Bestial

AN: Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to review! Please take the extra minute to leave a comment!

Disclaimer: I forgot about this. I don’t own anything related to Naruto. But should any of the characters ever go up for sale, I have dibs on Kakashi. And Neji. And Gaara. And Kiba. And Yondaime. I’m greedy.

::blablabla:: Inner Sakura

mmmm scene break/end of chapter

Soundtrack/written while listening to: Dance, Dance, by Fall Out Boy (hate this genre of music, but I love this song, go figure)

Chapter Four

It was early when I woke up the next morning—so early that it was still dark outside, and my eyes were too bleary to read the glowing numbers on my clock. After repeated futile attempts to go back to sleep I stumbled in the general direction of the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea. My tired face and rumpled hair greeted me in the bathroom mirror, and I amused myself with how refreshed I didn’t look by making faces as I brushed my teeth.

Two kettles of water and five cups of caffeinated tea later, I was feeling ready to take on the world—and three horny boys who thought they had some sort of pre-destined right to me. I was perfectly capable of fending them off—or hiding from them for the rest of my natural life. Let them beat each other into a bloody pulp; I was staying out of it. I briefly toyed with the idea of changing my uniform to a shirt that said, “Not interested,” but discarded it as impractical.

Kiba and Naruto were pretty easy to figure out—and as long as they viewed each other as rivals it wouldn’t be a problem. But I have to say, I thought Naruto had out-grown his crush on me. And I thought Kiba liked Hinata. The unknown factor was Shino. How do bugs act? Shino didn’t seem like the stereotypical possessive, aggressive, territorial type that Kiba and Naruto were—which to my thinking must come at least partially from the animals they associate with. Shino was cunning—he found me alone yesterday when Kiba and Naruto were probably busy fighting. He didn’t push me too much—slow and steady does the trick, or so they say. Shino was the one I had to watch out for.

I sighed as I pulled my hair into a pony tail and bent down to pull on my sandals. If nothing else, I would definitely get better at observation. I stood with my hand on the handle of my door, closed my eyes, and opened my mind, trying to feel out for anything that had a chakra signature. I didn’t feel anything, but it was still early in the morning—the sun had barely thrown out its first pale fingers of light. I stretched and went out for a morning run.

Normally, I hate running. I see it as one of those necessary evils—for endurance, speed, retreat, it’s essential as part of the ninja’s workout routine. But today the world seemed more alive, bathed in pale light as the sun rose, and I felt rather positive—as opposed to the incredibly grumpy, snarling runner that I usually am. I rarely got up this early—again, one of the necessary evils. For a ninja, I’m pretty lazy in my off-duty life. I really think I’m the laziest ninja in Konoha except for Kakashi and Shikamaru (although Kakashi can afford to be lazy). Even Chouji trained—although he did eat constantly while doing it. But I earned the right to be lazy, dammit. Ah, well.

But today, with a gentle, warm breeze blowing on my right side, and the light slowly growing, I was alone, and I felt a strangely joyful sort of feeling well up inside of me. On an impulse I changed my path and ran towards my favorite thinking spot in the forest—also a spot where I would work endlessly on meditation and concentration for less physical, more mental jutsus, or where I would sit and daydream, depending on how the mood struck. The joy kept bubbling inside me and I realized I was grinning fiercely. My cares and concerns had been left at home, along with my anxiety of yesterday. I was feeling so carefree that I almost felt airborne, and a wicked idea formed in my mind—wicked as in totally kickass. I ran, and eventually saw the overhang that I meditated on. I laughed as I ran off of the overhang, pushing off with my legs into a graceful swan dive as the sun peeked over the treetops. I was suspended in midair and time stopped—my arms outstretched, and I was flying. Then time resumed and I began to fall. It seemed to take forever for my body to flow from an arch into a straight position—and then I really began to fall in earnest, head first, hands stretched above my head to direct me. Then I slipped into the water with hardly any ripple, and my world turned dark and murky, but I felt like the light I had been running in had stayed with me, and I was now a creature of light in the dark water. If I had been glowing in the navy depths I would not have been surprised. My pink hair was all around me—my hair elastic had fallen out at some point. I moved around languidly, contorting my body in the water, watching how my hair moved as thought it had a life of its own. Then my need for air became pressing and I surfaced in one of the deeper areas of the pool, on the edge near some large rocks, some distance away from the waterfall whose path I had followed.

I got some air then immediately went back underwater, reluctant to leave my murky blue world, and swam towards some rocks. As I reached up, someone grabbed my wrist, and before I could find purchase on the slippery rocks to resist, they hauled me up. I was on my knees with my other hand stretched up to the other person’s throat, holding a kunai close to their jugular. The person’s other hand was wrapped around my kunai-holding wrist, stopping me from slitting their throat. I was a bit stunned with my speed, but then decided to do some mental back flips celebrating my awesomeness. Then I shook myself out of my stunned state and looked up at Kakashi.

“God DAMN it, Kakashi, don’t sneak up on me like that! Didn’t you learn anything in your time as a shinobi?! You’re lucky you’re so damn fast, I would have killed you.” Whoops, channeling Inner Sakura there.

He smiled—well, crinkled an eye. “Then it’s fortunate that you’re a medic-nin, so you could heal me as soon as you realized your mistake.”

“Don’t be so sure of yourself, I still might kill you for shaving off ten years of my life,” I snapped as I used his hands to pull myself to my feet and re-sheathed my kunai. I dusted off my knees and looked up to find him looking me over, so I put my hands on my hips and waited for him to get to my face. When we made eye contact I raised an eyebrow. Just what did he think he was doing?

“That was a reckless move. If you had landed in the wrong spot, you could have been seriously injured,” he said quietly, then walked over to a tree and sat down with his back to it. Well, now I felt a bit sheepish. I should have known he was checking me over for injuries. But it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve jumped off the cliff. It’s the second. And really, “cliff” is such a misleading word—it implies great height. This overhang is really only 2 or 3 stories tall, compared to your standard building or house. Yeah. This is me, digging myself deeper. I despise being wrong.

I climbed over the rocks to the grassy bank area and began doing cool-down stretches. He was silent, and I ignored him for the most part. He was reading his book as he sat against the tree—his favorite position. Hmmm—speaking of the famous dirty book, I wonder what his favorite position is, which made me blush a bit. Then I had a mental image of Kakashi in bed and I felt my cheeks get really hot—I was now probably pinker than my hair. I was bent over so I stayed that way for a bit, hoping that the blood rushing to my head could explain the blush. I straightened then flopped down on the grass, finger-combing my hair. Kakashi continued reading his book, and I was still a little peeved at him for startling me (even if it might have been justified), so I sat in silence. And continued to sit in silence. What the hell was he doing here at this time anyway? Did he follow me? Was it coincidence? Did he have something to say? Why wouldn’t he just say it and leave already?! My right eyebrow twitched a bit, and I decided that was as good a time as any to meditate, so I closed my eyes, rearranged myself into a more comfortable sitting position, and went inside myself. It sounds cheesy, I know, but that’s really the best way to describe it.

When you’re inside yourself because you put yourself in a trance, it’s sort of like being in a dream where you can control your movement. Until you mentally go outside of your body, though, everything is dark and empty—unless you imagine light and objects to fill the space. At first I was unnerved by the empty darkness, so I would make it look like the forest, or the hospital, or my room. But now I’ve gotten used to it. Anyway, the sort of trance I’ve been working on is one that medics use when they are short-handed in times of war or some other crisis situation. One medic remains in a trance, and sends their consciousness outside of their body and analyzes everyone’s status in the area—chakra levels, injuries, sugar levels, degree of exhaustion, degree of hunger and malnutrition, etc. The medic-nin relays this information to the other medic-nins and they will treat the people. It’s fairly efficient, because the tranced medic-nin can see the progress that is made with each patient, so when they are out of danger, they tell the non-tranced medic-nin to move on. It helps everyone to conserve chakra, because the non-tranced nin doesn’t have to go into a trance, and the tranced nin doesn’t have to heal. It’s kind of similar to the Byakugan because you can see everyone’s chakra flow, but you can’t really determine what jutsu they’re using unless you can see the symbols their hands are making. Also, in addition to their chakra flow, you can see their bodies and various organs and things like that, depending on how hard you’re concentrating. However, unlike the Byakugan, you aren’t using your physical eyes, you are using your mental eyes—in general your eyes are closed, or if they’re open, you are not seeing out of them. And you can’t do anything else when you’re in a trance—obviously, otherwise it wouldn’t be a trance and you wouldn’t need to concentrate in order to do it.

I can do pretty much anything a medic-nin can do—need an antidote for a poison? Not a problem! Heal someone of five fatal wounds simultaneously? Easy! Chakra drain and physical exhaustion? I can do it in a snap! It’s this stupid trance thing. Obviously, when you’re in a trance, you’re very vulnerable to physical attack—if there is anything that is chakra-powered, or is an offensive jutsu, you can see or sense it, and it IS possible to block it with your mind (your chakra), but it’s incredibly difficult. But pure physical attacks—like if someone tosses a kunai at you? You’re screwed. Any time I think I hear a noise or feel something, I leave my trance-state. The problem is that because you’re not focusing on your body, you can be fatally injured but not realize it until it’s too late, because your consciousness is not there to receive all the pain and danger messages from the brain.

At any rate, I was slowly pulling my mind inside my body, and diagnosing myself. Everything was good—blood sugar was good, I wasn’t tired, chakra was high, I wasn’t hungry or malnourished, I had a scrape on my knee but it wasn’t bleeding—that was easily fixed with a miniscule amount of chakra applied towards increasing the rate of skin regeneration. Then I slowly began to spread my mind out—my record range was four feet, which is pretty small, but I go so slowly that it takes me at least half an hour to get to that point. I think my problem was that I was too thorough. I envisioned my mind as a circle, scanning the area for life forms. I got an immediate hit—there was a bug near my foot, moving towards me. And not just any bug—a chakra-containing insect. A kikai.

::Shiiiiiinoooooooo! :: Inner Sakura ominously growled. No wonder the sneaky bastard found me yesterday! I felt a bit bad doing this, but I used a flick of chakra to zap the bug—but the bug just absorbed it. I gave myself a mental slap for stupidity, went back inside my body, and slammed my foot on it.

::Yeah! Take that! Take your symbiotic relationship and shove it up your ass! :: An evil little voice inside me maliciously whispered that I hoped Shino felt that. They can fight over me if they want, but I will not be spied on. Is respect for my privacy too much to ask? I glanced over my shoulder at Kakashi, but he seemed to be in his own world— ::Yeah, right, and I’m the tooth fairy! :: —although it looked like he might have been smiling, but it was difficult to tell with only his eye exposed. If he was, it was a very, very small smile.

I sighed and started over, smoothly entering and spreading out. Actually, it reminded me of my dive earlier—a mental image to use in the future. This time I didn’t get any hits, and I had reached about three feet away from me. I had also completely lost track of time. I continued spreading out, meticulously looking for something to pretend to analyze. Then I found something—a foot. If I continued to spread out in that direction I got a leg and another foot. Had I reached Kakashi already? Woohoo, that was probably about 6 feet! I sobered myself and widened my range to include his entire body while maintaining my range in the opposite direction—sort of like a circle with a bump for Kakashi’s body. I began to check him over, noticing he tensed as my chakra-containing mental hands brushed over him—but to outward appearances, he looked the same. Damn he was good. Physical signs were good, no superficial or internal injuries. Chemical levels were good. But there was a concentration of chakra where his eye was—well, not his eye, the Sharingan eye. I frowned. That’s not healthy! Especially since that’s not a chakra point. But it was odd—I knew he could close his eye. Could it have something to do with the fact that he keeps it covered? But it would be a constant drain otherwise to have it always exposed. Hmmm…I moved closer to his eye until it filled my mental vision. His chakra flow looked normal except for the eye.

I thought for a bit, and examined both eyes. His natural eye had more minor chakra loops that went through the brain and merged with the main chakra flow. So I carefully dipped my mental fingers into the chakra gathered behind his implanted eye, and pulled it up, following the curve of his head, back, and merged it with the main flow at the neck. I watched it for a while, and it held, so I repeated the process. I repeated it until the flows for each eye were identical. I examined the physical eye as well—he could see out of it, it looked fine and appeared to be working as well as the other one. The chakra gathered there had definitely lessened in the time that I had fiddled with it, but for an extra measure, I made a loop that just looped back into itself, so that the chakra wouldn’t gather, but would instead cycle through the eye area. I wonder if the Sharingan had burned the other loops away, the ones connecting it to the main flow, but that was something to test later. I eased myself out of Kakashi’s chakra stream—no telepathic tricks here, I don’t have any talents like that (maybe if Ino did this she could communicate mentally but she can damn well figure that out herself—I don’t want her spying on my thoughts!)—and turned back towards my body, because I was tired, and it had taken a lot of energy (long-range healing tends to do that, it really is easier if you’re touching the person—another reason why the trancing is usually a multi-medic-nin operation), when I felt Kakashi relax, then tense up suddenly.

I gave a mental yell of surprise and rushed into my body, which was a huge mistake because I knocked myself off balance and fell backward—not a terrible thing because I was sitting down, but painful nonetheless—and disorienting. I fumbled for a kunai and groaned as I opened my eyes—I was lying down, the world was spinning, and I had the worst migraine of my life.

“Why did you do that,” I groaned, closing my eyes again. I tried opening them a crack, saw the light, whimpered, and curled up on my side, hiding my face with my arms.

“Do what?” His voice moved closer, but I didn’t hear him move over the pounding in my head.

“Tense up. Did you hear something?”

“No.”

I would have screamed at him but I really didn’t have the energy to do it at the moment. I settled for angrily muttering what I would do to him when I felt better. I couldn’t even concentrate enough to soothe the pain away—not that it would have mattered, since this was a magical backlash. I would have to wait for my chakra flow to get back to normal and then I could ease the physical pain. I felt nauseous too. It was a stupid mistake—the first thing that is stressed during the lessons about trances is that when entering and exiting a trance, you must do so slowly and carefully. Carefully is more important than slowly. For someone who has a lot of experience, they can enter and exit in under a minute. But for those of use who are new to it, we need a few minutes. Spreading your mind out and gathering it back together doesn’t matter as much, it’s the actual point of entry and exiting for the body. It has something to do with the fact that when you spread out, you take chakra with you (so you can do your diagnoses, and, if you like, heal people), and the influx or loss of chakra all at once shocks your system. The mental bit doesn’t really matter.

“I suppose I have you to thank for relieving the pain in my eye?”

“There was pain? You should have gone to the hospital.” Pointless advice, I know. All ninjas hate going to the hospital. I was glad I was a medic-nin so I too could pretend I was tough. I made it a point of doing a quick look-over of all the ninjas I knew personally once a week, and I did a more thorough one when they came back from missions. It’s stupidity like that that will lead to further, more serious problems.

“It was the chakra flow from your eye,” I said. “It was messed up, some of the minor pathways were gone and it resulted in a build-up of chakra at your eye.”

“Ah.” He didn’t sound particularly enlightened, though, so I assumed that this was an ongoing problem. I made a mental note to check on Kakashi’s eye once a week. That was the first time I’d fully diagnosed him before. I’d healed his injuries before countless times, but he rarely got injured on his face, and his problem was usually chakra drain and exhaustion, so I’d give him enough chakra to get to an inn, and sit around while he slept for a week. The eye wasn’t something that was incredibly noticeable, either—there is a tiny pool of chakra at both eyes, and I generally looked for head trauma instead, and ignored the eyes. I was actually rather jealous of Hinata at the moment—if I had the Byakugan I could easily track Kakashi’s eye’s progress—or its decline—as time went on. Bah.

All this thinking was making my head hurt. I heard a rustle, and Kakashi picked me up. I quickly hid my face in his neck, shielding my eyes from the light.

“Mmmf mm,” I said into his neck.

“You’re welcome,” was all he said. He was silent the entire way to my apartment, his gait smooth and even, and I fell asleep with the smell of sandalwood in my nose and his muscular arms around me.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Will we find out what Kakashi was doing there? Will we see Kiba and Naruto again? Is Shino pissed about the loss of his insect spy? Find out in the chapter with the much-awaited information about maturity! Who would have thought that Hinata was the ultimate source of information?