A strange new life

5.14

It didn’t take long to find the rest of my team. Sai was still out cold, sides cleaned and bandaged. Next to him, Yamato and Hayase talked. They looked alert, but not worried. My arrival didn’t go unnoticed. The jounin waved me over.

“Welcome back Hinata-san, how did the investigation go?”

Out of the armband popped my communication’s board. I don’t really think I had to keep it hidden anymore. I wrote down part of my report. “Victims confirmed to be the missing shinobi family from the town.” I took out the clan symbols and notes and personal items that confirmed that idea. “My current theory is this family decided to fight against Orochimaru, and in turn, were experimented on.”

Hayase’s eyes were glued to the items I presented, but then he looked at me. “How did you arrive at that result?”

I tilted my head. For someone so smart, Hayase did ask silly questions. I shrugged, wrote on my board. “They were turned into monsters. I don’t think anyone would have signed up for that.”

Hayase nodded. “That is a fair assumption.”

“Anything else of interest?” Yamato brought us back to topic.

From inside the pouch, I took the parchment with the coded message. “I found this, I couldn’t decipher it, however.”

The chunin’s eyes sparkled. He leaned forward, eyes intense. “Can I see it?”

Good thing he asked. Hayase was the reason I brought those papers. I remember him geeking about ciphers and codes. Papers exchanged hands. Eyes sparkled with even more interest. Hayase soon took out a notebook and pen and started scribbling and mumbling, lost to the world.

The impetus to join was there. I wanted nothing more to help, learn more about this kind of stuff. It was right up Fangirl-sama’s alley. I shook my head, there was more stuff to do. I turned around, left Hayase lost to the world. My steps took me back to the corpses. Yamato had followed me, thankfully in silence.

When we arrived at the location, I wasn’t sure how to do this. Options flashed into my mind. Use barriers, explosions, or even doton jutsu to open up a hole in the ground. I shook my head. Somehow, I didn’t want to. Didn’t feel like the right thing to do. I thought about the many tools I had stored in my seals. My hands searched for one in particular. Out popped a spade and I got up to dig.

Yamato watched for a moment, before creating a spade out of mokuton. In silence, we dug.

It didn’t take long. No more than an hour later we were finished. We were stronger than normal people, and we had more stamina. I jumped out of the burial hole we dug. After that, it was moving the corpses inside. Conventional methods would have demanded me to take these corpses back to Konoha if possible. They were unknown shinobis, there were lots of secrets one could learn from how the enemy trained and how their body developed. Thankfully, Yamato didn’t give the order to store the bodies in seals for transportation. He didn’t even question me when I decided to bury them. I think that somehow, he understood how I felt.

Body after body went into the hole, and soft earth created an eternal roof over them. What was up with me and being all emotional and poetic? Finishing all that, I knelt by the grave. My hands flashed with seals. My chakra tanked, but I didn’t mind. Out of the earth popped a stone tablet. I took a kunai, carved words. Got up, bowed.

There wasn’t much I could do other than that. I wasn’t about to swear revenge for a group of people I didn’t know. More than that, Orochimaru was already dead. I wasn’t discounting that the man had a way to come back to life, not when most of the evil people in this world did, one way or another. No, my motives were more selfish than that. I think now, when I have to face Linlin again, I would be able to tell her that I at least paid my respects to her amazing shinobi sister. Even if I was the reason said sister was now dead.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

I took a deep breath. I pushed those self-destroying thoughts away. It wasn't my fault. I wasn’t the one to turn them into monsters. A hand patted my head. My mood was so morose I didn’t even duck out of the way. I might have leaned into the touch, just a bit.

“You did well, Hinata-san. I’m proud of you.”

Warmth bubbled inside my chest. I blinked away some invisible dust that got into my eyes. I don’t know why his words affected me like that. A part of my mind, the cynical one, pointed out that this was nothing more than manipulation 101. They knew what made me tick, and weren’t shy about pushing my buttons. I threw that thought away. The world moved based on manipulations, intentional or otherwise.

There would be a time, maybe in the near future, where I would need to decide if this kind of thing should continue. But now was not the time.

We stood there in silence for a few more minutes. Out popped my board. I hesitated, but wrote down my question. “Do you think we could have saved them?”

Yamato looked from the board to the grave. The silence lasted for a while more, but then he sighed. “Maybe. If we knew beforehand, if we had managed to capture them, if we could have taken them back to the village. But that is a moot point now. The only thing we can do is try to do better in the future.”

I nodded. That was a fair answer. One that I knew before asking the question. I guess I just wanted to hear someone else tell me that it was okay.

We met up with Hayase soon after. The chunin was still lost in his own mind, trying to decipher the note. That was fine. That skill set was one of the reasons he was on his mission. We moved somewhat away from the battle site, until we found a small clearing surrounded by huge trees. Yamato threw a group of prepared tags in a square, then summoned a house for us using Mokuton: Shichūka no Jutsu. I knew the tags created a barrier that made it hard, if not impossible, for someone else to find the house.

Now that the need for secrecy was over, it was nice to get back to the Yamato’s camping standard. I knew the house. Back at the hell-month training, Yamato had created a house just like this one, where we often camped to talk about strategy, discuss theory or just rest. It felt almost as familiar as my own apartment, even if it was a brand new house. Yamato usually created the same layout, for some reason.

I nodded at Yamato in thanks, ignored Hayase who was still lost in his own obsession and hadn’t even seen the house spring out of the ground. We ventured inside, Yamato carrying Sai to one of the bed rooms. I went straight toward the kitchen. I wanted a decent meal. No more cold dinners and eating dry travel rations.

I cooked, we ate, Sai still slept, Hayase was still not with us.

I took this time to work on my still unnamed barrier jutsu. I had managed to use it before that explosion, even if the barrier didn’t hold up like I wanted. But it was progress. I think that after that trial run, I could at least name it. What would be a good name for a jutsu like that? My musings on possible names were interrupted by a shout from Hayase.

“I got it!” The chunin yelled, a fist closed, pointed at the sky. “I broke the code!”

That got our attention. Yamato soon returned from the bedroom where he’d been keeping vigil over the still unconscious Sai. I moved closer as well, keen on learning if those notes had any useful information.

Yamato’s stoic voice congratulated the chunin. “That is amazing work. Did you learn anything useful?”

Hayase beamed. Shook the original note. “Better than that, the note was a secret communication of the Fuma clan. They were using a mix of the Hashirama principle with two other sets of encryption to hide the message. It took me a while to break it. You see, I don’t think I would have managed if not by—”

Yamato coughed, interrupting the tirade.

Hayase scratched his head, looked embarrassed. “Right, sorry. The note is a secret communication of the Fuma clan detailing a plan to attack Orochimaru’s hideout. It has information about where the place is.”

“Good job Hayase. I doubt anyone else would’ve managed it in such a small time frame.” Yamato praised the chunin again.

I nodded, gave him a small punch in the shoulder, then a thumbs up and a smile when he looked my way. Hayase looked happier than I ever saw him. I even forgot my gloomy mood as well. It felt good, knowing that finally we had a conclusive clue. From there, I took out the area map we got from the town, and using the clues provided, Hayase was able to pinpoint the area the hideout was located in. It still wasn’t the definitive location, but better than we had before.

“You guys did well. Make sure to rest and prepare for tomorrow, we don’t know what we’ll find there.”

I nodded. Gave the map one last look. With luck, tomorrow we’d find the place. With even more luck I would find information to help me up with my seals. Or if fate smiled on us, we’d find Kabuto. I won’t lie here. I was hoping for the last one. Somehow, I wanted to blame, maybe punch someone, and Kabuto was the perfect target.