Chapter 4
Looks like I still got some juice left? Honestly, I read and re-read all of your reviews and I get super motivated. There are really few things nicer than knowing that I’m not just producing crap.
Sasuke is already sitting in the living room, a bowl of something on his lap. Smells like Miso, definitely not by Hisana’s doing. This could be … a peace offering or a declaration of independence, depending on whether or not he made some for her as well. Outwardly he doesn’t seem to spare her a glance, but Hisana can hear and sense his spoon halting. He’s watching her covertly. When she walks past him into the kitchen there’s indeed an entire pot of soup. She takes some and prepares herself for the coming confrontation. It’s not unlike preparing for battle, she finds, unsure whether to find that amusing or disturbing.
This isn’t a battle. Or at least it isn’t supposed to be.
Making an effort to look less confrontational she loosens her shoulders. Hisana thinks she doesn’t look very combative right now: Suit half off, shoes and vest thrown off at the entrance. For good measure she pulls out her hair tie; it leaves a messy kink in her strands that makes her feel vaguely unkempt.
When she marches back into the living room Sasuke is watching her from under his fringe, eyes wide with expectation. It makes him look years younger; a purely calculated move on his part. Looks like she isn’t the only one who prepared herself. “You underhanded little shit,” she says, the words simply slipping out. For a moment he stares at her – this time genuinely wide-eyed – before he snorts derisively.
“Look who is talking. Put your hair back up, dimwit.”
Hisana sinks onto the couch in relief.
“I hate fighting with you,” she says, “It never ends well for me.”
“You’ve been thinking about separate bedrooms again,” he accuses.
“Seriously Sasuke, one of these days it’s going to end in tears.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
Hisana slings an arm around his shoulder, food forgotten for the moment.
“You do realize,” she says lowly, “that I’ll always worry? All the time? You can’t stop me. I can’t stop me. And as long as your life ambition is so dangerous you’ll have to fight me every step of the way in one way or another.”
“Then I will just have to pick my battles,” he tells her smartly. “I can live with Naruto and Sakura. But if I have to hog-tie you to make jounin, I will.”
“If you manage that you have my blessings,” she says flatly. If Sasuke makes jounin – when he makes jounin, Hisana has no doubt that Kakashi will need exactly zero convincing to pull him into team Eta. Judging by the look on Sasuke’s face he already expects her to plan something shady. “One more week,” Hisana finally hums, “Are you ready?” After all, apart from the Wave mission, he has months of boredom and menial tasks to look forward to. He scoffs at her.
“Of course I’m ready. Who do you think I am – the dobe?”
She pinches him in the neck, delighting in his uncoordinated jerk backwards.
“Don’t be mean.”
“We could … have group duels! With a point system – if we tie heavy weights to only one of them – “
Hisana lets her head drop onto the table. “Just send them into the damn forest already!” she snaps, “My god!”
“This is all your own fault,” Shiki reminds her, reading glasses perched precariously low on her nose. It makes her look like a teacher.
“I know,” she hisses. “Leave me alone. I just … thought it would be a good experience.”
“No you did not,” Shizuha assert easily. “I am unsure what exactly made you decide to spend your last remaining free time on this” – here her tone heavily implies ‘instead of with us’ – “but pure learning experiences have yet to motivate you to anything.”
“Shizurin, you’re so harsh,” Hisana whines. “Are you saying I’m lazy?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
Two tables over someone snickers before Shiki cuts his amusement short.
“If you have time to eavesdrop, you have time for the rest of your paperwork, Hotaka. Get going.”
The young man wilts under her stern eyes and then slinks off, presumably to get his paperwork. Poor guy, Hisana thinks charitably. Since she got her own team lazy Shiki has turned into somewhat of a slave driver. It’s amusing to watch, mostly because she effortlessly swings back and forth between strict task-master and useless layabout like a pendulum.
Shizuha, too, has a team to command. Its members come and go because most of them are newly made chuunin, but it’s still a success. As it turns out the Aburame has shown to be very adept at weeding out the squeamish ones. In an unexpected turn of events Shizuha’s promotion to tokubetsu jounin actually got through two weeks before Hisana’s – something that Shiki still hasn’t let her forget, despite the fact that the Nara’s own promotion is still up in the air.
Career-wise, Hisana thinks wistfully, those two are worlds ahead of her. Tracking is a pretty informal department and if she wants to lead a squad she’ll have to compete with a dozen or so Inuzuka jounin first. But Kakashi’s team – Kakashi-taichou’s team – is already rather infamous, even though it’s barely a few months old. Team-wise everything Kakashi touches appears to turn into gold. It’s a testament of how much of a clusterfuck the original team 7 was that even he couldn’t save it.
Still, it chafes a little. Being responsible for her own team would be … nice. Of course she could always pull a Genma and oversee a provisory team of Academy students, but she’s not entirely sure how good she actually is with children who aren’t her cousin plus entourage.
The though triggers another one. In the manga she never actually found out what happened to the girls who bullied Sakura. Ami and … god, she forgot the names again. Honestly, she’d really love to know if they’ll manage.
“Shizurin, who were those girls again …? The one that were mean to Sakura-chan?”
The Aburame only looks at her in confusion before giving a helpless shrug. No idea either.
“The inner workings of your head sometimes really worry me,” Shiki deadpans. “What brought that on?”
“I just thought I needed a hobby.” It’s a testament of how good they know each other that neither girl seems confused.
“Get a pet,” the Nara says, “like a normal person.” For a moment Hisana only stares at her, ready to laugh and swat the girl, but the idea isn’t so stupid after all. Of course ninja don’t get regular pets, but there are nin-dogs. The thought of a partner like that is appealing, but she still holds somewhat of a grudge against Inuzuka Tsume, so she’s not going to ask her. Also, Hisana is more of a cat person than a dog person, and the only clan capable of providing nin-cats in Konoha were the Uchiha. The thought of tracking down Nekobaa doesn’t sit well with her for some reason. Maybe for Sasuke, one day. God knows the boy could use a companion. Preferably a non-scaly one. Instead, another thought comes to mind
A summoning animal would serve almost as well; better even, because she’s pretty independent and lugging an animal around with her all the time seems like it would be more of a hindrance than help. An uncomfortable but almost seductive idea occurs her. It’s been a while since she visited Uchiha complex.
Summons aren’t actually as common as she’d first thought. Many ninja rather utilize nin-animals instead of trying to get their hands on a contract.
Haru unexpectedly brought back a scroll from the Iwa Exams, and Hisana has seen what sort of difficulties you can face, even if you manage to find one. She has no idea how her former teammate got his hands on the contract and he doesn’t like talking about. Judging by how suspiciously the raccoons watched him in the beginning can’t have been good. They worked for him, but only grudgingly, before he properly earned their trust. Months of hard work. And then you might be stuck with someone whose personality you can’t stand.
Investing some time and training in a baby nin-animal sounds much more appealing in comparison.
Hisana fishes the keys for the wrought iron gate out of her pocket. The Uchiha district hasn’t changed at all – how would it? The atmosphere is especially bad in the cold spring weather when fog crawls through the streets like a cheap horror movie. Hisana isn’t scared but it’s somewhat weird knowing that others would be. It’s almost as if the entire place was made for terrible stories to take place in.
The last time she was here was months ago. She’s found the shrine by now, but destroying the stone plates that hold the Sharingan’s secrets is almost impossible. Hisana has no idea what they did with it, but no jutsu could scratch it and it’s too heavy to bring anywhere.
She did however find some documents that were worth incinerating. But in the end she didn’t. They are currently, like Shisui’s letter, stuffed into her underwear drawer, because it occurred to her that she might someday need them to convince Sasuke of Itachi’s innocence. Or at least his … goodwill. Itachi is anything but innocent, even if they probably both wish otherwise.
Grimacing, Hisana decides that today is decidedly the last time she’ll come here without Sasuke. The place always gives hear heart aches.
Stepping into ‘Hisana’s’ family home stills seems like an intrusion of the worst kind. Despite how close Hisana feels to Shisui, the reasons for which she hasn’t dared to examine too closely, these people were strangers and parading their not-dead-but-as-good-as daughter in front of them can’t be good for her karma. Also the upstairs rooms give her the same willies that Fugaku-sama’s dojo does. Hisana’s father died in his bed – asleep as she suspects. The bed itself is stripped of anything bloody, but the fact that the entire mattress is missing does speak volumes.
Shisui’s room is … an adventure. It’s not messy, but definitely not clean either.
Privately she wonders if her brother thought he’d succeed until the very end. Some people clean up before they commit suicide, even take off their shoes before they jump from a roof. It’s the reason she thinks Itachi’s room is so neat. Shisui had too much hope left.
None of his things have been moved since he died, except for a carton on his desk. He seems to have had a desk somewhere that they cleaned out for him. Searching through his things feels somehow more awkward than it did to look through her oldest cousin’s room. Hisana barely dares to open any secret compartment she finds – and boy are there many – afraid she’ll stumble onto something that … seventeen year old boys are prone to hiding in their room.
Apart from that, looking at his possessions is confusing and painful. Some things her hands linger on longer than necessary, fingers twisting around them in unwilling spasms. In the end she stuffs one of his shirts into her bag, unsure what to do with it but unwilling to take it out again.
At the very bottom of a box on his dresser, shoved far against the wall, she finally finds what she’s been looking for. It’s a pretty scroll, snow white with blue trimmings. When Hisana opens it she finds the signatures of four Uchiha at the bottom, the very last one belonging to her brother. She rolls it back up, nervousness kicking up another notch. She has no idea what sort of animal this is, would have to unroll yards of paper judging by the size of it, but right now it doesn’t even matter. This is it.
Hisana lets the contract slide into her bag, forcing herself not to feel like a thief. Nobody will miss it. Officially everything in here belongs to her anyway. She may not be ‘Hisana’, but she’s all that’s left of the girl; nobody has any more right to it than her.
She wills the unbidden thoughts away and hurries down the stairs. The sooner she gets out of this place, the better.
Instead of going straight home, the way she really wants to, Hisana heads for one of the less popular training grounds. She unrolls the scroll, hesitating.
This a big commitment. Does she really want that? Yes, yes, yes, it goes off in her head. For the first time in a pretty long while Hisana has no idea what she’s doing, but is still convinced that it’s the right thing. She nicks her finger with a senbon and awkwardly smears her name below Shisui’s. So. And now?
Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, … Ram?
There’s a poof of smoke so intense that Hisana falls over backwards, painfully hitting her tail bone. She coughs and then chokes.
In front of her lies a tiny, almost naked skunk.
By reflex her hands reach out but then falter. Oh god – can she touch it? Why is it so small? Is it dead? The skunk kit squirms uncomfortably and then disappears with a much smaller poof.
Hisana stares at the spot, aghast. “Skunks, Shisui?” she hisses, “Really?”
She rubs her head roughly, trying to concentrate. One more try.
This time she forces more chakra into the jutsu. There’s still an uncontrolled explosion of smoke, but at least this time she’s prepared. A moment of silence and then the sound of exaggerated sniffing.
“Shisui?” it bleats out of the dust cover, “What the hell, I can smell you, you bastard!”
“Be quiet idiot! That’s not him – can’t you read chakra at all?”
“No way! I recognize that stink anywhere! You asshole, where have you been?”
A skunk stumbles towards her, completely bypassing Hisana before sticking its nose into her backpack. She stares at it, unsure whether or not to say anything. And then there’s suddenly another one, ambling over to squint at her. They’re about as big as a pair of cats, both wearing vests with the Uchiha fan on the back.
“Who’re you?” the smaller one questions from below, sitting back on its haunches and rubbing its eyes. Its voice is decidedly female. Behind them the other skunk has managed to get into Hisana’s bag and is throwing stuff all over the floor.
“I- I’m Uchiha Hisana,” she forces out, trying to sound confident but failing spectacularly. What’s going on? Are those Shisui’s summons?
“Hisana, Hisana,” it comes from her bag. “I know that name. Idiot would never shut up about you.”
“Come down here,” the female one demands. Hisana kneels down next to her, allowing the animal to touch her face. “You’re older than I thought,” she finally says. “But then again, it’s been a while. Where’s your brother?”
Hisana licks her lips awkwardly. “Ah … there’s … There’s something you need to know.”