fluffy clouds and a tinge of wonder; CH15: Sealing and unimportant little villages

The thing about being on Jiraiya the sannin’s team is that you’re sort of expected to be interested in sealing. 

Kushina? One of the last Uzumaki, personally trained by Uzumaki Mito in the art. Minato? Future sealmaster, currently a noted quick learner when it comes to sealing. 

Me? Mostly bored.

The fire crackles at the center of our small camp, flames consuming the logs we’d found and casting long shadows past our tents. One tent for Jiraiya, one for Kushina, Minato and I. Jiraiya had offered his tent to Minato but he said he was fine. It makes sense, it’s not like we haven’t had sleep overs before. Mostly after training when it was too much work for him to stumble down to his own apartment.

I stare down at the sealing paper in my hands, then glance over at where Minato is very efficiently putting together the beginnings of a container seal. Even Kushina is focused on my other side, sticking out her tongue a bit as she speeds through what must be an Uzushio style container seal. 

“Stop looking so put out, Rookie,” Jiraiya comments from where he’s writing something. Not a seal, literally writing in a notebook with a pen. 

I bet he’s writing some proto-Icha Icha. What a pervert.

It’s not that sealing is hard. It’s just not as interesting as jutsu. I suppose I shouldn’t feel that way, since I had been an artist once and can appreciate a magic that requires pretty writing. It just seems so regimented. You have a core matrix that shows the elemental alignment of the seal, then additional layers to describe the intention of the seal. You can add different variables to each layer that work like words, and each layer is a sentence. With more layers, the more complicated and more likely to explode.

Booooring. It takes so long to figure out if you’ve done it right. With a jutsu you feel the chakra moving between your bones. Much more intuitive.

“Maybe I’m terrible at sealing,” I say blandly. “You should give up on me and teach me a jutsu.”

“Thank the Sage we found something you’re not good at, then,” Jiraiya says. “I was worried Minato-kun would never have one over on you.”

“Are you confused, Seiko-kun?” Minato asks very politely, looking over at my own work. I’ve finished the core matrix, and started on the second layer of the seal. He scans it, eyebrows furrowing as he goes. 

“You’ve done everything right. Do you not know what to do next?”

“Minato, I will teach you every jutsu I ever learn if you promise to make whatever seals I want,” I reply extremely seriously. 

“Hey hey, I wanna make you seals!” Kushina interjects, finally breaking her focus. Her seal looks much more complicated than mine and Minato’s. I wonder if it’s going to explode. 

“Perfect. You can both make me seals, and I never have to learn anything about this!” I say, setting down my brush and clapping my hands. 

“You have to learn it,” Jiraiya interrupts, pointing at me with his pen and finally looking up from his notebook. “Think about how many seals you can put in your house. You’ll never have to buy a bigger dresser again. Or a bigger fridge!” 

“Why would I need a bigger fridge? How much food do you have in your house?” I ask, curious. 

“A man who never has to go grocery shopping is a happy one,” Jiraiya says cryptically, as if imparting some great important knowledge. I throw a pebble at him. 

Jiraiya dodges, huffing at me. The pebble lands against the front of his tent and bounces onto the ground. “The village needs more sealmasters you brat! Just learn what I teach you and never think about it again for all I care.” 

“But the village will make me make seals for them. This is just like learning iryo-jutsu,” I say suspiciously, glaring down at my paper. 

“There’s nothing wrong with being a medic-nin!”

“They make you stay in the village for a year and then you never get to fight anyone! You have to have Tsunade-sama’s strength and connections to get otherwise. It’s a terrible deal if you want to be frontline.”

So maybe I’m a bit resentful about how iryo-jutsu is softlocked by a life path I don’t want. I would learn it if they promised I could just be a frontliner and never be made to work fifteen hour shifts at the hospital. 

I don’t want to be a medic. I don’t want to be forced to work shifts in the hospital. I want to be able to heal myself and my teammates. I’m very selfish.

“Tsunade-hime’s life goal is to change that, don’t you know that?” Jiraiya says, looking like he’s getting a little heated on her behalf. “Do you know how many arguments she has with the elders in a month?”

“But it hasn’t changed yet. I’m already a girl. If I choose to learn iryo-jutsu, I will be made to conform to what the village thinks a medic should be. I have to be a frontliner.” 

The fire cracks loudly. 

Jiraiya sighs. “Why do you have to be a frontliner?”

I shut my mouth. For reasons that are probably treasonous. I’ll be allowed enough power that I could leave the village, if I wanted. I could become physically powerful enough that I could deny any orders I dislike from the elder council, in combination with my social connections. But there’s at least one reason that isn’t treasonous. 

“I like to fight.” So simple. Perfectly childish. Very obviously not the whole story. 

Jiraiya stares at me for a moment, a frown on his lips that makes him look much older than he is in the firelight. He's only twenty-four. “Kid, sometimes you have to choose to trust people. You’re not in the academy anymore. You don’t have to bullshit me. I won’t report you unless you’re planning on killing anyone. That’s how a jonin sensei is supposed to be.”

I wonder if his own jonin-sensei had to give him that sort of speech.

Kushina and Minato are silent beside me, both watching me. The air starts to be charged with something strange. Expectation.

Jiraiya wrote a lot about the idea of a shinobi seeking peace, and using great power to do so. 

I suppose I just have to trust that. Even if he is a lousy pervert.

“I didn’t choose to become a shinobi,” I state, reaching up and tapping my headband. The engraving of it feels odd against the pad of my finger. On the back of the plate, I know a number is written there. “I didn’t want to be one. I just knew it would be worse if I was in debt to the village during an apprenticeship. But I get to choose what kind of shinobi I’ll be. One that’s strong enough to do what I want and never be forced to choose how my life will be again.” 

I’ll never be made to live with a clan I don’t care about. Never be made to marry anyone because it’s convenient to the village. Never be trapped in the village, unable to take missions outside of it. To be free if I decide to leave.

Kushina grabs my arm, opening her mouth, but words seem to escape her. She stops, looking over to Minato, then Jiraiya. 

“You’d better learn sealing, then,” Jiraiya says finally, words slow. “I’ve found sealing masters get a lot more leeway in life choices. Provided they have the right friends.”

I suppose he’s right. He did get to run off to Ame for two years.

“I’ll become Hokage,” Minato declares quietly at my side. He doesn’t elaborate. I suppose the implied is that he won’t make me do terrible shit either. Probably a lie, one made out of youth and kindness. One day he’ll damn his son in the name of saving our village. I don’t think I’ll be comparable. 

But I would sacrifice myself for him or Kushina, so I wouldn’t mind him asking for such a thing anyways.

“Now quit with the sappy shit and finish your seals! You have another hour before first watch,” Jiraiya says loudly. He turns back to his notebook and takes his pen to paper again, skimming what he wrote before. 

I pick up my brush again and dip it into my ink, before starting again on the second layer of my seal. Kushina squeezes my arm once, then drops her hand. 

—

Travelling for missions is novel in its newness, but the novelty seems to fade for Minato, and then Kushina once we start tree jumping instead of walking. With walking there’s time for chitchat. When tree jumping, you’re mostly focused on not getting hit in the face with leaves. 

I’m having a great time. 

“Keep up, brats!” Jiraiya calls back from ahead of us. He jumps through the trees like he was born doing it. He practically was. The old graduation age was six when he left the academy. He’s been leaping through trees for most of his life. 

Kushina is whining about something, but it gets lost in the wind. I jump from one branch to the next, focused completely on the task at hand. I’ve been following Jiraiya’s own footholds, leaping for a breathless moment and landing a few steps behind him, barely letting gravity work its way up my feet before jumping again. It’s a bit like flying. 

Hashirama trees have started to thin out a bit more the further we get from the village, but not enough to leave us without footholds. We’re following some kind of preordained path, I think, from the certainty Jiraiya has in leading us through the woods. We’re not very close to the road anymore. 

Some of the branches on the trees almost seem to have wider, smoother limbs. As if used to foot traffic. 

I’ll ask Jiraiya about it next time we stop to rest. 

There’s another fifteen minutes of travel, then Jiraiya jumps down into a small clearing. I follow, landing in front of him and stretching out my arms. We’ve been at it for an hour and a half, and my legs are starting to get tired. 

Tall Fire Country trees surround us, swaying slow in the wind and rustling together. The clearing is full of grass and flowers, along with a notable patch of dirt in the center. A place people have used for camping before, I’m sure.

Minato lands next to me, pulling out his water flask and downing a few gulps. Then Kushina drops on my other side. 

“Finally!” Kushina declares, pushing up her headband till it’s loose and wiping away sweat from her brow. “That took forever!” 

“Don’t take off your headband, Kushina-chan,” Jiraiya orders half-heartedly, running his hands through his bangs. Most of his hair is tied back. He looks like a proper, mission ready shinobi. I wonder when he’ll drop the uniform and get some geta. Surely after he’s thirty.

“Are we almost there?” I ask. I can still feel blood pumping in my legs. 

“We’ll be at the village in around fifteen. Can you sense it from here, Rookie?” 

I pause, catching my breath a bit before taking a deep breath through my nose, shutting my eyes. 

Sweat, my teammates, Jiraiya. The grass at our feet, a few birds in the trees, traces of something I don’t recognize— no, deer I think. It smells like when I passed by the Nara compound. Another breath, further. Searching for things that are loud. More animals, smelling unfamiliar. 

Something a little humanlike, faint to the south of us in the direction we’re heading. Barely a flicker. 

“Yes, I think. It’s very faint,” I say, finally opening my eyes and trying to tuck my senses inward again. 

“We’re two miles out, that’s pretty impressive, kid. Good job,” Jiraiya says, grinning. 

There aren’t many people around for me to get distracted by, so that helps. But I’ll take some praise. 

“When we get there, we’ll be looking for one of their elders. Kimura Rokuro. The lord expects us to deliver all of the heads to the old man after we’re done. We’ll put them all in a body scroll to avoid giving him a heart attack,” Jiraiya begins explaining, putting his hands on his hips. He’s in a good mood, smiling as he looks us over. 

Come to think of it, he’s been in a much better mood ever since we left the village.

“Kimura-san will give us an idea of where the bandits are, but all that will be up to you kids. I’ll be watching how you go about this from the sidelines. So act as though you don’t have me as an asset from here on. You’ll be leading this mission yourselves and I will observe.”

Kushina and Minato instantly look over at me, and I sigh. Kimura Rokuro. I repeat the name over and over again in my mind. Minato will likely have memorized it already, but better safe than sorry. We really must be in the sticks if someone named their kid “Tree-village Sixth-son”.

“We’ll meet with the old man and go from there. Do we have a description of him?” I ask Jiraiya. My hands start going through my pouches on instinct, checking that my kunai and shuriken are in place, along with my other supplies. 

“Old man,” Jiraiya says unhelpfully, smirking. Evil man. I take it back. He’s awful in a good mood. I miss when he was bemused. 

“I’m sure someone in the village will be friendly enough to help us poor, deadly ninja children find a nice old man. Kushina, Minato-kun, are you ready to go?” I ask, turning to each of them. 

Minato nods, tucking away his water flask. Kushina puts up two thumbs up, already looking perked up from the short break. Stupid jinchuriki cheats. 

“We’ll move out then and search for the old man. Any thoughts?”

Two shakes of the head. I start towards the trees, leaping onto a sturdy looking branch. It bends a little, but I’m already jumping to the next one. I keep where I felt the village in my mind, aiming for that direction. I sense Jiraiya following behind all of us. Figures he would turn our first C-Rank into an exercise in teamwork. 

—

We enter the tiny village from the road instead of the trees, pretending to be more civilized than we are. Kushina smacked into a branch though, and she’s still picking leaves from her hair. So much for a good first impression. 

The village doesn’t have a name, small as it is. There’s about a dozen buildings in it, all in a much older style than Konoha. All have thick looking thatch roofs and are made from dark colored wood. No glass windows, only wooden bars with shutters. Every house seems to have a garden, and a few have livestock. 

It’s a simple existence. I appreciate it for a few moments, wondering how they make their roofs. I think I can smell someone cooking something savory.

“Not even a bar,” Jiraiya grumbles under his breath. I reach back and hit him on his stupid jonin vest. He barely grunts. 

I take a deep breath through my nose. Most of the chakra signatures here seem civilian, closely condensed and slow flowing. The only outliers are the animals, whose chakra flows much differently than a human’s. 

“No shinobi, not unless they’re hiding their chakra. If they can hide their chakra that’s a you problem, sensei. Genin can’t do that,” I state. We keep walking down the dirt path, and I intentionally start making a bit more noise with my feet, scuffing the road a little. It’d be bad to unsettle the locals. 

“I’m an observer!” Jiraiya reminds me unhelpfully. I ignore him. 

We reach the edges of the village before people start noticing us. There’s a couple kids around our age playing a game of tag, straw sandaled and wearing short hemp kosode. I spot a few women in a garden nearby, and a man working on a fence. 

I hold a hand for the others to hold back and jog up to the kids playing tag, loosening my limbs. The casual half aware body language of a child drops onto my shoulders easily, well worn. I’d had to pretend to be a normal one for a long time. 

“Hey! Do you guys know where Kimura-ojii-san is?” I ask, smiling. 

The boys pause their game, turning to look at me. They give my headband curious looks, then wide eyed at Jiraiya by the others. 

“Kimura-ojii-san?” One says, a bit older than the others and myself. He’s lanky in the way of young teens, with dark-dark eyes and long hair. “Oh. Do you mean Rokuro-ojii? Are you the ninja they hired to fight the bandits? You don’t look like a ninja!” 

I huff a laugh. “That’s because I’m a genin, an apprentice ninja. My master is lazy and doesn’t want to ask around for Kimura-ojii-san himself.” 

Lanky boy squints his already small, pretty eyes at Jiraiya. He has long eyelashes. “Mn. He does look old. I guess I’ll show you where he is, genin-kun.” 

“Thank you, villager-kun,” I reply with a little grin. 

“My name is Kento!” Lanky boy, or Kento introduces, holding out a warm tanned hand. 

“Seiko,” I reply, taking his hand and shaking it. 

“What a weird name for a boy,” Kento says as he starts walking. I wave for the others to follow us. “Your mom must have really wanted a girl.”

“Probably,” I agree, following after him as we step through the village. The adults have started paying attention now, but their eyes are drawn to Jiraiya instead of myself. Just the way I prefer it.

“Have you ever fought bandits before?” Kento asks, peering back at me critically. As if he can see the signs of previous bandit battles on me. Kushina and Minato catch up, walking just behind me.

“No, but we do spar a lot. Most civilians can’t really defeat a genin like us unless they have chakra training,” I explain. 

“Yeah, we’re gonna beat the crap out of those bandits, dattebane!” Kushina adds. “You guys will have nothing to fear once we’re done.”

“Why’d you bring a girl?” Kento asks me, ignoring Kushina.

I snort, reaching back and holding Kushina before she can jump the poor idiot. I notice Minato has also grabbed her by her arm. Such good teamwork.

“Ehhh? Who the hell are you calling a girl? What’s wrong with being a girl?” Kushina starts, and I can feel her chakra start rolling. I’d bet money her hair has started raising too.

“Kento-kun, Kushina is very dangerous to your health and used to sparring with ninja. I wouldn’t say things like that,” I say very politely. Being a shinobi really is sometimes like customer service.

We make it to the front of a larger home, where a very old man is smoking a long pipe. The smell of tobacco reminds me of my neighbors, and a little bit of the Hokage. 

“This is Rokuro-ojii. Rokuro-ojii, this is Seiko-kun and his team,” Kento introduces, waving a hand at us. Minato makes a little noise of surprise. 

The old man hums, taking another puff of his pipe and eyeing us. He’s old-old, the kind of old you rarely find in places where you don’t have regular access to healthcare, old. He has a long wispy beard, mustache, and the same dark eyes as Kento. I’m surprised that he doesn’t have cataracts on them.

“Hello there, Seiko-kun. Is this your sensei and teammates behind you?” Kimura Rokuro asks. 

“Yes. Jiraiya-sensei, Kushina-kun, and Minato-kun,” I say, pointing to each. 

“Kento-kun, say an apology to the kunoichi,” Kimura says after another puff of his pipe. 

Kento sighs, turning to Kushina. Kimura shakes his head. “No, boy. The other one.” 

“It’s alright Kimura-san, he doesn’t need to apologize to me. People do get confused at times. He did say something impolite to my teammate Kushina, however, and I would like an apology for that,” I say with a smile. 

“What? Wait, you’re a girl?” Kento exclaims, eyebrows high and his eyes growing wide. “You didn’t tell me! You have short hair!” 

Kimura reaches for his cane and smacks the boy against the back of his legs with it, making him yelp. The act itself seems very nonchalant. 

“Apologize to the kunoichi, Kento-kun, before I tell your mother you’ve been misbehaving.”

Kento turns and bows to Kushina, grimacing. “I apologize for being rude, kunoichi-san.” 

“Now scurry off to your friends.” 

Kento does as he’s asked, glaring at me and Kushina as if we make him say the wrong things on purpose. It’s not my fault he’s sexist. It’s a pity. He has very pretty eyes. Kushina sticks her tongue out at him and I resist the urge to laugh.

“We’re here about the bandits, Kimura-san. If you know anything about their whereabouts and how many there are, that would be extremely helpful,” I say once Kento has left, watching Kimura blow smoke.

“They showed up a few months ago and started attacking the road to the north.” Here, Kimura waves his cane in the direction of the road we came from. “Farms all around have been hit by them, the occasional merchant. Nasty business. We told Fujisawa-sama, our lord, about our troubles. He hadn’t decided to pay for a bounty until now, when a wealthy merchant’s son was robbed.”

“Nobles,” I say disparagingly, nodding in commiseration. 

“Ne, do you know how many of them there are, Rokuro-ojii?” Kushina asks, leaning in closer. 

Kimura grunts. “No idea. They usually attack with around a dozen and a half. Enough to scare off a farmer. Was much more when they attacked the merchant’s son, though. I’d bet they have under fifty milling around.”

“How far north was the attack on the road? Is this village the furthest south they’ve bothered?” Minato asks. Very good questions.

“They haven't hit us yet, just a farm about a mile north from us. The furthest north…hm. Must have been the Yamada farm about six miles north. Real nasty business there. They killed one of the Yamada granddaughters.” 

“Only killed?” I ask. If these bandits are assaulting women too then that calls for a more messy execution, doesn’t it? I don’t think karma is real, no shinobi would live long if that were the case. But if I have the power to enforce some kind of karma, then maybe I should.

Or maybe not. I’d say it’s not my responsibility to decide whether people should live or die, but I’m already doing that. So might as well jump in head first.

Kimura catches what I’m asking quickly. “That’s a terrible thing for a girl to ask after. No, she wasn’t hurt like that. Ain’t been any reports of it neither.”

“Better to know than not know. Thank you, Kimura-san. If we have more questions, we’ll come straight to you,” I say with a short bow. I look back at my teammates, checking if they wanted to say anything else. 

Neither Kushina nor Minato seem to have anything to say. Jiraiya just watches me, looking entertained by the proceedings. 

“Let’s head north out of town and talk,” I order, and we start our march back out. 

“Can you believe that guy?” Kushina hisses, coming close beside me and glaring over at where Kento is talking to his friends. He glares back at us when he spots her. 

“People are going to look at you differently for being a woman everywhere, kid. Even in the village. Better to get so strong you can slam their heads into something hard,” Jiraiya says airily, probably thinking of Tsunade. 

“I wasn’t allowed to slam his head,” Kushina grumbles. 

“Because I like money more than I care about stupid boys. You would have accidentally killed him, Shina-tan, you’re used to fighting our classmates,” I throw an arm over her shoulders, eyeing our surroundings. It’s comforting to feel her chakra settle down at our closeness.

The villagers don’t seem particularly suspicious of us, just tired and wary. I’d bet a lot of money they’re paying high taxes and getting shit returns for it. After all, it took months for the local lord to get off his ass and handle a couple of bandits. And he even outsourced to shinobi instead of using his samurai. 

I keep watch for anyone who seems afraid to see us, taking deep breaths through my nose. Bandits, contrary to popular perception, do not simply appear fully formed and asking for your money. Bandits are a result of socio-economic disparity and poverty. And this village looks poor. 

I hope none of these people’s sons have joined the bandits, and I hope none of them are interested in warning them. 

Minato comes closer, and I loop an arm around his shoulders too. He smiles. 

“You were good at talking to Kento-kun before he found out you were a girl,” Minato says. The sun shines off of the plate of his headband, and I have to squint to look at him. His hair is too bright in the sunshine too. Like spun gold. 

“Thank you ‘nato. You know, if someone attacked us right now you two would have to defend me. My arms are all full,” I say in a very cheerful tone, squeezing my teammates closer. Wind and saltwater chakra. They go very well together. 

“I’d beat them all, and Minato-kun can carry you away,” Kushina says with a showy punch into the air in front of us.

“My heroes.”

I keep a sharp eye on the villagers until we’re out of a civilian’s hearing range and further from the edge of the village, and I think I can hear Jiraiya scribbling behind us in his damn notebook. A plan is threading together in my mind.

“So, to review. The old man thinks there’s under fifty total bandits. Our mission scroll says a few dozen. Their active area is about a mile out from here, and five from there. I’d bet their hideout is around the two point five mile mark between those points in the woods. Any other thoughts?” I start, suddenly feeling a bit nostalgic for the academy. This is almost like the time we harassed Ryuu-sensei. 

“Why’d you ask about the granddaughter, back there?” Kushina asks, looking over at me with wide, innocent violet eyes. I grimace, dropping my arms from Minato and Kushina’s shoulders. 

“Sensei,” I say. Rare is it that I defer to an adult, but I’d much prefer it here. I look back at Jiraiya, who has the look of a man hunted. 

“Don’t worry about it, Kushina-chan,” Jiraiya says a bit too quickly. Enough that Kushina can smell his fear. Such an amateur. 

“We can talk about it after the mission is over, because it’s serious and everyone who is doing field work should know, right sensei?” I ask, tone going a bit hard as I bore my eyes into him. 

“What? I can know now!” Kushina says, looking between Jiraiya and I. She turns to Minato. “Do you know, Blondie?”

Minato shakes his head, looking at Jiraiya and I with those damned furrowed brows. Oh god.

“Oh look, I just realized I needed to use the little shinobi’s room. I’ll be watching you kids!” Jiraiya suddenly declares. He promptly disappeared in a burst of white smoke and leaves. I sneeze. I try and take a deep breath to figure out where he’s run off to, but sneeze again, bowing over. 

“We should cover him in itching powder sometime,” I curse between sneezes. He used a ton of chakra on purpose!

By the time I’ve recovered I can’t sense Jiraiya nearby, but I know he’s probably still watching us either himself or with a clone. 

“Fuck,” I say, wiping my nose and shaking my head. Kushina laughs at my sudden cuss word. “Okay. Tabling that. Whatever. We need to figure out where the bandits are, and I want to attack them at night. Better odds for us.”

“Are you going to try and track them?” Minato asks helpfully, before Kushina can try asking about sexual assault again. Listen. I am not doing that right now. It’s bad enough we’re about to murder people. Jiraiya can handle it after the mission is over or I’m telling Tsunade. 

“Yes. I want one of us to keep an eye on this village and the other to come with me. No one knows shinobi have been sent to get rid of the bandits besides this village, and I want to ensure that no one there will try and warn them.”

I look directly at Kushina. This will be the hardest bit. “Kushina, I need you to stay and watch the village.”

Kushina starts drawing herself up, looking indignant as she opens her mouth. I cut her off. 

“Minato is more suited towards stealth than you, and you are a bright deterrent. I want you in the trees, visibly watching the village until we get back. If anyone starts leaving for the north, tail them and pulse your chakra. I’ll probably be able to feel it from a distance,” I explain, gesturing towards the treeline and  then towards the north to show my point. 

“What if you get in a fight?” Kushina bristles. 

“Then we’ll send a clone to come get you. It’s going to be boring, but it’s important, Kushina,” I say seriously. 

I don’t want any complications in this mission. The bandits will get no warning. We’ll find them, regroup, then kill them all in the night as cleanly as possible. I’m not leaving room for unexpected injuries or most worst case scenarios. 

If Jiraiya were leading he’d probably want us to show up at the camp with no planning and leave a bloodbath. But we aren’t as strong as Jiraiya yet, and I’d rather build good habits until we can afford to be careless. 

So I’m tracking them down, and I’m bringing Minato who is much quieter than Kushina, and if anyone is stupid enough to try and warn the bandits Kushina can beat the crap out of them. Everyone is happy!

Except the bandits. Still morally conflicted about that, but whatever. 

“Alright,” Kushina grumbles mulishly. “But I’m going to get more of them when we attack tonight.”

I hope not. I think the reality of what we’re doing will be less glorious than she thinks it is.