't talk about was body language.

This was... tricky to understand from a viewpoint that wasn't that of a shinobi, but it boiled down to 'violence' and 'not-violence.' There were degrees between them, of course, but 'on the cusp of violence' was still fundamentally 'not-violence,' co-workers just generally understood that you were having a bad day and either kept out of your way or, if they were feeling generous, coaxed you out to a training field to help you work it out of your system.

My point, though, is not actually about the various degrees of potentially-violent body language that ninja could read and speak. No, rather, my point is that a ninja can only understand body language in the context of violence.

The reason why I, of all people, understood this?

Because I worked with two exemplars of the traditional school of ninja thought. Sai and Torune were everything that Danzo had trained them to be, which included being utterly socially-inept outside of faking it for infiltration missions. They could ape civilian interaction well enough, but their cues were subtly off in a way the average customer wouldn't notice or understand. Even after close to a year of my efforts at deprogramming them, they still couldn't quite 'act natural' beyond the 'act' part. The rank and file of Konoha-nin that I'd interacted with obviously weren't quite that bad, but they suffered from an odd blindness towards normal civilian social cues unless they were actively trying to decode them.

What this means is that, especially for clan shinobi, body language is an intentional choice meant to convey your willingness to commit violence as a social signaling mechanism to others of your occupational caste.

This may or may not have anything to do with a series of experiments/pranks I'd played on Obito, rapidly switching between 'mellow panther sunning himself' and 'psychotic rage' levels of violent intent in my body language.

More to the point, though...

"I'll have to decline, sadly." I stated, doing my best at a disarming smile towards Hinata. "I don't think it would be appropriate if a shinobi and a civilian were seen fighting, you understand."

Hinata blinked at me slowly, her head cocking in just the wrong way, a little too far back instead of to the side. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. My sister mentioned you helped her quite a bit. I had hoped to see your skills for myself."

Irritation surged within me as I kept the placid smile on my face.

Another one. Another goddamn ninja that just can't leave well enough alone.

Satsuki grunted, shrugging her shoulders as she slipped her hands into her pockets, the motion the very picture of Uchiha passive-aggressiveness. "He doesn't want to, Hyuuga."

Tenten and Yakumo flicked a look between each other worriedly.

Hinata smiled just a bit too widely. "Yes, Uchiha, I can understand the spoken tongue. Or do those eyes of yours mean you can only read lips?"

Red flared in Satsuki's eyes as I considered whether or not to step in. My own eyes looked towards the various people in the restaurant, ghosting over the curious interest of the civilians and the sharp wariness of the relaxing shinobi. By chance, I happened to meet the eyes of a large man with Akimichi clan markings wearing a chef's clothing. His arms, each as thick as my torso, wrapped over each other as he crossed them on his chest and looked vaguely displeased at the tense situation.

Yeah, time to step in, clan animosity or not.

I cleared my throat, interrupting the staredown as Satsuki opened her mouth to reply, her eyes narrow slits as she glared at Hinata. "We've had a good dinner out, it would be a shame to spoil it. Here, Hyuuga-san, why don't I compensate you for your meal and we can each go our separate ways."

I removed my coin purse and looked at her expectantly.

My gaze, however, flicked towards Hanabi and gave her an encouraging jerk of my head. Even as the girl didn't respond, I felt her attention on me for a long moment as she considered what I was implying.

Hinata's white eyes turned towards me and, for a moment, her face went as blank as they were before a pleasant smile reasserted itself. "I'm afraid-"

"Elder Sister," Hanabi stated quietly, tugging at her pants. "We should get back."

Hinata's face blanked again, this time quickly replaced with a frown before she nodded and accepted a few bills from me. "This is very gracious of you, Kotaro. I will remember it."

Now let's see... why does that almost sound like a threat?

I contemplated caring about it for a moment, then decided not to. I had enough on my plate. The goddamn ninja were watching over my shoulder constantly, I was trying to manage a new set of relationships, I had my own research to do, and on top of it I was, for some reason, keeping up the futile struggle to do something good in this crapsack world.

Intellectually, I got it. I understood why all of this was happening. I'd had the opportunity, back when I was a nobody, to just walk away. I could have quietly served as a blacksmith's apprentice for a year or two, then attached myself to some trade caravan and jumped ship literally anywhere that wasn't a hidden village.

But I couldn't do that.

It wasn't any specific thing that was sticking in my craw, either. I liked, might even love the girls. Tenten, Satsuki, Yakumo, and Naruko were close friends. I wouldn't have stuck around if I didn't care about them. No, to the contrary, I stuck around because I'd grown fond of them.

If I was being perfectly fair, I couldn't even say I blamed Itachi, Obito, or Hiruzen... well, okay, maybe I blamed Obito. At least a little. It was hard not to. But more to the point, they were just doing their jobs. Moreover, they were actually being very nice about doing their jobs for people with the kinds of body counts they had. Realistically, I could have been brainwashed in a basement somewhere churning out weapons of mass destruction under a less cautious or more aggressive leader in charge.

My fists clenched as the chafing sensation of imaginary bonds pooled in my gut and I fought it back down with the ancient mantras of the Sage of Six Paths, feeling my chakra return to a placid pool of energy instead of the storm-tossed waters it had been moving towards.

It was just... frustration. That was it.

I wasn't really angry, just irritated at both my situation... and myself. I wasn't someone who enjoyed conflict and didn't want to be called up to engage in it. Unfortunately, that meant I tended to accommodate stressors until I snapped. High ideals were all well and good, but at the end of the day it was just easier for me to bend the knee as long as the situation wasn't truly horrendous.

And... Konoha wasn't that bad.

For all that it might be a police state training child soldiers in a constant state of frozen conflicts with other more aggressive settlements of similar composition...

There were happy people here. Tradesmen, farmers, families... most of Konoha wasn't active-duty military. I couldn't fault any of the shinobi for... well, most of their actions. Aside from the really fucked up shit, a lot of it was warranted to protect their loved ones and their homes.

For a moment, I wished I'd taken Hinata up on her offer.

I knew it would have been a bad idea, but beating her black and blue would have been therapeutic.

"-night, Kota. Sorry that white-eyed bitch showed up and ruined everything at the last minute," Satsuki was saying as I came back to myself from my ruminations.

I shook my head. "Don't worry about it." Then, struck by that same need to do something, I leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. One hand went up to caress her face as she stiffened. Pulling away, I dipped past her face and pressed my lips almost to her ear. "Tonight was wonderful," I lied. "Sleep tight."

Satsuki squeaked, her eyes blowing wide as her face flushed. For a moment, she stood frozen, then vanished in a blur of motion. I huffed a laugh at the settling cloud of leaves in her wake and turned to Tenten and Yakumo.

Stepping up to the Kurama heiress, I gave her a clear moment to refuse my advance as she swallowed and steeled herself before allowing me to make the connection between us. Yakumo melted where Satsuki had frozen, pressing against me softly as I wrapped her in an embrace as well. Breaking away, I tapped our foreheads together making her eyes flutter open. "Time to go home, Yakumo."

She took a shuddering breath before nodding, pulling away with a last look over her shoulder as she walked slowly down the fork in the road to her clan's property.

Tenten, stepping up beside me, nudged her shoulder against mine.

Raising an eyebrow, I looked at her.

She smirked in response. "Don't think you're sending me off to a cold bed with just a kiss."

I considered the ultimatum for a moment, before nodding. "My place, then. I have sound-proofing seals on the walls."

Tenten's own eyebrows rose, before her cheeks colored slightly. "Ah, that... yeah, that might be a good idea."

…​

Chapter 46:​

There was something wrong with this girl.

There are aspects of shinobi life that never get brought up. Much like many professional careers, there are a series of unspoken rules and guidelines that you don't exactly need to follow, but that make your life infinitely easier if you do. These rules are very difficult to explain to an outsider because they just don't get it. Even if I never served in the military during my previous life, I'm given to understand there were a great many similarities in the differences between a civilian and an enlisted individual.

One of the many things you didn't talk about was body language.

This was... tricky to understand from a viewpoint that wasn't that of a shinobi, but it boiled down to 'violence' and 'not-violence.' There were degrees between them, of course, but 'on the cusp of violence' was still fundamentally 'not-violence,' co-workers just generally understood that you were having a bad day and either kept out of your way or, if they were feeling generous, coaxed you out to a training field to help you work it out of your system.

My point, though, is not actually about the various degrees of potentially-violent body language that ninja could read and speak. No, rather, my point is that a ninja can only understand body language in the context of violence.

The reason why I, of all people, understood this?

Because I worked with two exemplars of the traditional school of ninja thought. Sai and Torune were everything that Danzo had trained them to be, which included being utterly socially-inept outside of faking it for infiltration missions. They could ape civilian interaction well enough, but their cues were subtly off in a way the average customer wouldn't notice or understand. Even after close to a year of my efforts at deprogramming them, they still couldn't quite 'act natural' beyond the 'act' part. The rank and file of Konoha-nin that I'd interacted with obviously weren't quite that bad, but they suffered from an odd blindness towards normal civilian social cues unless they were actively trying to decode them.

What this means is that, especially for clan shinobi, body language is an intentional choice meant to convey your willingness to commit violence as a social signaling mechanism to others of your occupational caste.

This may or may not have anything to do with a series of experiments/pranks I'd played on Obito, rapidly switching between 'mellow panther sunning himself' and 'psychotic rage' levels of violent intent in my body language.

More to the point, though...

"I'll have to decline, sadly." I stated, doing my best at a disarming smile towards Hinata. "I don't think it would be appropriate if a shinobi and a civilian were seen fighting, you understand."

Hinata blinked at me slowly, her head cocking in just the wrong way, a little too far back instead of to the side. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. My sister mentioned you helped her quite a bit. I had hoped to see your skills for myself."

Irritation surged within me as I kept the placid smile on my face.

Another one. Another goddamn ninja that just can't leave well enough alone.

Satsuki grunted, shrugging her shoulders as she slipped her hands into her pockets, the motion the very picture of Uchiha passive-aggressiveness. "He doesn't want to, Hyuuga."

Tenten and Yakumo flicked a look between each other worriedly.

Hinata smiled just a bit too widely. "Yes, Uchiha, I can understand the spoken tongue. Or do those eyes of yours mean you can only read lips?"

Red flared in Satsuki's eyes as I considered whether or not to step in. My own eyes looked towards the various people in the restaurant, ghosting over the curious interest of the civilians and the sharp wariness of the relaxing shinobi. By chance, I happened to meet the eyes of a large man with Akimichi clan markings wearing a chef's clothing. His arms, each as thick as my torso, wrapped over each other as he crossed them on his chest and looked vaguely displeased at the tense situation.

Yeah, time to step in, clan animosity or not.

I cleared my throat, interrupting the staredown as Satsuki opened her mouth to reply, her eyes narrow slits as she glared at Hinata. "We've had a good dinner out, it would be a shame to spoil it. Here, Hyuuga-san, why don't I compensate you for your meal and we can each go our separate ways."

I removed my coin purse and looked at her expectantly.

My gaze, however, flicked towards Hanabi and gave her an encouraging jerk of my head. Even as the girl didn't respond, I felt her attention on me for a long moment as she considered what I was implying.

Hinata's white eyes turned towards me and, for a moment, her face went as blank as they were before a pleasant smile reasserted itself. "I'm afraid-"

"Elder Sister," Hanabi stated quietly, tugging at her pants. "We should get back."

Hinata's face blanked again, this time quickly replaced with a frown before she nodded and accepted a few bills from me. "This is very gracious of you, Kotaro. I will remember it."

Now let's see... why does that almost sound like a threat?

I contemplated caring about it for a moment, then decided not to. I had enough on my plate. The goddamn ninja were watching over my shoulder constantly, I was trying to manage a new set of relationships, I had my own research to do, and on top of it I was, for some reason, keeping up the futile struggle to do something good in this crapsack world.

Intellectually, I got it. I understood why all of this was happening. I'd had the opportunity, back when I was a nobody, to just walk away. I could have quietly served as a blacksmith's apprentice for a year or two, then attached myself to some trade caravan and jumped ship literally anywhere that wasn't a hidden village.

But I couldn't do that.

It wasn't any specific thing that was sticking in my craw, either. I liked, might even love the girls. Tenten, Satsuki, Yakumo, and Naruko were close friends. I wouldn't have stuck around if I didn't care about them. No, to the contrary, I stuck around because I'd grown fond of them.

If I was being perfectly fair, I couldn't even say I blamed Itachi, Obito, or Hiruzen... well, okay, maybe I blamed Obito. At least a little. It was hard not to. But more to the point, they were just doing their jobs. Moreover, they were actually being very nice about doing their jobs for people with the kinds of body counts they had. Realistically, I could have been brainwashed in a basement somewhere churning out weapons of mass destruction under a less cautious or more aggressive leader in charge.

My fists clenched as the chafing sensation of imaginary bonds pooled in my gut and I fought it back down with the ancient mantras of the Sage of Six Paths, feeling my chakra return to a placid pool of energy instead of the storm-tossed waters it had been moving towards.

It was just... frustration. That was it.

I wasn't really angry, just irritated at both my situation... and myself. I wasn't someone who enjoyed conflict and didn't want to be called up to engage in it. Unfortunately, that meant I tended to accommodate stressors until I snapped. High ideals were all well and good, but at the end of the day it was just easier for me to bend the knee as long as the situation wasn't truly horrendous.

And... Konoha wasn't that bad.

For all that it might be a police state training child soldiers in a constant state of frozen conflicts with other more aggressive settlements of similar composition...

There were happy people here. Tradesmen, farmers, families... most of Konoha wasn't active-duty military. I couldn't fault any of the shinobi for... well, most of their actions. Aside from the really fucked up shit, a lot of it was warranted to protect their loved ones and their homes.

For a moment, I wished I'd taken Hinata up on her offer.

I knew it would have been a bad idea, but beating her black and blue would have been therapeutic.

"-night, Kota. Sorry that white-eyed bitch showed up and ruined everything at the last minute," Satsuki was saying as I came back to myself from my ruminations.

I shook my head. "Don't worry about it." Then, struck by that same need to do something, I leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. One hand went up to caress her face as she stiffened. Pulling away, I dipped past her face and pressed my lips almost to her ear. "Tonight was wonderful," I lied. "Sleep tight."

Satsuki squeaked, her eyes blowing wide as her face flushed. For a moment, she stood frozen, then vanished in a blur of motion. I huffed a laugh at the settling cloud of leaves in her wake and turned to Tenten and Yakumo.

Stepping up to the Kurama heiress, I gave her a clear moment to refuse my advance as she swallowed and steeled herself before allowing me to make the connection between us. Yakumo melted where Satsuki had frozen, pressing against me softly as I wrapped her in an embrace as well. Breaking away, I tapped our foreheads together making her eyes flutter open. "Time to go home, Yakumo."

She took a shuddering breath before nodding, pulling away with a last look over her shoulder as she walked slowly down the fork in the road to her clan's property.

Tenten, stepping up beside me, nudged her shoulder against mine.

Raising an eyebrow, I looked at her.

She smirked in response. "Don't think you're sending me off to a cold bed with just a kiss."

I considered the ultimatum for a moment, before nodding. "My place, then. I have sound-proofing seals on the walls."

Tenten's own eyebrows rose, before her cheeks colored slightly. "Ah, that... yeah, that might be a good idea."

Tenten certainly put my earlier claim to the test as she howled to the heavens as her fingers clawed at my sheets hard enough to tear holes in them. Thankfully, I'd have the foresight to put on a pair of thick, thigh-shaped earplugs.

"OOOOH-GODS!"

It didn't help as much as I'd thought, but it kept me from having to regenerate my ear drums.

Looking up at Tenten's sweat-streaked body as her hips tried to rise up from the bed, I began to swirl my tongue against her core. Suddenly, her hand met my head, gently pushing me away. "N-no more! Th-that's the fourth one! Fuck!"

I chuckled, flexing a bit of chakra in a cleaning jutsu to remove the mess of liquids from my face. "I did ask you whether or not I should hold back."

Tenten gave a gasping laugh, nearly hysterical. "Y-you asshole!"

"I haven't even started on anal, though." I objected plainly, smirking at her.

"How are you this good?! I thought you hadn't had sex before!" Tenten whined plaintively as she tried to push me away while I rose over her, her hands beating on my chest.

"I haven't." I told her honestly, not in this life at least. "I'm just that good."

Tenten took another shuddering breath as she looked down where my member was resting against her entrance. "I... more?"

"I'll go slow," I promised, my smirk fading to a more natural smile. "Slow and gentle."

Tenten breathed in deeply, releasing the air in a measured pace as she firmed. "I've been waiting for over a year. I'm not backing down now."

I leaned in to kiss her as, with one of my hands, I opened her lower lips and carefully pressed myself into her. Tenten hissed into my mouth as I removed my hand from beneath her waist and palmed her breast to slowly massage it. Pulling back, I sighed as silken heat enveloped my dick as I drove myself into her core.

"Mhmm... good," Tenten sighed, thrusting her chest into my hand.

True to my word, I kept my pace slow and steady no matter that I wanted to fuck her like a machine. Next time, I promised myself. Given the way Tenten was convulsively clenching around me, I thought I was probably going to get a repeat performance. Slowly, ever so slowly and nearly painfully on my part, I started speeding up.

"Fuck-yes, h-harder," Tenten breathed, grunting as she urged me on.

"I'm close," I whispered, unleashing my control as I felt my pleasure building.

"C-cum! Inside me!" Tenten cried, her own pleasure peaking again as I played her body like an instrument I'd been playing my entire life.

I growled, thrusting once-twice-thrice-

Tenten moaned as her body collapsed limply against the bed. I pushed myself into her a few more times, draining myself in a long exhalation of breath. Dropping myself to her side and wrapping an arm around her, I smiled as Tenten curled into me. "That was amazing... thanks sensei."

I groaned, exasperation clear in the tone as Tenten giggled.

"Go to sleep before I get a second wind," I threatened.

The laughter abruptly cut off as she pulled up the blankets on top of us.

…​