85: Nourishing the Roots

It took several hours before the chaos that night settled enough to recapture Sumika's attention.

Everyone seemed to have their own priority piece to present, from Tsunade to Lady Mito to Geki, and no one looked confident on where to start. Masks, demons, blood, fūinjutsu, curses, blessings, enemies, allies, conspiracy, traitors... there was too much.

It helped, at least, that Tsunade's frequent pacing and manic gestures more often than not brought her within  hugging distanc- close proximity, the softness of which seemed a brief comfort to them both. Unfortunately, every time Tsunade cleared her mind enough, it was right back to brass tacks and pacing tracks with echoing clacks on the floorboard cracks while—...

Suffice it to say, on top of everything else, the physical contact had her feeling more than a little floaty. What even was a brass tack? Her not-quite-memory of the phrase merely offered some impression of merchants, furniture and fabric or something.

She refrained from sharing these trivial thoughts with anyone though... the adults looked to have more than enough to deal with already.

The still-masked ANBU seemed to bow her head resignedly, while Lady Mito massaged her temples and Tsunade blinked rapidly through far too many contorted expressions.

They'd had Sumika attempt to use the replacement demonic-mask near first thing, but by all accounts it now functioned exactly as originally expected. None of the anomalous effects manifested, from the unnatural energies to hidden functionalities, much to everyone's bafflement.

Or, well, Sumika assumed it was bafflement. From Lady Mito's expression, it looked like she held more suspicion than anything else, but there had been a certain gleam to her eyes...

Either way, the three adults had quite a back-and-forth about it, for a time...

After her stress intensified observing the first few rounds of utterly sobering dialogue, Sumika did her best to drown out all her thoughts into the meditative task of controlling her chains, hoping to keep calm until some sort of sense was made of it all, until the problems were reduced to something she could better understand.

For once, she let others first worry in her stead, before diving in and working herself up into a knot of stress unable to form a coherent thought. She'd been down that road before, and it was clearly a valuable lesson to remember.

Kushina, too, flickered her gaze between the adults with too-wide eyes and furrowed brows as she and Sumika sat together on an upholstered couch next to Lady Mito's bed. But after the conversation stretched past the first fifteen minutes, the shorter girl began to blink far more frequently, her head nodding until gradually falling to rest against Sumika's shoulder.

Sumika of course, objected not at all to this process.

Just like that, Kushina's seemingly inexhaustible energy that night went out like a light, and Sumika adjusted the meditative whirling of her chains to carefully maneuver around the smaller girl's frame. It added a new focus for the challenge, and allowed her to keep Kushina's sleeping form entirely within her attentions. The distraction proved... sufficient for ignoring the significantly more distressing thoughts she might otherwise have had to deal with.

But time for those thoughts inevitably came, when the adults in the room finally concluded that the night's events all pointed back to the same core cause. That cause being... Sumika herself, and whatever she had done to awaken her sixth chakra chain.

And that, that is when her attention was forced back to the present.

It started with a simpler question than she might've expected, intoned with the same touching care and concern in Tsunade's voice as could be felt through her bone-creaking hug:

"How are you feeling?"

In those moments Sumika could find no reason, no hesitance nor anxiety, strong enough to dissuade her from answering honestly, to dissuade her from… reciprocating what was clearly their sincerity.

And so Sumika told them. She told them, distantly, of the constant pressure feeling released, of the former fog on her mind and focus, and of the positive impact on her physical condition. Of how it cleared up when she, for lack of better words, let go of what she was doing. All throughout, Tsunade's gaze floated back and forth to the satchelbag she'd brought with her, exchanging pointed looks with Lady Mito.

And of course, upon gentle prompting, Sumika elaborated... on what she thought she was doing with her chakra, compressing it, concealing it... or how she thought that was what she was doing, to her instincts. How an almost subconscious, inarticulate feeling of threats and dangers lingered at the back of her mind. How she had felt the need to hide, how she tried everything in her power to get away, to survive. How the pressure had affected her before, of her bouts of unconsciousness out in the woods or even in the Yamakuni Sanctuary's baths.

Lady Mito's expression grew particularly intense after hearing that, Sumika distantly noted, until the elder squeezed her eyes shut and briefly rested a hand on Tsunade's shoulder.

The younger woman nodded and leaned back, again crouching before Sumika to match eye level.

It took a moment for her eyes to refocus enough to meet Tsunade's gaze.

The dread in the pit of Sumika's chest intensified then, for she knew where the next questions might lead. She allowed a tremor to run through her body, only noticing afterward that her chains had jostled Kushina, who somehow remained in the depths of sleep.

The other girl's quiet and slack-jawed snores provided another brief distraction, Kushina's artless sleeping face once more a source of warmth to some inexplicable part of her heart. It helped Sumika steel herself once more to answer whatever the adults asked.

Even now the flashbacks hemmed in at the edges of her vision, memories unbidden.

But Tsunade didn't ask anything at all. Neither did the other adults, who merely traded gazes between the two and held their silence, a serious glint held in every expression.

Most among them all, Sumika could see in Tsunade's eyes up close, slightly glistening with tears, that she was ready to listen.

That itself moved her deeply. For a moment she reveled in the wave of feelings and angled her gaze to the rafters high above, allowing a few maroon locks to fall across her face, while the energy beneath her skin tickled like goosebumps along her extremities.

And so Sumika allowed the metaphorical floodgates to open, just a little, letting out that which she had shared with no one else... for her kinsmen.

Sumika let the words flow plainly, dispassionately, as she relived moments from the last few months over and over in the lens of retrospect.

She tried to speak simply, clear and concise, unwilling to dwell on the most unpleasant memories and constant reminders of her own mistakes along the way.

There was all too much anyhow, months of life she could honestly call the first she had truly lived. Relaying that sentiment brought about a hug from Tsunade that ended only once the Sannin could bring herself to let go. In the end, Tsunade wound up sharing the couch with the two redheads, pressed to Sumika's other shoulder while Kushina remained yet oblivious to the waking world.

Their presence went a long way towards relaxing the tension ever threatening to constrict her throat.

But as for her journey… with the feeling of her body in these moments as reminders of her prior self-restraint, the place Sumika had found to begin her tale was with cause of her chakra's suppression all this time. Where better to start than the moments she’d first followed the instinct to try such a thing?

The story didn't come out all at once, but it trickled through wave by wave, topic to topic... gradually building up into a picture the adults had no doubt been piecing together in their minds all this time. Sumika could see it in the occasional glances of understanding or wavering traces of emotion exchanged between the trio of experienced shinobi.

Without emotion, she told them of the large battle she'd observed in the Land of Grass, of the fear that took her when a group of powerful Konoha shinobi noticed her. With a blank expression, she told them of her frantic dash to cross the border, to vanish into the Land of Fire's wilderness.

These details seemed to stir something in Geki, who angled her mask sharply to Lady Mito, who merely gave a minute shake of her head, eyes covered with the back of a palm.

Recalling her first, instinctive use of Yōton1Lava Style Sumika could imagine now what they might think. It had been rather... noticeable. A foolish, panicked act. She knew what conclusions might arise from that little thread of detail, but she could not bring herself to mention it.

Blissfully, they did not ask.

So she continued in her stoic tone, relaying how she'd had little idea of what to do, save to escape the conflict. She told them of the people she met, of her journey, much of which the adults had likely already heard or guessed. Tsunade and Dan had talked quite a lot with the others at the Yamakuni Sanctuary, after all...

Sumika could see it now, too, that even when she'd first talked with Lady Mito, they must have suspected. How transparent had she been, with her reactions? In some ways their seeming foreknowledge helped... spur her courage, drawing her closer to the topics she most vehemently avoided.

So it was that, closing her eyes and hardening her resolve, she spared a thought to those she'd killed, and to those she'd hunted.

She spoke first of the attack in the hills of the Land of Hotsprings - the incident likely most familiar to the shinobi present. They obviously knew of the demonic mask, of what she had done with it. They knew how it had transported her some distance into the woods. The replacement one Lady Mito and Ikehara had arranged for her even now lay packaged up again upon her lap, almost forgotten in the night's chaos.

She let her eyes linger on the replacement for a moment, drawn to the purple accent marks highlighting diagonal slits for eyes as well as a flat-mouthed, fanged smile. Odd to think that such a seemingly crucial matter was now almost tertiary to the present situation.

But it quickly faded from mind as she relayed again how the scent of blood had stirred her instincts, how the sight of her hated enemy's symbol tore from within her a black rage. So vigorous was the bite and scorn welling up with those memories, that she had to pause and control her tone.

It barely occurred to Sumika that she had yet to explain this enmity. Again they did not ask.From the grim shadows under Tsunade's eyes and the creased lines of Lady Mito's expression, they surely already suspected.

She recounted impassively the by-now familiar haze of movement and rending flesh, until she'd found the last of that filth attacking a wounded Dan.

It was easier to speak of them when she knew they were dead, when she'd seen to that with her own hands. There was... a satisfaction to it. A vindication, her mind supplied.

And that led to the earlier incident, the attack on their caravan, and of her escape with Fuzō. This tale, too, they already knew of, so she merely added how desperately she acted to bring Fuzō to safety, and how at the time, she had been the only person Sumika had ever felt some notion of affinity for. As well, too, she added how that feeling had been right, since it had eventually lead her back to... her relatives.

That brought another prolonged hug, as Tsunade pressed her cheek atop Sumika's head, adding slow and soothing strokes through the girl's hair.

That too, was a blissful and much appreciated distraction.

And so with shuddering breaths, Sumika spoke of the first she killed in the Land of Grass. Or at least, the first of those she wholly remembered killing.

Of all her memories, few stood out in such jarring focus as the moments at the brink of life and death.

Others, later, she had killed in rage. These, the first she had killed purely in defense. The first in her encounter with a world at war. As well, too, the first she recognized more wholly the power she'd inherited... of it's effectiveness in battle.

So too, she confessed in a whisper, the first time she'd managed to use Mokuton jutsu.

Nobody in the room offered any criticism. There was only a sense of grim understanding. Sumika didn't even know how to feel about that, allowing instead a few more moments to ponder over that first encounter.

Sumika's mind wandered upon realizing how much of that first battle she still brought with her, also stored away and nearly forgotten in her scroll.

As if to illustrate her tale, she drew forth the hitai-ate2Forehead protector, iconic part of a shinobi uniform collected from the dead. With a puff of smoke, a pile of metal and cloth clonked onto the floor at her feet. The emblems of several nations lay before all in the room, from the bloodstained sigil of Yugakure3Hidden Steam recovered from corpses near the convoy ambush, to the muddied Iwa4Hidden Stone hitai-ate for the man using a disguise, and even the untouched pair from Ame5Hidden Rain and Kusa6Hidden Grass scavenged off the same disguised corpse.

Geki somehow grew even more silent and rigid upon hearing that part, and Sumika felt a fleeting embarrassment to admit she'd forgotten about the maps and scrolls she'd looted back then.

So unimportant, they'd seemed to her now, that she'd failed to even consider how it might still be valued by others. Hadn't she even considered that back when the maps had first been, err... coincidentally acquired?

Sumika allowed herself to honestly wonder just how much longer she'd have survived at all on her own. Well, just another worry atop the metaphorical pile.

Handing the old battle-worn intel over to Geki prompted the ANBU to share a glance with Lady Mito, who gave a sharp nod and continued to grind her fingers against her forehead. With a rush of air, the masked shinobi vanished, and once again there were only three others in the room with Sumika.

The... three people she was, perhaps, closest to in this place. Certainly... they were the closest Family around.

And wasn't that still a fresh and raw feeling?

In Geki's absence though, a lull formed. Sumika unsure how to continue. Idly, a pair of her chains snaked around her torso like living coils of armor, warmth and surety stirring around within at the sensation.

But in the end it was Lady Mito who filled the lull, with a seemingly unrelated comment.

"Perhaps at least, I may help ease a certain few worries you have shown the strength to share. I am both truly proud and glad to see the growing potency of Masumi's-" the elder's breath hitched from an almost unnoticeable rasp, before she continued lightly, " ...of your mother's legacy bring you such comfort, but your words and achievement tonight have... shed light upon another aspect of this long, long tale of tragedy."

Sumika merely closed her eyes, letting her hearing flow to the forefront of her senses as her heartbeat pulsed louder.

"I have had a chance to examine something over the last hours now," the elder began, tone crisp and pensive with the air of an intrigued academic, "something I can only describe as utterly unique among even the most complex formulae and phenomena I have ever had the privilege to study."

Sumika inhaled slowly, without a word and eyelids still firmly shuttered.

"It is no small claim when I state that, when Tsunade brought it back from her work at the hospital, even as a Grandmaster in the art of fūinjutsu, it was a shock of the highest order."

Sumika felt the chains wrapping her torso stiffen minutely, Tsunade's arms soon joining them as the woman drew Sumika close to her side.

"This sample here, " Lady Mito added, with the sound of rustling fabric - likely removing something from within the satchelbag Tsunade arrived with, "even with all its complexity, is itself a mere remnant of something far, far more."

With a blink, Sumika opened her eyes, and centered within her visions was naught but a few coin-sized scraps inside a glass petri dish. For a moment, nothing else registered in her sight, but those tiny, familiar-feeling scraps.

"Oh..." she breathed out.

"Contained within these remnants, I can see signs pointing what I would not hesitate to call a most unimaginable work of Kinjutsu7Forbidden Techniques, those which are banned from being taught or used, reasons varying. The mind or minds behind even these scraps of formulae I can see could only be described as insane, possessed of such..." the elder's voice hollowed to something low and precise, almost lost in its focus, "...incomparable blasphemy and sacrilege that I hesitate to call them of human origin alone."

"oh..." Sumika repeated, with a whisper of exhalation.

That familiar dread crawled from the depths of her heart, but it felt almost smothered in numbness.

"What this Kinjutsu's true effects were, or were intended to be, I can scarcely contemplate." Lady Mito continued once more, something in her tone and gaze seeming as if her mind was far, far away, "Not even Tobirama's darkest and most profane jutsu inspirations, spawned at least from pragmatism, trod into the realms of cruelty and madness needed to begin study in this direction. I... from your words, know that we share an enemy, for we both know of only one possible group responsible for this."

Of course.

And... the implications were undeniable. Yet still, they did not ask her.

Sumika vaguely heard how Tsunade's teeth clenched and ground, her body stiff.

Her head tilted aside, taking in the look of tightly wound knot of rage and realization displayed on the young woman's face.To her other side, she took in the peaceful sleeping expression of Kushina, looking so much like a younger and smaller version of herself... someone Sumika could have been like.

With a final tilt of her head, Sumika cast her eyes back to Lady Mito, whose expression practically radiated a deathly conviction in its creased lines and pallor.

Even now the elder respected Sumika's choice, her hesitance, leaving the girl an opportunity to keep silent, to speak no more on... on the Ritual and the nature of what happened to her. They might suspect... but...

Ah, how the emotion blended in that moment. Three different sources, three different people, three different reasons to speak.

Tilting her head to gaze at the rafters once more, thoughts of the three together with her here still fresh in her mind... Sumika felt a decision trickle up from the depths of her heart, clearer now than had likely any chance of being in the near future.

She resolved to act on it.

“It’s not just two…” Sumika whispered, the words she’d once sworn to prevent anyone from realizing. And she knew even more so now, that she’d been right to do so.

“What...?” came Tsunade’s reply, tension noticeably loosening as if startled out of her own thoughts.

Pursing her lips, Sumika drew a deep breath with a slight hiss through her teeth, avoiding looking over at the woman’s expression. At least for now, she could just pretend that she’d whispered too softly to be heard.

“My kekkei genkai… you said before that I inherited not one, but two of the rarest and mightiest bloodlines…”

Sumika hesitated just repeating the words, exhaling with a slow shudder.

This truth cannot be made known beyond the family.

Beyond the family. Family… here to help.

She lowered her gaze more, letting the lengths of her hair obscure most of her face, before she spoke aloud once more.

“It’s not just two.” she repeated, the silence lengthening, oppressive in its weight. She knew what words to say. They’d been echoing in her heart all this time, after all…

“The truth of the fear which drove my every action, my every choice, which fueled my silence these past months... is that I possess six. And how I came to possess them...”

Strong and firm, she tried to sound, but to the sharpness of her own ears, her voice seemed more resigned than anything. At least in that, Sumika could tell the tone of her words matched that of her heart.

“I swore the moment I knew, without even true understanding, that I would- could never let another know. I-…”

Even having managed to get that far, her words trailed off. Anything else felt like ash on her tongue.

For minutes, the only sound left in the room was Kushina’s soft snores.