A strange new life

I reported the eye incident to Shisui, who didn’t have words of advice aside from asking Shizune for help if I wanted to ‘install’ the wetware, which I agreed was a good choice.

That same day, I also met with Hayase, who had returned to the tower. Like Yamato said, the boy was devastated that we lost the data, not about his injuries.

“You remember nothing?” Hayase had asked me, his face despairing.

I shook my head.

“Dammit that Sai,” he cursed. “Even the data we delivered to the agents at the border was stolen; how long had he been planning that for?”

We commiserated in the hardships of life for a moment longer before I left him to his work.

Things got busier after that, even if there wasn’t much to tell regarding the days before the council hearing. I talked with everyone I could. Made inquiries to the merchants I had business dealings with, sounded for support, even promised a few favorable deals regarding my seals if they helped.

That got me a bit of interest, and a promise that they’d send someone to represent the merchants to participate in the hearing to show their support. Still, my biggest hope was Madam Shijimi.

The day after that, I dragged Ino, Tenten, Sakura, and Karin to meet Shizune at the hospital for our mystic palm lessons. We met in what looked like a classroom of sorts. The kunoichi still looked tired, but better than the last time I saw her.

“Hello Shizune,” I said, waving. She waved back. “These are my friends,” I ignored Tenten’s scowl and Ino’s eye roll. “We’re here to learn.”

Shizune looked at us, at the extra person, but didn’t say anything.

“Nice to meet you all,” Shizune said, and didn’t waste time. “Medical jutsu isn’t something everyone can learn. It takes a lot of delicate control, dedication, and hard work.” She looked over us again, then shrugged. “We’ll start with improving control.”

Among the group, only Tenten could water-walk. Worse was Karin, who couldn’t even wall-walk yet. I looked at the girls, gears turning in my head. Had I messed up? I was so focused on taijutsu and ninjutsu training that I neglected to add control to our training routine.

That first meeting ended a few minutes after it started. Shizune gave us homework to practice our control, then dismissed us.

I waved Karin and Sakura goodbye. Turned to Tenten and Ino. “I’ll meet you guys after lunch for today’s mission.”

“See you later, Hinata-chan,” Ino said, waved.

Tenten just scowled at me. She still wasn’t willing to be friends, for some reason. Once they left, I returned to the room to talk with Shizune.

“Can we talk?”

She gave me a tired nod and led me to an office. Once we were seated and comfortable, I popped tea and a few sweets for her.

“I think my control is enough to learn,” I said, feeling bad about doing this, but I didn’t want to wait that long to learn the jutsu because the others’ control wasn’t good enough. I knew my control was just above average, and the difference between me and others was the amount of effort I put into it, but with the years of effort, and given how… simple the exercises she prescribed were, I didn’t want to waste time.

Shizune sighed, like she was expecting trouble. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “I can already do everything you told them to practice.”

She hadn’t even drunk or eaten yet, which is why I think her mood was a bit sour. “Show me.”

I did just that. Went through the whole gamut of exercises. It was the bare basics of tasks. I don’t know why she expected these to be difficult. It didn’t even include multi-tasking and different intensities for each exercise.

Shizune gave me a few more exercises, which I completed without any issue.

“Who trained you?” she asked, after a pause.

I shrugged. “No one,” I admitted. Tilted my head. “Although, the Old Man gave me control training exercises when I was younger.”

“Old Man?”

“The Third Hokage.”

Shizune nodded, eyes sparkling up like she’d just solved a big mystery. 

“Wait here,” she said and left.

I nibbled the sweets and drank tea.

The medic-nin returned about half an hour later carrying an armful of parchments, books, and scrolls. She dumped it all in front of me. Took one of the books at the top, handed it over.

“Start with this one,” she said.

I took the book, flipped through the pages. It looked a lot like a biology book, ninja style. She handed me an ordered list.

“Once you’ve finished with that, these next.”

I sighed. Damn, this was going to take forever. Somehow, I had expected I’d come and talk with Shizune, she’d demonstrate the jutsu, and I’d amaze her by copying it on the first try. That will teach me to be arrogant.

“We can start training once you’ve finished the first book,” she said, maybe noticing my defeated looks. “But you should still read through all that.”

That was fine. I had a plan in mind for that already. I took out parchment, inscribed a new seal. Stored everything.

I wasn’t entirely satisfied with how things went, but it was time to discuss the second thing I wanted to discuss with her. I put the seal away, cleaned my hands of crumbles, and then took out the eye. Showed her the crystal prison and the white eye staring from inside.

“Can you help me?”

That one request didn’t pan out like I wanted. Shizune asked for permission to run a diagnostics jutsu on me, then the eye, then me again.

“I don’t think you should, Hinata-san,” she said after a long while of thinking.

“Why?”

“We don’t know how the seals in your body will react if we try to remove one of your eyes,” she said.

I scowled. Damn it, I hadn’t considered that.

“Like Lord Jiraiya said, the seal has fail-safes to prevent it from being removed. Without knowing what the ones in your eyes do, I don’t think you should risk replacing the eye.”

There wasn’t much to talk about after that. I left, disillusioned and sad. I had the eye. I couldn’t fucking use the eye. There went my hopes of using the see-through vision to study the seals inside my body.

All the trouble and drama and whatnot, and right now, it was just a trouble-attracting trinket. Not fucking fair.

In the days that followed, I started leaving two clones in the apartment. One of them worked on the Kuro Raikou, while the other read through the medicine books Shizune gave me.

No one from the Hyuga came to cause trouble. Mom also didn’t visit again, unfortunately.

The climate in the village shifted. A battle broke out in the lands between Fire and Lightning, in the lands allied with Konoha. At the same time, skirmishes started happening between Earth and Fire as well, with the Grass village as the backdrop for that mess.

A lot of shinobi were mobilized and sent out. Shikamaru’s team was sent to Grass Village with another contingent of shinobis. Mine and Izumo’s team stayed in the village, doing the boring D-rank missions. I didn’t know if I should be happy or sad that I was being spared the hurdles of war.

Prices around the village increased. Mood dropped. There was now more tension between normal people and the Uchiha’s police, like somehow the civilians thought it was the Uchiha clan’s fault that a war was on the horizon.

Tension spiked when the Daimyo came calling. I don’t know why the man and all his court were here. I heard rumours it was because of a war declaration, or maybe it was because of that town that got destroyed by Kimimaro when he tried to kidnap Naruto. It just made the atmosphere heavier in the village.

In regard to training, I added to our morning sessions, much to everyone’s displeasure, control exercises. I had to bribe Choji with pastries to keep him from complaining too much.

The routine of training, practicing control, doing missions in the afternoon only ended when it was time to meet the codgers and hope all my preparations were enough. I managed to amass a good amount of support. The Uchiha, Hokage, Nara, Yamanaka, Haruno, a few merchants, the GGC. From Shijimi, unfortunately, I didn’t hear anything. I guess that one was a big flop.