NOVEL NEXT 2.15
I thought for a moment what to do. No, that’s a lie. I didn’t think. Without seals, or any puff of smoke, out popped a shadow clone. I stared myself in the eyes. I looked so dumb right now. Rosy cheeks and ears. Wild eyes. Damn Haku. Why? Oh god, why?
My clone looked back at me. There was no need for communication between us. My clone henged. I was now looking at any other street urchin. We nodded to each other again, the copy saluted me, walked out of the alley, followed Haku, I returned to the restaurant. Gotta keep the client safe, after all.
Original me looked so dumb right now. I had to stifle a silent laughter. Wouldn’t do to mock myself. I used henge no jutsu to fit in with the crowd, saluted. It was time to start the mission. Being a clone was strange. I had done some experimenting the prior weeks, and learned a few interesting facts. All I had in me when I made a clone got duplicated as well. Clothes, weapons, seals. They were, however, all chakra constructs.
I could use a kunai if it was on my body, I couldn’t activate any of the fuinjutsu to summon more. Any strong impact would disrupt the chakra flow and turn the thing into smoke. Clone-me was weaker, since I didn’t have my arsenal of exploding weapons at hand. But that was fine, this was a stealth and recon mission.
Haku’s path led her, err, him — gawdammit — they across the desolated town. Their pretty robes and manicured appearance drew attention, the wrong sort of attention. Even so, no one bothered them. Which I found strange. Before I had kicked the shit out of those thugs, I had to contend with some low level of annoyance, mostly with people trying to steal things from my backpack while they thought I hadn’t been looking. It took beating the crap of Gato’s thugs to scare most of them off.
I didn’t pay attention yesterday, but the town was poor, more like a slum than town, really. Almost empty stores, high prices, broken windows. Places uncared for, trash pilled around alleys, and beggars. The amount of beggars begged belief. Old, young, adults, teenagers. Everywhere I looked I saw more and more people that needed a good meal. Their skin sallow and cheeks sunk. Clothes that were more straps than actual garments.
I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time. Things would get better, I knew they would. It didn’t change the fact I felt pretty crappy about just enjoying my ninja life while these people suffered. There wasn’t much I could do, however. I hadn’t brought enough food to feed a starving city. I didn’t have money to buy stuff. Even so, where I would by stuff? Could I steal from Gato? I tossed that idea away. Not the time, not the place, not the mission.
Haku crossed most of the town, stopping to enter a shop here and there, herbs shops, flower shops. They left with bundled of old, dried flowers in their basket. I think I had a pretty good idea of the situation. Haku was scouring the towns shops for any type of medicinal herb. Disguised it as buying flowers.
Their path led them outside town. I debated following, decided I shouldn’t. Felt too much like a trap. I turned back, scurried inside, dove into an alley. When I was sure no one had seen me, or were coming for me, I released myself from the jutsu.
I was at the bridge again, keeping an eye on Tazuna, training my chakra control when the clone’s memories and impressions flooded my mind. I nodded. Clone-chan did the right thing. Following a possible enemy into an unknown location without informing out the team was dumb. My primary job was to guard Tazuna, not find enemy ninjas. The rest of the day dragged on.
Sending out a clone to explore gave me a few ideas. Training opportunities I hadn’t considered. When I learned the technique from Naruto, my goal had always been to use it as some sort of training cheat. To let me learn things faster, train better, experiment with stuff without hurting myself. But after the first night experimentation… I didn’t really use the jutsu. Almost forgot I had it. Mostly because Naruto wasn’t supposed to teach me, and I didn’t want to get him in trouble.
We returned to Tazuna’s house at the end of a day’s of work. I had ideas. So many ideas.
Late that night after the boys ate like pigs and passed out, I sat down to talk with sensei. “I have news to report.” I wrote on the board, using my threads.
“What is it, Hinata-chan?” Sensei asked.
“An unknown ninja entered the town today,” I wrote, “No direct contact with the client. The unknown ninja visited a number of herb and flower shops, before leaving the city again. I thought best not to follow at that point.”
“What else can you tell me about this ninja?”
“Young, a few years older than me. Pretty. Can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl. Don’t know how strong. I think I was spotted and led outside the town on a possible trap.” In my mind, that old Bowie song started.
You got your mother in a whirl, she’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl.
I almost bobbed to the music. Caught myself before doing something stupid. Although, by the way sensei looked at me, I might have moved, just a bit.
Sensei nodded. “Good job Hinata-chan.” He tried to pat my head. I ducked away. Was still bitter about the whole training thing. I nodded, bowed, went to sleep.
Crack of dawn we left for training again. Naruto had a huge smiled on his face, walked with hands behind his head. Sasuke looked sullen, more than usual. It didn’t really make me feel better like I thought it would. Kakashi-sensei followed the boys to their training ground. I waved them away and went to do my own thing.
When I was outside view of the others, I put part one of my plan to work. I removed all my weight seals, created four shadow clones, put my seals again. The clones all unlimbered, it was pretty funny, it looked like they were moving on fast forward. It was perfect.
“Now, shoo.” I wrote, waving my clones away. We nodded at each other, Clones-chan paired, each duo moving into a different direction. It didn’t matter what they did, as long they didn’t use too much chakra. What I wanted was the experience of moving without my seals.
I popped my koto out, adjusted the bridges. I couldn’t use my right hand to pluck the strings, my shoulder recovered fast, too fast now that I thought about it, but I still couldn’t move my arm. That’s when my new training exercise came in. I had been focusing on chakra strength of the threads, and amount of threads. Maybe best now if I trained finesse? I realized when trying to use the threads to manipulate the pen to write. Small, delicate movements with them was difficult. I didn’t know if this was a valid or even useful type of exercise, but at least it was something else I could improve. That was what really mattered to me.
Koto ready and bridges adjusted, I created some chakra threads, plucked a few tentative strings. Or at least I tried. I plucked one string too strong, the other too slow, even missed one string entirely. I smiled. Yes, I could train this.
