Chapter 25: Chapter 30
For anyone worried, I will probably do two more chapters of Akari dealing with things before doing what will probably be the last, maybe second to last, time-skip of this story.
That's only a probably though, I might do the timeskip next chapter, or I might do it five chapters from now, that's the joy of having little to no planning. But I need to wrap some things up that should have been covered, like Shisui, Kurama being out of his seal, things that I didn't yet cover.
I'm also re-working my old chapters. Nothing big mind you, just fixing things, adding little extra bits to make the story flow better, stuff like that. So you might like to re-read it at some point, but like I said, it's pretty much the same as it was, I just fixed a few bits and added some pieces for each chapter.
Chapter 30
Walking up the side of one of the walls with her left stump in her pocket, Akari knelt down and planted another pre-written seal on the wall.
Beneath her, Naruto was sat cross-legged on the mat-covered floor with a scroll across his knees. They still had maybe twenty minutes before the kids were expected to show up, so Akari decided she would...cover her bases. Considering how much she could dredge up from memories before she sort of...'took over' her current body, she recalled that at the age of four, she didn't really know any Jutsu aside from a weak Katon. But then again, she wasn't an heiress, so it could be different.
Deciding to play it safe, three of the walls for the hall already had reinforcement seals, just to make sure the kids didn't break anything. All the stuff inside? They could tear it to shreds, she had replacements for pretty much everything. But she didn't want Choza to get annoyed at her for damaging Akimichi property for her little get-together. It still threw her for a loop how much the Akimichi man trusted her, not only with the safety of his son and heir, but also letting her use one of his buildings for the whole thing.
When he explained that a mission she'd run two years ago meant that the Ino-Shika-Cho team who were nearby at the time managed to exfiltrate safely, all thanks to her rather distracting explosions of Katon Jutsu's, who otherwise would have probably all been captured and killed thanks to the situation they'd gotten just a little stuck into, she understood at least a little. It still baffled her, but at least now she had a reason for why he was so amicable when she basically came in, asked if she could drag his son to a playdate between a bunch of other prominent kids, then naffed off after he agreed.
A knocking at the doors to the hall called Akari's attention from the seal she was planting down, muttering to herself. " They're early..." She peered down at her son with a grin. "Hey Naruto, could you bring them in here? I need to put a few more seals down." The boy chirped an affirmative response, putting down his scroll carefully and bounding over to the door. Taking all the remaining seals out of her inventory and holding them between her fingers, she walked sideways along the wall, interspersing the last few seals then looking over her handiwork.
Kurama could throw a Bijuudama at the building and those walls would still be standing. Granted, a weak Bijuudama, and only the walls would avoid being destroyed, leaving the surrounding area broken, but at least a bunch of snot-nosed brats wouldn't be able to scratch the paint, let alone knock a wall down with an errant Doton Jutsu. They shouldn't even be using a Jutsu, but kids would be kids, if one of them knew how to use it, they'd get begged to show it off. Better safe than sorry.
She cut most of the Chakra to her feet, letting her body slide down the wall whilst still remaining upright, then transitioning to a jogging dismount smoothly, straining her leg muscles only a little as she came to a quick stop. As she did this, the doors opened, revealing the first arrival to be Inoichi, a little blonde girl, she recalled her name was Ino, trailing along behind him happily chatting away to Naruto, who seemed to already be overwhelmed by her forwardness. Granted, he was quite forwards and boisterous himself, but it seemed the young Yamanaka was already on her way to becoming a social butterfly. "Hey there Inoichi! Uhh, Inoichi-san."
The T&I head gave Akari a wave as she walked over, chuckling to himself. "You'll never get suffixes correct it seems Akari-san." He leaned in closer, talking more softly so the two kids who were chatting wouldn't hear him. "Thank you for what you're trying to do. If you weren't doing this, Ino would probably not spend much time with the Clan kids her age, especially Shikamaru and Choji, who are probably going to be who she's teamed with." Shrugging, Akari made a vague gesture at the hall.
"I mean, I can't say this wasn't all altruistic. Naruto doesn't encounter many kids his age, and since I don't want to let him into the Academy earlier than I have to, if I didn't do this he wouldn't spend time with many kids until he was eight, though recently that's gone down to five, puppy-dog eyes are unfair." Laughing gently, Inoichi looked at his daughter with a wry grin.
"I understand exactly what you mean. Even against a trained interrogator like myself, the Puppy-Dog Eyes no Jutsu is simply too strong." Akari snorted, covering her mouth with her hand, her other arm waving about as she tried to stave off the harsh, barking laughter that threatened to ensue. "So, I know that you've tried to get most of the clan kids together, who else is coming? Aside from the rest of the Ino-Shika-Chou trio?"
Akari tapped her chin a few times, after she got her laughter under control that was. "Well, there's the Uchiha Clan Heir, Itachi, he's coming with his younger brother, Sasuke, since he's Naruto's age. There's the Hyuuga Heiress, Hinata, with her older cousin escorting her. Then we've got the Aburame Heir, Shino, who is coming alone, the Inuzuka Heir, Hana, and her younger brother Kiba, again Naruto's age. I did try to get a few regular Shinobi kids to come along, but when it was revealed that a bunch of big clans were getting together their heirs like this, I think that scared them off. The only one who had the balls to stick it out was a retired Kunoichi, Haruno Mebuki, she's sending her daughter Sakura along."
Nodding along, Inoichi looked around the room, his eyes raising as he laid eyes on several items he simply didn't recognize. Evidently Akari was serious about this, since she seemed to have pulled out most of the stops for this room. "So, what exactly do you have in mind in terms of the children all meeting? Perhaps once a week? Maybe bi-weekly?" Akari shrugged.
"I dunno, depends on whether the kids even like this. They might all decide they can't stand each other and all refuse to come back at all. Honestly, I'd like if I could seal this building with an entry-seal so they can come in whenever they want, after that just letting them organize it themselves. Of course, I'd still do something like ask them to come once a week on a certain day so they can meet and decide when they want to try and meet whoever, but whatever." Stretching her arms out, Akari looked around the room, then nodded to herself in satisfaction. "Okay, Naruto, Ino-chan, if you two want to try anything, go right ahead. I don't know when everyone else will arrive, but that just means you get first dibs!"
The two looked at her, then Ino looked at her father for permission, the two immediately bolting off towards the laser-tag gear as soon as Inoichi gave his assent. Akari chuckled as the pair picked up the light cloth vests and looked at them. "May I ask what those are, Akari-san?"
Shrugging, Akari just waved her hand in the vague direction of the two kids. "Well, the game is called laser-tag. It's perfectly safe, they could only hurt themselves if they got angry and decided that simply bludgeoning each other with guns counted as tag." Inoichi shook his head in amusement as Akari giggled. "The idea is that those-" She pointed at the rack of crudely-carved guns. "-are the 'laser guns', whilst the vests are body armour. If one of the kids aims the gun directly at a vest and pulls the trigger, it sends a really tiny amount of Chakra, completely inert and harmless, towards that vest, impacting it and tripping the detection seal."
Inoichi nodded along thoughtfully as she discussed her game. "When that happens, the gun that the one who was hit was using will be disabled for a few seconds, and the vest will be invulnerable for a few more seconds afterwards, granting immunity against being shot as soon as they could shoot back again, but only towards the gun which shot them, not other combatants. The winner is whoever got the fewest deaths, so team-work is actually encouraged...somewhat, since if they could draw they'd both win, meaning working together to scare off the others is a perfectly viable tactic."
As she explained how it worked, Inoichi watched as Naruto threw a vest on, then gave Ino one of the laser guns and told her to shoot him, which made the vest turn from the red colour it was into a black tone, then back to red after about seven seconds. "And...you came up with this how exactly?" Akari smirked wryly, shrugging. Inoichi knew then she wouldn't give him a straight answer, something which made his analytical side scream in frustration. He liked knowing things, so knowing that someone was keeping information from him for seemingly no reason irked him.
"I dunno, I just made it up one day." And it was arguably the truth. She made up the seal from her own knowledge, nobody had made it before. Of course, laser tag had existed before, but since she wasn't talking about that, she was merely telling a half-truth. Cracking her fingers using her thumb, she looked towards the door. A second later, it was knocked on. "Hmm, wonder who the next guest is...I'm wagering it's...Aburame Shino...I reckon." Inoichi hummed a moment, closing his eyes.
"I would say our next arrival will be...the Sakura girl." Raising her eyebrows, Akari silently demanded an explanation, even as she approached the door. "Well, Shikamaru has picked up his clan's habit of laziness, to which I believe that Choza will send his son to ensure that Shikamaru actually arrives, leading me to believe they will arrive at the same time, likely to be slightly late. The Uchiha and Hyuuga both will likely try to arrive at a very exacting time, at least ten minutes after the hall is meant to be open, to ensure they do not appear over-eager. The Aburame are very prompt, but it is still five minutes until the children were expected to arrive, so it wouldn't be Shino. The Inuzuka clan are a bit of a wild-card, but lean more likely towards being late than early."
Smirking, Akari could still see the picture Inoichi was painting. His mastery over predicting what people would do never failed to amaze her, it made her never want to face his far-more analytical Nara partner in a mental face-off. And he wasn't done yet. "That leaves Haruno Mebuki. She would likely want to leave a good impression, to ensure her daughter was able to mingle with those she would spend her Academy and Genin days around, so having her daughter arrive only five minutes early shows promptness, but not overzealousness about being included. We, of course, arrived rather noticeably early, but as my wife is currently out of the village and I have to go to T&I, I wanted to make sure of everything being up to scratch before I left." Nodding, Akari accepted his reasoning.
Hopping over to the door, she flung it open to reveal a vibrant head of pink hair, then was entirely unable to stop therefore before blurting out the first thing that came to mind. "Well, I can see why your name is Sakura." The girl looked surprised at her words, since they weren't exactly a standard greeting, but Akari interjected before she could say anything. "So, you're Sakura-chan, right?" The pink-haired girl nodded. "Cool, well, Naruto-kun and Ino-chan are already both in there playing with the laser tag stuff, so if you want to go join them, that'd be awesome."
Blinking in surprise, the girl wordlessly nodded, jogging inside and over to where the other two were fiddling with their vests, immediately being drawn into a faint conversation that Akari couldn't overhear by Ino. Her idle conclusion of the girl being a social butterfly was getting stronger by the second. "Well, I must be off, there will be a member of my clan coming by to pick Ino up when this is over." Nodding, Akari waved the man off, telling him to pass her greetings on to Anko if he saw her.
As he left, he sidestepped a short, hooded boy, giving him a quick greeting before passing him by. "Hello there! So, you're Shino-kun, right?" The hooded boy nodded, his face well-concealed by his clothing, something that always made her feel bad for the Aburame. The ones she spoke to never seemed shy, it was probably more to hide the numerous holes in their skin which were made for their Kikaichu to escape from.
Being honest with herself, the idea of bugs living under her skin really made her feel funny, like her skin was crawling, but she imagined that being used to it would mean that they wouldn't consider it strange. She stuck her finger out for a few Kikaichu to lazily land atop, smiling at the boy. "Well, I think everyone is going to start off playing laser-tag, so if you want to join them you can go right ahead, I'm sure Ino-chan would love to chat with you." The boy gave another curt nod, looking intently at the Kikaichu on Akari's hand before wandering towards the assembled kids.
Akari put her finger beside her shoulder to let the Kikaichu hop onto her shoulder. It was still just a tiny bit off-putting to know that a few minutes ago those little Kikaichu were living underneath someone's skin, but she didn't let it affect her. It would probably put points into her book to treat the Kikaichu with the respect they deserved, as well as making sure Shino was comfortable knowing where Akari was, meaning he'd always be able to track her down if he needed her help or something. Putting up with a little discomfort was well worth that insurance.
Glancing over at Naruto from her position at the door, Akari smiled, even if he was too wrapped up in explaining how he thought the laser-tag stuff worked to Ino. He wasn't explaining it very well, or even correctly, and from her stance, Akari knew that Ino knew he was just trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about, but the fact that she was socially-aware enough to not just point that out was awesome.
...Scary, that a four-year-old was that aware of herself, but awesome.
"Hello, Akari-san."
Suppressing a yawn, Akari waved at Itachi, her eyes catching the shorter of the two Uchiha as she nodded her head at the door, the little kid looking up at his brother then scarpering off. "Hey there Itachi-" She ignored his eye-roll. "-, how've you been?" The boy shrugged, his hand adjusting the Hitai-ate on his forehead. "Oh, and congrats on passing I guess."
When the boy raised his eyebrow, she gestured at the vest adorning his torso. "Ahh. Well, Thank you Akari-san." It was actually quite amusing, he didn't quite seem to know how to handle Akari, since she'd addressed him without a suffix, she was stronger than he, a higher rank, as well as being an Uchiha, which was a collection of statuses which meant he didn't know how to respond, so instead merely brought up a pressing question. "Have...Akari-san, would you happen to have heard any word of what happened to Uchiha Shisui?"
His voice was polite still, but his face seemed almost angered by something. "I can't say I have. I really should have checked in about that...well, to be honest, I have a bunch I need to deal with right now. I'm sure you heard about Kurama being pulled out of my seal, the reason why the Forest of Death is off-limits?" Itachi's onyx eyes widened in surprise. "Oh...shit, yeah that was Jonin-only information. Oh well, I'm sure your father would have kept you informed about it. So between working on a new seal, organizing...whatever the hell this is, and a few other things, I never got to check in with Shisui and see the damage. How bad was it?"
Itachi exhaled slowly, controlling himself. Granted, it was his best friend, so he earned that much, but it wasn't like it was Akari's fault. The past few days had been a maelstrom of chaos to say the least. "He lost his left eye and the use of his left hand." Akari blinked.
"Wait, seriously? And the medics couldn't heal his hand? I mean, I know trying to replace one of our eyes requires a blood relative to sacrifice their own, but his hand shouldn't have been hard to fix." Itachi looked at her in surprise, to which she rolled her eyes, folding her arms up. "Itachi, you know I'm the Crimson Medic, you should have hunted me down earlier to take a look myself. Fucking inept Iryo-nin. Look, after this playdate is over I'll go over to Konoha General, or his house, or wherever he's staying and take a damn look myself."
Deciding he'd gotten plenty out of this, Itachi nodded, muttering his quiet thanks as his eyes caught his brother just as the boy dodged Naruto's attempted ambush, the blonde having barely explained the rules before he'd run off and hidden, leaving the Uchiha holding his vest in confusion. He opened his mouth to presumably question how it worked, stopped by Akari walking up the wall. He raised an eyebrow as he craned his neck, Akari merely grinning.
"What, I want a better vantage point." Conceding the point, Itachi walked up the side of the wall after Akari, blinking in surprise when he saw her put a seal on the floor then perform a Jutsu he didn't recognise, a small chunk of earth pouring from the seal then forming against the wall, giving them a ledge to sit on. She promptly sat down and patted the spot beside herself, pulling some nibbles out of her inventory using the guise of the seals on her armguards, then humming to herself as she watched the battle going on in the hall, her mind running across seals the entire time.
She already had a seal she could use to hold Kurama which she was pretty happy with, but the problem was that one of the features she wanted to add, the ability for him to roam freely near her, wasn't quite working correctly. The idea was that he would fuel a steady stream of Chakra from his 'body' to the outside, connected to a form he could create with his Chakra, then his consciousness would inhabit the familiar, but would return to the seal, to his 'body', if the construct was destroyed. Since Kurama couldn't really die, that was the conclusion she drew from it, the smaller fragment of Kurama being drawn to the larger piece which would permanently reside within the seal.
The problem was that the seal didn't want to let the stream of Chakra go straight out into the world, it wanted to run through her Chakra Coils, which would mean Kurama's consciousness would be forced to remain inside. It was one of the few points of the Eight-Trigrams she couldn't change. She maintained her facial expression of mild interest in the game the kids were playing, but inside she was cursing up a storm. "is something wrong Akari-san?"
Well, except for the fact that to a user of a Sharingan her minute facial changes would give away her emotions plain as day. She shook her head in dismissal, giving Itachi a smile. "Nah, it's fine, just a Fuinjutsu problem, don't mind me. And no-" She pre-empted his question. "-it isn't an immediate problem involving any seal in here, it's something for Kurama." Itachi nodded once, then gained a thoughtful expression.
"If you'd like...perhaps someone to bounce ideas off would be useful?" Akari looked at Itachi in surprise, humming thoughtfully though when she actually considered it. She couldn't really think of a way around her problem, but that was probably because she was just seeing it from her own, very narrow perspective. She shrugged and turned to face him more.
"Well, the problem is that..." Akari began, but at that moment someone knocked on the door. "Welp, that'll be the Hyuuga then." The Nara and Akimichi had already arrived and were playing with the others, so the only one left to arrive was little Hinata. Akari slid down the wall quickly, hopping over to the door and opened it. "Oh, hey there Hana!"
On the other side of the door was Inuzuka Hana with her younger brother, who had a feral grin on her face, her ninken surrounding her. "I don't quite think we're Hyuuga, Akari-chan." She shrugged unrepentantly, stepping aside to let the two Inuzuka and their partners into the hall. She smirked when Kiba saw the game the others were playing with excited eyes and immediately barrelled away from his sister towards them to demand to know how to play, leaving Akari to walk up the wall again, followed by Hana after a few moments, speaking over her shoulder at the other girl.
"Meh, I forget things. I honestly expected you two to show up after Hinata, but whatever. So, how's it been going for you then Hana? Didn't you want to do some Iryo-nin stuff at the hospital?" The Inuzuka Heiress tilted her hand from side to side.
"Ehh, kind of? I didn't want to be an Iryo-nin for Shinobi, I wanted to be the animal equivalent, a veterinary med-nin." Akari nodded in understanding. After all, being an Iryo-nin didn't mean you could treat animals. Trying to heal the respiratory system for an animal using the human system as a basis would lead to very fatal consequences, just as trying to heal a human by using an animal as a basis would also have very negative consequences.
She then noticed the three ninken had also walked up the wall to sit on the little makeshift platform. "Huh...I didn't know ninken could use the wall-walking technique." Hana grinned, leaning back to pull one of the three dog-sized ninken to her side.
"Well, they can. That Jonin, Kakashi, his Ninken can even walk on water. Kuromaru, my mother's partner, is the only ninken able to do that within our Clan right now. But you three are certainly showing him up aren't you?" She got several yipping responses from the three canines. "Alright, alright." She pulled a small pouch of something from her vest, dispersing treats onto the 'floor' for her ninken.
Akari chuckled. "So, have to bribe them still I see?" And got an attempted swat at her head by Hana, though she avoided it with her tongue darting out in taunt. Itachi was watching the by-play with amusement, up until the point when Akari then dipped over his head, getting a hit to his cheek by Hana, who immediately panicked and began wall-running away. "Hey, Itachi, truce?" The boy nodded, his eyes turning red as he tracked Hana's movements.
"Truce."
"Please stop dragging your feet, Hinata-sama."
Gritting his teeth, Neji again lamented that he was stuck with escorting the one-year-younger Heiress to the Hyuuga clan. He could have been practising his Juken Taijutsu, or expanding his Byakugan skills, but instead, he was fated to merely escort the meek, pitiful and weak Hinata to a gathering of children. Why she was even allowed to waste her time on such a thing he had no idea, but what he did know was that she seemed hesitant to move forwards.
Unfortunately, despite knowing that if he spoke a few words she would turn right back around, he knew he would have his cursed seal activated for doing so. So instead, he merely kept her shuffling along, his eyes ringed with veins as he periodically and diligently checked the surrounding area for danger. A street-cat here, a handful of rats there, nothing worth really considering.
He even considered the chance that his father would have come back early from his mission, and he could spend time learning techniques from him, but that wasn't likely. Watching as Hinata almost tripped, he scoffed to himself, then froze up and turned in the direction they were meant to be going. The building that he had been told to approach was there, but when he looked towards it with his Byakugan, it was like trying to peer through a black void of nothingness.
He couldn't see what was going on inside, and that fact made him...extremely uncomfortable, so much so that he debated whether the pain of his seal was worth not entering that...darkness. Unfortunately, his decision was made for him when Hinata also saw the building and balled her fists up, walking towards the building swiftly, though slowing as she got closer and closer to the door. Growling in quiet anger to himself, he caught up with the girl, reaching the door first and putting his hand on it, then shoving it open to give his eyes vision on what was occurring inside.
Madness. The younger children were all playing some kind of game which burned his eyes to look at, whilst high above them Inuzuka Hana, Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Akari all played some advanced form of tag with each other amongst light fixtures and ceiling detrius, certainly not the scene he expected to lay eyes on. Hinata obviously also did not expect this, for she was staring with wide eyes at the pure insanity going on. Akari then stopped atop one of the light fixtures and turned to wave at them casually, a wide grin on her face even as she panted slightly from exertion.
"Yo!"
I forget stuff so easily.
I wrote a few hundred words about Neji lamenting to himself about fate. Then I wrote a few words about his father before remembering...Neji's father is still fucking alive you idiot. Also, we'll be seeing Shisui next chapter, that'll be fun. Akari will also finalize her seal, which might get a touch emotional.
Hope you enjoyed, and sorry about the wait!
(Just to clarify, because Akari is now cut-off from the Entity, she won't get any custom rewards from 273 fucking with her, nor any experience. But pre-made quests will still prock for events that are close to canon, so she will still get experience and rewards from those, she just won't get his input. I just wanted to clear that up for ya!)
Name: Akari Uchiha
Level: 77
Age: 16
Experience: 65,945/77,000
To Next Level: 11,055
Title: Sannin-slayer - Defeating one of the three legendary sannin is no easy feat, but you managed it. Future opportunities unlocked.
Secondary Title: Tokubetsu Jonin - +25% experience gained during solo missions.
Health Points: 18,500 - (100 Base + (Vit x End)) x 5
Regeneration Rate - 3600/m - 60/s - Vit x End - Halted when afflicted with bleed status.
Chakra Points: 36,620 - (100 Base + (Int x Wis)) x 5
Regeneration Rate - 7200/m - 120/s - Int x Wis - Halted when continuous chakra drain Jutsu in use.
Strength - 70
Vitality - 60
Endurance - 60
Intelligence - 80
Agility - 161
Wisdom - 90
Luck - 60
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone