5: Seek and Find

Little of interest revealed itself for a few hours, but Kana endeavored to be thorough.

All the alcove rooms appeared to be approximately 200 square meters, though it was hard to estimate given the wretched state of them all.

Two rooms she'd peeked into looked to contain little more than battered old furniture, rubble, and miscellaneous debris piled high enough to obstruct vision in some places. All of that might still hide secrets or some useful cache, but what Kana desired most now was information, so she prioritized the other set of rooms. One of these marked a stark contrast in contents, as it resembled a sort of chaotic library or study.

If there was any discernible ordering to the piles and waves of scrolls, documents, and more, then it was beyond Kana for now.

The whole sordid arrangement irked her though, an eyebrow faintly twitching after she'd realized the extent of the mess these chambers were all in. It was just so... boorish. As if the man who'd taken her freedom and nearly killed her couldn't even be bothered to maintain his workspaces.

Within the mess, a partially-buried desk was visible against the wall across from the alcove door, the rest of the walls packed tight with bookshelves and cabinets. Most of the contents of these shelves sported a layer of dust much thicker than any Kana had yet encountered.

Save for a few areas, it was clear that no one even made much use of the... collection. A better word might be hoard, but Kana hadn't much frame of reference. It certainly had an impactful impression, anyway. The lack of organization was still immensely frustrating.

Kana wasn't sure why her frustration grew so rampantly, but the fact that someone of such feckless habits had previously held so much control over her life likely had something to do with it. Was she really that weak? Her very chakra itself seemed to protest, indignant and defiant.

Mind filled with many colorful and exasperated thoughts, Kana scanned the room for items of interest as well as paths to navigate the precarious piles.

The most prominent area that showed clear signs of repeated use was the desk opposite her, so she gingerly stepped across the avalanche of books and scrolls to reach it. There were several alarming shifts and a few casualties among the piles before she made it all the way, but Kana won her battle with the room's chaotic contents in the end.

Almost immediately upon reaching the desk, Kana found something she did not expect, but very much appreciated. Tucked under an inkwell and various crumpled papers was a map scroll, its location and symbol key barely visible where it unrolled at the edge.

Carefully unearthing it, she rolled it out and dusted it off1 Canon reference map: [SAMPLE, not what Kana has ;)]. Given she had little to no comprehensive knowledge of the outside world, this would be an invaluable find. Kana had been so preoccupied, she hadn't quite thought about it that far ahead yet.

Leaving her seclusion here would require preparations and some concrete planning. Even a basic map would do wonders towards this end.

Interestingly, several locations had been annotated, presumably by the Shinigon. She scanned the map with vigor and quickly found something she recognized: a red claw motif etched with what looked like blood on the background of a solar eclipse drawing. Furthermore, the whole demarcation was labeled 'Mt. Shumisen' and written in the same blood-like ink. It was located in a mountain range on the border of some large country called 'Land of Earth' and a relatively smaller country called 'Land of Grass'. Given that the claw motif was worn as the Shinigon's symbol, as well as the presence of eclipse symbols, Kana reckoned it was safe to assume that this mountain was her current location.

That was already important information, but the map revealed even more; it marked towns, villages, cities, and had symbols associated with some major ones.

Kana checked the locations nearby, and it appeared that the closest place of interest was somewhere in the Land of Grass to the immediate south called Kusagakure, which had a symbol with tufts of wildgrass.

Further south, about twice again the distance between Kana and Kusagakure, was a place called Amegakure, located in another small country called the "Land of Rain". The symbol here was four vertical lines reminiscent of calm rain.

These and several other smaller countries were squashed between a handful of much larger nations. Kana perused the map for a long while and did her best to commit most of the local terrain and features to memory. There were a lot more details, but these locations were likely what she would be dealing with in the immediate future.

Inspecting the Land of Earth, Kana supposed that a city to the north called Iwagakure—the one with two boulders as its symbol—could be immediately impactful as part of a large nation, but the distance was comparatively much farther than to either Kusa or Ame.

In the interests of time and safety, it would probably be best to start with the closest country, the Land of Grass.

Having filed away another priority in her mind, Kana rolled up the map and pocketed it on the inside of her coat. She had a general feel for the geography around now, but it would still be useful to keep the map around. She would have to do her best to commit the rest of it to memory, assuming it was even still accurate...

Returning her attention to the desk, Kana sifted through scroll after scroll which seemed to contain nothing of much import. Hermetic poems she couldn't even begin to comprehend. Sketches and scribbles of formulas, most of which were crossed out and crumpled up. Barely legible passages of historical accounts.

After an inordinate amount of time wasted, she spotted a yellowed scroll she recognized amidst a relatively clean and triangular stack of probably over twenty similar scrolls. The contents, as she already knew, were on the subject of elemental phenomena, seemingly a more recent copy of a scroll Kana'd read off the shelves in her cell.

It was interesting to note that she had studied some of the same information as the Shinigon, but it unfurling it revealed that it contained nothing new. The connection was still intriguing though, and she found herself reading it further, looking for any annotations that might give her a clue.

She had already long since memorized it, a scroll with thirty brief chapters describing elemental nature transformations and the theoretical concentrations needed for different 'jutsu' element releases. One section contained a diagram that specified the five basic elements and potential ways to use them. She'd only begun to understand these concepts when she'd awakened her own chakra.

The only difference Kana could find within the entire scroll was that a few portions of this diagram section included annotated analyses, some of which had been circled in the Shinigon's red ink.

Immediately following the main diagram was a new, scholarly section theorizing on the mixing of natures in unique concentrations with the potential for supplementary jutsu phenomena. It utilized a familiar term, 'kekkei genkai', the inherited bloodlines of unique chakra anomalies.

Kana hadn't connected the dots before, until she'd had to wrack her memories just recently.

The Shinigon had wanted kekkei genkai users for something, which had apparently entailed sacrificing them during the ritual. With the context of this scroll... could it be that the Shinigon needed their unique bloodline techniques for something? Change in chakra nature beyond the basics opened doorways to an impressive arsenal of possibilities, Kana knew. The scroll explained as much, too.

The author of the new sections also made mention that their select few examples were nowhere even near comprehensive, and that clans possessing unique boodlines tended to guard their secrets well.

But... Kana knew of no such ability she herself possessed. So why was she targeted?

The obvious conclusion was that either the Shinigon was mistaken, and had imprisoned her for years on an unfounded belief, or that she did indeed possess some sort of kekkei genkai she was not aware of. She found the first option to be extremely unlikely, too. The cultists would surely have just killed her otherwise.

So... her chakra had an anomalous ability, and so did the others who hadn't survived the ritual. What exactly were these abilities? If Kana could find out what the Shinigon targeted, she might be able to build a better picture of why he did so.

Glancing back to the diagrams, Kana noted that the circled sections all contained descriptions of kekkei genkai transformations and speculations as to their component natures. Most of the examples had Doton2Earth Release listed as a component nature, the author explaining that they had limited exposure to kekkei genkai outside of their home region and only listed famous or personally known abilities.

Upon further inspection, two of the circled kekkei genkai had tiny check marks next to their section in the scroll. One was Kōton3Steel Release and the other was Yōton4Lava Release.

Steel and Lava? Those sounded powerful. It felt familiar too.

Kana sensed a pulse in her chakra, right in the pit of her core. It was another resonating feeling.

A tense anticipation squeezed her throat and built up in her chest, a torrent of catharsis and understanding occurring faster than articulate thought. Her heartbeat steadily accelerated as implications started to fall into place, the thoughts and suspicions she sensed but could not grasp aligning in unison.

A whisper brushed past her lips as gently as an exhaled breath, "O-Oh... my..."For one as reserved as Kana, vocalization like this was equivalent to a thunderous yell.She blinked a layer of tears from her eyes.

She had sensed the changes to her chakra before, back in the gardens, but had put a hold on dealing with it. There had simply been too many possibilities, too many implication distracting her to concentrate properly. Some part of her hadn't wanted to know either.

But just now, giving name to this strangeness, this moreness she had gained of chakra and spirit...

Kana was clever enough to infer the connections, and if she was right... it unshrouded the mystery, a motive for the ritual, the vague dread she'd felt, and quite literally the nature of the changes in her chakra.

It fit. Stripping away the uncertainty all at once so unsparingly, it somehow both allayed her worries and exacerbated them.

Kana didn't know the specifics yet, but she knew something for certain now, knew it like an instinct that screamed in alarm: the Shinigon had attempted a monstrous and ghastly taboo of otherworldly proportions.

But he had failed, instead Kana usurping his efforts.

To some extent, she had experienced how it was to happen, having gone through it personally.She also now knew some of what it had done to her.She even had a strong guess as to why...

But Kana had acquired a disconcerting set of powers. Powers not originally hers, but part of her now by right of conquest. The extents of which, she had yet to fathom.