Date: April 18th, 13 years following the Kyuubi's attack
Time: 7:50 PM
Sho Inugami/Keitaro Urashima stepped into the dimly lit chamber of Lord Daimyo Mizuzaki the 27th, Shao Fukamichu and Hoshi Fugato by his side. The medic-nin felt slightly better than he had earlier, but he still wasn't back to 100%.
Ayanami wa Mizuzaki – the Lord Daimyo's birth name – lay on a futon mattress on the floor instead of the Emperor-sized bed behind him. The Daimyo's dinner had been picked at inconsistently – as if the man had started to eat something, lost interest and then forgot which item he'd been eating and picked something else. Then there were a few shattered plates that had clearly been hurled across the room in frustration.
'More signs of Bipolarism…' Inugami thought to himself. 'But the shifts between manic and depressed episodes are startlingly abrupt for the severity being described. And the periods of lucidity suggest the Cyclothymic disorder, which can have more abrupt shifts, but they're supposed to be milder than what I'm seeing here…'
"Mizuzaki-sama, the medic-nin from Konoha is here."
The Lord Daimyo looked up, his eyes glistening with tears from a depressive episode, and froze. He began shaking violently with rage as he entered a manic phase. "WHAT?!" The man practically leapt to his feet and kicked one of the small tables of food across the room. "My daughter's missing, I'm losing my mind and Sarutobi insults me by sending a STRIPLING?!"
"He's young, but the Hokage says that he's extremely…"
"Young?!" Mizuzaki shouted, his words coming so rapidly it was almost hard to understand him. "Have his balls even dropped? And you're counting on HIM?!"
"HEY!" Inugami shouted back, not in actual anger for the man's words, but rather in an effort to break the Lord Daimyo's train of thought; an easy task for someone in the throes of a manic episode. "I spent eight days in that stuffy carriage of yours so I could sneak in here to treat you without anyone knowing their Lord Daimyo's lost his damn marbles! How about a little gratitude?! Now sit your crazy ass down and let me do my job!"
The majordomo and his assistant looked shocked. Had they made a mistake in bringing such a young man to help the Lord Daimyo? He'd seemed so on top of things but now seemed like a petulant child…
Mizuzaki the 27th, however, began to laugh and immediately dropped back onto the futon, submitting to Inugami. A manic grin crossed the man's face for a moment before his head fell forward.
Fukamichu looked at the Daimyo in surprise. "My Lord?" The servant asked, touching his shoulder.
The River Lord startled with a deep intake of air as he looked up at his majordomo, blinking a few times as if he'd just come out of a mental fog. "Oh, Shao; you're back. Good."
"Are you okay, Mizuzaki-dono?"
The sick man nodded, looking over at Inugami. "He may be young, but he's not going to let me push him around... That's good; I'd rather a graceless genius that a deferring moron." He smiled at Sho. "You've got spirit kid."
"So I've been told." Inugami bowed his head respectfully at the compliment as he knelt behind the older man who was somewhere between his Father and the Hokage in age. A ghostly green glow began to emanate from the medical ninja's hands. "I promise that this will be painless, Lord Mizuzaki… I'm going to begin to analyze your condition and will then treat you to the best of my considerable abilities."
Ayanami made a snort of self-amusement that Inugami was intimately familiar with. "Oh, good… He's humble, too."
Sho normally would have chuckled at the decent quality sarcasm, but he was too mentally fatigued to find the humor in the River Lord's comment. "If it is beyond my capabilities, we can summon a more experienced medic-nin if necessary. I will see to your care for the duration of our missions and prepare a long-term treatment program that can be done after my team is done here."
"I have known Hiruzen Sarutobi since I was your age, Bozu." The Lord Daimyo said using the honorific for "boy" since Inugami hadn't introduced himself yet. "If you are the one he chose, then I will trust his judgment… Despite my insanity otherwise."
The medic-nin's raised his Mystical Palm enabled hands, placing them gently on the Daimyo's shoulders the man breathed a sigh as the tension left his body as a mystical sedative was applied.
"I don't think you're insane, Lord Mizuzaki." Inugami said reassuringly as the man's head lolled forward; experiencing genuine relaxation for the first time in weeks - perhaps months. "I think you're merely sick… But, with my skills and a bit of luck, we're going to change that."
The ninja moved his hands to either side of the Daimyo's head, closing his eyes as he began to analyze the information his technique was telling him about the man's body. After thirty long – and for Fukamichu, mentally nail-biting – minutes, Sho took a sharp breath as he found what he was looking for…
But what he had found was beyond his worst case scenario imagination. "Son of a BITCH..!"
"What!?" Shao Fukamichu asked, looking up from where Fugato had been picking up the broken plate pieces. The medic-nin hopped to his feet, the half-asleep Daimyo swaying, but remaining sitting up, as the white-haired ninja ran to his bag; swearing up a storm as he did so. "What's wrong?!"
"What's wrong, Fukamichu-sama," Inugami said as he pulled out his equipment scroll, which was as thick around as his forearm, and began to unroll it. He was muttering to himself as he summoned a thick book into existence. "…Is that the supposition that you had is dead on. Lord Daimyo Mizuzaki's mind has been poisoned through a very complex Jujutsu technique."
"By the Goddess! A curse?!" The majordomo breathed in horror as other objects began to appear, such as bottles with encoded labels and at least one syringe. "Can you do anything about it, Inugami-san?"
"I can begin a curative treatment, yes." He began flipping towards the back of the book as he spoke. The medic's jaw clenched as he tried to find the right entry; while he trusted his memory, this was too dangerous to NOT make sure he did it by the book. "But I'm going to need both Miho-sensei and Tanaka-sensei's help…"
Fukamichu nodded. "Get them." He ordered Fugato, who dashed from the room. Inugami found the page he was looking for and grimaced as he re-read the information. "What now?"
Sho shook his head, making notes on a piece of paper as his mind assembled a treatment program. "Nothing… The complexity of what I need to do is sinking in..." A discordant sigh escaped him. "By the Kami… I'm not even sure if I can pull this off, even with the help of the Jonin…"
"If it's so hard, why don't we wait? Summon additional help?" The majordomo asked.
"Help with what?" Miho Hyuuga asked as she and Okito Tanaka entered on the heels of the assistant.
"No time, no time…" Sho said as he handed the sheet of paper with items and page numbers listed to Okito along with the book. "Tanaka-sensei, I need you to prepare the seals marked with a star in a triangular formation on the floor over there."
Okito Tanaka frowned as he looked at the book. His jaw dropped as he saw the title and his hands began to shake so badly that he nearly dropped it. "T… This is the Book of Namikaze; the Fourth's secret book on sealing jutsu!" Miho's mouth made a similar reaction as she looked at the book as if it were a holy relic. "How the HELL did you get this?! There are only five copies in existence and they're all supposed to be in the Hokage's vault beside the Nidaime's secret scroll that teaches the Kage Bushin! One definitely should not be outside the village in the hands of a Genin!"
Inugami sighed as he reached over to flip the cover over. Inside was an inscription. 'Kurando, thanks for your help with finding some of these; it was a huge help. –Minato.'
"It's my Dad's copy; technically a copy of his copy." The medic explained as he flipped a page to another inscription. 'Sho, I know you could have done this long before now, but I trust your reasoning must be sound. If you can master these, you'll easily be able to be my successor; if that is what you truly want for yourself. –Dad.'
"It was an Academy graduation present from him."
Miho whistled in awe. "That's an amazing gift, Sho…" She looked over at a still clearly disgruntled Tanaka and sobered up a little. "Still, in the future, something like this shouldn't leave the Village."
"I agree, Miho-sensei, but I happened to have it with me when we were after that damn cat..." The medic-nin resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his sensei as he picked up the syringe he'd summoned from his scroll earlier. "I wasn't expecting what came next any more than you were and I didn't want to explain how I had it in front of the others, so here it is.
"It's a good thing I did, to. Otherwise, we'd be relying on the memory of something I've only read a few times. It may be photographic, but this is too critical to trust anything but the properly written word for…" He said taking a deep breath; this next part was going to hurt.
"I suppose that's f…" Her words stalled as he knocked an air bubble out of the needle before jamming it into his chest and injecting himself! "What are you doing?!" Hyuuga cried in shock.
Sho mirrored the sharp breath that Mizuzaki had taken earlier as his eyes went wide for a half second as the injection took effect. Inugami pulled out the needle that bore the label WAKE UP JUICE and tossed it into a nearby trash can.
"Just a cocktail of caffeine and some mental stimulants." Inugami said, feeling the cobwebs of fatigue get swept from his mind, pointing to the paper. "And it's a good thing it is… We're going to need it."
Okito got over his shock long enough to finally look at the paper. "* The Layered Seal Technique? Lightning Wall Barrier? Regenerative Healing? * Evil Sealing?" His eyes widened and he showed the list to Miho, who looked equally shocked. "* The Five Elements Seal?! What the hell, Inugami? Nearly all of these are A or S rank techniques!"
Sho sighed, stopping his preparations impatiently. "Okay, but no more questions; we don't have a lot of time here… We've got maybe an hour before the cycle begins again and then it gets harder to treat..." The two Jonin gave him a skeptical look of confusion – Tanaka more so than Miho. "I've completed my examination of Daimyo Mizuzaki… And it's even worse than Fukamichu guessed.
"The Daimyo has been infected with a very powerful technique that has both Genjutsu and Jujutsu traits." The Genin walked over to the sleeping-while-sitting-up Lord Daimyo and pointed to a spot on his head. "Miho-sensei, please look at the Daimyo's hippocampus region with your Byakugan. Narrow aperture mode in the lower-right quadrant."
The Hyuuga's eyes narrowed and she wanted to ask Inugami how he knew about the Byakugan's narrow aperture mode, designed to allow the Hyuuga to zoom in on smaller objects while looking in X-ray or chakra viewing modes, but she held her tongue.
As she looked at the specified area, she gasped in horror, grabbing Tanaka's shoulder for support. "I see it, Sho… A narrow tendril of dark energy chakra worming through the Daimyo's brain, but rooted there." The vessels around her eyes relaxed. "I would have missed it completely in normal chakra viewing mode… It's so minute but insanely complex. The caster would have to be on par with Yuuhi Kurenai to make it!"
Inugami nodded. "It is rooted in the part of the brain that controls memory and emotion which is responsible for causing Mizuzaki's bipolar symptoms as the technique damages his mitochondria in the area." He shook his head. "This technique would have required weeks of effort to plant, in stages, while the Lord Daimyo slept and would only work on a non-ninja; if a ninja were to use the Illusion Release technique at any point, it would have erased the entire thing."
Fukamichu's jaw fell. "As he SLEPT?! How would they get in unobserved?!"
"Later!" Sho said irritably to the majordomo as he looked back at the Jonin. "I detected a pattern in the disruptions this 'Brain Worm' is causing; it builds up over time – increasing every two hours to be exact – until it reaches critical mass. When it does so, Lord Mizuzaki will completely lose his faculties and undoubtedly die shortly thereafter; a week at the most."
Hoshi Fugato fainted dead away at that announcement while the ninja-trained Fukamichu looked ready to commit murder if he found the one responsible for this.
"How long to this critical mass, Inugami?" Tanaka asked.
"If my calculations are right, the night the Fealty Ceremony begins – a little over a week and a half from now. That's why I need you to start preparing those seals, NOW. We don't have the necessary time to call help from Konoha and have them sneak in. Hell, we don't even have enough time for me to contact my Father, make sure he's not in the middle of something, and reverse summon him." The medic grimaced at the thought and looked at the male Jonin dourly as Tanaka opened his mouth. "And before you ask, now that the Genjutsu portion of this vile thing has been completed, the Illusion Release technique would cause the Jujutsu side to instantly kill the Lord Daimyo." Okito's mouth closed with a grimace.
Miho nodded to Okito. "Do it, Yaiba." The defensive specialist nodded, though the look on his face said 'This discussion isn't over yet,' stepping over to the vacant area. The tip of his finger ignited as he began to burn the complex seals into the floor after flipping to the appropriate page in the book. "What are you thinking, Sho?"
"The only way to deal with this is gradually over time, but time is not on our side, so we need to change the equation…" He ticked his fingers. "The Evil Sealing Technique will freeze the 'Brain Worm' – I can't think of a better name for it – and stop it from progressing any further. The Regenerative Healing jutsu that I'll add to the seal matrix that Tanaka-sensei is preparing will then be able to repair the physical damage the Lord Daimyo has already suffered. The Five Elements Seal will then close off the chakra pathways that would allow the Curse Maker from attempting this again."
"And the Lightning Wall Barrier?" She asked, confused. That particular technique was normally used to block a physical location.
Inugami gave a cruel smile. "A little present for the bastard who did this; should he or she attempt to figure out why the Daimyo recovers..." Miho cringed slightly. The barrier would definitely injure the enemy ninja severely and the Five Elements Seal would hide the defensive technique's existence until it was too late. "And, of course, the Layered Seal Technique to make sure all the parts work in harmony."
"Wait just a minute there…" Shao Fukamichu said tersely. "You're talking about using the Lord Daimyo as BAIT?! I can't agree to that!"
Miho shook her head. "Not bait, Shao-san. What my Genin is proposing is a defensive measure..." The majordomo raised his eyebrow.
Seeing that his Jonin was on his side, Sho slipped over to where Tanaka was working on the collaborative jutsu form and began to prepare the Evil Sealing technique by using his chakra scalpel to split open one of his fingertips to provide the blood component of the technique.
"Think about it, Shao-san; we don't know how the ninja responsible for this curse technique was getting access to the Lord Daimyo's quarters…" She made a sweeping gesture towards the room around them. "…So instead of GUESSING how the enemy was getting in and beefing up the security, we'll leave everything exactly as it is."
The figurative lightbulb lit up in the former Hidden Valleys ninja. "And since he's broken in so many times before, he'll take the lack of extra security as a sign that we figured out what was wrong with Mizuzaki-sama, but not HOW he got ill. He'll use whatever method allowed him to access the Lord Daimyo's suite previously; feeling overly confident that he won't think to check for magical 'traps' in the body of a non-shinobi."
"Precisely." She looked over to her Genin feeling a mixture of pride and surprise in him. "And the Lightning Wall Barrier idea is perfect; I suspect that my student is going to work my Thunder element chakra into the Layered Seal technique in such a way that the energy will be stored in Mizuzaki-sama's bio-electric network so it doesn't leave any external trace."
She frowned in thought and looked at the medic-nin. "Wait… Sho? Are you going to have enough chakra to help organize all this? I'll admit you have the most efficient chakra usage rate out of any Genin I've ever met, but you don't have the chakra capacity to keep up with Okito and myself; we've got nearly ten years of growth and experience on you."
"Bottle." Inugami replied distractedly as he began the final glyphs.
"I think he means this, Hyuuga-san." A recovered Hoshi Fugato said, picking up the bottle that Inugami had summoned from the scroll and handing it to her.
Miho accepted the bottle and frowned as she walked over to him. "Why on EARTH would you pack so many Soldier Pills? There's enough for a small war here!" She whispered tersely to him.
Sho Inugami looked over to his instructor, having finished his task, and accepted the bottle. "I ran out during the Yondaime's Gambit, Miho-sensei; I'd rather have too many than too few. And yes, I am WELL aware of the side effects from taking too many of these things, but the mission takes priority over my comfort." She chuckled ruefully at his simple response.
He looked at Okito's work and nodded. "That looks perfect, Tanaka-sensei! I'll get the Regeneration Healing jutsu form in place; if you'd please get Lord Mizuzaki…" The massive Jonin nodded and walked over to where the unconscious Daimyo sat. "Miho-sensei, can you please double check the Lightning Barrier sigils? Lightning element is something I can't manifest for some reason and we can't afford to make a mistake because of my limitations."
The kunoichi nodded solemnly, surprised that there was actually something Sho Inugami was willing to admit he couldn't do, and began looking the glyphs. As she did so, the medic-nin popped the bottle open and shook out five soldier pills. 'Three should put me on equal footing with the Senseis, but as the collaborative jutsu conductor I'll need a bit more… One of Chouji's Green Spinach pills would have been better than taking this many Hyorogan, but I lack sufficient body fat to use them…' He grinned wryly to himself as he ate the pills; there'd be some serious ramifications later, but that was a later problem. 'Not that Choza-san would ever allow a non-Akimichi to use them.'
"The glyphs look correct to me, Sho." Miho Hyuuga declared, impressed at the young man's accuracy, given the self-admitted lack of skill with Raiken. Tanaka arrived and gently lowered the Daimyo into the triangular spell form. "Although I'm not 100% on the connective scripts – I don't have a lot of experience with Fuuinjutsu other that the basic Fuunyu/Kaifuu technique…" She shook her head, glancing over to the equipment scroll. "How did you think of all this so quickly? I doubt that sealing techniques have been added to the Academy curriculum…"
The medic-nin shrugged as he knelt Seiza style at the head of the triangle. "My parents RUN the Jutsu Research and Development Unit, Miho-Sensei… I've been looking at Sealing and Collaborative Jutsu spell forms since before the accident that did this to me." He gestured to his white hair. "I've even been permitted to help on low-priority projects before, so I'm reasonably confident that the three of us can do this."
"And what if it can't work, Inugami?" Okito Tanaka asked taking one of the corners at the base of the isosceles triangle. "What if this is too much for you to do?"
"Then we'll do as much as we can." Inugami said tersely; he was nervous enough about this and he didn't need the older man voicing his fears. There was also a bit of discomfort from the sheer number of soldier pills he'd just taken, though that was a mere thorn compared to the knife wound he'd be feeling later. "The Evil Sealing and the Regeneration Healing are the bare minimum we need to stop the progress of the 'Brain Worm' curse and repair the damage it's caused. If I can get the other two parts to work to prevent future attempts on the Lord Daimyo, great, but I'd rather shoot for the moon and miss than jump for the treetops and fall short."
Miho Hyuuga took the final spot. "How is this supposed to work, Sho? I've barely HEARD of some of these seals, to say nothing about how to cast them."
"I'm going to shamelessly borrow a piece of a Yamanaka Clan Hijutsu that my mother helped Inoichi develop: the Mind Clone Switch." He answered with a sly smile.
Okito frowned. "That's the one that allows him to take over multiple people at once, right?"
"Yeah… The difference is that I'm not going to attempt to control either of you; it would be too much – even for me – to mentally juggle while conducting the Layered Seal technique to keep the dominos from falling early." He said, closing his eyes as he began to make seals. "Instead, I'm going to modify the technique slightly to create two mental clones that will then be able to talk you through the steps on a subconscious level. It SHOULD give us the necessary synchronization to pull this off even though I still barely know you, Tanaka-sensei, and you wouldn't recognize the mental cues through the spell form."
"You're just full of surprises tonight, Inugami…" The Diamond Turtle of Konoha said wryly. Miho giggled. "What?" The medic's teacher shook her head.
Sho gave a low chuckle as he smiled behind closed eyes and began to mentally organize the stages of this treatment process, along with the steps to take if there were complications. "She's probably thinking about the fact that there hasn't been a day when Team 13 is together that I HAVEN'T surprised her in one way or another." The medic-nin quickly crafted the Snake, Hare, Tiger and Ram seals to lock the technique down. His head began to glow as two narrow streams of chakra jumped over to the Jonin and enveloped their heads briefly and then faded away.
Miho Hyuuga blinked a few times as she began to connect with the mind clone. "Oh… I see; it's like I know that right now I need to start blending pure chakra, but it's not forcing me to do so… It's not invasive the way Inoichi's version would be." She raised her hands in the Ram seal.
Okito Tanaka did the same. "Probably efficient for sharing small amounts of information with complex steps in a hurry, though I doubt I'll remember everything on my own."
Sho began the thirteen seal combination for the first stage of the treatment, mirrored by the Jonin. "This weaker level probably wouldn't be as useful unless used by someone with a strong eye for detail or mental focus… Without those, such a short connection might allow someone to share their feelings that they can't find the words for but little else. A longer connection would cost more chakra and allow for more information sharing."
The medic completed the final seal. "Fuuja Hoiin!" The two Jonin broke their ram seals and slammed their hands on the spell form, allowing their chakra to flow to Inugami as he placed his palm on the top of the Daimyo's head. The words written in Sho's blood began to creep inwards and climb onto Mizuzaki, condensing and forming a blood red ring on his scalp, hidden by the man's graying hair, before the ring turned black as the seal took hold. "Locked!"
"Stage two, Chikatsu Saisei!" Inugami said as the three ninja clapped both hands together. The part of the spell form directly under the Lord Daimyo's head began to glow the same healthy green of the Mystical Palm technique. The sweat began to bead on Inugami's head as he focused on the detailed effort to regenerate the brain cells damaged by the jujutsu technique.
The three ninja remained silent while the majordomo and his assistant looked on nervously. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. At the forty minute mark, the black lock of Sho Inugami's hair – the only section undamaged in the accident that put him in a coma years before – appeared as the ninja lost the mental focus to keep the transformation technique that made him Keitaro Urashima going.
"Primary neural repair complete…" Sho finally gasped, nearly an hour into the technique; he'd burned through most of the chakra the soldier pills had given him. "Shifting technique to long term regeneration mode..." As with the curse sealing glyphs, the green glow rose from the ground to pour into the ring formed by the Evil Sealing technique making a faint green blob, which moved like a living thing within the ring's confines. "Miho-sensei, the Raiken, please…"
"Right, Sho." The female Jonin agreed, quickly manufacturing chakra that was Lightning nature transformed and performed the hand seals of Hare, Tiger, Dog, and Snake. A purple dome of crackling light surrounded the Daimyo's entire body. "Lightning Barrier Technique."
Inugami very cautiously placed his hands on the spell form on either side of Mizuzaki's shoulders. "Bio-electric conversion, begin!"
From the eight major vital areas of the body – the areas that housed the so-called "Eight Gates" on a Reverse Lotus master – thin beams of golden light arose as the medic-nin tapped into the chakra potential that existed in all humans, though not all could tap into it. The beams connected to the lightning dome and the wavelength of the dome's light shifted as the River Lord's energy began to alter Miho's chakra into a compatible form.
The beads of sweat became a virtual torrent as Inugami worked with a chakra nature counter to his own. After ten long minutes, the dome was completely golden in color and began to shrink into the Daimyo's body. Unlike the others, this barrier left no perceptible seal on the man's body because it was fused with Mizuzaki's own life force.
"Nearly… there…" Sho said, gasping for breath. He lifted his right arm, his left gripping in between the elbow and wrist. "Fffive Eh-Elements Seal…"
"Sho, enough!" Miho ordered, her voice filled with worry. "It's too much!"
Okito nodded agreement. And then paused as the medic-nin's mind clones spoke very forcefully to them both… "Oh… Damn; he has to do it or the Lightning Barrier won't remain stable…"
Purple flames that gave off no heat sprang to life at the tips of the medic's fingers, the words Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth visible within the glow. Inugami's left arm tensed as it pulled the right down. A grimace formed on his features as if his entire arm had spasmed from the effort; which it had. The medic pressed his fingertips around the Evil Sealing's circle, leaving five spiral-looking objects around it; enclosing the smaller circle.
"L…o…c…k…e…d…" Inugami then said with painful slowness; his eyes clearly having difficulty focusing. "Ta…nak…a…"
The male Jonin looked confused for a moment until the mind clone whispered that Inugami was too strung out to complete the final seal. "Oh!" He extended his longer arm - able to reach the Lord Daimyo without breaking the spell form - and pressed his hand on Mizuzaki's forehead. "Layered Seal, BIND!" There was a flash of light and the kanji for "Protected" appeared on Mizuzaki's skin. The mark would be easy enough to hide with flesh tone makeup.
Inugami's eyes – also reverted to their natural colors – rolled upwards as he fell backwards, a trace of a smile on his lips. He dimly heard his Jonin shout his name as he lost consciousness.
* * *
"Gomokunarabe, Haruno-san!" Kimiko/Reiyuriko chortled as she laid the final black stone into position on the Go board, creating a chain of five in a row.
Nakahito Haruno looked confused for a moment as he looked over the board. The ersatz Princess had only had three pieces in a row… But now there were five. "How the…" He began in disbelief.
Kimiko Itou smiled at her friend and tapped the 5th stone, which, until her placement of the last stone, had been disconnected from the three stone chain that she'd had him focused on. "Surely a ninja such as you knows the importance of misdirection, Haruno-san."
A sigh of self-disgust at missing it escaped his lips. "Well done, K-" He cut himself off before he could say her real name. "Reiyuriko-hime." She gave him a merry wink.
The two friends sat in the Imperial family's library in front of the Go board, playing a variation of the game called Gomoku. Motoko Hata was idly looking at the different books and scrolls of the library while her twin was fiddling with his brass knuckles; completely out of place in the normally quiet room, but on "guard duty" for the "Princess" at the moment while Miho Hyuuga and Okito-sensei were out of the room.
"What on earth is Oni DOING? What the hell is taking them so long?!" A very irritated Raiden Hata demanded, causing him to break the very simple character he'd been given for this mission – be himself but pretend he doesn't know the Civilian Team. "It's been nearly two hours!"
His twin threw him a nasty look, but remained in character as she chastised him. "Urashima-dono undoubtedly has his reasons for needing your Jonin and Noriyasu-san, ninja. You would do well to learn patience."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah; patience... How long does that take?" The phrasing was his common retort to his sister whenever she told him what he needed to learn.
Nakahito snorted at the joke and Kimiko had to cover her mouth; it wasn't proper for a lady to be amused by such poor behavior. "Forgive my teammate, Princess; he's more a person of action than for sitting around." He turned to look at the orange haired fighter. "Raiden; Why don't you go and try to help Takahashi and Kyouran with their little project? I can guard the Princess on my own."
"Thank the Kami; I thought you'd never ask!" Raiden Hata said, jumping to his feet. His twin rolled her eyes at her brother, but said nothing.
Before he was halfway to the door, however, it opened to reveal Okito Tanaka doing a one armed carry of a very bedraggled and barely coherent Sho Inugami. "Make a hole!" The eyes of the four Genin in the room went wide as the larger Jonin half carried, half dragged the medic-nin to a nearby couch and sat down with him.
"Tanaka-sensei!" Kimiko gasped, breaking character and running across the room to look at her teammate, who was now in his natural appearance for the first time since the mission had been assigned. Motoko Hata was right on her heels. "What's going on?"
"I-Is Sho-kun okay?" Motoko asked in concern for the young man she was infatuated with. She took the open spot on the medic's right hand side. The medic's eyes were glassy looking and just barely open; as if he were drunk. "What happened?"
"The seals we've placed on the Lord Daimyo should correct his condition, Shao-san…" Miho Hyuuga was saying to the hiring client as she entered the library with Shao Fukamichu and Hoshi Fugato, cutting Tanaka off before he could say anything. "And from what I understand of the process, the seals will remain until they are no longer needed without any upkeep from a ninja medic. It will take a few weeks for all of his symptoms to fade, but the worst of it should be gone when he wakes up in the morning."
"I'm just glad that my years in Lord Mizuzaki's service didn't completely dull my ability to recognize the effect of magic…" The majordomo said with sad relief. "But the thought that a ninja could get to the River Lord's bedroom undetected… On multiple occasions, no less, terrifies me beyond words."
"HEY!" Raiden shouted irreverently to get the attention of the adults, which he did with ease, as he gestured to the medic. "WHAT THE HELL!?" He demanded, asking the question on the mind of all four Genin in the room.
"How uncouth…" Fugato said in annoyance as Okito and Motoko both placed their hands on their faces in embarrassment at the male Hata's behavior. "I'm going to get the medic a glass of water…" The assistant stepped out of the room.
The silver/white-eyed Jonin looked over at Raiden and then to the others. "Sho confirmed Fukamichu-san's fears that the Lord Daimyo was being affected by a jutsu. Apparently someone, for several months now, has been finding a way to sneak into Lord Mizuzaki's quarters and use a powerful Curse jutsu to tamper with his Majesty's mind." Murmurs of shocked surprise escaped the Genin.
Hyuuga looked worriedly at the medic-nin. "Sho, with help from Yaiba and I, used a complex Sealing technique to start reversing and prevent any further psychic influence from being inflicted on the Lord Daimyo."
"Are you okay, Sho-kun?" Motoko asked the medic as she saw his eyelids flutter momentarily, but he still looked out of it. She took his right hand with both of hers, using her limited medical knowledge – she'd studied a few things out of interest of Inugami's specialty – to check his pulse. His heart rate was lower than normal, around a 40 instead of a healthy 60 to 100, but it was steady.
The medic-nin seemed to feel her hands and his eyes looked down as if he were in slow motion. Seeing Motoko's hands caused his heart to beat a touch faster, but when he tried to talk, he sounded like an anesthetized person being worked on by a dentist.
"He'll be fine, Motoko-chan." Okito said as he lifted Sho's hand off his left shoulder and allowed the arm to dangle freely. "He was organizing the healing effort and used seven highly ranked sealing techniques over the course of an hour and a half… I'm astonished that he even had the chakra capacity to pull it all off, but he definitely overexerted his body's limits."
'Damn…' Itou thought to herself, looking over to Nakahito – who bore an identical look of surprise. 'I knew that Sho was smarter than 'Hito or I and that he was stronger because of it, but that kind of capacity is like next level beyond next level!'
'I guess he really is human after all…' Nakahito thought. 'With the way he could use chakra so deftly, it was like he had an inexhaustible supply.'
Miho smiled at them both, envisioning what her Genin were thinking. "He's ahead of you both on a scale from Genin to Jonin, but not as far as you might be thinking; he used a drug to enhance himself that is going to have some side effects."
"Of course he did…" Kimiko said with annoyed disgust as she moved her chair over so she was sitting right in front of Inugami. Now up close, she noticed the bags under his eyes and shook her head. Haruno stepped up behind her to look at his team mate/rival over the shoulder he rested his hand on. Itou snapped her fingers in his face a few times. Sho blinked a few more times, his brain clearly having difficulty processing the snaps, before the medic-nin's gray and green eyes tracked over to her. "Hey, Sho… You look like hell… Are you going to be okay?"
The exhausted medic swallowed a few times to try and clear the dry mouth feeling before attempting to give the ersatz Princess one of his self-confident smiles. He was so exhausted, however, that it failed utterly, causing both of his teammates to increase their concern for the medic. "Jes' low 'n ch'kra, Kim'ko. 'Fr'd teh use 'n'her s'lg'r pull." He slurred.
"Pills?" Raiden asked in surprise. "As in more than one?" The others looked at him. "I tried one once because Kiba and Akamaru were raving about them; the boost was nice, but the side effects… Just how many does it take to do THAT to yourself?"
Nakahito nodded in agreement, turning back to Sho. "Seriously… If you're low on chakra and afraid to take another pill, just how many did you eat already?"
The Hyuuga Jonin frowned as she attempted to answer for the barely coherent medic. "I'm… not sure… He took them while I was verifying the seal spell form… Yaiba; did you see?"
Tanaka shook his head. "I was trying to figure out how best to carry Mizuzaki-sama over to the spell form. He had that huge bottle and I heard it rattle, but didn't see how many he actually ate."
"Fv…" Sho slurred raising his left hand and splaying his fingers. There was a stunned silence from everyone that was broken when Hoshi Fugato returned with the cup of water for Inugami. Motoko released Sho's hand and accepted the cup, proffering it to him so he could drink without spilling. He looked between the cup and Motoko a few times before his thirst finally won out. "Rrgto…"
"Five soldier pills?! You're out of your freaking mind, Inugami!" Raiden demanded. Those not familiar with the pills looked over to him. "A single soldier pill temporarily triples your chakra and gives you energy for up to three days, but it leaves you wiped out when it wears off. If you used five..." He paused, trying to do the math. "Five pills would give you nearly two hundred and fifty times your starting chakra!" Hata frowned as he heard what he said. "How are you still alive, let alone barely coherent? That should have killed you!"
"That's not quite right, Raiden." Okito Tanaka corrected his student as Inugami gingerly sipped at the water while studiously avoiding looking into the very worried green eyes of Motoko Hata. Despite that effort, he was very thankful for her latest kindness. "Chakra augmentation pills, like Soldier Pills, can't make something from nothing. What they do is convert body fat and other vital energy reserves into body energy that can then be converted into chakra. But once that energy gets used, it's gone; it won't spontaneously regenerate. Your math is also significantly flawed; the energy that multiple Soldier Pills convert is reductively exponential, not positively geometric."
The four Genin gave him blank stares.
"Que?" Raiden said dumbly.
Miho and Okito chuckled as the Hyuuga took over the explanation. "He means that each additional pill is less effective than the first. The only variety of Hyorogan-type pills that lack that problem are the Akimichi family's secret recipe pills… And even they cap out at 100 times the user's base chakra."
"100 times?!" Kimiko yelped in shock… Like most of the people who had never seen an Akimichi on the battlefield, she'd assumed that Chouji was merely fat and useless.
Miho nodded. "But, even their pills require someone with an extremely high level of body fat to pull off. When they take that third pill…" She whistled at the memory.
"What happens, Hyuuga-sensei?" Motoko asked as a slightly shaking Sho took the cup in his own hand. His condition was improving far more rapidly than she would have expected.
"The user loses a few hundred pounds, reducing them to someone about Yaiba's size, and become some of the most powerful Taijutsu experts in Konoha…" She said sadly. "For about ten minutes; then the loss of critical layers body fat typically incapacitates and potentially kills them."
"Is that why Chouji's always eating something?" Nakahito asked, surprised by this new knowledge. "So he can use those pills if necessary?"
Tanaka nodded. "Even when they don't use their secret medicine, the Akimichi still have the ability to convert fat to chakra to a limited extent. That's how they can eat and eat, but they don't get bigger than a certain size - they burn the fats in the food they eat before their bodies can store it.
"But in any event, standard Soldier Pills can't generate those kinds of results. You were correct in the fact that the first pill consumed triples one's base chakra, Raiden. Where you were wrong is that where additional pills can draw out more energy, but there's less and less body reserves for them to convert."
He patted Sho's shoulder briefly while his left hand extended. A pencil-sized diamond cylinder grew from it. "For example, let say Inugami's base chakra is a 1, the first pill triples him to 3." The top of the cylinder grew three tines like a fork. "All well and good… The second pill, however, only doubles his original base chakra." He points to the main cylinder. "It doesn't increase the increased base." He points to the tines as two more emerged.
"Ah…" Raiden said, finally getting it; he was more of a visual learner. "So he's at 5, not 9 like I thought."
Tanaka nodded as the tines and pillar sank back into his skin. "Exactly. Each additional pill is roughly half as effective as the prior pill. Taking five would have peaked at just short of 8 times his base chakra and, off-hand, I'd guess he's now down to about one-quarter his normal capacity, the lowest your body will allow you to go without using a forbidden taijutsu technique. Add to that the side effects from burning that much of his limited body fat reserves; he's effectively in the state a person would be in after two weeks on a starvation diet."
"In other words…" Sho finally spoke up as he finished the cup of water, his voice clearer than before. "The damage I've done is completely survivable even without medical intervention… It just hurts like hell." He gave a pained sigh as he leaned back into the couch. "Without external stimulus, I'll recover in about 60 hours. It'll just be very boring lying on my back to stare at a ceiling once someone helps me to my room… Or I crawl there; standing under my own strength isn't an option at the moment…"
Motoko Hata felt a bit of a flutter at Inugami's words. 'Sho-kun needs help to get better. I want to tell him that he can count on me to be his strength for a change...' She felt her heart begin to race warningly - she was getting too excited. 'But how can I say the words? I want him to know I can do this for him but I can't... Why am I such a coward?!'
The red-haired kunoichi resisted the urge to run away crying, but she looked over at Itou with a glimmer in her eye, silently begging Kimiko to ask something that would help her make him better.
Kimiko got the message. "What kind of stimulus are you talking about, Sho; some specific kind of food or medicine? Isn't there something someone can do to help you get better faster?"
"No… I have a technique… It's called Yin Healing Wound Destruction; in fact, you've even seen me use it." He looked over at Nakahito. "Remember how that kunai you hit me with that first day we were a team didn't do a lot of damage to me?" Haruno nodded, remembering how seeing next to no blood had weirded him out. Motoko's eyes widened; Nakahito had attacked Sho and stabbed him?
"That was it. It's a technique Aniki and I came up with: we turned the Mystical Palm inward – repairing damage as fast as it occurs. Because it's done from the inside out, converting chakra into new cells by speeding up normal body processes, there's no visible energy signature. It would basically do the reverse of what the Soldier Pills do."
He gave Kimiko a wry smile and a wink. "So unless you're offering a chakra transfusion, Kimi, I'm done for the next two and a half days."
Itou felt herself blush as she remembered when their roles had been reversed during the Yondaime's Gambit when she'd somehow managed to use a water-based jutsu she'd never even seen before and had left her as exhausted as Sho looked now.
At the time, Sho had transferred some of his own chakra to her, but in order to do so, he'd kissed her on the lips.
'There is no way in hell I'm going to do that in front of Momo... I haven't even been able to tell her that Sho's lips and mine have met before; even though there is nothing between us, it still feels like I've betrayed her.' She thought to herself. Then she glanced at the orange haired young woman. 'But maybe…'
"Would you be serious, Sho?" Nakahito demanded, covering for Kimiko's thought-filled silence. "Can't someone other than Kimiko do that?"
"Who would you suggest, 'Hito?" The exhausted medic asked pointedly. "Miho-sensei and the twins have Lightning nature which can't be transferred to anyone but a Lightning type because of the excess energy it produces. It's like plugging your TV into an outlet for your oven; it'll burn it out. Okito-sensei's and Takahashi are Earth types; all five of them are incompatible." Inugami glanced about, finally noticing they were a ninja and a panther short. "Where are Kyouran and Takahashi, anyways?"
"They're searching the garden area to see if they might find the kidnapper's scent." Miho answered. "It's been two months and she disappeared from a fertilizer shed, so I doubt they're having much luck."
Sho nodded as he continued. "I'm Wind-natured. That means I can only get chakra from someone else that's Wind-based or someone with Fire or Water nature. That leaves Kimiko or you, 'Hito, and you need to keep your chakra levels up in the event this whole situation goes straight to hell. Which is entirely possible; we have no clue how the Daimyo's attacker has been getting in or if he's even still in the area…"
'Not to mention the fact that 'Hito would rather slit his own throat than kiss Sho.' Kimiko thought to herself. The image popped into her mind, causing her to shudder. 'Oh, God, I wish I hadn't thought of that! It's worse than when Naruto was bumped from behind and kissed Sasuke! Poor Naruto!'
The brown-haired kunoichi grimaced. "You're absolutely certain there's no other way?" Her eyes flicked over towards Motoko on Sho's right hand side and pantomimed crying. Since the young woman was watching Sho with barely-disguised adoration and concern, she didn't see Itou's gesture.
There was a brief flash of understanding in Inugami's twin-colored eyes. "Oh... OH; you were still thinking about that time I had to share my chakra with you..." He shook his head. "That was my method only because explaining what you needed to do to absorb my chakra would have wasted hours to teach and we APPEARED to be in a time-sensitive situation... Because I know what I'm doing, I just need someone with compatible chakra to hold my hand and create a flow that I can then draw into my own chakra network. I can handle the rest myself."
'Oh, thank GOD!' Kimiko and Nakahito silently breathed to themselves in relief.
"If you need Wind-natured chakra, I can provide it." Shao Fukamichu finally said aloud, walking over to the exhausted Genin. "I almost never need to use it anymore since I'm typically in meetings rather than running about like I did in my youth in Tanigakure. I would consider it an honor if you'd allow me to give you my chakra; after all, you did this to yourself in an effort to save my liege."
Inugami gave the majordomo a brief nod. "Receiving Wind nature chakra would be better since I wouldn't need to convert its nature into something more effective for my body. I humbly accept your offer." He extended his left hand to Fukamichu.
The other man clasped the Genin's hand in his own. The majordomo's eyes closed as he raised his left hand in a focusing gesture. A loose blue aura of light formed around Shao Fukamichu as the man used his rusty ninja skills. "Okay... Here it comes."
The aura contracted as the energy was consciously directed to flow into the retired ninja's left arm, like a lake dam springing a leak to surge downhill. The pulse of the energy shrank further as it made the jump from Fukamichu's body to Inugami's. Once it crossed over, the compression of the chakra reversed itself to surround Inugami like a halo. After a few moments, the pallor of Sho's skin began to visibly disappear and his legs seemed to pulse as the medic-nin repaired those muscles in particular.
After a timeless instant, the glow of transferring chakra faded away. Shao Fukamichu released Inugami/Urashima's hand and began pumping his own as if he had lost all feeling in it. "Whoa... That was... Indescribably unusual."
Sho nodded as he rose unsteadily to his feet, like a newborn deer. "You should feel it from the other side... I'm definitely going to be exhausted for the next few days, but old-fashioned bed rest will take care of that." He said with a yawn. "Speaking of rest, I think I'll take a quick bath in my room and call it a day; good night everyone." The medic-nin moved with the stilted grace of someone sleepwalking with both feet in casts, but he managed to exit through the library doors under his own power.
"That kid is really something else, isn't he, Shao-sama?" Hoshi Fugato said to his superior. The majordomo nodded silently.
"Yeah." Raiden Hata chimed in. "An absolute nutter..." Nakahito Haruno smiled in agreement, throwing the male Hata a thumb up gesture. Motoko Hata, who'd watched Sho's departure with a look of worry on her face, spun about, shooting both her brother and Haruno a skewering glance when she saw the red-clad ninja's agreement. "Oh, come ON, Sis, he IS."
"Sho-kun is doing WHAT is needed, WHEN it's needed. How does that make him crazy?" The flame-haired kunoichi demanded, jumping to the medic's defense as she usually did. "And even if he has to do something others consider crazy, it's because he hasn't found any better way to get the job done." She said, remembering the medic-nin's argument when he'd told Kimiko and herself about his study method. "I'd like to see either of you do any better than that!"
Okito Tanaka gently put a hand on Motoko's shoulder. The kunoichi was so focused on her twin and Haruno that she jumped slightly when he did so. "It's not the 'what' or 'when' that is concerning, Motoko-chan. It's the HOW. There are dozens of options at Inugami's disposal that could have restored Lord Mizuzaki's health alone, but he went above and beyond what was needed to a fairly extreme level. Sho NEVER should have even considered conducting a Collaborative Sealing jutsu at his current level of development." He paused. "Hell, even a normal Jonin like me would have considered other, more efficient options first; this was like something the Sannin or Hokage Sarutobi would have done."
There was a sharp gasp of realization that caused all the eyes in the room to turn to where Miho Hyuuga stood, her hands covering her mouth in a gesture so similar to that of her cousin Hinata would when she had a shocking revelation. "Oh my..." The Jonin kunoichi breathed in awe of the epiphany she'd just had. She looked at Tanaka. "That's IT, Yaiba-kun! That's the piece to understanding Sho that I was missing!"
Okito shook his head, blinking in confusion. "Helping in that technique must have made me more tired than I thought I was, because I have no clue what you mean, Bya-chan. One more time; with the help files, please?"
"I mean I think I finally understand the puzzle that is my Genin!" She said excitedly. "Well, part of it, at least... Think about it for a few moments... Developmentally, his skills are far above where someone his age should be. Our teams have been given this A-rank mission - admittedly it's not nearly as hazardous as a normal one would be, but that's not the point..." She took a breath. "The real point is that Lord Hokage has put a titanic amount of faith and trust in two groups of mostly unproven Genin. Sho's trying to prove to everyone that he's not only worthy of that confidence, but also prove that he could handle a REAL A-Rank mission if it were required of him! But more than that, he's trying to live up to the example of his greatest hero..."
"Lady Tsunade of the Sannin." Kimiko and Nakahito said in unison. Sho was almost always talking about her or reading about her, so the name had stuck with both of them.
"A Genin trying to fill the shoes of a Sannin..." Tanaka murmured to himself as he stroked his goatee contemplatively, a gesture he'd picked up during his years of protecting Sarutobi-sensei. He mulled that concept over a few dozen times, contemplating the pieces of the puzzle that he'd been shown.
'That's perhaps the most maddening part... Not just about Sho, but his entire family.' Okito realized to himself. 'It's not the fact that they're puzzle, but the fact that they don't show the same pieces to everyone. Something that might have helped me figure them out some time ago was shown to Miho or Iruka instead.'
Finally the Diamond Turtle of Konoha nodded. "You know, I can sort of see that now. But that raises a new question: WHY? Why would someone so determined to do that - willingly sacrifice his own health for the job - at such a young age? It's almost as if he's trying to do the greatest amount of good as quickly as he can because he believes he has a limited amount of time to do so... Like he doesn't think he's going to have a long life ahead of him..." Silence filled the room as everyone began to reassess their own pieces of the Inugami enigma.
"I think I know..." It was Kimiko Itou, the one person who'd undoubtedly been shown the most pieces outside the members of Sho's immediate family, who finally whispered hesitantly. All eyes turned to her.
The brown haired kunoichi looked at Miho Hyuuga, guilt in her features. "I have a confession to make, Miho-sensei… During the second round of the Hide and Seek mission at the Academy, when Sho and I were paired up, I WASN'T going on about the fact that Might Gai knew of my family's taijutsu techniques like I said..."
The female Jonin smiled kindly at Kimiko. "I suspected as much." Itou looked surprised. "Sho looked rather shell-shocked when he came back on his own shortly after Konohamaru did," At the mention of the Hokage's grandson, both of the Hata twins fidgeted slightly - for drastically different reasons. "He quickly hid it when Iruka tried chastising him for how he treated those first 6 ninja he'd caught, but it was definitely worse after the two of you came back together. I've been lied to by some of the best in the world and seen through them, Kimiko; what you said didn't line up, but I let it lie to deal with later. What did the two of you talk about?"
'Sho-san...' The young woman playing the role of the Princess thought to herself. 'Forgive me for betraying some of your trust in me, but something tells me - deep in the pit of my stomach - that if I don't say something NOW, you'll keep on biting off more than you can possibly chew until something far worse happens to you further down the road.'
"We had a bit of a heart-to-heart talk… He said needed the opinion of someone he felt he could trust… And he trusted me! I was shocked to learn that… I promised him that I would never share the details with anyone else." Itou suppressed a shudder as she recalled the memory Inugami had shared. "I can't violate his trust and tell you what we talked about, but there's a realization that I just had because of that conversation... It's not REALLY about what he and I talked about, so I feel can share it."
Miho nodded. "That's fair... As long as whatever the two of you discussed doesn't interfere with his duties or our team, I promise I'll never press you for information about it."
Kimiko glanced at Motoko briefly as she remembered that it was his feelings for her and his discovery that Hata had feelings for him that caused the medic-nin's crisis that day. "I think that Sho-san has..." She paused as she tried to think of how to say it. "Well, I guess poor self-esteem is as close as I can describe. That's why he does what he does the way he does it."
There was a moment of silence as the others processed her words.
"But, Kimi, he's easily one of the best Genin of our graduating year." Nakahito protested, breaking the silence. "Heck, maybe even THE best... I'm not even sure Sasuke Uchiha is a close match for him now if you compare their skill sets side-by-side."
"But his skills aren't what he judges himself by, 'Hito; you KNOW that..." Kimiko countered her friend. "Sure, he's proud of what he can do – I mean, who WOULDN'T be? – but to him they aren't anything special..."
"Not anything special?!" Raiden sputtered in disbelief. "A guy a year older than me is using techniques that my JONIN is hesitant to use." He huffed and crossed his arms. "I stand by my prior comment; he's a nutter."
Kimiko looked at Motoko's twin. "I mean that in his eyes, anyone else could duplicate them if they had the necessary determination or the physical traits he was born with. His sharp memory and quick wits were given to him because of birth, not because of EFFORT." She glanced at Motoko again and smiled at her. "That's what he truly respects; those who try… Even if they fail. What matters to him is that people respect and accept him for who he REALLY is, but at the same time, he's absolutely terrified to peel back his armor and show the village who he really is..."
"A Catch-22." Shao Fukamichu murmured.
The ersatz Princess nodded, looking at the majordomo. "Exactly! I think that's why he's always doing these over-the-top displays of his skills or intelligence. When someone sees them, it tends to make people stop and ask themselves, 'Who is Sho Inugami? What do I really think about him?' Or something along those lines..."
"Just like Naruto!" Nakahito exclaimed. The other Konoha ninja looked at him in confusion. "It just hit me. Naruto and Sho are friends and - for one reason or another - the village fears them on some level; they see something other than what they really are. Their behavior is to get people to 'wake up' and see the truth... The only difference between their tricks is that Sho-kun's make him seem more like an ultra-serious adult ninja while Naruto's..."
"Make him seem like an immature idiot." Raiden finished. He grimaced as if he had a sour taste in his throat. "When you start putting it in that light, 'Hito, it's almost painfully obvious."
"So what do we do?" Motoko Hata asked, glancing worriedly in the direction that Sho had departed in. She'd felt his chakra pulsing a bit after he'd received the transfusion, but now it was gone again. The kunoichi turned back to the others. "I mean there has to be something we can do to help him, right?"
Miho Hyuuga shook her head with a sigh. "All we can do is to simply be aware of it and be ourselves."
"G'Huh?" Raiden sputtered in confusion. "How will that help?"
"It won't; at least not in and of itself..." The female Jonin explained. "But Sho Inugami is the kind of person who won't tolerate blatant attempts to make him feel better about himself; they have to be honestly heartfelt."
"He'd see it as an insult if it were anything less than real." Kimiko Itou agreed. "We just need, in our own ways, to show him that he doesn't have to prove anything to us. AND we have to do it when we feel it rather than plotting it in advance."
"Ano..." Hoshi Fugato spoke up again. "Listening to you, I feel obligated to say that I think you're on the right track. I barely know Inugami, but Lord Mizuzaki was less than impressed with your teammate on his first inspection and was very verbose in expressing that low opinion. Your medic actually SCOLDED the Lord Daimyo and shamed the master into giving him a fair chance to prove himself." The assistant majordomo looked a bit overwhelmed at the memory.
The members of Team 13 chuckled. "Yeah, that sounds like Sho." Nakahito said.
Miho Hyuuga nodded appreciation at the nervous man as his mentor patted him on the shoulder. "Well, fortunately, 'Sho Inugami' isn't going to be in the public eye all that often during the remainder of our trip here. Keitaro Urashima, an aristocrat who has nothing he needs to prove to anyone, will be; we'll worry about this more when we get back home..."
She looked at Motoko Hata. "I hate to pile any more responsibilities on you, Hata-san, but you'll be the one around Sho behind the scenes the most during the next few weeks... You'll have to be there to act as Sho's stress relief valve if he starts getting overwhelmed and roll with the emotional punches that he may throw or be hit by. Just let Okito-sensei or myself know if it gets to be too much for YOU and we'll step in for a while to give you a break. Okay?"
"Of course, Hyuuga-sensei!" The younger kunoichi agreed without hesitation.
'I'd walk through fire for Sho-kun...' She thought to herself, silently vowing that she would NOT call on the senseis.
"Okay, everyone." Okito Tanaka spoke up, his deep voice sounding deadly serious. "This has to be the absolute LAST time we break cover - even in a secure part of the palace - during the remainder of this mission. We have to keep any future encounters between each other in character; the mission and the future of this nation are counting on it." The ninja disguised as a member of the Mizumiyo Palace guard looked at his watch. "Speaking of... Seta Noriyasu has to get to work." He grinned at Miho-sensei. "New guy gets the graveyard shift; it's going to be a long night. Good luck to you all."
The others nodded in agreement as they broke up the impromptu gathering.
To be concluded