Hana Nara watched her son run from the room with a frown on her face.
"What's wrong?" her husband asked.
"I think we're away too much, Megumi. We've always been away too much. Kagen is too grown up already. He should be giving cute girls flowers, not getting flowers to poison his enemies and asking cute girls to teach him how to fight."
Megumi stood up and took her hand. "He's enjoying himself. He's an odd kid for sure, but that's not inherently bad. We make sure he doesn't hurt himself while he's here, Misa's parents watch them while he's over there, and Aiko-san watches him the rest of the time."
Hana's frown deepened. "That's another thing. Why is the Clan Head's aunt personally training our son?"
Megumi's lips pulled into a thin line. "Maybe she just doesn't want him to be alone?"
Hana glared at her husband. "I know you're not stupid, Megumi. What do you really think?"
Megumi sighed, reaching up to rub his forehead. "You know what I think, Hana. Shikaku-sama wouldn't constantly ask about him if he wasn't interested in Kagen's progress."
Hana's eyebrows were furrowed in anger. "They want my baby to be their prodigy." She spat the word as if it made her taste acid in her mouth.
"Shikaku-sama gave me his word that Kagen would graduate from the Academy when he is supposed to. He won't let them fast track Shinto's graduation." Megumi said seriously.
"After that, Kagen will join a genin team and he'll have a jonin to protect him. This is a good thing, honey. If Shikaku-sama stays invested in Kagen's progress, our boy will have all the resources he could ask for at his disposal. And Shikaku-sama is not like those who pushed the Kakashi kid. He won't throw our son into a war just to prove the Nara's superiority."
"But why Kagen? Why my boy? Why did our son have to be special?"
Shin hugged his wife. "We both know Hana. The boy is a prodigy at using our clan's signature shadow techniques. He could create a dozen of limbs with his shadow and can control them so easily as if it was second nature. And he is learning shadow jutsus in less than 2-3 days when it takes even other geniuses of the clan at least a month to learn them."
"There is no one in the clan including the clan head who could make shadows as corporal as Kagen does."
Hana's hands balled into fists where they were wrapped around Megumi's back. "After this next mission, I'm taking some time off. He needs one of us around him more. We haven't been there for him, and that changes now. We'll alternate who goes on missions."
Megumi pulled back and searched his wife's eyes; he saw a determination in them he would not overcome. There was only one thing he could do. "Okay," he said with a nod. "We'll make sure one of us is with him from now on."
Hana smiled and leaned in to kiss him. "Good. Now get ready. We're going flower shopping!"
Megumi raised an eyebrow at her. "Hana, we're going deadly poison shopping."
"But at a flower shop. I'm sure I can convince Kagen to buy some flowers for that Misa girl. He talks about her all the time. He likes her. A mother knows these things."
Megumi had an amused smile on his face as he let his wife drag him through the house, telling him her plot to get his son to give the Hyuga girl he trained with some flowers.
X
"Hello! Welcome in!"
"Hi." I greeted the brown-haired woman who was behind the counter the last time I was here. "I brought my parents this time."
She looked past me at my parents and addressed them. "Did he tell you what he wanted?"
"Something lethal. A paralytic. And a hallucinogen." my dad recited off, his hands in his pockets.
"Are you okay with this?" the woman asked, looking between them.
"Better he learns under supervision then tries it on his own." Mom said, a smile on her face as she walked forward. "Do you have anything like that?"
I raised my hand, struck by a sudden urge. "You wouldn't happen to have some tea plants too, would you? I'd like to try my hand at breeding different tea leaves." Uncle Iroh seemed to enjoy it, and it wouldn't eat into my training time too much because I could work on it while I kept my poison garden.
The woman behind the counter smiled. "Come to the back."
She led us around the counter to a storeroom. There, she showed us around several plants that would work for my stated purposes.
In the end, I found three different plants for lethal injections, two for paralysis and one for causing my enemies to hallucinate. My parents brought up the point that it would be a good idea to use multiple poisons instead of relying on a single one.
While I didn't intend to make poisons my main avenue of attack, it made sense to vary my arsenal a little bit. My question at the end shocked the lady who worked here.
"How much of each of these poisons can I inject without harming myself?"
The woman who was helping us stopped halfway through handing my parents their change. "Why do you ask?"
"I need to build up an immunity to them. It would really suck if my own poisons killed me."
"I–" before the lady could say anything else, I was yanked off my feet and held up to my mother's furious gaze.
"You will not inject yourself with poison unless there is a trained medic standing right next to you. Agree now or I return the plants." mom said, her eyes narrowed dangerously.
I gulped. "I promise! I wouldn't do that anyway." I grumbled. I wasn't stupid. I wasn't planning to imbibe a drought of nightshade or anything like that. I just wanted to not die if someone caught one of my kunai and cut me with it while I was fighting them. Was that really so much to ask?
"Good." mom nodded, content she'd gotten her way. She set me down and turned back to the lady helping us. "Oh! I almost forgot. Do you have any purple hydrangeas?"
I looked suspiciously between my mom and the lady as they seemed to have some unspoken conversation. They both had conspiratorial smiles on their faces as the woman said. "Of course, one moment."
Three hours after we'd left the shop, we were back at home. My dad and I had our sleeves rolled up as we dug holes and planted my poisonous flowers on the other end of the yard from mom's vegetables. Mom was reading aloud from a scroll filed with hand-written notes the Yamanaka lady had given us on how to properly care for and cultivate all the plants we'd bought.
The hydrangeas mom bought were in a bouquet on the table. Apparently, mom bought them for me to give to Misa. I'd asked if Misa would get the wrong idea, but mom started into an hour-long lecture about flowers and their meanings that I could not for the life of me follow. At the end of it all. I turned to my dad. He'd simply said, "The flowers mean thank you." Honestly, mom should have just led with that. A thank you gift for training with me was innocent enough. I'd give the flowers to Misa at school.
The three of us spent the rest of the day making sure the flowers were well tended and then went to sleep. The rest of the weekend was divided between shadow training and board games. It was a nice break from everything.
Mom and dad walked me to school then left, already packed for their mission. They didn't know when they'd be back, but from experience, I was guessing they'd make it back sometime in the next month. I had plenty to keep myself occupied until then.
---------Author Notes--------
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