A strange new life

5.19

I woke up the next day not refreshed, but feeling better, ready to get out of the bed and start a new day. The trauma hadn’t gone away, but it was contained, after a fashion. A memory of the laboratory surfaced, and I had to close my eyes, force the shaking to stop. I wasn’t going to have another mental breakdown. Not here, at least. I was sure I’d be able to complete the mission. Delving deeper into the nature of what happened to me, and what it really meant could wait until I was back at home safe, sound, and hopefully happy.

Maybe I should try counseling? Did Konoha even have the concept of therapy?

A thought flashed in my mind, I imagined how a therapy session would be like in Konoha: A comfortable room, and a comfortable chaise lounge. On a similar comfortable chair opposite the chaise sat Yamanaka Inoichi, with a book in hand titled: The secrets of the mind. With his grave voice he would say. “Now, relax and open your mind. This won't hurt a bit.”

I shook the silly thought away. My chest burned with thirst, my stomach growled in hunger. More than that, I needed to find the loo. It was a matter of life and death.

That need spurned me out of the warm blankets and into a new day. The water jug had been replaced at some point, and the bowl of food swapped to bread, cheese and a few dried fruits. I remember those. We purchased them back in the town to complement our own supplies.

Before the day really started, I pushed my chakra, out popped another me. She had bed hair, lines on her face from the blanket, eyes still crusty, clothes in disarray from staying in bed for days without removing her ninja gear. But her eyes, while sad, weren’t despairing. Her mouth curved with a small smile.

I hopped closer, gave her a big hug, then kissed her forehead. I know what you’re thinking, but don’t blame me too much. I just decided I was done lying to myself and ignoring my own loneliness. With my particular set of skills, I could actually give myself a hug, so why not? Other me gave me a cheeky grin, like she knew what I was thinking, then another hug before unpopping herself.

I ran toward the restroom and worked on my business, relieved myself before things got even more awkward. Done with my morning ablutions, I swapped for a cleaner outfit, adjusted the weight seals, made sure I was presentable. It was time to face the music.

Yamato’s default house was a two story building with the bedrooms on the upper floor, living room, small rooms that I thought of as offices and the kitchen. Given how dark and cold the house was, the sun hadn’t risen yet. I climbed down the stairs, and found Sai sitting cross legged on a cushion. His eyes were closed, hand in front of his stomach, with each finger meeting the opposite hand counterpart.

Cadaver pale Sai opened his eyes, maybe alerted by the sound of my footsteps. The light was dim, but I could see him glance my way. He gave me a nod, I waved back. Then he closed his eyes again. Behind his facade of calm politeness, I saw something else: indifference, contempt, annoyance.

It wasn’t the first time I had the impression Sai didn’t like me. But it was the first time the feeling was this strong. What was that about? Hold on, was Sai jelly of Yamato taking care of me? I wouldn’t be that, would it? Imagine it, Sai wanted some of Daddy Yamato’s care.

I held in a chuckle at that inappropriate thought. I had no idea about Sai’s situation, and had made no attempt to understand him. It wasn’t fair of me to make fun of him, even in the privacy of my own mind. I was trying to be a better, more honest person.

Kitchen work kept me occupied for the next few minutes. An early breakfast might help with the hard day to come. I decided to splurge. Took out of my seals, a few prepared supplies. Before leaving Konoha, I knew I wouldn’t have much time to bake stuff. The purchased pastries were good enough for my pre-defined good impression kits, but I wanted something better, and I had a few hours to burn before morning.

I rolled up my metaphorical sleeves, and got to work. Breakfast wasn’t going to cook itself.

Later, after I was done with baking the cake, I larded the hot slice with butter. I don’t think doing so was common even in the before, but it was one of my comfort foods. On another plate, I put another slice of cake, a small pot with butter, and a knife. Together with that, was the thermos with tea. I carried all that to the living room where Sai was still keeping vigil.

Not long after I started to prepare breakfast, Sai sent out a few more of his ink birds. At first, I was a bit confused about what he was doing. I could sense his chakra moving, then bits of chakra moving away from the camp. It took a second to link those small bundles of chakra with his ink constructs.

I walked near Sai, placed breakfast in front of him. He opened his eyes again. Looked at the food, then to me. Gave me another nod and got to eating.

I sat on another cushion and ate my butter heavy slice of cake. We didn’t talk. For one, I wasn’t in the mood to talk. This was just my first step to trying to mend a relationship that hadn’t been there at all. Again, we might not ever be friends, that was what my gut kept telling me, but I wanted at least a cordial working relationship.

The aroma of fresh baked cake roused the rest of the team. First Yamato. He walked down the stairs, prim and proper. Nodded at both of us, and went to the kitchen to get his own slice of cake. Hayase showed up a few moments later. Bed hair and bed face, barefooted and scratching his stomach. He let out a big yawn, said something I decided meant good morning, and also disappeared inside the kitchen to get his food.

We ate in silence.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

After we finished the meal, Yamato was the first to break the silence. “I’m glad you’re feeling better today, Hinata-san.” I got up and bowed in thanks to the jounin. He’d done a lot for me. “If things go as planned, I’ll break into the vaults today. I can tackle the laboratories tomorrow, while you help Hayase catalog the vault's contents. We’ll also need your help to store the contents in storage seals for ease of transportation.”

Sai glanced from Yamato to me, while Hayase nodded.

I popped out my board, considered my words. I was aware Yamato fudged the truth a little and was giving me an out to avoid the labs. I didn’t want to avoid the place. I wrote my response. “Thanks, Taicho. I’d really like a chance to make up for the lab. I’d appreciate it even more if you came with me.”

Yamato read the words, his big eyes stared into my soul. “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

“Help me with the vault then. Once we finish there, we can move toward the lab and work there together.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Hayase, who still looked ready to sleep more, asked. “Whatever that trap was, I don’t think I ever heard something screaming like that.” He glanced my way, gave me a chagrined shrug before looking at Yamato again.

The jounin sipped his tea. “It might be, but we still have to investigate the lab. It was my mistake splitting up from Hinata-san, and sending her to investigate the rest of the complex while I dealt with the vault. A mistake I won’t make again.”

I looked down. I didn’t like this. Yamato was taking the blame for something he hadn’t done. It felt nice knowing he was ready to take the fall if it meant keeping others from asking about my mental breakdown, but I also felt indignant that he was coddling me that much. I might be only twelve, but I was proud of being a ninja.

With those conflicting feelings bubbling inside my chest, I followed Yamato into the snake’s lair again. I won’t say I was over all the things that had happened. I was still confused with my own feelings and reactions, but this felt too important to ignore. And, somehow, Yamato wasn’t trying to keep me away from learning.

For some reason, I was expecting that if we ever found anything important related to Orochimaru’s experiments, Yamato would try to keep me as far away from it as possible. It didn’t look like that to me. The man just looked worried for me.

Weird. Was he actually on my corner, and not a spy for the village? I mean, there were all these confusing signals from him. If his goal wasn’t to keep me under surveillance, why did he always hide some of his transmission seeds on my stuff? This wasn’t a new thing, he’d been doing it since hell month when he started to train me. I never really minded the privacy invasion because I didn’t have anything I actually wanted to hide from him, and guessed the man was just following orders.

And he was probably aware I could feel the chakra in the seeds. Yes, I couldn’t tap into that connection and transmission to learn what he was seeing, but Kakashi-sensei knew I could sense chakra. The seed still had chakra inside it, even if it was a tiny bit.

So many mixed signals messing with my head.