Chapter 5
Tsunade stared at the mob of grey hair poking out beneath the white sheets.
“He does look a lot like Kakashi,” Tsunade scanned the man up and down, her eyes scrutinising the details on his face. “But I don’t recall Kakashi having any long-lost twins or anything of that sort…”
“I’m thinking of sending him back to the village. But it will take time for me to explain everything to the Hokage and it will take time for the Hokage to figure out what to do as well,” Sakura’s voice popped up behind Tsunade, who bent down to give a quick check on the man’s pulse. “It’s estimated that he won’t be conscious until another three or four days we won’t be able to receive any further information about him until this man himself awakes.”
“Sakura, the ANBU cop you happen to request is a member of the Analysis Team,” Tsunade pulled away exasperatedly from the patient; her brows knitted together in hesitation. The man has a normal pulse but zero chakra…how could it be? “I saw him on the roof of the dumpling shop just then. You might want to get Moegi to take over his role of guarding and invite him in here.” She jabbed a finger at the ceiling of room six.
“Hai, Tsunade-sama. I will get him right away.” Behind her, the door’s creak came out more like a woman’s shriek as it swung close.
Sakura was right in telling me about this, Tsunade rolled up her sleeves as she made a beeline for the knee-high table at the room’s center, the presence of this man sparked a very peculiar case. Tsunade hurriedly snatched up the paper and plotted down the ink-tipped brush, sweeping it across the paper; her grip on the brush’s wooden handle tightened as she quickened her writing pace, stripping the canvas with heavy strokes; a few blotches of ink spilled onto her fingertips as she pierced the brush down to mark her final words in the letter. This note was to be sent to Shizune, who would later receive it and go back to acting on Lady Tsunade’s orders, requesting to place hold a volume of books regarding the human anatomy and medical ninjutsu as well as various scrolls on the village’s census and papers that contained issues relating to uses of forbidden jutsu. I must figure out who or what he is…or else who could be sure about what issues the Shinobi World might face again? The thought pestered at the front of Tsunade’s head.
She felt the roof above her vibrate and echo with quiet thumps; a few speckles of dust descended onto her head, which Tsunade quickly brushed off in response. The door behind her groaned again as it opened and in stepped her disciple with a man in a white boar mask, dressed in black clothing covered by the grey flak jacket; their arms heavily protected with metal arm guards and gloves and a signature red spiral tattoo, hacked into their left shoulder.
Tsunade motioned for the boar-masked man to step over as she shuffled back toward the drowsing stranger. The ANBU bent down slightly and took a long scan of the foreigner before him, shortly afterward he announced in a low tone, “I will begin the Psycho Mind Transmission. Tsunade-sama…Doctor Sakura…” He glanced to see the two women nodding their hands viciously at him. Stiffly, he raised his hand to the man’s forehead; concentrating chakra into his palms and molding his chakra’s form until it can slowly puncture an opening or seep through one that would lead him into this outsider’s mind.
The only problem was that there wasn’t an opening.
The ANBU dropped his hand uneasily, “My Psycho Mind Transmission won’t work on this foreigner,” he glimpsed sideways at the blob of pink hair behind him, who stood at the doorway watching with dilated eyes. To his left, the ANBU heard Tsunade sighing resignedly, “Psycho Mind Transmission requires and starts by creating or finding an opening in the subject’s head. Ordinary people like villagers or lower-grade shinobi often already have an opening within them as they have a weaker control of guarding their minds against these techniques. However, when it comes to higher-grade shinobi, who can put up barriers around the valuable information in their head, they seal their opening which means that when one performs the transmission technique on these people, they will have to penetrate the sealed opening to get in the subject’s mind.” The ANBU stopped abruptly then lifted a finger at the subject lying before him, “yet this man——as I tried to sense it or create it with my chakra——doesn’t have an opening at all.“
“What is he,” Sakura crossed her hands over her chest as she opened up with a distant voice, “If he lacks all the things that every living thing should have to live in this world?” Her green eyes staring into the abyss behind the eye holes of the boar mask.
——
Far away, from the northeast border of Konoha, stretching to the very northwest of the Hidden Waterfalls Village, there was a sake shop that opened in the early morning and closed very late into the night. To most visitors, it was a plain-looking little hut that provided meals along with sold sake, though it was known more for the sweet sake it produced. The design of the restaurant followed a traditional setting of the Warring States period, a one-story hut built on a wooden foundation with cedar wood planks tiling the floor and ceiling; windows covered by thin rice paper, and wooden poles that shot out from grounds that reached towards the lantern covered ceiling, smouldering and dappled with obscure ginger lights.
The interior of the shack consisted of stubby tables laid out across the room, each one circled by four green cushions; every table had a scented floral candle glued to the middle of it, paired with a vase empty of flowers or tea set short on a couple of tea cups beside it.
At one such table, sat a young man; white-haired with glinting blue eyes that looked more and more translucent as one stared longer at it; his pale skin was covered by layers of dark clothing. A black object in the form of a scythe hangs loosely at the belt around his waist. He had sharp features twenty years old: pointed nose, frowning white brows, and a thin line of pursed lips. The man chewed his right cheek thoughtfully; he swung his arms and gulped down another mouthful of the sake; plunging the bottle back down on the table, he squinted his eyes as he surveyed the space. A solemn impression penetrated through his eyes and held the room in uncertain suspension.
“This is probably the best sake I ever had! No wonder why people come here in the summer very often!” The sober atmosphere of the room plummeted, overtaken by an air of friskiness. ”Such a shame that there are hot springs around here or you would have gotten more visitors during this time of the year.”
“Ha!” A heavy laugh rang out behind the walls. It belonged to the recently wedded shop owner, a thirty years old man whose skin was tan and rough, which struck the visitor as unusual as the natural conditions of the Hidden Waterfalls Village: humid, moist, and shady——shouldn’t roughen or burnt someone’s skin as much as this. It was later that he found out that the shop owner had moved here from the Hidden Stone Village in the Land of Earth, a land constantly exposed to the high heat of the sun and the dried dust particles in the blowing wind. The white-haired visitor had been there quite a few times and had only remembered the distinct maroon color of the rocks there. “You’re saying this too early! It’s only near the start of the holidays, many more will come here soon when it’s halfway through December. Talking about hot springs, there’s one planning to be built near here up in the mountains at the end of this year.”
“Really? I must have been missing out on a lot of stuff since my last stay here a few years ago.”
“Ha ha ha, so you’re also the traveling type; always jumping around from place to place. What’s your name?”
“It’s Sakai, and thank you for the sake. I will leave the money here.” Sakai took a few bronze coins out of his belt pocket and slipped them quietly onto the table.
His fingers fiddled with the rim of the sake bottle; eyes tracing the movement of the murky liquid when he spun the vessel gently, the muffled surging sound playing at his ears; Sakai licked his lips, savoring the fruity flavor that remained in his mouth from his last sip yet this despite this attempt to remain cheery, a sense of forbidding suddenly fell over the man as he spoke up in a hollow tone oozing with menace, “Looks like someone uninvited has entered this place…” A whirlpool of blazing sapphire ignited in his eyes. Sakai slammed down the glass on the table, the sake almost spilling out of the bottle, “Troublesome people…might be time for me to check in with the Leaf Village again.”