A strange new life
9.6

Given the night’s events, there was no way I’d go back to sleep. I didn’t wake Karin or Ino for their turn. I spent the rest of the night in silent contemplation, and maybe self-hatred.

What made me confront the sword was the constant feeling of being watched. I should have known better and left it alone. But what was done was done; no crying over spilled milk. The nausea that hit me every time I remembered the events was hard to keep a hold of. It was, I realized, the reason I never used mokuton nature transformation, as well as why I didn’t push too hard regarding some jutsu or the eye.

Plugging eyes into your eye sockets, changing your body into wood or, god forbid, snakes. Building elemental forces and blowing them out from your mouth, storing seal frogs and snakes inside your body.

It was the one aspect I didn’t like about this world. How… invasive some of those techniques were. Even thinking about it made me squirmish and nauseated.

Out of sight, out of mind. That was my new motto. 

To help with that, I went and prepared breakfast. Get the team ready and well fed for the mission ahead. Locating a pet in the wilderness wasn’t the most glamorous of missions, but it was a mission nonetheless. I wasn’t going to tarnish my record by failing it.

Of course, in the morning, Karin knew that something had happened. I had taken both their watch turns, after all. Fortunately, she didn’t press me, not after seeing my face. Small mercies.

With the info we got from the kind Obaa-chan, we narrowed down the area the ferret was hiding. Karin seemed distracted throughout the day, often looking in the distance.

“What is it, Karin-chan?” I asked after walking closer.

She looked at me, blinked, like she hadn’t realized I was there. She opened her mouth, closed it, then grinned. “Who do you like sleeping with more?”

I didn’t need to look behind me to see Ino glaring at us. I rolled my eyes.

“Be serious,” I deflected. I didn’t have time for Karin’s games.

She shrugged and looked in the distance again; it was the same direction we were already moving towards. “There’s something up ahead I never sensed before.” She waved her hands, trying to grasp concepts. “It’s chakra, but not, at the same time.”

I looked in the same direction she was looking. “Is it dangerous?”

Karin shook her head, then shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just distracting.”

I bumped shoulders with her. “Want me to pilot you around while you examine things?” I asked, voice barely more than a whisper.

It had been a while since I’d done this, but if this new chakra was enough to distract Karin, maybe giving her time to check out the disturbance would help.

She blinked, then nodded. I bumped shoulders with her again. I sprouted my threads and applied my still unnamed hackjob puppeteer jutsu. After that, I moved closer and bumped shoulders with Ino. She’d been sending dangerous glances my way, and just looked away when I got closer.

After a few more minutes of walking, we arrived at the place indicated. I set up the lure and traps to capture the ferret, then we hid among the trees and waited.

It didn’t take long until I felt the strange chakra Karin had spoken about. Like she said, it was chakra, but wasn’t at the same time. It took even less time to realize it was coming from the ferret that bounded in the clearing, sniffing its way toward the traps we had set.

After that, things didn’t take long. The pet got lured, captured, and bagged. Yes, bagged. Nerugui, the name the ferret answered to, was more than happy to snuggle inside Karin’s bag after eating most of the lure and getting ‘captured’.

With the ferret this close, missing the strange energy signature from the critter was impossible. Was this a ninja animal of sorts? The mission info had nothing regarding that. The only details about the pet were that the ferret was shy around new people. That looked somewhat true. Among our group, Nerugui avoided Ino and Tenten, stayed as far as he could from me, and often nestled on Karin’s shoulder or bag.

“What now?” Tenten asked after we packed things up.

“Takumi village,” I said, taking out the area map. The village wasn’t far from where we were, but it would still be a few hours of travel. “After delivering Nerugui, we gather information about Tsunade’s whereabouts from the locals.”

That got me nods from all around.

I looked at Karin, still distracted by the ferret. “The mission details might be wrong, and there’s a chance we’ll face danger, be alert.”

Then I explained to Ino and Tenten about the strange chakra signature and what I thought about it, that maybe Nerugui was a ninja animal, even if it didn’t behave like it. With preparations made, we trekked across plains, crossed rivers, and more rivers. To no one’s surprise, there were a lot of rivers to cross. Made sense, given the place’s name.

I knew things wouldn’t be easy when I saw the smoke in the distance. Not only that. Karin’s attention kept getting pulled from the ferret toward the village’s direction.

My hand went up, closed fist; one of our prepared signals. The team stopped, looked around, and then looked at me.

“Karin?” I asked after the redhead kept walking.

Karin stopped, looked my way. “Huh?” She blinked a few times, looking at the ferret in her arms, then in the distance again. “There’s one more,” she said, “bigger,” she added.

I nodded, my hands flashed, and out popped a clone. I gave Recon-chan a nod and weapons. My clone rolled her eyes and took the things, but instead of going about and doing her duty, she walked to Ino and hugged the blonde. Like a cat, she nuzzled the nascent mind ninja.

Ino’s hands wrapped around my clone, but her eyes were on me. Her face was a bit flushed. “Hinata-chan?”

Recon-chan pulled back, kissed Ino’s cheek, too close to the corner of her lips, then the other side. She hugged again a startled Ino, whispered something in her ear.

After that, my clone released Ino, stuck her tongue at Karin, saluted Tenten, made a rude gesture at me, then darted off.

I ignored it; my ears weren’t burning. “Let’s wait,” I said, leading the team off the road we were following.

Tenten’s calculating stare, Karin’s leering grin, and Ino’s still flustered face weren’t anything I had to worry about. Nope. Not at all. Out of sight, out of mind.

I wasn’t jelly of my clone. Not one bit.

Recon-chan sped ahead, already regretting not having hugged Ino longer. The blonde’s flustered face had been funny to see. Why hadn’t Original-chan snogged that pretty blonde yet? Oh, right. She wanted Ino to make the first move. Silly, but understandable. Still silly.

But it wasn’t the time or place. She kept away from the road, slowing her speed once she crested an overlook.

As Original-chan feared, the smoke billowing in the distance was from burnt buildings and houses. With confirmation that things weren’t good, the clone thought about what to do. She could disperse, relay the information, and let Hinata decide what to do next, or she could explore, learn more.

She jumped down, sped toward the city. It was time to see what the hell was happening here.