A Second Chance to Make a First Impression
Date: May 10th, 13 years aNb
Days since Team 11 left Mizumiyo Palace: 7
Time: 11:10 AM
"God damn it…" Nakahito Haruno sighed as he collapsed onto the grass he was sitting upon; breathing heavily. He'd failed the Genjutsu simulation AGAIN. "I'm never going to get my temper under control…"
"'Hito, what do you think comes first?" His Jonin instructor, Miho Hyuuga asked, leaning over to look down at him. "The ability to get your temper under control or the belief that you CAN get it under control?"
For the past handful of days, Hyuuga-sensei'd been putting him through mental conditioning drills from sunrise until Noon in an effort to help him learn to contain the explosive temper that had earned him a disciplinary review after assaulting the traitor that had made the life of her friend, Princess Reiyuriko, miserable for the last 8 months. The process was similar to what had been done during the Yondaime's Gambit, where Miho Hyuuga used Genjutsu to give him visions designed to provoke him, but this time events occurred solely in his mind; there was no interaction with the real world.
And, so far, Nakahito was making Naruto Uzumaki look like an exemplary student in comparison. They'd been at it four hours a day for the last five days and he had not passed a single one of the nineteen simulations he'd been put through so far!
"I'm guessing belief?" The red clad ninja said, scratching the back of his head.
Hyuuga's wine colored lips twisted into a smile as she extended a hand to him. "Is that an answer or a question?"
Haruno accepted her hand and quickly got to his feet. "Sho makes it look so damned easy to keep a cool head, though… I mean, sure, he destroyed that lamp and put the fear of death into Takahashi when he and Kyouran stumbled onto what was happening between him and Motoko…" He snorted to himself, shaking his head. "Geez, that still feels weird to say…"
"Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, even Sho Inugami. Speaking of, how is he holding up?" Miho asked as she used her Byakugan to check on the medic-nin inside the hidden security closet, but found that the privacy field Inugami had somehow put up was still in place, blocking her view.
After he'd paid for the courier to deliver his copy of the Yondaime's book and some letters to Motoko, he'd shut himself up in the space he and Hata had spent most of the last two weeks in and had barred the door from the inside. If not for the fact that she know the space had food, running water, and sanitary facilities, Miho would have tried harder to get Inugami out of his hermitage, but she remembered when she realized that she'd fallen for Iruka only to be separated from him for a prolonged time…
'Has it already been seven years?' She wondered to herself. 'Iruka and I made Chuunin in the same exams and then he got injured during that mission with Kakashi-senpai to test if we were ANBU material. I made it, but he decided to go teach at the Academy instead. After that, it would be nearly a year before I got to see him again…'
Haruno shrugged. Ostensibly, he and Inugami were sharing the quarters that had been assigned to "Keitaro Urashima," but he'd more or less had the room to himself. "Aside from him saying 'Enjoy it.' when I moved my stuff in, he hasn't said a single word to me; hell, I can count on one hand how many times I've seen him. I think he blames me for getting us stuck down here instead of being able to be back home figuring things out with Motoko-chan and, honestly, he's got the right to feel that way..."
He sighed and shook his head. "Are Kimi and her cousin out of the baths yet? I've had enough of the psychic ass kicking you've been giving me and I'd love to get in some sparring with someone I at least have a 50/50 shot of beating."
Itou and her maternal first cousin, Imperial Princess Reiyuriko/future Queen Mizuho the 28th, had become fast friends in the few days since her return to the Palace. Despite the five year age gap and the significant differences in upbringing, the two had bonded over their love of the water that was probably from the Itou clan blood they shared. Reiyuriko had started sharing stories of her mother, Kimiko's aunt Nodoka, while Lord Daimyo Mizuzaki – as his busy schedule and the training of his successor permitted – shared the few memories he had of Konoka and Yuto Itou, Kimi's parents; filling in one of the many gaps of Itou's past.
Happy tears were a regular nightly occurrence in the guest quarters being shared by the two female members of Team 13.
Hyuuga smiled; checking her watch. "I'm afraid you're stuck with me for another 30 minutes or so. Long enough for one more…"
A low fanfare began to play faintly from the south, cutting Miho off. Curious, the two Leaf ninja turned to look in that direction and saw an ornate carriage approaching Mizumiyo Palace's main gate. For a moment, Haruno thought he recognized it from when the regional daimyo had been arriving to the Convocation the week prior, but it was so hard to tell because of the distance.
As the carriage moved through the lower wall, however, it suddenly exploded!
"Holy shit!!" Haruno gasped, flinching from the brightness. His ears registered additional explosions in the following heartbeats.
As the echo of the last explosion faded, the two ninja uncovered their eyes to look back at the carriage. There were now guttering flames on the sides and the horse-drawn vehicle looked to be in very rough shape from the explosions. One of the guards at the bottom of the hill ran to grab the reigns and began to guide the horses up to the Palace; the normal driver's seat having been reduced to charred kindling. The other guards from the entrance were kneeling by an unmoving body lying in the road…
Miho grabbed Nakahito's shoulder, in shock but clearly trying to push through it to project confidence to her Genin. "I see the people in the carriage: there's one that's gravely injured." She turned to him, her Byakugan active. "Go force that secret door open and get Inugami. NOW!"
"Yes, sensei!" He nodded, clamoring over the Blue Wall; deliberately setting off the Palace alarms in the process.
~•~
It took Nakahito a few minutes to make his way through the minor labyrinth of floors and walls to reach the mosaic of Undine Kawa that lead to where his teammate was holed up. The panel in question had been pushed in about three centimeters from a prior attempt to get Sho out and about.
Haruno gritted his teeth as he put his hands on the panel and pushed with all his considerable might; forcing it to give away another two centimeters. Dimly, the fire style user thought he heard something fall and make a loud clatter, but he couldn't be sure.
"What do you want, Haruno?" Sho Inugami's listless voice suddenly came from a hidden speaker to his left. "Motoko-sa won't have gotten my package yet, to say nothing of sending a reply back, so there's nothing out there for me at the moment. Now go the FUCK away; I'm off the Gods-damned clock!"
Nakahito looked but he couldn't find a transmit button. "Someone was hurt; let's go!"
There was a long pause. "I don't care." The medic-nin's bitter-sounding voice rumbled. "The Palace has a halfway competent medical staff. Let them deal with it."
"Hyuuga-sensei said that someone's critically injured and we need YOU!" Haruno growled and threw his whole bodyweight against the mural and there was a thunderous *CRUNCH* as whatever Inugami had blocked the door with gave way. Nearly falling on his face as the panel moved, Nakahito saw the broken remains of a wooden chair and a shattered china plate.
"Sho 'I-don't-know-if-you've-got-a-middle-name-so-you-know-when-you're-really-in-trouble' Inugami, you get off your moping ass or I swear to this Lady Tsunade of yours, I'll send an express letter to Hata-san telling her how immature you're being!" The younger man growled as he pushed his way through the blackout curtains.
Sho Inugami lay on the floor, his back to the sole entrance, holding a rolled up futon and pillow in his arms. Motoko's delicate scent, that of diluted rose oil, clung tenaciously to the fabric; acting as a trigger for the white-haired young man's photographic memory. It was probably the only thing keeping him from slipping into a complete fugue state of depression.
A stand microphone with a push button was within arm's reach of the prone medic-nin and a monitor showing the closet Haruno had just passed through on the far side. Inugami must have put the plate on the chair; balanced just enough so that Nakahito's initial push had shattered it, bringing Sho's attention to the here-and-now.
"Dick move, threatening to bring in my Motoko-sa over this…" The older ninja sighed, setting the rolled bedding aside as he sat up. "How many injured?"
Nakahito shook his head. "More than none, but I didn't ask for details; Miho-sensei said 'Get' so here I am."
"Well at least her beating the hell out of you got you better at following orders…" Inugami said with a wry chuckle and a sigh as he pushed himself to his feet. His muscles popped as he moved for the first time since falling asleep. "Well, at the very least I guess I owe you something for getting me out of my own head… It's Daijo."
"What?" A confused Haruno asked.
"My middle name, since you were complaining you didn't know it." Sho clarified as he grabbed his sling pouch of medical supplies from the wall. "Mom and Dad told me Saki-obaasan picked it because the wordplay apparently made her smile."
"Oh…" The red clad Genin winced as he got the dual puns.
Daijo meant "The Beginning." ShoDai – which you got if you combined the medic's given name and the first syllable of his newly revealed middle name – meant "First." Fifteen years ago, when he'd been born, Sho had been the first child; the beginning of his parents' new family.
"You clearly get your twisted sense of humor from your Obaasan; I don't know if that's brilliant or just evil…" Nakahito admitted.
Inugami chuckled as the teammates exited Sho's little isolation bubble together. "Honestly? I still haven't decided myself..."
~•~
As the two male members of Team 13 walked through the main doors of Mizumiyo Palace, the damaged carriage came to a lurching stop in the entry plaza where Sho had last seen Motoko a week before. As it did so, its front axel snapped like a toothpick and the entire vehicle tipped over violently. The damaged door sprang open as a severely charred female form was forcibly ejected.
As the woman shrieked in pain and fear, flying headlong towards a painful landing on the stones, Nakahito launched himself forward at Flash Step speed. Diving through the air, he caught the woman and shielded her with his own body; landing with a hard impact on the granite cobblestone courtyard that briefly knocked the wind out of him. As he recovered, Haruno could see the woman was in horrific shape: the right half of her face was a blackened mess and the eye on that side was sunken in; undoubtedly lost in the explosion. Her fine clothes were charred and melted into her flesh.
"I've got you, miss." The ninja said softly; uncertain what else to say… He'd never seen a person so badly burnt before.
'Hell, I can't believe she's still breathing…' The Genin thought to himself with a grimace. 'But I doubt she'll last too much longer; she must have something forcing her to hold on.'
"Haruno… -san?" The burnt woman croaked with a moan of pain. "Hard to see… Is… Is that… you?"
Nakahito looked confused for a moment, but then his eyes went wide as he brushed aside a charred gray patch of hair to expose a patch of almost ethereally white skin and a snow white eyebrow. The woman's onyx eye gleamed with tears of agony.
"Oh my God; Kanna-hime?! Hang on; stay with me!" He gasped in shock; horrified that he'd written her off in his mind so readily. He turned his head towards the Palace entrance and shouted. "SHO!!! I NEED YOU!"
"I… got… my wish…" Regional princess Kanna wa Akago moaned faintly as the medic began barking orders to the guards as he ran to Nakahito's side. A weak smile crossed her lips as she reached up to touch his face, leaving a charred, bloody handprint there. "To… see you one… last time… Say so-… sorr-... Sorry… about turning… away from you… after the… Gala." A tear leaked out of her one open eye. "Never saw… violence like… that before. Wasn't sure… how I felt… about it."
"Hey, hey, hey, hey!" Nakahito sputtered as Inugami knelt down beside the injured princess; his hands glowing a healthy green as he began to examine her. "You're not going anywhere, Princess; you've got too much life ahead of you, so stop talking like that! Right, Sho?"
The grim look on the medic-nin's face softened after a few tense moments, like he was about to have to give dire news. The look he saw on Haruno's face, though, gave Inugami pause. His teammate barely knew this woman; twenty, thirty minutes of dancing one time and yet…
It was the look of someone who had lost too much and another loss might be the final straw.
It was a look Inugami had worn on his own face in private many times over the years…
There WAS a solution, of course; there almost always was… It may not be the most ethical of choices, but it was the only choice that wouldn't result in a state funeral.
'Tsunade-sama would forgive me; I'm sure if it. After all, she might have been able to save her lover if she'd had them…' Sho thought to himself as he made a decision. 'I still don't know where Aniki managed to find them, but they can serve a good purpose.'
He reached into his uwagi jacket, into a secret compartment lined with X-ray and Byakugan proof materials, and pulled out an object that Haruno had never seen the medic hold before. It was a narrow red box with the image of a blood droplet on it. Sliding the lid off the box, he quickly looked at the labeled, coded corks that were visible.
"Forgive me, Princess; you're going to feel a slight tug and then a poke…" Inugami reached down and gave a sharp tug on some of the few unburnt strands of white hair on the Princess's head, freeing them. It was a testament to how injured the woman was that she didn't even flinch.
"Haruno is actually right for a change; you're not going anywhere anytime soon…" Sho confirmed as he pulled out a vial that had a white pulp-like substance within it. Popping the cork out, he dropped the hair from Kanna inside.
He then leaned over to his teammate as the pulpy substance began to alter slightly in reaction to the hair. "'Hito." The red clad ninja looked at his teammate. "You didn't see this... And you DEFINITELY didn't see me give it to the Princess. Do you understand me?" He told Nakahito tersely as he loaded the vial's contents into a needle and injected her.
"Didn't see..?" The fire specialist began, only to gasp in surprise. "WHAT?!"
Haruno's surprise came from the fact that within seconds of the injection, Kanna's copious burns, which covered most of her exposed skin, suddenly developed a new layer of healthy tissue. Her hair was still mostly cooked – it would undoubtedly require trimming and time to regrow – and there were spots where her clothing was fused to her skin from the intensity of the heat, but her breathing became less ragged and her damaged or destroyed right eye suddenly fluttered open.
"Haruno-san..?" Kanna moaned, her dark eyes like twin hypnotic midnight pools, now able to focus on his face. "What..? I'm..?"
Nakahito shook his head. He didn't know what Sho had done to save the Princess... A few seconds ago he was certain he'd failed to protect someone else. "Shh… You're okay, Kanna-hime. You're going to BE okay."
Sobs began to wrack Kanna wa Akago's slight form as the near death trauma she'd just experienced really sank in. She wrapped her arms around Nakahito, seeking – and finding – comfort; crying into his chest as he held her protectively.
"Get her to the medical unit." Sho ordered Nakahito as the mysterious red box disappeared as quickly as it had emerged. "Tell them she had second and third degree burns, but that I reached into my bag of tricks and managed to find one last miracle for the Kuge of River Country. I'll be in to deal with the next steps after I check the others."
Nakahito opened his mouth to ask what the hell Sho had just done, but then decided to not look too closely at this gift horse. "Hold on, 'Hime; let's get you inside." He looked at Sho gratefully as he scooped up Kanna. "Thanks, buddy…"
Inugami nodded as his teammate left. 'Gods, I hope that was the right thing to do…' He thought to himself as he moved over to the carriage where the guards that had accompanied the two members of Team 13 found the only other occupant of the carriage – Princess Kagura – dazed and scorched, but otherwise uninjured.
"What the hell happened?" He demanded of the guard that had been escorting the carriage.
The man shook his head in confusion. "No clue... The carriage checked out just fine; we were told to expect Daimyo Muso, his wife and his sisters today on their way up to their new residence in District 3. We let them past the sensing barrier and not thirty seconds later…" He made a poof gesture at the wreckage.
Inugami looked around, but didn't see the new 3rd District daimyo or his wife. "Where ARE Muso and Kikyo?"
"Niisama and Oneesama…" Kagura moaned as her eyes fluttered open. "Got an messengered invite to lunch yesterday; some people that want to do business in Niisama's district that the Traitor wasn't interested in... We dropped them off at Toritsuki and came to the Palace." She said, naming one of Kawa City's more exclusive restaurants that had a three month waitlist just for a round of appetizers.
She was about to set her hand on the carriage, when Inugami saw a piece of red-edged paper sticking out of the damaged area. His hand lanced out to catch her wrist millimeters before additional disaster could strike. "Stop! There's a paper bomb!" Kagura squeaked and recoiled.
"It's okay, Sho." Miho Hyuuga said from behind him. He turned to see that she'd arrived with Keigo Kurosaki and her Byakugan was active. Despite the fierce look using her Dojutsu gave her, there was a slightly stunned look to the Jonin's face. "It looks like it's a dud…" Her head tilted slightly and get eyes narrowed. "No… Not a dud… It was set to trigger when it passed through the Palace's barrier, but whoever prepared it messed up; they set the energy trigger threshold ten times higher than it should have been!"
"You mean the Princesses are alive only because someone missed a Goddess-damned decimal point?!" The Captain of the Palace guard was practically yelling into a radio second later. "This is Kurosaki! Get the city guard over to Toritsuki and secure Daimyo Muso and Lady Kikyo; potential assassination attempt protocol!" An acknowledgement came quickly in response.
Inugami shook his head. "I leave this in your more than capable hands, Kurosaki-taicho. I'd better get inside to finish treating Lady Kanna… I have a feeling the Palace medical staff aren't going to be well versed in treating injuries caused by explosions." Kurosaki nodded, expressing his thanks for what he'd done.
Hyuuga followed the medic-nin, pulling him aside after they were sufficiently far enough away to not be heard by the others scrambling to action. "Just what the HELL did you treat her with, Sho?!" She demanded tersely. "I saw her injuries from the hillside! Princess Kanna should be dead; not more or less in one piece!"
Sho sighed. So much for keeping it a secret… He glanced around to make sure no one had gotten near them. "I happen to have a few samples of the Shodai Hokage's stem cells at my disposal for dire emergencies, Miho-sensei. Given the Princess's near-death state and how badly Haruno was taking it, I felt their use was warranted."
His Jonin's eyes went wide in shock. Hashirama Senju, the First Hokage, had died 47 years ago. Of the few descendants he'd had, only Lady Tsunade was still alive and SHE'D left the village before Miho herself had even been born. As a member of ANBU, Miho was aware of Yamato – the only known Wood Release user in Konoha; no, the world! – who also had Hashirama's miraculous healing cells; thanks to the unethical human experiments performed on him by Orochimaru as a child.
"Where..? How..?" Was all she could sputter.
'Please, PLEASE, let him say from his parents… Kurando regularly interfaces with senior ANBU members like Yamato/Tenzo/whatever he's calling himself this week. Maybe…'
"My Aniki." Sho admitted matter-of-factly, leaving the Jonin on the verge of trembling. "I'm honestly not sure where he found them, but he's been using them in experiments for a few years now. Those studies are where he came up with the idea that became the Yin Healing Wound Destruction jutsu that he and I have nearly perfected…" There was suddenly a look of pride on his face. "Once we finish locking it down, you know, make sure it's safe for everyone, we plan on presenting it to the Sandaime for permission to teach to the entire medical community." It would be a positive legacy for him to leave behind when they succeeded…
"Let me see them. NOW!" Hyuuga ordered in a tone that said she wouldn't take no for an answer. The implications were so dire she hadn't even heard Sho's explanation or what he hoped would come out of their use.
Sho, without hesitation, pulled the mysterious red box from his jacket once again and opened it. The container had spots for six samples; four currently had vials in place and there were two empty slots in the middle. Inugami extracted the two on one end, revealing more of the pulpy substance, and held them out to his Jonin.
Miho's eyes tightened as she activated her Byakugan, zooming in deeply and shifting through the different ocular spectrums available to her. If the man Sho called his Brother had stumbled across one of Orochimaru's hidden labs – or, heaven forbid, was actively WORKING for the traitor – there would be a marker that would allow the rogue-nin to trace their usage. After several tense minutes, though, she breathed a sigh of relief; there was nothing in either sample of cells to suggest that Orochimaru was involved.
"Okay… Okay…" Hyuuga breathed, her heart rate finally easing up. "They're safe… This Aniki of yours must have gotten them from Yamato…"
Inugami's face scrunched up in genuine confusion as he put the samples back in the box. "Who?"
Miho shook her head. "No one you're likely to ever encounter." She paused, gesturing to the ampoules that he hadn't touched. "What are in the other two vials?"
"The last of the samples I collected from Kyouran's claws of Amaya Satou and her cousin, Kane Suzuki." The medic-nin explained as he closed the box up and put it away. "I used up most of them between making those nasal sprays to protect us for the Gala and what I sent to Mom with the package I mailed to Motoko. She can do a more thorough analysis than I'm able to do down here, but I do have a little bit of them left."
Miho Hyuuga cocked her head slightly as a stray thought struck her. "You've had those cell samples for a while, then? Before our first day as a Team?" Inugami nodded yes to both questions. "Why didn't you consider using it during the Yondaime's Gambit, then?"
"Sensei, you saw what a single vial of those cells did for Princess Kanna… It would have been overkill for Nakahito's minor - albeit very inconvenient at the time - injuries."
"And you figured out Yuuhi and I subjected the three of you to the Gambit before you considered treating the critically injured 'me.'"
Inugami nodded. "But even if I hadn't broken through at that point, I'm not sure I would have considered using them on you, Miho-sensei." The Hyuuga's eyebrows knitted together in an unspoken question of 'Why not?' Sho's head shook. "The cells' curative powers are amazing, but how they work is even more so! They draw in Senjutsu chakra from the surrounding environment without the user needing to concentrate to empower their processes. The problem is that there are a RIDICULOUS number of unknowns in the way of long term effects. I'm going to have to arrange for constant monitoring of the Princess's health for years to come – if not the rest of her life – praying that I haven't merely kicked the can further down the road…" He paused grimly. "Or if I've subjected her to a fate worse than death. You've undoubtedly heard the stories of what happens when Senjutsu energy isn't properly regulated."
Miho nodded, but remained silent in thought as a sigh escaped Sho as he rubbed the back of his neck while shaking his head. "Honestly, just as I would have been with the Gambit version of you, I was fully ready to let Princess Kanna die; maybe offer her something to put her out of her pain…" He looked at Hyuuga, a sad look to his features. "But the look on Haruno's face when I was about to do so… I don't know how or why he connected with her so quickly, but I could see how hard he was taking her condition." He sighed again. "I may have been the one who actually saved her life, but Nakahito Haruno is the REASON the Princess is still alive."
The medic-nin looked at the Palace doors. "Speaking of, I really do need to get inside and remove that burned on clothing before it causes infections. The cells will have fixed the most severe injuries and stabilized her, but it will still take them a few days to finish repairing the deeper layers of skin and fully heal her. She's not out of the woods completely yet."
Miho Hyuuga nodded and Inugami departed. The Jonin kunoichi trying to figure out how to handle this… The obvious thing was to reach out to Kakashi-senpai and see if Yamato had ever met this Kabuto Yakushi fellow of Sho's; making him the source of the unmarked cells.
'God, please let that be the case…' She thought grimly to herself. 'If only for Sho-kun's sake… If the one person he's trusted for so long is a traitor to the village, I honestly have no clue how he's going to react to that…'
* * *
Holding Pattern
Date: May 10th, 13 years aNb
Days since Team 11 left Mizumiyo Palace: 7
Time: 3:30 PM
Nakahito Haruno sat in one of the waiting rooms near the small medical center within Mizumiyo Palace. The center was a very limited facility; smaller than the medical clinics not attached to the main hospital back home. It was primarily equipped to deal with minor health issues the royal family might experience as well as an initial triage center for injuries sustained in honor duels. The red clad ninja sat with Kimiko Itou – who was holding her oldest friend's hand. In addition to the kunoichi, the other seats were filled by Crown Princess Reiyuriko, a minimally bandaged Princess Kagura, and Lady Kikyo; all waiting for more news.
The city guard had gotten to Toritsuki to collect the Third District Daimyo and his wife without complication; getting them to Mizumiyo within an hour of the alert. Since that time, Muso and both the current and future Lord Mizuzaki had been in private discussions regarding the incident.
Nakahito still bore the charred, bloody handprint of Princess Kanna on his cheek. Kimiko's breath had caught in her throat when she'd seen that, fearing for a brief moment that her friend was injured, but Haruno had quickly alleviated that concern. She'd then tried to clean the blood off, but he'd shied away; telling her that he'd take care of it as soon as he knew for sure Kanna was okay.
Nearly four hours after the red clad ninja had raced the white-haired princess into the medical suite, Sho Inugami entered the waiting area, peeling the hair-covering hood away from his head; runnels of captured sweat rolling out to be soaked up by his uwagi jacket.
"She'll live and she's resting comfortably." He confirmed, sending sighs of relief through those that had been waiting for so long. "I saved as much of her hair as I could and she's undoubtedly going to need some therapy to help her cope with what she's been through, but she's through the worst of the physical injuries." He paused for a breath. "That said, I've had to convert the medical suite into a sterile environment and she'll need to stay there for at least a week to ensure that the treatment that saved her life doesn't have any delayed side effects and that no infections get into her new tissues."
"A week?" Nakahito repeated, sounding disappointed. Kimiko turned her head aside to hide her annoyance from Haruno. "We can't see her before then?"
Inugami sighed his "one step forward and two steps back" breath of annoyance, but since he was making an effort to be nice, he skipped the verbal barb that would normally follow. "I said she needs to be isolated for a week; not that she can't have visitors. But since I'm the only one who can create their own ACF, I've asked Fugato to contact the Kawa City hospitals to get some isolation suits. I doubt we'll get them in before tomorrow; the day after is more likely."
"ACF?" Princess Reiyuriko asked, looking to her cousin in confusion.
Itou sighed, shaking her head. "When he breaks out the acronyms, Reiyuriko-neesama, you're ALWAYS going to have to ask the source… Sho? What the hell is an ACF?"
"Sorry, sorry… Atmospheric Containment Field. It's… Well, it would be faster just to show you…" He brought his fingers up in the Ram sign and suddenly the air around Inugami distorted slightly.
Curious, Haruno got up and reached over. He quickly felt his hand being repelled by what his mind could only describe as a wall of air. When his hand began to slowly sink in, he jerked it back reflexively. "I've never even heard of a jutsu like this…"
The medic shook his head. "That's because it's not a jutsu." His voice was distorted but understandable. He lowered his hands and the distortion disappeared a few seconds later. "Because of my chakra is Wind natured, I'm merely taking my raw chakra and putting it through shape transformation to create a series of fast, inward-moving air currents that prevents anything from getting out."
Kimiko frowned, remembering the difficult process of learning Nature transformation to be able to use her Clan's Water Bomb jutsu, which she learned thanks to that rare Itou clan scroll Sarutobi-ojisan had found in the archives for her. "But I thought doing shape and nature transformation at the same time was like turning your body in two opposite directions at the same time!"
Sho nodded agreement. "When you're working contrary to your chakra's nature or trying to do too much transformation at once, it definitely is! But are you using nature transformation when you blow out candles on a birthday cake?"
"No; they go out because…" Then the light came on. "Ohhhh… The air is being moved by the current of your chakra; not because you're making Wind element!" Inugami gave her a smiling nod as she answered her own unspoken question.
"Precisely, Kimiko. And, of course, your natural chakra nature helps… For example, consider my Razor Wind technique." He held this palm up and a hazy green disk the size of a desert plate appeared. "At its simplest level this jutsu uses one rank of nature transformation to give it a minimum of Wind power and one rank of shape transformation to focus the energy into a cutting edge. This makes this spell a D rank technique because of it's simplicity, but because it works with my inherent chakra nature, it's no more difficult for me than an E rank, which is why I didn't need seals to manifest it." The medic-nin concentrated for a second and the disc evaporated.
"Now, let's consider your Water Bomb technique…" Inugami performed a familiar set of hand seals and a sphere of water appeared in his hand.
The jaws of his teammates fell open; how the hell had the medic pulled this off?
Sho's lips twitched. "Given the sheer number of times you've used the technique in training, it shouldn't surprise you that I've figured either of your jutsu out, but before you get too impressed, take a closer look…"
Itou frowned thoughtfully as she did so. Her Water Bomb was normally a placid sphere until it struck the target. Sho's was bubbling and frothing like the energy was barely being contained.
"Your Water Bomb is also a D rank technique, using the same single rank of shape and nature transformation, but because Water is not an innate nature for me, using this jutsu is the equivalent of a C raa-oh, crap!" The ball was becoming even more energetic as Inugami struggled to use a nature that was not instinctual. The medic cupped his hands around it gritting his teeth. Suddenly, the bomb exploded in his hands, spraying water in the direction of the opening between his wrists and drenching him. His hair was plastered over his eyes, leaving him resembling a wet dog.
Nakahito and Kimiko both began to snicker in amusement as the medic's Sho-boating backfired so spectacularly. Reiyuriko, Kikyo, and Kanna were a little more reserved, but even they found it humorous. As a result, the tension remaining in the waiting room evaporated.
A slight smile creased the edges of the soaked ninja's lips; unnoticed by anyone in the room.
* * *
To be continued