I Take A Hammer And FIX The Canon

by JumpingJackFlash, Melukilan

Summary:

It wasn't Agent 8 who broke it this time!

Notes:

illustration by melukilan. co-written by gui/leviathan, who doesn't have an ao3. YET. get on it bro.

Chapter 1: doing the things a ninja can

You don't put ninja in barracks, not if you don't want them hiding in air vents and broom closets just to get a little sleep. Yakushi 'Masks All The Way Down' Kabuto shows me to a private room with instructions to rest up. 

"When you meet Lord Orochimaru tomorrow, you'll want to be at your best!" he says, with a creepy parody of a customer service smile. Then he locks me in.

Fine by me. I need some time to digest this Mission brief. I'm missing context I should have, and I have context I shouldn't, and on the whole shit's weird. Thinking isn't my style but I can do it when i have to. And the first thing I need to think about is, who's the me that's thinking? Is it Okou Hachi, teenage ninja of the decimated weaver clan whose Silk Release bloodline caught Orochimaru's interest? Or is it… some other guy… the one who thinks this is actually a fictional world and knows what's going to happen right up to the Fourth Ninja War?

The one who knows that Okou Hachi has replaced that spider guy, the one Neji killed. 

Six arms. Whatsisface. Name sounded too similar to Kimimaro so I can't remember it. Stupid spider powers, like they were designed by an arachnophobe who didn't want to think about spiders hard enough to make them cool. I'm the new spider guy.

Wow. I'm cannon fodder, huh? I'm nobody .

Yeah, I don't like that, so I'm not accepting it. Moving on!

Most of the upload was my character data. I'm pretty pissed that my bosses, whoever the fuck they are, think they have the right to upload me a personality! What's wrong with just giving me the skills and background, letting me take it from there? I don't even know if I'm mad because I'm mad or because Hachi would be mad! 

Do I start every mission with an existential crisis? That seems really unproductive, you guys!

Whatever. Dwelling on it is also unproductive. I only have a few hours before I'm on. And I actually do need to rest before then, because my chakra is down to dregs after making all that silk. I better not have to fight twenty guys again tomorrow.

The part of the briefing that wasn't about Okou Hachi's life and abilities was simply a two-part directive.

 

• Primary: prevent Plot from meeting a Bad End due to lowered Protagonist and Deuteragonist power levels 

• Secondary: assist Jumper on site (Deuteragonist) with Mission completion.

 

That's less helpful than you think it is, y'all! How the hell am I supposed to do anything to the Plot when i'm stuck on Mister Snakey's Wild Ride, huh? If I play my role straight, my job is to sass Kimimaro and get beat, sass Sasuke and get beat, kidnap Sasuke, sass Neji and get killed. It's not a long or influential career trajectory.

It's not going to happen right away, I know that at least. The Sound Four were pretty tight by the time Kimimaro sat on them. That doesn't happen in a week. I'll have to get a curse mark, meet the other three assholes, train with them, probably do some war crimes together.

The silence in this underground room is starting to get to me. Feeling lonely brings up an instinct, and i follow it: poke a fang into my thumb pad for a drop of blood, flick through hand signs, slap the floor.

PAF! A puff of smoke, and I'm looking at the most adorable little greenbottle blue tarantula. Yes! Summons! Fuzzy ones!

I give her my hands to scramble onto and bring her up to eye level. "Asagao, precious, darling! You're looking as lovely as ever!"

Summoned spirit animals (says the knowledge now nestled in my bones along with my local identity and a jillion ways to kill somebody) can use chakra to produce a human sounding voice no matter what vocal apparatus they physically have or don't. The spiders hardly ever bother, though. They have their own language of vibrations. The Okou clan teaches it to their children alongside reading and arithmetic as a basic skill. Asagao's tiny toes tickle my hand as she dances her reply.

What is it, Raindrop? Do you need a messenger? No? Only fooling around again.

"I got lonely!"

The silliest Raindrop. So foolish. Well, call my sister, we will guard you from loneliness.

I obey, summoning Ajisai with a touch more chakra. She's a bit larger, and her blue leg fuzz has more of a purpley sheen. Not that I knew that when I named them, as they were just wee slings with their legs all skinny and orange still. It's simply a lovely coincidence that Hydrangea turned out indigo and Morning Glory grew up cobalt. 

Unless my expectations influenced their growth. Chakra gets weird.

Lying on the provided bunk -- pretty comfortable, surprisingly -- I unseal a couple protein bars to snack on, and let my summons' tappity chatter relax me. Whatever comes, I'll handle it. I may not know who I really am (snapshot-flash of an old-fashioned desk fan?) but I know I'm not the type to color inside the lines.

-=(8)=-

-=(8)=-

Kabuto returns after about three hours, exactly the right amount of time to yank me out of a REM cycle if I'd actually slept. Absolutely deliberate. I've just been chilling with my octokittens, though, so i'm alert and calm.

"Hachi-kun, are you recovered from your fight?" He beams ear to ear like an asshole.

Two can play that one. "Sempai, how nice to see you again!" I spring up as if I've been counting the seconds til his return. "Is it tomorrow already?"

"Orochimaru-sama would like to see you." He glances pointedly to the spiders on my shoulders. "You may bring your summons if you like, but I should warn you, snakes eat spiders."

"Wow, that's brand new information!" I probably got carried away there, because going by the narrowing of his eyes, my sarcasm is Not Appreciated. "Girls, what do you think?"

Not paid enough for this bullshit, taps Ajisai, and unsummons herself.

Ha. Chicken. I'm staying. Asagao climbs atop my head, where she raises two legs on the same side at Kabuto; a very rude gesture in Spider!

He brings me back to the arena-like room where I fought my proving battle. Someone's used Doton to repair the structure, but nobody bothered to clean aside from a quick Suiton hosedown, so it still stinks like blood and burnt hair. The battlefield reek almost but not quite covers the smell of snake. 

(Strangely familiar. Never met Orochimaru in person before, so why?)

Three other kids in the same fugly uniform as me are waiting in the middle of the room. Or is that four? One of them has two heads. (Conjoined twins, the briefing tells me, able to separate at will. Cool!) The redhead in the bike-helmet-looking hat greets me with a sneer. "You're late!"

"Don't sneer. You look like a llama trying to eat a durian." Saying it gives me deja-vu, but so do a lot of things.

"You!" she yells; it's a lot ruder in Japanese. "Don't think we'll go easy on you, rookie!"

"I wouldn't want you to. We're working directly for the Boss now, right? I'd better be the best."

"Well said, Okou Hachi," croons said boss from the gallery above. "The four of you will be my personal guard, having proven yourselves worthy by defeating your competition. Be proud, hm? But do not be complacent."

Yikes. He's pretty. He's not supposed to be pretty!

He's at least fifty, I remind myself. You're sixteen. Don't even think about it.

Another part of me unhelpfully puts in, Are you, though? You were twenty-four in your last life, does that stack?

I was what?

Pay attention.

Right, I can have a split personality or whatever later, right now we're apparently sparring for the Boss's amusement evaluation.

"Since you've already introduced yourselves," Kabuto says, "Hachi-kun, Tayuya-chan, you'll go first."

The twins and the big mohawk guy hop back to give us space. Tayuya pulls the flute from her belt. I say, "That's pretty sexist, you know."

Everyone pauses a little except for Orochimaru, who raises an eyebrow.

"Calling me -kun and her -chan," I clarify. "It's sexist. We're your comrades, Sempai, we should both be -kun!"

"Oh?" Kabuto turns his creepy smile on Tayuya. "Do you agree?"

"Fuckin' right it's sexist," she mutters, scowling like she's absolutely certain he'll just call her -chan more for this.

"I wouldn't want to create a hostile working environment," Kabuto says, and though he sounds insincere, he follows it with, "Very well, Tayuya-kun." He hops back to the gallery. "Hajime!"

Though she's eyeing me with scientific interest now, Tayuya doesn't let that stop her from attacking instantly. Me, I love a good fight, so I'm right in there with her. Whatever divisions might exist in my psyche, there's no part of me that doesn't want to test my skills against a skilled opponent, every single chance I get. And Tayuya is no pushover! It's lucky I brought Asagao, or that flute would've genjutsu'd me stupid in the first five seconds.

Fortunately, I have a handy source of pinchy dry-bites to snap me out of it. I web the flute out of Tayuya's hand and give it to Asagao to play keepaway with; then we're down to taijutsu. I'm ready to summon if she does, but maybe she can't do it without the flute, or maybe she already knows my spiders are better than her ogres. For whatever reason, the population of the spar remains two.

In terms of sheer muscle, she's decently strong. I'm only stronger because I'm bigger. As far as skill goes, we're even. So I'm winning, barely. My hits are just a little harder. She's not shy about targeting my bandaged arm, but since I knew to expect that, I'm able to compensate. I'm aiming mostly to numb her arms and shoulders so she can't accurately form hand signs. She's mainly focused on my legs, having noticed that footwork is my thing.

In one of the moments we back off to assess each other and breathe, I point out, "If I wasn't older than you you'd be kicking my ass here. I need to polish my taijutsu. Wanna be regular sparring partners?"

She sneers -- and falters, as if remembering my description of the expression. Which is a good moment to attack, so I do, and we're back at it.

Neither of us is using loud jutsu. When Kabuto and Orochimaru start murmuring together, I can put some chakra into my hearing without much risk of getting my head blown up by Suddenly Doton or something. I'm not paying much attention, though, until I hear 'Itachi'.

"He's simply too well guarded," Kabuto is saying. "His mother is expected to be the next Hokage, so he can't be approached with impunity at home, and in ANBU he never takes solo missions. It would be risky even to deliver a message, let alone attempt to capture him."

His mother is what now? Wait, she's alive? Wait wait, Itachi is still in the village?? Somebody's been fucking with canon… 

"If he were so easily taken," Orochimaru replies with venomous sweetness, "I wouldn't want him, would I?"

"Forgive me, Orochimaru-sama." Kabuto sounds like he's dry-swallowing his pride. "I must ask you for suggestions, then."

"You told me he is protective of his younger brother, did you not?"

" Ahh ."

Tayuya has noticed I'm not putting my whole ass into this spar and it's pissing her off. "You! Spider boy! You're not even trying!"

"Neither are you," I point out. "Can we really go all-out here? Underground? We'd bring the ceiling down."

"You fought here just a little while ago and it's still standing," she points out.

"Well, yeah, but I was like --" Splat thunk . I web her to the floor. I don't want to humiliate her, since we're going to be working together, so I hope she has a counter.

Orochimaru's voice floats down from above like lightly poisoned cotton candy. "Tayuya. Show him Level One, will you?"

Snickering, she begins to grin, or maybe snarl. Oh, whoops, that's right… that's… a thing, isn't it. The jagged black lines spreading across her skin like someone drew lightning with a sharpie. The golden threads of my web start to break with little sproings .

I giggle hollowly. "I'm in danger!"

Chapter 2: a clumsy metaphor for puberty

She mops the floor with me, obviously.

With the curse mark going she's stronger, faster, and tougher. She dodges all but one of my poisoned senbon, and that one only slows her down for a minute. Her bloodthirst is palpable, but she still has the control to punt Asagao away from the flute without injuring her. I simply cannot beat Tayuya in Level One without using a lethal surprise of some kind -- which would be inappropriate here.

In under five minutes, I'm facedown with her knee in my back, slapping the floor.

Tayuya hauls me up by the back of my rope belt and sets me on my wobbly feet to face the boss, who's come down to our level. She keeps hold of me. I'm swaying like a daisy.

"Tell me, Hachi-kun, what do you think of the power of the curse mark?"

"So cool." I dab my lip with my tunic's flappy tail so I don't drool blood when I smile. "Do I get one?"

"Mm, you do, but you must understand… to get something, you must give something. In this case, your freedom. You will be bound to me forever by it. I will be always within you."

"That's hot, sir. Uh. Sorry. Concussion."

He just smirks. I guess anyone who employs a lot of teenagers would be used to that kind of nonsense. "Then prepare yourself." 

I have half a second to think, How, exactly?  

He darts forward, jaws gaping, and bites into my neck.

It's not sexy at all, unfortunately. It hurts like hell. 

Tayuya lets me drop. Now my knees hurt too. I groan, pressing my palm to the bite, trying to soothe the burning. "God damn ," I gasp. "Who brought lidocaine?"

Nobody brought lidocaine.

Orochimaru resumes talking, explaining things about the seal that are definitely important for me to know, but my ears are ringing too loud for me to make it out. Thirty seconds and I'm clinging to consciousness by my fingernails. All I want is to cocoon up and sleep this off.

Mohawk catches my hand before it can hit the ground. "What are you doing, rookie?"

"S-summoning?" Is that not obvious?

"Let him," Orochimaru says. "I'm curious."

Mohawk lets go, and I complete the seal. There are yelps and hops as a golden orb weaver the size of a pony suddenly towers over us all. I blink my watering eyes. Summoning her should've laid me out, what with not getting any real sleep after the big fight earlier; instead it seems to have let off some pressure. My ears ease up on the glonging. While I still have a godawful headache, the stabbing in the back of my eyeballs has gone from railroad spikes to only slightly rusty kunai.

"Hamakanzou-hime? I'm sorry, my chakra is all -- bouncy. I meant to call Kinsenka, but could you…?" I don't actually have words for what I want in Japanese, plus I need my breath for heening like a dog begging under the table, so I tap-scratch it on the floor with my fingertips.

She taps an affirmative, then chakra-speaks aloud: "Give us some space, please. Snake Sage, if you intend to do something to ease his suffering, now is the time."

"Ease his suffering? No." Orochimaru sounds fascinated. That's probably bad. "What I plan will increase it, in fact. But it will shorten the adaptation time, thus reducing the chance he'll fail due to exhaustion. Unfortunately, the effective dosage is also the lethal dosage, so I need to put him in a medical coma."

"Then we are thinking along similar lines. Give it to him now."

"Can we talk about this?" I whine.

Cool, smooth fingers catch my mouth open and pop something in, a pill like a bitter little seed, then hold my jaw shut so I have to swallow. 

"Hold his arm still, please," Hamakanzou says.

Oh, I'm shivering -- jerking, actually. Convulsions? That's such a weird feeling. Orochimaru's hands are like steel. Fangs the size of bear claws punch into the underside of my forearm, and I can feel the venom flood in, searing ice clashing with my burning blood so fiercely that I'm shocked at the lack of steam. 

That ringing is back in my ears. If there's more talking I can't hear it. The Second Princess of Spiders delicately picks me up and begins silk-wrapping me the way I meant to have one of her granddaughters do. Her pedipalps tap soothing murmurs whenever I whimper. Be still, be still, little one. I will guard you. Sleep, and when you wake, all will be as it should be.

Between the numbing of her neurotoxins and the stasis effect of her silk technique, I'm out long before the threads cover my face.

 

-=(8)=-

-=(8)=-

 

Consider soil. 

Consider the specks of rock in the soil. 

Consider them closer, closer, until you meet them as an equal. 

See the microscopic tunnels eaten into their mineral flesh. 

See the threads of mycelium, eating, eating, until cracks begin to show.

A sense of pressure, growing and easing both at once.

What is this swelling from the stone, these purple pinheads, growing, spreading, cute little mushrooms, can I eat them? Ah, it tastes like the smell of rain in the forest…

Flashes of faces: usually brown-eyed, brown-haired, with glasses, usually with a calm smile. A sense of friendship, of someone reassuringly dangerous. 

The faces flash faster until, like a flipbook, they form an animation of speech without sound.

(you) 

     (are not) 

             (alone) 

                    (play the) 

                                       (long) 

                                                           (game)

Hyphae reach, tiny rivers in a vast network, carrying information like nutrients back and forth. I, a tree, roots feeding and being fed, shiver from root to crown with yearning for the forest.

Permafrost slumps. Stone cracks. Soil heaves. Light spears through.

 

-=(8)=-

 

The tattoo gun buzzes between my fingers.

No one ever understood my art.

What they don't understand, they bury.

Эти придурки.

The black bakelite telephone screams like a baby.

So much for my weekend.

I take a bracing slug of Kentucky bourbon, and I answer the call.

Even with a monk bowing and bowing,

begging him not to draw live steel against a child who only has a bokken,

this fool struts into the ring. All he sees is an easy victory.

I lift my wooden sword, calm as morning.

 

-=(8)=-

 

Mushrooms spread and spread, crumbling stone to dust.

The light rips apart like golden silk.

I open my eyes.

 

-=(8)=-

 

My field of vision is almost a full sphere. That's the first thing. Behind and above are partly obscured by a wild mane of metallic gold hair, but other than that, the only place I can't see is directly below me. And I'm processing all of this just fine! It feels normal!

Shiny black carapace covers my skin. My armored hands are tipped with needle claws and my fingertips have a velvet of stiff hairs, with which i can feel a vibrationscape like radar that reaches deep into the earth. If someone dropped something heavy near the far exit, I could map the whole compound.

Some of my eyes can see my other eyes. They're deep teal, mirrored, shiny like jewels. I'm so pretty! 

The chakra that had been circulating through Hamakanzou's thread to stabilize mine finishes falling away, and my own is swelling out to occupy the space, raising fog where it overloads into material transformation. It's… immense.

Good lord. Is this what those famous powerhouse shinobi feel like? I'm an ocean, I'm a cyclone!

Or rather, since I'm earth-natured -- I was the kind of one-hill landslide that closes a road for a few days, and now I'm a city-ruining earthquake.

Wow.

"Yeah, I can see how this transformation might kill a guy." From pain alone, if nothing else. My chakra coils feel sore and raw, like they got used for a firehose. Getting them blasted open like that would absolutely have given me a heart attack or an aneurysm if I hadn't slept through it. "Thanks, Hamakanzou-hime. You're a literal lifesaver."

I don't have to turn my head to see her duck down to give me gentle pedipalp pets. Then she unsummons, and I don't even feel the change in my chakra output.

Which is bad news as well as good -- sure, my reserves are porn star huge now, but I'm also blowing through chakra at quite a clip just being in this state. Fortunately, deactivating the transition is as easy as letting out a held breath. Itch-tickle-stretch rushes over my skin as I return to my original endoskeletal, two-eyed look. Hair ungrowing is the weirdest feeling.

The only other person in the room now is Orochimaru. He's wearing a subtly different turtleneck under his beige tunic thing, which tells me it's been at least a day. I'm sitting on a medical cot surrounded by shreds of silk and various sciency doodads. He's lounging on a folding chair with a notebook on his knee, tapping his chin with the cap of a ballpoint. He looks like the kind of psychologist who moonlights as a serial killer.

I give him a little sitting bow. "Morning, Boss. Thanks for watching over me." That's my polite way of saying Studying me while I sleep is a little creepy.

"I had a fascinating conversation with your summons. Although I'm afraid I frightened the little one." He chuckles.

Asagao creeps out from beneath the cot and up my leg. He wanted me to molt for him , she taps. I can't molt on command! Can he molt on command? Stop laughing at me, you giant caterpillar.

"She wants to know if you can molt on command. I think she's a bit intimidated by the idea."

More like grossed out. Does he hang around half finished like a stuck shed until he wants it? Itchy just to think about!

"I can, as it happens. It's a technique of last resort, but it has saved my life more than once. Perhaps, if your clan's summoning contract has changed your genome the way mine has, you would be able to learn it. How are you feeling?"

"Goddamn amazing, Boss. Also so hungry I could eat the moon."

"I'm sure that with your tracking abilities you'd have no trouble finding the cafeteria, but as it happens I am going in that direction. No need to tidy, Hachi-kun," he adds as I begin gathering the cocoon remnants to seal in storage. "I do employ cleaning staff."

"No! This is like six thousand ryou worth of chakra silk," I yelp. "You can't just toss it."

He shrugs. "As you like." He leaves without me, but not very fast. I catch up to him down the hall and around one corner, now holding only a handful of the silk and my medium spindle. He glances over a few times as I loop some fiber on and begin to spin, my hands controlling the drop and twist with habitual ease. "That thread is much thicker than what we use for sutures, let alone what silk armor is woven from. Intentional, or a skill issue?"

"Are you interested in textiles?"

"I'm interested in everything."

He really is as much of a genius polymath as they say~! My boss is the coolest! The non-Hachi part of me is having a giggle at my expense, but fuck it, this isn't just any anime villain. This is the unkillable miracle worker who developed human cloning and gene splicing in a setting with 1980's tech! And he wants to hear about my hobbies? How cool is that!

"See how I fold over the hank of silk before I spin from it? Even though I'm spinning fairly tight, it's still got a lot of air in it because the fibers aren't aligned. Which makes it weave up real warm."

"Ah, making use of the insulative properties of an air gap."

"Exactly! I have a sleeping bag lined with silk flannel that's toasty down to like thirty below. And since it's chakra silk, you keep a little juice running through it and anybody trying to stab you in your sleep just bounces off!"

He throws me a conspiratorial half-smile over his shoulder ( damn he's pretty) and teases, "Are you trying to sell me your clan's yard goods, Hachi-kun?"

"Is it working?"

"Hmm, I wonder! Follow your nose from here." He points down a side corridor, then continues on ahead.

All the halls look the same to the untrained eye. Just as traditionally built ninja villages use crooked alleys and a lack of street signs to maze invaders, Otogakure is a labyrinth of long straight passages with the same monotonous pattern imprinted on the floor and walls. There are no doors, every intersection is the same, and it's all lit by eerie candles that make the shadows even more deceptive.

What veteran Oto-nin know -- and what I apparently learned my first day just by having my summons vibration-map the area around my room -- is that those passages are neither straight nor doorless, but overlaid with a subtle genjutsu to mask the curvature and help the disguised doors blend in. To support the illusion, the spacing of the candle sconces is subtly varied. The intersections aren't exactly right angles. Even the width of the halls changes to fool the eye. It's brilliant, really.

You could learn to navigate by rote, I suppose, but there's a simpler trick: subtle textures in the wall pattern at hip height, where you can read them with your fingertips. I noticed it pretty early on because I tend to touch-read my surroundings even when I'm not in a maze.

I haven't been to the cafeteria yet. The area I was kept in didn't used to connect through here. So that's yet another element to the labyrinth: the ability to simply block off a section from the rest, to isolate new recruits and prisoners (often the same thing, here) until they earn access.

There doesn't seem to be anything in place to hide smells, though. Don't snakes navigate by scent? Scent and heat signatures, I think.

I don't know about thermal traces, but the smell of fried food and insufficiently washed uniforms leads me to the right stretch of wall for my fingertips to find the crosshatched grooves that mean door. I push; it clicks, and pops open enough for me to catch the edge, just like a kitchen cabinet; the noise of cooking, cutlery, and conversation billows out to break the silence of the hallway. 

A sort of baseline anxiety in the back of my head fades away as I slip inside. Huh. I might have a phobia of solitude. Problematic.

The cafeteria is neither large nor crowded, as such things go, but it's got a high ceiling with skylights in its south-facing slope, which instantly makes it my favorite room. They're kind of cloudy and greenish. It's still natural light, though. The shadows of trees flicker over them. I can see a snail determinedly gnawing a trail through the algae in one corner.

(Briefing: Land of Sound, formerly Land of Rice; rainy, humid, and warm; bamboo-covered hills and forested valleys punctuated by terraced rice paddies; the first jutsu anyone learns is mosquito repellant.)

I recognize a couple of the nin I maki-rolled in my test fight, plus the purple-haired woman I kicked into a wall -- she's glaring at me dully, which I figure is fair considering how much of her is bandaged -- but my new team has their own table close to the door and getting to know them is more important than trolling defeated opponents. I stroll over and plunk down next to Tayuya. "Hi!"

She gives me a Look. "You better not be expecting me to go get your food for you."

"Uh." I look at my hands, which are still fiddling with my spindle. I stick it in my belt. "No, I'm just spacey from the whole… thing." Vague gesture to the mark on my neck. "Bee Are Bee."

"Do what now?"

Rather than try to explain chatspeak to a pre-internet society, I abscond to the serving line. 

The food is unsurprisingly heavy on the rice and farmed fish, but it's plentiful and fresh. What is surprising is the amount of fruit available. There are plums, lychee, tangerines -- are those all in season at once? I'm pretty sure they're not. Greenhouses somewhere? At the end of the line, there's a huge basket piled high with bananas. Like, I could curl up and nap in it huge.

"What's with that?" I ask the jaded-looking woman behind the counter.

She shrugs. "One of the researchers is doing a banana thing, I guess. There''s more where that came from. Hope you like bananas."

I return to the table with an entire hand of bananas all for me, as well as a dozen kumquats, some tofu stir fry (looks kinda overcooked but I like my tofu chewy so it's fine), and all the grilled eel sushi they had. As I set my tray down, Asagao peeks out from under the bananas and waves a blue furry leg at Tayuya.

I translate for her: "She says thanks for not hurting her in the spar. Good control."

"It was just a fuckin spar." Tayuya shrugs uncomfortably. "I'm not gonna splat your summons in practice , what the hell."

Mohawk says, "That language is unbecoming of a lady."

"Shut up, Fatso, or I'll unbecome your face."

I grin. "You guys are good friends, huh?"

They all stare at me. Front Twin looks like it's his birthday. A fellow chaos enjoyer? I think I'm going to like it here.

Chapter 3: senbon socks. senbocks.

Notes:

it's my birthday tomorrow! i will be Even More Dad years old! i'm not mentioning it to panhandle for comments or nuffin, but... i sure do like em... *toes the ground sheepishly* - jack

I do! I do like it here! Who could have guessed the villain's lair is actually such a cool place to be?

Obviously it sucks if you're a weak ninja. Or a test subject. My 'seen it once a while ago' level of anime knowledge had me expecting that was all there would be -- weak ninja test subjects, the Sound Four, Kimimaro, Kabuto, and the Big Bad himself.

Logic could've told me that ain't right, but if I ever spent any time applying logic to anime I don't remember doing it.

(What I do remember… is more now than before the cocoon but also more confusing? I haven't had time to sort through it. I think I've been a lot of people. Waiting on some downtime to get my head around that.)

My new room is sticking half out of a cliff wall, overlooking a ravine. A thread of waterfall arcs out above my little balcony. When the sun's at the right angle I get a rainbow! When the wind's doing anything whatsoever I get wet, too, but I just beg some potted plants off the greenhouse nerds and take advantage of the hands-off watering. Flowers attract bees, and bees are enrichment for the little Salticidae spies I'm training as part of my summoning contract.

My teammates are all on the same hall with the same kind of rooms, so sometimes we sit on our balconies and toss kunai at each other just to be social.

I love my teammates. They're a goddamn mess. They're so fun!

I'm the oldest at sixteen. Mohawk, whose name is Jirobo, is fifteen. Tayuya and the twins are fourteen. That means we're all full of energy, hormones, and sass, so Orochimaru keeps us exhausted with work and training to prevent general mayhem. Wise of him. 

Tayuya is my favorite. Tayuya is an attitude on legs. Jirobo talks a lot of sexist shit to her, which makes me want to kick his ass at first, but it turns out he just likes pissing her off. She gives as good as she gets, and she's every bit as fatphobic as he is sexist. They kinda deserve each other.

Sakon (Front Twin) and Ukon (Back Twin) have an incredibly weird kekkei genkai. Orochimaru has two full time researchers and one grad student continually studying just them. They complain about having to give blood all the time, but come on. Around here taking gene samples is like a handshake. It's just how they say hello.

We're Orochimaru-sama's honor guard when he goes out. 

He avoids his former Akatsuki buddies, but he fears pretty much no one and goes where he pleases, visiting his scattered facilities to check in with the researchers there, so we see some excellent sights and get in some excellent fights. 

I'm not the strongest. That's Tayuya, now that she's put a lanyard on her flute so I can't steal it as easily. Fighting with her is always great. My taijutsu is improving fast, but she's learning from me as well, so she's keeping a half step ahead. I think I could beat her if we went for reals, but only by sneaking someone bitey into her gear beforehand. 

Or going Stage Two and biting her myself, I guess. Turns out I'm venomous as hell.

What downtime I get is usually waiting for my turn to spar. It took me a couple weeks to finish spinning my cocoon into laceweight. Then I cast on with a set of #00 senbon and started knitting. Surprisingly, I haven't poked myself with them even once.

Shinobi dexterity, yo.

The boss comes down to watch sometimes, and make catty but useful commentary. He stands next to where I'm sitting, and sometimes asks me questions about my clan's techniques for science. I think he's working on chakra conductive materials maybe. It's nice. Not that I would've been bothered too badly if he was doing human experimentation like canon (which made it sound like he was doing nothing else), since I seem to be pretty amoral (at least in this life? But what flashes I'm getting of others have a lotta murders in em so I dunno, it might just be me).

On the Day Everything Changed, we're hanging out like this: me just about to turn the heel on the second sock, Orochimaru watching the twins tag team Jirobo, Tayuya doing finger exercises and playing scales, and Ajisai (less social than Asagao, but curious enough to hang out if no one is going to threaten her with snakes) exploring the folds of my tunic and complaining about the clunky plainweave.

Jirobo bellows, "Hold still, you prancing fairies!"

"Who would hold still in a fight?" Ukon says, while Sakon laughs and points at me like the little shit-starter he is: "We're not the prancey ones."

"I don't prance, I skitter," I retort. "Queer doesn't override spider."

"You prance like an idiot," Tayuya puts in, and plays a mocking trill.

"Okay but not in a fairy way."

"No," she agrees. "In an idiot way."

"Hey!"

"Too much banter," Orochimaru says calmly, which hushes us all. "You've let it distract you." He looks pointedly at the gallery above, just as the pale figure we failed to notice before leaps down from it to land before him in an incredibly badass three point pose.

I squeal internally. It's Kimimaro at last! My tragic boney boi has arrived! I love this character, he's such an artistic wreck!

Orochimaru sounds even more smug than usual when he says, "This is Kaguya Kimimaro. He is your leader now. Henceforth, you are the Sound Five ."

I barely notice the outraged hollering from my team, because Kimimaro lifts his head and I get a good look at his face. My internal squeeing threatens to become external. I fumble my knitting, and I feel my skin flash hot. I knew he would be cool and powerful and sadly underutilized, but I didn't expect him to be so fucking pretty !

Sakon sneers, "You must think we're weak."

Tayuya snaps, "I hope you're ready to prove yourself."

Jirobo snarls, "We won't just roll over!"

"Are you single?" I blurt.

They all stare at me. 

I drop my knitting to put my hands up. "I can't think of any bluster, look at that face!"

In the moment of silence, a senbon that I didn't notice was stuck in my hand falls out with a comic little tink .

My team facepalms. My summon facepalms. Orochimaru chuckles. Kimimaro looks adorably confused. To the Boss, he admits, "It would feel a little awkward to maim him now."

Aaah, too cute, too cute!

I wrestle myself under control, though, because clowning is only putting off the plot-required fight. "Okay, okay, I'll be serious," I sigh, and stand, sealing my now rather mangled sock in my bracer with my spindle and whatnot. "Obviously we have to have a test match. I assume you don't plan on any actual maiming. Taking any of us off the duty roster for any significant time would be a poor leadership decision."

Orochimaru's smirk curls further. "Kimimaro-kun, this is Okou Hachi-kun, the team's leader until today."

I was? Okay. Nice to learn that by getting demoted. Though maybe we all dodged some trouble there, going by the eye-daggers I can sense bouncing off my back.

"Don't let his cheerful nature fool you. His silk release is formidable, and his spider summons can be lethal, even to you."

"Hey! I wouldn't use the hard stuff on a comrade, Boss, come on."

Kimimaro looks me up and down. I get shivers. He doesn't seem impressed. "Your appearance is frivolous."

That takes me aback. "Seriously? Why are my clan markings any more frivolous than yours?"

"Mine are tattoos. Yours are applied with cosmetics."

"Right. So I can do infiltrations without needing a henge. I'm not a frontliner like you. Okou clan ninja are spies, not wrecking balls."

"Hmm," is all he gives me, but it sounds more considering than judgy, so I'll take it. He turns to Tayuya. "You. The look of outrage when Orochimaru-sama called Okou-san the leader. You believe that to be your place."

"I'm the strongest, and I won't back down to him or you !" 

With that, she attacks. I guess bluster time is over.

Chapter 4: spooky scary skeletons

Notes:

will you think i'm corny if i link to a little mood music?

kimimaro's dance vibe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcucbhJ-Orc

hachi's dance vibe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-uJtV8ScYk

enjoy! -jack

I can admit right up front that we were outclassed from go. We all know it. Well… Sakon maybe doesn't know it, he can be immature like that. But really, we've had a few months of Orochimaru doing a little concrit when he feels like it, and Kimimaro's had years of being the guy's actual apprentice. He is absolutely going to win.

"Winning's not the point," I say as Tayuya goes flying overhead. "You get that, right?"

"Fuck you, Legs," she grits. She landed on her feet, at least.

The twins and Jirobo are forming up with me automatically, which seems to get through to her despite how riled she is. She makes sure to stand just a little more forward than me. Whatever. At least she's not trying to solo a Sannin's personal protegé anymore.

Sakon says, "I get you're thinking with the downstairs head, but we want to kick his ass."

Kimimaro could easily charge us while we're talking, and he'd probably go through us like a blender through grapes, but he just tilts his head. (Adorably.) He's listening; it's a good sign.

I explain, "He wants to see what we can do. We want to make sure he's strong enough to be our front man. He's not an enemy, and we'll be working together in the future, so letting our pride make us stupid would be… stupid." 

Look, speeches aren't my job and I'm not trained on them.

"You're soft," Kimimaro accuses.

"As mochi!" Sakon agrees, shoving my shoulder affectionately. "How can someone so squishy be so full of murder, you ask? No one knows!"

"Are you from Konoha? This talk of teamwork --"

"Ta no Kuni represent, babe. Okou Clan's been here longer than the Daimyo's line. But you can't throw out a winning strategy just because the treehuggers are cringe about it."

His brilliant jade eyes narrow. "I don't understand. What exactly is your proposition?"

I see Tayuya's hand twitch like she's getting ready to swat me, but I can ignore an opportunity for innuendo. "I'm saying, instead of brawling like civilians, let's take this outside so we can go big. All of us have techniques that would drop ceiling chunks on the lunch line if we used 'em in here."

My teammates are starting to grin now. All of us except the twins have lyrics that can't be sung with indoor voices, so to speak, and the twins like to see chaos unfold even when they're not perpetrating it.

"Ah, I see what you meant, Orochimaru-sama," Kimimaro murmurs.

Much as I want to hear some fun gossip about me, we have work to do, so I have to let that go. I make an inviting gesture, starting for the door. "East field okay, Boss?"

"The north," Orochimaru counters. "It's already prepared."

So this was a test even before we started. Cool, cool. Not going to let it give me anxiety.

As we walk, I unsummon Ajisai so she can give the rest of the spood crew a heads-up. I take out my earrings. I tie on the bandanna with my Oto plate, mainly just because my bangs are getting too long but also somewhat for the reminder that we're all on the same side.

I'm pretty sure in canon Kimimaro put all these kids in intensive care, but I'm choosing to believe that was a kick-the-dog scene by author fiat, rather than the way Orochimaru actually encourages his nin to behave. Because if it was the latter, he wouldn't have any. He doesn't pay unusually well, he doesn't have nationalism to pin their loyalty to like the official villages do, and his celebrity cred has Creepy Death Metal Tongue Guy energy, which is not a mainstream kind of appeal even among killers.

If Orochimaru didn't treat his shinobi well, they -- we -- would bail. It's that simple. 

You could say that in a show aimed at teenagers, you have to pretty much paint BAD GUY on the villain's forehead, because your audience mostly doesn't do nuance. But I would like to propose an alternative explanation: 'Naruto' is Konoha propaganda.

It makes sense. Admit it.

The twins sidle closer. "What are you laughing about?" "Do you have a plan?"

If I did, would I tell you with Kimimaro two meters away? "Nah. Thinking bout Konoha."

"What about it?"

I reply in a Quoting Someone Stupid voice: "Squad cohesion is tactically important, so we raise our genin as codependent pseudo-siblings to make sure that when one of them inevitably kicks it, the others will go screaming apeshit. It's our secret weapon!"

Sakon leans his shaggy gray head against my shoulder and coos, "You wouldn't go mad with grief if I died? That hurts me in my heart."

"Take an antacid," Jirobo says. 

Sakon and I laugh (and Ukon is smiling, I can tell even with his hair flopped over his face). Tayuya makes the snorting sound she always denies is anything but annoyance. And Kimimaro looks back at us like he's never seen this species of beetle before, but he's deciding it's kind of neat, in a small-harmless-bug way. Like, not relevant to his life, but it brightens his day a bit.

Hey, that's better than I expected at this point!

The north training field is a messy place to fight. Half of it is swamp, the other half limestone rubble, pummeled into an ankle-breaking mess. But it's a good choice because it's not especially flammable, there's decent cover and variable terrain obstacles, and most of all, it's not above any unreinforced sections of the base.

Once we're inside, Orochimaru activates the barriers that will hide any flashy special effects from the communities in the surrounding hills. It's nice that he had those already drawn. We don't lose any momentum waiting. The moment the force walls go up, we go at it.

Jirobo and I open the show with area snares, me using silk to catch Kimimaro's limbs long enough for Jirobo to bring up his earth dome. Before Jirobo can even try to drain any chakra through it, Kimimaro is slicing his way out with bone knives growing from his wrists. Dramatic! Let's find out exactly how those work.

It takes about ten seconds to conclude that earthworks aren't going to help much, but the silk can slow him down a bit, since he needs to put chakra in his edges to cut it, and that chakra is lost to the silk itself. I can't beat him for speed but I don't have to when Jirobo is there to tank him up close, freeing me to snare at leisure. It's how we usually work. So we could probably wear him out if that was all he was bringing to the table. 

Bets? Yeah, me neither. 

Around then the trill of a flute winds through the bamboo, so we just lob a bunch of sharp things to obscure our retreat and get some space. Tayuya's turn. Kimimaro knows he's got to take her seriously from go, and shucks his shirt (thank you Inari Okami!) so he can bone freely.

I didn't have much hope that genjutsu would work on him, but Tayuya still pops a forehead vein when he breaks hers in less than a second. Apparently shooting your bones out through your skin all the time kinda stings.

Since she knows better than to try taijutsu on the one-man skeleton war, she has to focus on her summons.

Nobody understands her ogres. Are they sentient? Are they undead? Are they puppets? She doesn't answer questions about them. All I know is they're huge, heavy, deceptively fast, and their clubs will break steel weapons and concrete walls with ease. Kimimaro can't stab his way out of this one. He's already having to make spike armor out of his ribs. (Larch dance? Are you a pinecone, bro?) They can't take him out, but they buy me and the twins the time we need to prepare the next song on our set list.

"Hey Fatso! Catch!" Tayuya lets one of her ogres get lightly stabbed -- it's fine, a little piercing damage doesn't seem to bother them, I suspect they're clay golems actually -- and sends it leaping toward Jirobo with Kimimaro stuck to it like a burr. I don't know this combo, they must've been practicing it on their own. Sadly, I don't get to see how it was supposed to end. Kimimaro just retracts his bones and drops out of the way.

"My turn," he deadpans. He darts towards me and the twins. It's the smart move. You don't let your opponents just stand around scheming. 

Which everyone knows, so you should maybe be suspicious if they're being this obvious about it, but he doesn't respect us yet. That's fine. It's up to us to teach him.

We spring apart, leaving a cloud of orb weavers to net Kimimaro like a bycatch dolphin. They bite him where they can -- normal joro venom is no stronger than a hornet's, but a couple dozen at once and you will feel it -- then unsummon to blind him with the chakra vapor. The twins rush back in from opposite sides under that cover. By the time Kimimaro is done slashing apart the webs, they're serving up their special high-speed taijutsu. You never know from moment to moment how many punches or kicks are coming at you from where. It's fascinating to face, and I think I spot a glint of excitement in Kimimaro's eyes.

You don't get this good if you don't love fighting. The challenge if not the violence. It's just a fact.

The twins can only withstand those whirling blades for so long. I'm not lazing around watching, though. Thanks to the curse mark I can summon nonstop for a whole lot longer than this, especially when I stick to the little guys. 

"Tag out!" I yell. The twins springboard off my back as I dive in. My hands, cushioned with thick extra sticky silk, bind Kimimaro's spiky ones. We struggle weight against weight for a moment.

"You're better than I expected," he admits, hardly sounding begrudging at all.

I wink. "Futon: Naptime no Jutsu." With that, I roll backwards, pulling hard, bringing my foot up to plant in his stomach and catapult him directly into the huge pad of fluffy white cobweb Tayuya's ogres are holding. As they wrap him up like a dumpling, Kimimaro does the most incredible thing.

He laughs.

Only for a second, and he's still trying to slash his way free, but that was definitely a laugh.

"Guess you have a chance after all," Sakon says, resting his elbow on my shoulder for a second. "His sense of humor is as bad as yours." Then he strolls forward a few casual steps and snaps off a fire jutsu.

Naptime isn't just a joke jutsu. Lots of high level shinobi have ways of getting out of chakra silk bindings. But when I use the cobweb weavers, they produce a silk so loose and tangled that even a chakra scalpel stretches each strand a lot before it breaks. Multiply that by hundreds of spiders spinning hundreds of threads apiece, and cutting just can't free you fast enough. Add a little flame, and it'll go up like flash paper.

Our new lead guitarist isn't so weak a little fire can shut him down. It doesn't even curl his hair. But it does make him miss Jirobo's charge. He goes flying with a punched-out grunt.

He does a flashy triple flip and lands on top of the swamp instead of splashing down, but I still high five Jirobo as I pass.

Kimimaro straightens up slowly, locking eyes with me, and lifts his chin in a kind of sharp acknowleging jerk. "I think that's enough of a warm-up." One shoulder dislocates with a nasty wet thunk; he draws a bone sword from the joint slow and menacing. "Would you like to see my Camellia Dance?"

At the same time, I drop to a squat so I can unzip my sandals, and my teammates clear out with hissed curses. Rude. I hardly ever stone them by accident. "I'd love to. And then I'll show you a little something that wasn't in your briefing."

"I've been hoping you would." His lips curl in a devil's smile.

I draw my chakra knife with a jaunty twirl. Time to impress my future boyfriend.

Kimimaro shoots at me like a bullet. His sword blurs. I am suddenly extremely fucking busy . I'm also grinning like a loon. This is more like it! This is the good shit!

To the untrained eye, Camellia Dance is just a lot of fast stabbing. To a shinobi or a dancer (or both, hi!), the varying angles of the sword and the way he curves his body to enable it -- yes, they do call to mind the many petals and clustered stamens of the wild camellia flower.

It's hard to appreciate it properly while i'm trying to dodge it, sadly.

Damn, he really will skewer me if I fuck up!

You can't make it as a shinobi if that kind of thing throws you off too much, it's not like I'm scared exactly, if it happens it happens. Makes it tricky to plan my next move, though. All my attention is caught up trying to deflect these random stabs, which are so fast that you can't decide to block, you just do it or you get boned. I'm darting and bouncing back and back, trying to get space to think, and he won't give it to me!

Still, a glimmer squeaks out of my brain anyway: the human mind is not built for random.

The opposite, actually.

The human brain is a pattern recognition machine.

Kimimaro has got to be following a diagram in his mind, and it only looks random because I can't see the picture. But like. What's it gonna be a picture of? Three guesses, and the first two don't count.

Unfocus my eyes a little, relax my shoulders, let instinct handle it. This isn't a fight, it's a dance . I can do that.

(I've been doing it for longer than -- for years, for lives -- I kill, I dance, I bleed --)

Between one breath and the next, I'm matching him like a mirror, my chakra knife knocking bone chips off the point of his sword until a crack shoots down it and he disengages with a cry of disbelief.

"How?"

"I saw your camellia. It's beautiful," I say happily.

"Hm." He narrows his eyes.

"My turn to lead." Deep breath; I twist my chakra into earth mode; I roll it down my legs with a rhythmic judder, making the dirt around my bare feet spew puffs of debris in a radial pattern.

And I let the beat D R O P.

Stone blocks jump into the air. In the split stillness of hangtime I see his eyes widen with the realization I led him into the boulder field. 

Then it's all in motion. Leaping and dropping, a swirl here and a curve there, chaos at a glance but if you can hear the music playing in my head it's a real show! Kimimaro opens his mouth to say something but loses track of it as he has to deflect three rocks from three different angles at once, and almost misses the one that whirls around his ankles like a cat excited for dinnertime. I swing an arm, twirl stomp stomp, body roll, throw an artistically angled spray of gravel for Kimimaro to leap over.

The ground is thrumming to my footsteps as I dance. Stunted trees shiver, throwing leaves, and the swamp draws moiré patterns in ripples. Of course I'm trying to hit him, but more than that I'm trying to draw him into my song.

Once on a mission, the first time I used this, Tayuya told me if I called it something corny like Meteor Storm she'd light a signal flare in my underwear drawer. I had to tell her it doesn't have a name. It's just me dancing with the earth. Drumming and feeling the seismic reply, slinging stone by making it part of my chakra. Like Kimimaro's kenjutsu, it's not just a combat technique, it's an art performance.

Of course, it's also lethal as fuck if you can't adapt. But I'm sure he'll work out how to dance with me the way I danced with him --

Bonk .

He.

Nope.

He, uh, he didn't work it out. Shit.

This wasn't supposed to happen!

Chapter 5: IRL Bad News

Summary:

That wasn't supposed to happen

Note from Melukilan, 8/3/2025:  There are more chapters of other works, which I will be posting.  However, my cowriter, Jesse Garnet Hajicek, jumpingjackflash, died of complications from a stroke on June 19th, 2025.  
He was best known for his novel The God Eaters and webcomic Metanoia.  He also wrote a wide variety of fan fiction and many short fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and adventure stories. He wrote the queers he wanted to read about: proactive, neurodivergent, alive, and happy.  He influenced so many people, and I am so glad I had a chance to know him and write stories with him.  
In addition to written activism, he participated in a number of heists which moved queer people from unsafe environments to safer environments.  I personally benefitted from his queer relocation and rehabilitation services after college left me pancaked like a possum by the freeway.
His memorial service will be on his 53rd birthday (August 23rd, 2025), in Northfield, MN. Given Jesse's many friendships and connections, we ask that those wishing to attend contact his spouse Seebs (via email: [email protected]) beforehand.
All who knew him are welcome to reach out. In lieu of flowers or other gifts, please consider donations or other support (such as volunteering) to help protect those in need. If you want a specific charity suggestion, he was particularly fond of The Bridge For Youth (https://bridgeforyouth.org/). Feel free to contact Seebs directly if you have questions or comments. We plan to make more of his writing available online as permanently as possible in the future.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of The Jumper Project