A strange new life

3.14

Three days of waiting looked like a lot, but it really wasn’t. We took shifts resting. I wasn’t sure if the exam had really ended, or it was just another layer of deception. Nor did I want to be defenseless near all the other arriving teams.

In the end, I never talked with Sasuke about the cursed seal. After that embarrassing moment I hugged him, every time I tried to talk with him, it just felt like a mistake. His words kept replaying back on my head. I felt like a horrible person, even more so than usual. Was I friends with Naruto because he was the jinchuriki? Did I have a crush on Ino and Sakura because they were part of the original show? Was I fond of Kakashi-sensei because he was the coolest of Konoha’s ninja? Everytime those thoughts haunted me, I pushed them away. I would obsess over that later, now wasn’t the time.

I couldn't tell Sasuke about the seal directly. He was emo, not stupid. If I started to talk about the seal like I knew what it was, he would notice things didn’t match up. I had no way of explaining how I knew things. And, honestly, I didn’t want to delve into the emotional part of the attack in the forest. I didn’t want to think about Orochimaru, nor talk about Sasuke’s reactions, or remember waking up inside an experiment vat. He and I weren’t friends like I was with Naruto. Was I really friends with Naruto? I pushed the thought away.

My considerations about Sasuke aside, it didn’t mean we didn’t socialize with the other teams during those three days. Ino’s team was in a spot of trouble. They brought no food. I was more than happy to repay the favor. I also wanted to talk with Ino. Alone.

It didn’t take much to accomplish that. Shikamaru and Choji avoided me like I was out to kill them, even if they still ate my pastries. I led Ino a fair distance away from the others. I sat down, took my bag out. Pulled my reserve seals. Ino looked expectantly at me. I popped a few of my best reserves: lemon pudding, mango mousse, cookies, cupcakes. Much to Ino’s delight. I let the girl have her due.

“Ino, tell me what happened?” I wrote. Ino looked up, mouth full of mousse. I giggled. It was adorable. I caught the small tensing of her shoulders. The giggle died.

Ino stopped mid bite. “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

Ino looked away, put the mousse down. “We met team Gai. Tenten warned us about the danger.”

What was she talking about? What danger?

Ino placed both hands on her laps, still not looking at me. “I found you protecting an unconscious Sasuke and Naruto. The–” a shudder interrupted her tale, but she soldiered on quickly. “The forest itself was alive, but I think you recognized me.” She looked into my eyes, her face wan. “There were body parts scattered all around, the Otogakure team. When I took your hand, you regained your senses, and fell unconscious. We carried your team away from the clearing.”

It turns out, it wasn’t a nightmare. Ino said nothing about the kiss, for which I was glad. Fan-girl-delirious-chan making decisions that were, to quote Shikamaru, troublesome. But that was the least of my problems. From what Ino told me, the forest reacted with me. I killed three Otogakure shinobi, tore them to shreds, decorated the clearing with their dismembered remains.

Ino didn’t know what that meant, or how the wood moved and reacted, but I knew. I should have suspected it. Fucking Orochimaru’s experiment. What else aside from his hard on for dojutsu was the man famous for? All the human experimentation and grafting Senju cells into everything he could put his hands on. He really wanted wood release that much. I don’t know why I never considered that. Why did I think the creep would only steal my eyes? Of course he did more. And now I had no idea what else he had done. Was it only the Senju cells? What about my eyes? Where did they come from? And that snake pupil?

The clues were all there all along, I just missed them. It didn’t happen when I was younger, which might be why I ignored it, but my shoulder and hand healed fast in the Land of Waves mission. Even my cracked shoulder from the fight with Orochimaru didn’t hurt anymore, I forgot about it. Wood manipulation and self-healing. Shit shit shit. What else had the snake done to me? Worse, wasn’t I a prime candidate for possession? I even had my own bones carved with seals that let Orochimaru disable me whenever he wanted. Fuck fuck fuck. What do I do, what do I do?

A hand touched my shoulder.

I jerked back. Panic flickered a few meters away. Ino looked at me with wide eyes. Her hand extended in front of her. I looked away. I needed to be alone. I bowed deeply. “Thank you Yamanaka Ino. I owe you.” I wrote. I fled after that. Panic settled in. I didn’t know what to do.

Not that I had the chance to go into full panic mode. I was so out of it that I didn’t notice it until arms wrapped around me, holding me tight. Ino’s gentle voice sounded just by my ear. “It’s over, you’re safe.”

A whole other type of panic crawled inside my mind. I don’t know if I preferred the existential panic or the gay-panic. Shit, I was so screwed.