A strange new life

5.22

I had, again, made attempts to smooth things over with Sai. I prepared breakfast —pancakes, yay— and even unpopped a few of my cupcakes. Once the food had been served, I tried to strike a conversation. It went something like this:

“Hello Sai-kun, are you feeling better? Any trouble with the injuries?”

I know those weren’t the best ice breaking conversation starters, but I was a bit lost on what else to talk about with the guy. I thought his jutsu was cool, and was curious if his hobby was painting, but it would have been strange to ask that directly, when he was just coming out of a battle injury.

Sai looked at me. Nodded. “I am well.” He answered in a tone that made clear the conversation wasn’t going anywhere.

I wasn’t going to push. Maybe I’d try a few more times, just to make sure I didn’t catch him on a bad day.

Yamato didn’t let the silence linger for long. We had already finished eating when he ordered. “Report.”

That command always made fangirl-chan happy. Today wasn’t any different. She was still giddy, but a more subdued kind of happy. I understood her. I’d give her a hug if I could. I saluted, then took out my board. Words flowed. There was a lot to report.

“I finished the lab investigation. Disposed of all organic matter that wasn’t fit to be stored or transported. Gathered all available information. Disassembled the computer and stored it as well.”

I gave the boys time to read my report while I wrote on the other side of the board. When I was finished, I flipped it, showing the second part of the report. “I placed explosives at the lab and am ready to trigger them at any point to make sure anything that I missed won’t fall on the wrong hands.”

Well, guess what, my report wasn’t that long.

Yamato gave time for the other chunin to read before he addressed me again. “Good job Hinata-san. You’ll have to coordinate with Hayase today to pack and store the vault contents. I know it’s a lot to ask, but you’re the only one in our team capable of creating those storage seals.”

I gave the man a nod. I didn’t mind using jutsu. It was cool, and awesome, and fun.

“Sai, report.” Yamato ordered again.

The pale boy nodded. “My scouts are keeping the area under surveillance. Nothing new to report.”

I’m guessing he wasn’t direct and curt with only me. Good to know. Yamato didn’t seem to mind the curt report. “Thank you Sai, and good job.” Lastly, he turned to Hayase, who had leaned forward, feet bouncing. “Hayase, report.” Yamato ordered again.

“Yes, taicho!” Hayase said, engaged nerd mode, and disgorged the exposition. “Most of the information is protected by a code that is unlike anything we’ve seen before. It doesn’t resemble anything the intelligence department is aware of. At this point, my conjecture is that we’re dealing with Orochimaru’s personal encryption. I haven’t tried to break it yet, but even at a quick glance, that won’t be easy, unless we find the cipher.”

Three heads nodded. That wouldn’t be easy. Even in the before with the use of supercomputers, breaking encryption was difficult.

“I’ve cataloged and listed most of the stuff in the vault. Weapons, jutsu, a lot of ledgers, money, and correspondences. Again, most of that is protected by code, but not all.” Hayase stopped here, looked each of us in the eye before continuing. Was he enjoying being dramatic? “I did find, however, that Orochimaru had at least two other hideouts, maybe even up to four.”

I ransacked my brain trying to remember. Knowing that stuff should be right up my alley, but me and fangirl-chan stared in frustrated disbelief when my brain decided to play dead and turn in no memory whatsoever regarding this topic.

“Are you sure?” Sai, who usually didn’t participate much in these talks, asked.

Hayase nodded, serious. “Yes. One of the notes that wasn’t protected by code suggests there’s a hideout near Kusagakure, but there were no clues to the precise location. The second hideout is a place named Southern hideout.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Hayase pulled a rolled scroll next to his seat. I got up, cleaned the table before he made a mess. The chunin gave me a nod, then a smile, before remembering he was still freaked out with me and looking away. Silly boy.

Yamato coughed, which was enough to dispel the awkwardness. Hayase laid the map open. It was a good version of the known lands. His fingers tapped a group of islands in the Land of Waves.

“I’m pretty sure I know where the Southern Hideout is.” He tapped the islands again. “These islands. If you look here,” the chunin took a few more papers, handed them out to us, “There’s mention of prisoner transportations to this facility, and this one,” he handed Yamato another parchment, “even indicates where are the secret passages Orochimaru uses to reach the hideout in island.”

There was a moment of silence while we digested that information. Hayase’s look of glee told me he was enjoying this.

“Amazing work Hayase.” Yamato praised. The chunin preened. “How long until you’re finished with cataloging the vault's contents?”

Hayase had started nodding even before Yamato finished his question. “I should be done with it today. The part I think will take the longest is storing everything in seals.” He cast me a glance, one that had pity written all over.

I shook my head. Silly boy, he didn’t know that was the easiest, and most enjoyable part of the work. Seals were cool. I took my board, wrote my words. “If everything is already organized and prepared, it shouldn’t take me long. Watch.” I let the boys read the words then dug into my pouch for a small parchment. I placed it on the table, and put my finger on top of it. With an effort of will, my chakra spread over the paper, drawing squiggly black lines. After that, I took the empty thermos, placed it on the seal, activated it.

Under three pairs of eyes, I stored my trusty thermos with my other stuff.

Under three pairs of eyes, I gave them a V for victory.

Under three pairs of confused eyes, my shoulders slumped. Damn, when would they start learning the cool modern symbols?

“That's impressive Hinata-san.” Yamato said when the silence stretched for too long. I just hung my head, defeated. If only they understood. Did I need to become Hokage to start some cool new trends? I shook my head. Forget it. That was sunshine’s brat dream. I wanted no part of it.

“That’s decided then.” Unaware of my despair, Yamato continued. “Tomorrow we leave for the Land of Waves.”

I perked up. Not Konoha?

“Not Konoha?” Hayase mirrored my question.

“No, this is too important to afford the delay.” Yamato traced a line in the map. “We’ll cut through the Land of Hot Waters. Speed is our priority now. If that facility was used to hold prisoners we need to find it as soon as possible.” We nodded, but Yamato wasn’t done with his orders. “Sai, I’ll trouble you to contact the village with your ink constructs. You’ll relay the basics of the information and request reinforcements.”

There were more technical details after that. New protocols to follow. Land of Waves was, after all, home to Kiri. Transgressing into another hidden village’s domain was asking for trouble. I wasn’t sure how Yamato planned to smooth things over, if he even planned to. My guess was that our best bet was to just not get found out.

But even with all that important information being bandied about, something else was on my mind. Land of Waves means Naruto’s Bridge. That made me think of Tsunami. There was this strange fluttering feeling in my belly. Silly as it might be, I wouldn’t mind being mommied over again by her. Her mom's energy was top notch, and now that I decided to stop deceiving myself, I did enjoy being fussed over by her. It made me think of my own mom in the before.

I missed her.