Chapter 17
HIKARI HYUGA
Catching cats. Babysitting. Painting fences. Trimming lawns.
Those were not the tasks or missions one would imagine a ninja doing. Yet such was the reality of most D and E-ranked missions, and the three of them had spent the last week doing all that for the past week, with growing frustrations.
There was no official explanation for the reason for the existence of such missions, except to support budding shinobi so that they may be able to fend for themselves, given that one becomes an adult upon donning the Hitai-ate in this world.
Apart from that, not all ninjas were made equal. The people in his team, and most of the clan kids, were nowhere near the norm for most young graduates. A typical shinobi would be lucky to become a chunin after decades and decades of hard work.
Sakura, Ino, Hinata, Naruto, and the rest, for all their misgivings, were way beyond the norm in their talents, skills, and chakra. These relatively menial tasks allowed one to sustain a living while circulating money in a relatively limited economy.
Hikari did not care much for the economics of these missions and was busy painting a fence when suddenly the girl beside her finally lost her cool.
"This is it!" and she threw her brush at the fence as she turned towards their sensei sitting at the back.
"Is this all that we are going to do?" she asked, angrily, and though not that mouthful, Hikari himself was growing somewhat frustrated with it.
"I am tired of all these meaningless D and E-ranked missions. I want to go on a real mission," Ino challenged, and the Sarutobi jounin raised a brow.
"This is a real mission," and Ino's eyes twitched at those words.
"No! These are nothing but chores, and I am done doing them," and Shikamaru's frustrated sigh showed that the black-haired boy had run out of patience as well.
"I am not usually the supporter of a blonde, but she is right," Shikamaru added, as he cracked his neck.
"This is getting rather repetitive," he added as he joined Ino in their protest.
"And with the chunin exams coming up, don't you think that you should be helping us prepare for them?" and that surprised the Sarutobi man, who took out his cigarette.
"Who told you about the exams?" he asked, and both of them turned towards him as Hikari shrugged.
"It is the truth, and I promised them that I would help them pass the exams. So, a little help would be appreciated in that regard," Hikari added his own two cents, and the man gazed at the three of them.
"So, you want me to train you then?" he asked earnestly, and Ino nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes, training or better yet, a real mission where we are not just doing useless chores," she blasted, and the man seemed to consider her words.
"Sure, why not?" and her eyes lit up at that, as he smirked.
"Then for your first task, I want you to paint that fence," and Ino's shoulders slumped.
"I just told you that I am do...."
"By employing chakra or a jutsu," and that stumped the girl.
"What do you mean by that?" and he shrugged.
"That's for you to figure out. But from now on, unless you are using a jutsu or employing chakra in the task, you are not allowed to paint that fence," and with that, he sat down once again.
"And do remember that you have only two more hours until you can finish the task," and with that, he sat down once more with a stunned Ino and Shikamaru eyeing him strangely.
"Hey! That's not fair," Ino challenged, and the jounin simply shrugged.
"You were the one who wanted me to train you. So, here it is," and she bit her lip, huffed, and turned to face the fence and picked up her brush, and just as she was about to put it onto the wood, suddenly her hand stopped, and she turned around and saw her arm stiff, as he noticed a few chakra coils wrapped around it.
"I was clear," the Sarutobi jounin added as he looked at Ino.
"Only chakra or jutsu," he declared, as he loosened the strings, as Ino's face contorted.
"At least teach us something first," she challenged.
"I will," he answered with a smile.
"But first you must show me that you are capable of learning," and with that, he looked him in the eye for a second and began to play with his cigarette again, as Ino glared at the paint and the wall.
"What the hell am I supposed to do?" she thundered, and already he could see Shikamaru's mind racing as Ino eyed the paint and fence with disgust and thought, trying to make a plan.
Hikari himself had a few options already running in his mind that he could try, but he wanted to see what Ino and Shikamaru would do at first, and so he plopped down.
"Got it," Shikamaru was the first to move, and he saw the Nara make a hand sign as his shadow tore itself off the ground and slowly dipped into the pain jar, and then began to paint the wall with shaky strokes.
"Remember that if the customer is not satisfied, you lot will not be getting paid," and the Nara grit his teeth in concentration as he slowly began to steady his strokes, as he nudged Ino's shoulders.
"Want a hint?" he began, and the girl nodded.
"What?" she asked.
"Transformation jutsu," he told her, and she frowned.
"What?" and she did not get the point, and he made a tiger seal, and she made a face as suddenly a hand extended from his back, and he gained four arms as her eyes widened.
"Thanks," she said with a smile and began to concentrate. And the task may seem simple, but it was not so simple, and he watched as she formed crooked hands at first, but slowly over the next few minutes, her transformations began to improve, as he stared at his own section of the wall.
"Do you really think that it was wise of you to share one such method with your teammate?" Asuma Sarutobi warned from behind, as Ino began to paint the wall with shaky strokes.
At those words, she eyed him with worry, as he shrugged.
"Don't worry," he said to her as he plunged his hand in the paint bucket.
"I will manage," he assured her, as he let his chakra lace the paint, before he brought out a blob, and the technique that he was using was a spin of the poison extraction method used by iryo-nins, although he was not capable of using it on humans yet.
He could easily use it to paint a lifeless fence, and so he put it against the fence, and slowly but surely, he began to paint the fence as well, even as Asuma Sarutobi frowned.
And half an hour later, all three of them were done with their task, and stood in front of the jounin who smiled proudly.
"Well, then, who is up for a little treat?" he began.
"Barbeque sounds good, and I am paying," and Ino jumped up in joy.
"YESSS!"
"Finally," Shikamaru sighed.
"And tomorrow I hope to see you all on the training ground at eight..."
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KABUTO YAKUSHI
Kabuto had long given up on names and identity.
He was Kabuto, but he was also a hundred other men, serving a hundred other masters. He was a servant to Danzo Shimura, a protege of Orochimaru, and a shinobi of Konoha and Otogakure.
He was all that, and yet he was nothing.
He was unaware of himself, and as he served all these masters and ate away at their secrets and plots, he tried to search for himself, for his goals, and most of all for power.
For that was the lesson his life had taught him.
Power was everything.
Names. Faces. Identities.
They held little value, for the only thing that mattered in the world was power, and the man in front of him was amongst the most powerful shinobi in this world.
Orochimaru may not be the strongest shinobi in the world, but he was up there amongst the best, and for someone like him, he was the ultimate mentor, for just like Kabuto, he was born with no kekkei genkai and no doujutsu.
Both of them had nothing but their talents to rely on and had made their way through the ninja world by stealing, pilfering, and taking what was not theirs.
Even now, as he knelt before the man, a dozen bodies lay strewn across the room, lying lifeless on cold steel beds, while a dozen more cut-up bodies and monsters floated away in greenish liquids around them as the Snake Sanin tried to reach for the secrets of chakra and life itself.
"You cost me a great pawn in Mizuki." The man's voice was cold and sharp as he tore into the body of an Iwa-nin with a special kekkei genkai that allowed him to blast chakra.
"I apologise for my mistake, but I had no choice. His cover was blown up, and I had to eliminate him to make sure that your plans remain intact." Kabuto was perfectly respectful and subservient, as he was supposed to, for he knew that despite his powers, the pale shinobi in front of him could end his life on a whim.
"Is that so?" and he definitely knew all that before his reports, yet he pretended otherwise.
"You do know that Mizuki was keeping an eye on some rather important people for me," and he knew of one of them, for Kabuto knew of the golden-eyed man's obsession with the Uchiha.
"I will find a replacement for him soon," he assured him, but the man shook his head.
"No need," he waved away his plan and turned towards the dead body once more as he defiled it with no regard for blood and ethics.
"I already know who sensei will pick for his sensei, and with 'him' guarding over him, it will be impossible for any of my agents to get near him without catching the eye of the Copy Ninja," and of course, the choice was obvious.
"Still, I am quite interested in how the cover of one of my most promising agents was blown," and so Kabuto told him of that accursed Hyuga boy who had been drumming up trouble for him and Lord Danzo for some time now.
He also knew that the Konoha councillor had made a deal with the Hyuga clan elders to sort out this problem for them, and if that gleam was anything to go by, the young Hyuga may have caught the eye of another rather powerful shinobi.
"An exiled Hyuga," the man smiled.
"That is quite interesting," and of course it was, for the boy's resentment for his clan was obvious and something that could easily be exploited by a man such as him.
"That hatred, it could be very useful for us," he whispered, as Kabuto nodded.
"But first, we must see if he has the heart of a shinobi or not. Keep an eye on the boy, and see if you can test him a bit more," and Kabuto nodded.
"Rather than letting that old fool kill off such potential, it would be better to have him on our side," and so Kabuto now had two different missions about the boy from two different masters.
"It will be done," he assured the man, and as if seeing through his dilemma, suddenly the Snake Sanin raised his blade littered with blood and licked it with his tongue.
"And don't forget who your is your true master, Kabuto," and suddenly the blade tore through his lips, as Kabuto watched wide eyed as suddenly an arm erupted from that face and pushed it apart, and he heard bones crack and move as he appeared out of that mouth, in a new body as his old shell fell away just like a snake shedding its skin.
"Of course, Lord Orochimaru," he whispered, yet the truth was that Kabuto Yakushi had no true master, for Kabuto Yakushi was no actual person.
He was but a fragment, a memory, a mirage created through tragedy and death to survive in this wretched.
And he would survive at all costs. At all costs.
"Dismissed...."
.
.
.
Life as a shinobi had not been what she had expected, but Hinata persevered as she tried to remain focused on her goal. She trained late into the nights, carried bruises underneath her thick clothes, all for the purpose of changing this clan and not just for Hikari and Neji-nii but also for the young girl sitting on her lap.
"Are you done?" she asked sweetly, and her little sister shook her head.
"No! You have to make up for Hikari-nii's stories as well," and Hinata had not been so close to Hanabi before, because of their rather opposite personalities, but with the passage of time, they had become close, as her sister realised that she held little interest in becoming clan head and putting that accursed seal on her.
"Hikari's," she asked nervously.
"Yes, he wrote to me and said that you will be covering for him until he is away," and Hanabi was far closer to her cousin than herself, and he was the one who had spoiled her like this, promising her one strange story every week.
And suddenly, those pale eyes turned nervous as Hanabi turned to face her.
"He will return one day, won't he?" she asked, and Hinata took a second before he answered with a nod.
"Yes, he will," and that was a promise to herself as well.
"Good, because I heard the elders whispering today," and she struck her head as Hikari would strike hers, as her sister winced.
"How many times have I told you not to eavesdrop on the Elders?" and she did not wish to see her sister get in any more trouble than she already did.
"Hey! I didn't get caught!" Hanabi protested as she rubbed her head.
"That is besides the point," Hinata asked, and her sister glared at her.
"They are going to call for the selection of the heir by the year's end," Hanabi added, as Hinata drew in a gasp.
"They are going to call for all the candidates," and two of the most promising ones sat right here, and she saw Hanabi's face shift as she told her that.
"That seal," Hanabi began, but Hinata cut in.
"I will never let them put that on you!" she declared instantly.
"Never...."
And she was not the only one.
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