10.19
Who was Secretary-chan?
My first real friend. my first girl-crush in this world. The girl who lost her mind over mango desserts, the glass-wearing goddess full of onee-sama energy.
Who she wasn’t?
A traitor.
No way. No one could convince me otherwise. There had to be a mistake, my brain was lying to me. I refused to believe that everything we shared — all that I felt from her and for her — was a lie.
“Please,” her voice cut me again.
Why?
“Why?”
But the world didn’t care about my disbelief. Secretary-chan staggered forward, kunai clenched in trembling white knuckles. Her steps were unsteady, but she didn’t stop.
“Please come with me, Hinata-chan.”
My mind locked up. Tears blurred my vision, smearing the makeup I’d bothered to wear. Each step she took landed like an exploding kunai against my chest.
“I don’t want to…” Her voice broke and she let out an agonized wail. Her body trembled, but still she moved forward, like a puppet being controlled.
She stopped in front of me. Her eyes had gone hollow, her face older by years. Secretary-chan raised the kunai in trembling hands.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered hoarsely. “I love you.”
The blade fell.
Something inside my head shattered.
I’d like to say there was some grand revelation, or flash of inspiration that let me understand everything that happened, and what I had to do to make things right again. Instead, like a passenger inside my own body, I watched my hand move up and slap Secretary-chan’s attack away.
It wasn’t hard; Secretary-chan wasn’t really trying.
My once-orphaned Byakugan activated, revealing all her tenketsu. My other hand rose, and fingers burning with chakra, I struck the tenketsu point between her neck and the base of her head. Only after she crumpled like a ragdoll did I consider that maybe I struck a bit too hard.
I stood there watching her unmoving body for what felt like an eternity. Time lost its meaning there. Something was very wrong with the world and the sheer unfairness of it all kept me rooted to the spot.
When I came to my senses next, I had no idea how much time had passed, but I recognized the pair of worried faces in front of me, two members of the GGC: Kiyo-Obacchan and Chiyo-baa.
Kiyo-Obacchan took one look at my face, her own crinkling with worry. Faster than I thought the obaa-chan could move, she was by my side, pulling me into a hug, then inspecting me for injuries.
“What happened? Are you hurt?”
Then I was clinging to her clothes, bawling my eyes out. Words spilled out of me in a sobbing, broken mess. In babbling words and incoherent sentences, I told her about Secretary-chan and what she said and did, and that it couldn’t be real.
“I know it doesn’t feel like that right now, my dear, but you’re going to be okay,” Kiyo-Obacchan said, cradling my head.
I sniffled harder, trying to compose myself. Now wasn’t the time to have a breakdown. I had to find a way to help Secretary-chan. Maybe I could undo whatever was controlling her? I don’t think she was a spy, not with how she was acting.
“Chiyo, stay with her, and keep her safe. I’ll go gather the rest.”
Kiyo-Obacchan ordered and gently pushed me into Chiyo-baa’s arms. Then, proving my old conspiracy theories true, Kiyo-Obacchan picked up the unconscious Secretary-chan, did a hand seal too fast for me to recognize, and in a puff of smoke, they were gone.
A small, very distant part of my brain felt vindicated. Gossiping grandpas, not a chance.
Chiyo’s hug wasn’t as comforting as Kiyo’s, but in the state I was in, any human contact was welcoming. She cradled my head, rustling my hair.
Then the chakra built inside her chest and turned cold, unfeeling, like the one from the shinobi that ambushed me in the Land of Waves. A chill shot down my spine. The annoying stalker cat yowled. It felt like he was right beside me. There was a hiss, a flash of motion—
Something warm splashed across my face, and weight slammed into my chest, throwing me back. I hit the wall hard, breath knocked out of me.
Where I’d stood, a tabby cat now crouched, clad in a dark grey kimono with mesh underneath, with the kanji for shinobi inked across its forehead.
Chiyo stood a few feet away, her face an emotionless mask. Her right hand was gone, blood spurting between fingers clenched around the stump. At the cat’s feet lay her severed hand, bony wrinkled fingers still clutching a senbon.
I barely had time to understand the situation when adrenaline ripped the haze away.
Chiyo flickered to the edges of the field, turned around, and fled. Mister Tama, still tubby, but now walking on two legs, dashed toward her, disappearing behind a patch of trees.
Before I could understand what I was doing, rage burning inside me, I gave chase too. My hands flashed with seals, and a half dozen shadow clones popped around me. There wasn’t time to lose. A quirk of the shadow clones prevented my clones from creating the black receivers, but they could teleport if a beacon existed.
While we ran, I dug into my prepared supplies and threw a bunch of black kunai at my clones. Mister Tama and Chiyo hadn’t moved away from my sensing range yet, even if I didn’t need it to track the commotion.
They had arrived at the populated area of the village, battling across rooftops and between the yelling crowd. Chiyo threw senbons at the passersby and the cat deflected her attacks. My clones tried to join the chase, advantage in numbers, but that didn’t work well for me.
Outnumbered, Chiyo pulled out all the stops. She pushed her bleeding stump onto the rooftop. A summoning circle bloomed from the place where the blood splashed, and in a puff of smoke, several black and yellow birds, of species I had never seen before, darted toward the civilians.
I wasn’t that far gone that I’d let the woman hurt people if that could be avoided. My clones dashed away to intercept the birds, kunai in hand, burning chakra, and creating threads.
That left me and the cat to continue the chase. I wasn’t going to burn more chakra with clones if that would only escalate things on Chiyo’s side. Still, there was something else I could do. My chakra moved, and I concentrated on the snake hand seal.
Before adjusting Orochimaru’s seals, using mokuton was akin to trying to fold thick rubber bands. Now, it was like filling a cup of water. Almost effortless.
Ahead of me and beneath Chiyo, a root sprouted from the roof, swiping the fleeing kunoichi out of her feet. That hadn’t been what I tried. My goal had been to tie her feet down with the roots, but Chiyo managed to evade the surprise attack, even if she lost balance and tumbled down…
…Into a park full of kids.
Chiyo took a young boy hostage, her bloody stump around his neck, while her other hand held a senbon, almost pushing it into the boy’s flesh.
I landed as close as I dared, the woman pushing the senbon closer. It all had happened too fast, the kid not yet comprehending what had happened. Mister Tama didn’t land with me. I followed his chakra while he went around, cutting any escape path.
“Let him go,” I said, and even through the anger, my voice came as a sobbing mess.
Chiyo looked around, like trying to find a way out.
I threw the black kunais in an area around us, and a few of my clones teleported to them, blocking any other escaped avenue.
Chiyo pushed the senbon closer to the boy’s neck. “You’ll let me go if you want the boy to live,” she said.
Her voice had nothing of the sharp irreverent tone she always had when gossiping about something she was ‘in the know’.
But I was done playing. I was done holding back, worrying, and agonizing over things. What was the point when even those I thought were friends turned out to be pawns and agents of my enemies?
I pushed my chakra, creating as many threads as I could, blanketing the area. Around, I could feel my clones doing the same.
Mister Tama dashed in from behind the kunoichi, and Chiyo-baa tried to push the needle into the boy’s neck.
My threads rushed forward, invisible, unseen. A few, from my nearest clones, wrapped around the woman’s arms and held her there, preventing the traitor from killing the boy. Other threads, from my other clones, wrapped around the now crying boy and pulled him away from Chiyo.
As for me, my threads dug into her body, guided by the Byakugan, attacking all her tenketsu. I pushed a smidge of chakra through my threads, intentionally messing up the flow of mystic palm.
If poor chakra control could burn down a fish while trying to heal an injury, what could I do with an intentional sabotage of the technique? I didn’t kill her outright. I just crippled an old woman, destroying her ability to use chakra.
Without chakra, Chiyo’s life wouldn’t last, unless Tsunade somehow managed to heal her. But it would last long enough until I had answers to very important questions. And I’d rip them from her, even if that meant tearing that woman to shreds.
I needed to know how this happened. Was she being controlled as well? And what about Kiyo-Obacchan? It was convenient that she left me with the traitor and took my friend away.
There was only one person who hated me enough and had been planning against me since the beginning. A rat faced coward that liked to think he was a mastermind of the shadows, using people like currency.
I stumbled toward the now powerless kunoichi, and she watched me approach with hate-filled eyes. I crouched near her, dug a finger into her wrinkly mouth, and forced it open. With my other hand, I grabbed her disgusting appendage and pulled it out.
Only, there was no cursed seal on her tongue.