A strange new life 7.15

“How…” Ino wheezed, taking deep breaths. Sweat poured out of her every pore. “Is this…” She lifted her arms, tried to punch the dummy. “Even possible?”

I understood Ino very well. Training with seals was a different beast, but I still think she was overdoing it.

“Lower the weights a bit?” I wrote, showed Ino my board.

She wanted to get stronger, but it was her first ti doing this. Abusing it like she was now might backfire.

Ino’s scathing glare was my response. She still hadn’t let it go, huh?

I wrote more words. “Ino-chan, It took almost two years to reach the sa amount in each seal.” I tried again.

“And… how… old— ” Ino shuddered, wheezed again. “Were you?”

I looked away. I was seven, maybe eight? I didn’t rember the details that well. I looked back at Ino, still trying to hit the dummy. I wrote more words.

“Fill your arms and legs with chakra. It helps.” Once the blonde had read, I erased the words and wrote others. “In the evening, soak in hot water. It’ll hurt tomorrow, but don’t give up, okay?”

If she wasn’t backing down, the least I could do was help.

It was the third day since my return, which left two days to what would be the most embarrassing dinner of all ti and three days to what could be a deadly confrontation with the Hyuga.

I wasn’t keen on entering the Hyuga compound. I had only agreed because Shisui promised to co with to diate things. Whatever that ant.

But right now, I sat on the grass of training field three. Ino had her head on my lap, and I pretended I didn’t see the tears in her eyes.

Silly girl. Abusing weight seals on her first day wasn’t smart.

When I went to her house this morning and found her worse than a shambling zombie, I tried to convince her to stay in bed and rest for the day, but Ino refused. She put on a brave face while we were still in front of her parents, only to break down once we were alone.

Could I do sothing to help?

“Ino-chan, I’ll try sothing that might help, okay?” I whispered. At this point, I didn’t even know why I didn’t speak all the ti. The pain from speaking was nothing when compared to the bone seals. Habit, maybe?

Ino, the poor thing, groaned. I took that as a yes.

I wasn’t a masseuse, but I was utterly familiar with my muscles and body, given the amount of ditation ti I spent trying to learn all the details about the seals and after resting from my training sessions.

The tip of my index finger touched the shoulder I’d seen Ino try to relieve the pain more than once. I pushed my chakra inside the muscles, circled it, and stimulated it like I did to mine after a training session.

The breathy moan-sigh Ino let out told it worked.

I stopped the chakra flow and removed my finger. Ino whined, like I had just taken her favorite candy away. I created many, many chakra threads. Who needed fingers, right? Why not go all in?

My ears were still burning hours later. It had been a success on all accounts. What I had forgotten was how massages can cause pleasure, even more so after intense training sessions. Ino’s moans would haunt until the end of my days.

But it had worked! Within fifteen minutes, Ino recovered enough to move. The improv massage session lasted for about an hour.

“…”

Now, we were discussing training strategies, and I was trying to convince Ino Kage Bushin was the training cheat.

“Shadow clones?” Ino asked.

I nodded, and my threads wrote the ssage. “You need to be careful because the jutsu splits your chakra between the clones, but it helps with training.”

“How so?”

Well, this might be a secret, but maybe not? Kakashi-sensei already knew it, Naruto also knew it.

“The clones are independent copies,” I wrote. “Once they disperse, you receive their mories and experiences. Even if you create just one clone, it’s like double the training ti.”

Ino scowled. “So, is it just more training? I’ll have to suffer double?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Ino wasn’t wrong. I nodded.

Ino’s scowl turned worse.

After Kage Bushin, I taught Ino Shunshin no Jutsu, and Doton: Moguragakure no Jutsu.

Ino, for her part, taught a trapping technique for which she had no na. I recognized it for what it was: the one she used when fighting Sakura in the original show to trap her with hair. Ino’s family used this technique to immobilize the enemy and hit them with mind transfer. She also taught another one, which Azuma insisted her team learn, a defensive earth release that created a wall on demand: Doton: Renga no Jutsu.

Right now, Ino was showing her family jutsu.

“Let show you,” Ino said. Her hands flashed with seals. She pointed towards , and imdiately, I felt the chakra trying to invade my head. My own rose in response, but this ti, I held it back. This was a demonstration of her family’s techniques; there was no need to interrupt Ino’s jutsu.

There was this mont of weightlessness like I wasn’t in my body anymore.

“Huh? It worked?” I heard my voice say. I felt the sting of pain in my throat, but it was distant, muted.

“Ow, ow, ow,” I heard it again. “Why does it hurt so much?” My voice whined. The chakra inside my head vanished, and I regained control of my body.

Ino covered her mouth with one hand before she turned to the side and spilled her guts out. Her face crumpled on a ss of tears and snot.

What happened?

I got up, walked to Ino, knelt beside her. I rubbed slow circles on her back. Once we cleaned the ss, Ino hugged like I was a lost puppy who needed help or sothing. I didn’t mind being hugged, but I wasn’t sure why she was hugging .

It took her minutes to speak again.

“Why are you always in pain, Hinata-chan?” Her voice trembled.

I tilted my head. Thought about Ino’s jutsu. Ah, right, damn. I hadn’t considered that.

“Orochimaru left seals inside my body,” I whispered.

Ino shuddered.

“One of them is trying to kill , and I’m failing to contain it.”

Ino gawked at , her expression caught between disbelief and anger. Then she shot to her feet and yanked on my arm, trying to haul up. “We’re asking Dad to help.”

I didn’t budge. Ino kept pulling my arm, but she wasn’t strong enough to move if I didn’t want to be moved. She yanked again, and again. When I didn’t follow, she whirled on .

“What?”

How could I tell Ino I didn’t trust people in the village to poke around my insides? I was willing to trust Inoichi, but he wasn’t a seal master or a dic-nin, to my knowledge. Could I really let so stranger tamper with the seals inside ? What if that person screwed up? What if they didn’t have my best interest in mind?

“Rember I told you about Danzo?” I wrote out.

Ino read the ssage, nodded.

“How can I be sure whoever your dad finds won’t be a spy?”

Ino’s face turned dark, teeth clenched. “Can’t we just talk to him, please? Maybe he knows sothing that might help, even if you don’t let anyone check the seals.”

Ino’s pleading eyes stabbed my heart. Could I refuse it? I couldn’t. I sighed, nodded.

Ino’s face lit up, and she dragged toward her house.

One thing followed another. Before I knew it, I was being led into Konoha’s hospital, except instead of a regular room, we went underground. Ino and Inoichi never left my side, which went a long way in making feel better. With the mind ninja here, the chances a spy would try to ss with were all but nil, right?

Unless the mind ninja was the spy.

I shuddered, pushed away that thought. Couldn’t live without trusting people.

The underground room stretched wide, looking like it took up the entire floor. Against the walls, I saw computers and other diagnostic tools, a trolley, desks, computer monitors, and several other tools that were a mix of dicine and fuinjutsu.

The door opened, and two people entered. One I recognized imdiately—the new Hokage. The other was a young woman dressed in a black kimono with a fishnet shirt under it.

“Hello, Hinata-san,” Shisui said when he approached. Now that I was closer, I got a better look at the woman: short dark hair, black eyes, and a sallow and tired face. “This is Shizune,” he said, gesturing to the woman. “Tsunade’s apprentice.”

Oh… oh! Damn, Shizune was here? Fangirl-sama, who had been sleeping for the past days, stirred.

“I see you recognize the na,” Inoichi said. There was this strange gleam in his eyes I couldn’t place. I nodded.

The door swung open again, cutting the conversation short. Another figure stepped inside.

Tall and broad-shouldered. Spiky white hair pulled into a long ponytail. Red lines slashed down his face. A forehead protector stamped with the Kanji for 'Oil.' The big rolled scroll strapped to his back.

Jiraiya walked until he was in front of us.

I shook, just a bit. I had seen the Ero-sennin once when Naruto taught the frog summoning jutsu, but at the ti, I was too tired and didn’t interact with him; but now? The man, the legend, was here on my behalf. How could I stay calm?

“You’re…, you’re…” My whisper was hoarser than usual.

Ino gave a strange glance, then looked back at the newcor.

Jiraiya heard . He smiled. Took a pose.

“I’m the most holy hermit of Mount Myoboku: the Frog Sannin. Pleased to et ya, young lady!”

Shisui looked at ; I caught the brief hints of a smile. “I invited Lord Jiraiya. He might know more about Orochimaru’s seals.”

My mind focused like never before, inspiration struck. I knew what I had to do. Sothing that was missing, and only now I realized. A fundantal part of that couldn’t be denied. Sothing I couldn’t not do it, if I was ever to be myself again.

With trembling hands, I rummaged through my stuff, happy I had already started resupplying my essential supplies. Out popped my comms board, and my threads wrote my ssage. That got a few raised eyebrows from everyone around, aside from Ino.

I took samples of my good impression kit v:2.2. Out popped the cupcakes and tea. I turned the board around so that people could read my ssage.

My words spelled: “Please, take care of , Ero-sennin!”