Bleeding Heart

"Stop trying. Take long walks. Look at the scenery. Doze off at noon. Don’t even think about flying. And then, pretty soon, you’ll be flying again."

-Ursula, 'Kiki's Delivery Service'.

Deciding to quit the academy was a step forward, as was telling those closest to him of his intentions. 

Actually quitting, however, was a work in progress. 

Sage save him from the machinations of bureaucracy.  

Without parents to withdraw him, Daiki was well and truly as stuck as a Kiri T and I inmate. As a ward of the village cum academy student, his quickest route to emancipation had been becoming a shinobi. Genin, no matter how prepubescent, were recognized as legal adults, awarded the full bounty therein. Access to alcohol, ownership of any patents or inheritance of majorities, being tried as an adult after a crime and thus the awardance of punishment met to the full extent of the law. If you could kill for your village, be sent to the battlefield to die for it, you should be able to act on your own will and have full repercussions thereof. 

As Daiki saw it, for orphans it was a further incentive, reaching legal autonomy and independence. For civilian born genin, it was the village’s method of taking away the protections afforded to children by having a guardian, ensuring its will supersedes any previous claim. After graduation, civilian parents lost any right to direct their child’s future and could not object to any decisions made concerning their child who, whether six or twelve, was now in a different social caste than them. The closest to a pastor civilian genin possessed were their Sensei, though even that was subject to loss if a student was repudiated after graduation and released to the genin corps. 

The only genin spared such sudden social debuts were clan children who, as descendants of generational shinobi, were entitled to the protections of clan law. Clan heads acted as intermediaries and advocates for any genin under their care until chunin or jonin status was attained, or a strictly defined financial independence was reached, in accordance with the clan’s charter. 

All this to say: Itachi, as the epitome of clan-born, had no idea how to help Daiki. 

Daiki had filled out drop out paperwork several times already, only for it to get “lost” or rejected and sent back for inane and superfluous reasons. Along with hunting down the proper forms to begin with, he had found along the way that he needed several forms of identification documentation that he didn’t possess as a minor and thus had to apply for separately before he could even receive the forms for withdrawal. Then he had needed witnesses to “incompetence sufficient for derliciton of duty”. Several impossible hurdles, interviews, and invasive forays into his personal matters later and suddenly he was informed that he ultimately needed approval from the hokage himself, which could take anywhere from six to twelve months, that is if there weren’t any errors found in his documentation before then. Or, of course, updates or amendments to the process of withdrawal, which, of course , would require resubmission of his documentation and, of course , result in the loss of his spot in the queue.  

Daiki held the latest notification of rejection of withdrawal in his hands and decided enough was enough. 

What did it matter what it said on paper if Daiki just didn’t show up? Skip enough classes and they were sure to get the memo. 

He eagerly reacquainted himself with daynaps until the stillness bored him to tears. Feeling as though he’d been betrayed by a dear friend, he spent his time between being conjoined at Mikoto’s hip when Itachi, who was seeming to become more and more busy as of late, was nowhere to be found and training whatever tickled his fancy.

(He was still waiting to be shipped back to the orphanage now that he had recovered but no one, not even the distantly disapproving Fugaku or the ever-begrudging-of-his-presence Sasuke, had mentioned anything about him leaving and Daiki was loathe to bring it up himself lest he be the impetus of his own undoing.)

Whereas his old friend sleep was evading him, his past hobby of absorbing knowledge like much needed air welcomed him back with tender artifice. He was devouring scrolls and books at a pace unmatched by his time before the academy, and, with the foundation afforded to him by Itachi, he was able to actually create a sort of regimen for himself. The routine of dividing his time between the library, the private Uchiha training fields, and assisting with the upkeep of the household was grounding in a way waking up and dragging himself to the academy had never been.

He felt he was living his life hands-on, now, instead of half heartedly and with great resentment. His footing had never felt firmer. 

-

Daiki watched Naruto skip away and waved fondly at his retreating back before tucking his hands into the jacket he’d found abandoned in the Uchiha’s genkan to brace himself for his own walk home. Lingering feelings of effortless grace and adhesive protectiveness clung to the jacket’s collar and cuffs, warming Daiki in a way the jacket’s tactical grade insulation couldn’t hold a candle to. In the wake of his brother’s frequent absence, Daiki had found himself becoming a grade A laundry thief. It made Mikoto smile in an endeared-sad-longing-aching way that even his prime emotion sensing couldn’t quite parse. 

Dragging his feet through the frosted, brown grass was gratifying and a habit he had yet to break despite the scolding it had earned him on several occasions for leaving such an obvious, traceable trail. His ears were perked for the crisp sound of crunching ice, which is perhaps the only reason he heard it. 

“Sssstupid lumbering beasties. Fat heads with fatter feet.”

The venom in the voice made Daiki pause, the ugly feeling of being prey lancing down his spine. The emotion was faint and slippery in a way he found oddly compelling. Compelling or not, his net of sensation caught no one within hearing range, no potential owner of the voice. Daiki hunkered down and put a hand to the worn weapons pouch on his hip, drawing comfort from wisps assured confidence from its previous owner. 

The voice was somehow louder now. 

“Winter nest wreckers sssshould be glad superior beings don’t end their pitiful existence. One bite is merciful, hardly a suiting punishment.”

Following the plume of enraged despair, Daiki found himself looking down, down, down, until finally his eyes caught on a small form weaving its way through the weeds just to his left. He furrowed his brow against his mind’s sudden fervent rejection of the situation.

He had to be mistaken. Maybe all snakes just hated the world and all felt maligned distress. Just because this snake felt emotions in line with the voice didn’t mean it had talked. Snakes can’t talk.

Nevertheless, the snake was beautiful, unlike any he had ever seen, with a pearlescent sheen over dappled pink scales. It was-

“Adorable.” The word escaped his mouth and he watched as the thing suddenly seemed to take offense to his presence as it reared back. 

“Offensssive! The beastie hatchling lacks respect and grace. It will be bitten on its foolishly bared toes!”

Daiki felt his face slacken as he made eye contact with (cute) baby pink eyes, fangless maw barred wide. 

“Please don’t.” 

“Finding manners in fear will not save the speaker- A speaker?” The snake bobbed in a gravity defying way as it flickered its tongue in Daiki’s direction. He stayed ever so still as it drew nearer to his ‘foolishly bared toes’. He made a mental note to buy more sensible footwear. A ninja he was no longer, which meant boots. Loafers even.

“How are you talking?”

“How are you talking?”

Both boy and reptile paused in the lap of awkward coincidence. 

The snake broke the silence. (Snakes can’t talk. Animals can’t talk, so snakes can. Not. Talk.)

“Takara will forgive the insult if the speaker takes him somewhere warm.” It was said graciously, as though Daiki would have to be an idiot not to take the offer. 

“Daiki will have a mental breakdown if Takara does not explain how he can talk.”

“Daiki is faint of heart and weak minded. He ssshould be honored to be spoken to.”

Daiki forfeited his stance and sank to his knees and then his pockets, feeling the frost immediately begin to melt and soak through his pants. He thought of pink hair and the usurpation of gravity with the use of chakra, red eyes with spinning pupils and casual feats of impossible strength. Things his mind whispered were impossible in a voice laden with the all consuming ache of The Nightmare.

He held out his hand, feeling that flickering tongue on his fingertips. 

“Please forgive this beastie its follies. I know nothing and repeatedly need to be reminded of this.”

The snake slid up Daiki’s sleeve to take shelter in his armpit. Daiki felt all the hairs on his neck rise at once at the strange sensation but was loath to rebuke the creature. He was treated to the unique experience of having something speak to him through his own clothing. 

“Takara will teach. Daiki will learn.” 

Daiki liked the sound of that.