A strange new life

5.20

Crouched down in the dark tunnel, I studied the walls, floor and ceiling.

There was a hole in the wall that created a direct path from the vaults to the labs. That was an interesting way to use a jutsu. Would Yamato teach me that one if I asked him? I guess I just found what to do on the trip back to Konoha. Thinking about that, I might as well try to leech that water bullet jutsu from Hayase as well.

In the original story, Hinata’s Nature Type was fire and lightning. I’m guessing my affinity to earth came from the implanted Senju cells. Wood release was, after all, a mix of earth and water. If that theory holds true, I could potentially excel in four out of five types of elements. Missing only wind to join the exalted group of very rare ninjas capable of using all five basic elements.

The entrance to the lab had been sealed by a barrier created out of wood. Yamato’s attempt to keep the place out of reach? Said jounin stood by my side, observing me carefully. He didn’t press me, for which I was thankful.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

We’d managed to break into the vault a few hours ago. Thankfully, the insides weren’t trapped. There were a lot of things there. Books, scrolls, papers, curios, organic samples sealed inside glass containers. It was a lot. From a quick glance, most of that was in some sort of code. We left Hayase to catalog the contents while we tackled the lab, as Yamato had suggested at breakfast.

Sai was still outside, keeping vigil at the hideout entrance. True to his word, Yamato was being a lot more careful this time. He left a wood clone with Sai, another with Hayase. I tried to leave a shadow clone as well. I wanted, after all, to do my part. But Yamato told me not to.

I could guess his reasons. If I had another breakdown, the clones might disperse and cause confusion.

All these considerations were just me trying to procrastinate. I was serious about facing this head on, but wanting was one thing, going forward with it, another. I got up, took a deep breath. Nodded to Yamato, who nodded back.

His hands flashed with seals, and the wood sealing the lab retreated, leaving the door unbarred.

I closed my fists. Took another deep breath. Repeated in my mind one, maybe ten times, that it was going to be alright. I wasn’t in any danger. Whatever truth I found inside could only help. There was no lower point to fall anymore. I was already aware and living the worst case scenario: I could be a living clone with a ticking bomb inside her body, mistrusted by her own village, with her staunchest ally in this whole thing dead, because she failed to save him.

The only way things would get worse was if there was some possession shit waiting for me inside that lab. I didn’t think that was probable.

Eyes open, head held high, I entered the damn laboratory.

It hadn’t changed from the last time I was here. The corpse was still on the table. There was a medical trolley by the operating table I hadn’t seen the first time. The green goop inside the vats was ever more polluted with brown and flecks of red. The computer was still bulky and out of power.

Yamato didn’t enter. He stayed at the door, surveyed the place with a quick glance. “I made sure there’s no traps, you don’t need to worry about that.”

I looked back at the jounin.

“I’ll wait outside. Please call me if you need my help.” I gave the man a serious nod. He left after that.

Yamato hadn’t given me any orders regarding the lab. My guess was that he was leaving it up to me to decide what to do, or maybe it was another test of loyalty. At this point, I wasn’t sure I would be able to tell. I did have an idea of how to deal with the lab. It had been on my mind all day long. A bit of anxiety and dread building at the idea of what I was about to do.

From the entrance, I moved to the vats. I needed to confirm if any of the clones were still alive. I should have done it the first time I was here, but I hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to think about it. I walked down the rolls of tubes, inspecting the copies of me inside them.

Now that I was paying more attention, I noticed something strange. While those girls inside the vat were undeniably copies of myself, they weren’t perfect ones. There were subtle changes to each of them. One had a smaller nose. Another, a bigger mouth. There was one with a different bone structure, her face more elongated than what seemed normal. It wasn’t just the face. Some of the clones had different body structure, skin color, one had longer legs, while another thicker arms. I even saw one, looking about a year old, with male genitalia.

There was another, one of the oldest, that I couldn’t even say it was me any longer. It was still my own face, if square-ish, but the body shape was all wrong.

Her body resembled one of an adult, but she had no breasts, nor any genitalia I could see. Her shoulders were winder, hands larger, but her waist was still thin and curvy. The sense of wrongness was so strong I had to look away. My stomach churned, and the world swayed a little. I doubled over, hands on my knees, taking deep breaths. I refused to have another breakdown.

None of the clones were alive.

With a noiseless groan, I pushed myself up, and turned back toward the computer near the entrance. There was, I noticed now, a filing cabinet that had been hidden by the bulky machine, as well as a chair and a desk with writing implements on top of it.

Walking to the table, my attention was on this new discovery. The papers didn’t seem disturbed. It was like Orochimaru left it there, expecting to be back a few hours later to keep experimenting. The notes were all in that strange code of his, but even a cursory glance told me they were important. On one of the parchments, there was a sketch of a skeleton, and a number of seals carved on the bones.

The drawings there were a lot more complex than the ones I was familiar with. Was this an improved version? I scanned all the available information. There were more drawings, but nothing that made sense to me. I’d need to understand Orochimaru’s personal code to read his notes. I gathered all the papers into a neat pile, and turned to the filing cabinet.

The first drawer was filled to the brim with even more notes, drawings and sketches. Was all of this related to this one particular experiment? I would find out, one way or another.

I gathered all available dossiers, notes, and parchments into a pile. There wasn’t time right now to try deciphering them. That would take a lot of time and effort.  From my own seals, I unsealed a bigger piece of parchment. Placed it on the ground, my hand at the center. Before I pushed my chakra, an idea struck me. I blamed Hayase and his endearing dorkness of all things code related.

The idea was simple. What if I could create a cipher of my own, but for my storage seals? That sparkled another thought. How would I go about it? A subdued smile found its way to my face. Now that I think about it, Seal-chan and her many iterations had already figured that, back in hell month. Sure, at the time, I failed in tying the beacon to my chakra signature in particular, but I did learn how to infuse it with my own jutsu. So, I just needed…

I took another piece of parchment, a small one this time. I modified the seal, created more building blocks from my own vocabulary. These were simple, they’d take the chakra of the person activating the seals, and change the end result. That way, only a person with that same chakra signature would be able to release the seal contents. I pushed my chakra, and inscribed the new seal. Took one of the pencils from the table, placed it on top of the experimental version and activated it. With a puff of smoke, the pencil disappeared, the sealing complete.

Somewhat giddy at how easy it had been, I tapped the seal with my finger, willed the seal undone. Out popped a pencil. Slightly worn, marks of abuse, a cracked end. It was the same.

That changed things. This new version of my seals did need more chakra, but I thought it was a worthy trade. Not everything would need this security measure, but the contents of this laboratory? It wasn’t even worth considering not using the new yet to be named jutsu. 

I turned back to the bigger parchment, keeping the shape of the new seal in my mind, Shikoku Fuin did the rest. Guided by my will, the chakra spread through the parchment, creating in seconds a seal that would have taken me minutes to inscribe with ink.

I owed Kakashi-sensei a hug. I never really thanked the man for this jutsu. It saved so much time.

That done, I scoured the lab for any other note, paper or drawing I could find. I placed everything on top of my prepared storage seal, pushed in my chakra, and sealed everything away. Now I just needed to think of a way of keeping this information to myself without those geezers in the village taking it off from me. Problems for the future.

The next part was a lot less interesting. I walked to the table, pulled the inscribed fabric off the corpse’s face. She was almost an exact copy of my own, maybe one or two years older. Out of curiosity, I opened her eyes. Lifeless black eyes stared back at me. Gently sliding my hand over her face, I closed her eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the dead version of me.

My hands hovered over the trolley. With one last deep breath, I took a scalpel. Gruesome as it might be, I wasn’t about to pass on the chance to see with my own eyes if she also had other seals in her body. It could be a clue to understand what the ones in my heart and eyes did. A clue to disabling the ticking time bomb the seals on my bones were.

This decision made me feel like I was following in Orochimaru's footsteps. I wasn’t happy about that.