Kakashi Hatake sauntered slowly up toward the Memorial as the sun peeked up over the trees. This was his usual routine while he was in town, especially as he wasn't burdened with a genin team to babysit. The Hokage kept threatening him with one, but so far he'd managed to avoid falling into that particular trap.
A few people knew about this habit, but most simply assumed that he slept in late and such things. Still, he wasn't the only one that had a habit of making private trips up to the memorial.
"Imouto-chan," a girl's voice carried down to him through the trees. "Father said that we ought to stay here."
There was a yipping sound that Kakashi recognized as an immature fox, probably a pet. Odd to call a pet "little sister", but who was he to comment.
"B…b…but I do not have any water to boil," the girl continued.
Kakashi was considering on whether or not he should turn the last corner or not, but something was prickling him. Something about the way the girl had said about her father's instructions.
The Copycat Ninja turned the last corner and found a girl maybe just shy of ten years old with long black hair and a pair of glasses on her nose. She carried a blonde fox in a cradle formed by her arms and was already looking toward him when he'd first seen her. The girl had some impressive senses.
"Hello there," he said in a calm, friendly manner. "What are you doing up here?"
The girl twisted her body slightly, shielding the fox in her arms and biting her lip. Kakashi was momentarily taken aback to see an orange fire build up in her blue eyes. She didn't look like any of the academy students, but she was certainly trained. He noted a bokken placed respectfully to the side near the memorial
Briefly, he slipped his headband up and opened his sharingan eye. What he saw surprised him.
The girl had chakra coils all right, and they were strong for her age, but they were flaring weakly out of control. Chakra was being built up and not used and there was something wrong with it that he couldn't lay a finger on.
That wasn't the main thing, all that told him was that the girl hadn't been properly trained in how to develop her chakra coils beyond what an untrained person had. What surprised him more was what else he saw.
While the girl's chakra coils were strong, her chi pathways, usually unseen under the more obvious chakra coils, practically glowed and, unlike most people, showed a conscious level of control with pathways tightening and widening in clear patterns to control the flow of energy from the world around, through her body and back out. He hadn't seen enough chi-users to know whether the girl was skilled or clumsy, but she was obviously trained.
No wonder she'd realized he was there, she was a chi adept, drawing power from everything around her. And that meant she had a chi-user's sixth sense, picking up traces of others and their intents as the chi flowed through each person, back into the world at large and then into the chi adept.
There were very few people that trained in chi manipulation. Most only acquired strong chi as a side effect of having strong chakra. The limits and strengths of its use weren't widely understood. You had to search far and wide for someone that understood it well.
Though he was surprised someone had tried to give train this girl with chakra and chi.
The fox was strange as well. Her chakra seemed…almost human, actually, though mostly untrained, in both chi and chakra.
"Ano…" she said. "M…my father asked me to stay up here with my sister."
"And where is your sister?" Kakashi asked, looking toward the odd little fox.
The little girl looked reluctantly toward her fox and bit her lip.
"A fox can't be your sister, can it?" Kakashi asked, moving a bit closer.
"Ano…" the girl responded looking back up.
"So why did your father ask you to stay up here?" Kakashi asked.
"H…he said he had to get some things in town," the girl stuttered.
"Oh, I see," Kakashi said.
"Are you a ninja?" the little girl asked. "Father s…said this was a ninja village."
"Well, I might be," Kakashi said. "Why do you ask?"
"I am a m…martial artist," she answered.
That orange fire was starting to recede, and with it the uncontrolled build up and concentration of chakra. Her chakra was started settle back to a natural state.
Kakashi nodded at the confirmation of the suspicion he'd had upon realizing the girl was a chi adept.
"Did you father go through the gate?" Kakashi asked.
"Ano…" the black-haired girl said. "A…are you n..not supposed to go over the wall? I..is that not how to find who is worthy to come in?"
"If there were no gate how would all the non-ninjas get in to hire us," Kakashi asked.
"I…I suppose they couldn't…" the little closed her eyes tight and started quickly restating herself. "Could not, could not…Could. Not."
"Don't stress yourself," Kakashi said, reaching out to ruffle the girl's head and being surprised when she rolled her head easily out of the way. "So, why don't we go get you that water for your fox."
"B…but, Father said…" the girl protested.
"If your father has a problem with it, you can blame me," Kakashi said. "But you said you needed water, and you're not going to find any here. If we're quick we can be right back up here."
The girl bit her lip, but listened to the yipping of the fox in her hand. To Kakashi's eyes, the fox almost seemed to be telling the girl to ignore him. Fortunately for him, the black haired girl seemed to misread the warning yips.
"We need to be quick then," the girl said hesitantly, then she bit her lip and flinched a little. "OH! Sumimasen…I…I forgot to introduce myself…I am Ryoko Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts."
She started to bow, realized that would inconvenience the fox in her arms, paused, bit her lip. Looked around nervously, trying to figure out what to do to properly introduce herself.
"I'll take it that you bowed for now," Kakashi said with a smirk in his eyes. "Let's go get you that water."
"It needs to be hot," Ryoko said quietly.
"Then we'll get you some hot water then," the Copycat Ninja said in a tone that was obviously humoring the little girl. "Maybe you can tell me a little bit about your father as you go?"
Genma panted as he looked down into Konoha and listened intently to the sounds of the ninjas searching for him. He hadn't been able to get away with any scrolls. Worse, when he'd gotten back to the memorial, there'd only been more ninja.
Ninja who knew to block their chi with their chakra so that they were hard to feel coming with his sixth sense.
He'd had to resort to the Umisenken's ultimate technique to escape.
That meant he'd lost Ryoko, because there was no way he was going back into Konohagakure to find her.
And that meant that he'd lost Nodoka's future grandchildren, as far as his wife was concerned.
He couldn't go to his son, not and ever be safe.
He couldn't go to Nodoka now.
After Hinako was crippled by Happosai's curse, Soun was probably off-limits.
No, his only choice at this point was to take back to the road.
A long training trip and some real freedom for the first time in a long time.
The Hokage looked toward the two little girls sitting in his office, the older of the two was sitting very properly and lecturing the other one about proper posture…somewhat hopelessly, Sarutobi noted with a smile.
The younger of the two kept rolling her eyes, but nevertheless seemed to correct her manner of sitting to at least a marginal degree.
"Their father escaped," Kakashi said. "But he didn't get out with anything. So I guess this means we go find the girls' mother and leave them with her."
"I'd be more comfortable with some other relative if we could find one," Hokage said as he looked toward his office and the sound of the blonde, Joseibi complaining filtered toward them.
"Ryoko, no mother, no sword, no reason to worry," she complained loudly to the obvious disapproval, flavored deeply by worry, of her elder sister.
"What else should we do?" Kakashi asked.
"I'm going to have Ibiki talk to the girls some," Sarutobi said, ignoring the look of surprise Kakashi gave him at mentioning the chief torturer. "Gently. I'd like you to go see about this mother and what sort of person she is. When we have all the facts, then we can make a decision."
Kakashi nodded.
"I'll get on that right away," Kakashi said as he strolled out of the room.
The Hokage, meanwhile turned toward the two girls and, a large smile on his face, he walked back into his office to speak to them.
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:19)
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