"As baffling as it is, you were admitted with critically low levels of oxygen in your blood. That caused the nose bleed, but it wouldn't have caused the broken blood vessel in your eyes. It could contribute to that of course, those with high blood pressure or are taking blood-thinning medications have an increased chance of bursting a vessel. Despite looking like something out of a nightmare, luckily the condition is not serious at all. It's just a sign of strain, usually from something like coughing or vomiting. Were you doing either of those things?"
When the girl shook her head, the Hokage rolled her eyes. "Of course not. Well, either way you were recuperating by the time you dragged your skinny self to the nonemergency room and startled that poor receptionist. It wouldn't have taken much longer for normal respiration to have restored your oxygen levels if you hadn't been panicking. What were you doing, by the way?"
"MumBleMumblE".
"What was that?" Tsunade cupped her hand around an ear, smiling rather wickedly now that she knew there was some dirt. "I didn't quite hear you."
"Sealing experiments, trying to figure out the Hiraishin," she mumbled slightly below the hearing range for humans. Tsunade must have been a dog or something, because her face twitched.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Aiko shook her head, meekly. It had been stupid to keep her project under wraps. It was just… it would have been so humiliating to have tried and failed. If she had told anyone and then been unable to make the high-level, personalized seal to perform it, she would have felt like they were judging her. Like she was just a stupid child who had aspirations above her abilities.
Now she seemed like a stupid child who didn't know when to share dangerous experiments with someone who could supervise the process.
"Uzumaki will be the death of me." Tsunade tossed the clipboard onto the end of the bed as if she didn't have enough energy to care anymore. "You will be released tomorrow morning. At that time, you will report directly to my office and demonstrate this skill for me. Have you told anyone that you were attempting to learn that?"
Aiko shook her head silently, mildly ashamed of that. But not enough that she would tell anyone if she'd had another chance. She had to swallow before speaking. "No. Jiraiya gave me notes from an old student, and his notations and process of re-inventing it were all included. I used parts of those notes as a reference this last month, and I really wanted to try my hand at it."
Something strange wavered in Tsunade's eyes. That made sense—the Hiraishin would be a sentimental topic for her. It had been invented by her grand-uncle, and the last user had been the student who broke her teammate's heart by dying young. The Hiraishin hadn't saved him. But it was still a powerful tool. The Hokage sighed. "That was a bad decision, but it serves our purposes well. Keep it that way."
After she was left alone, Aiko had a lot of time to think about what had gone wrong. As that was also tinged with what had gone spectacularly right, she wasn't entirely depressed.
Now that she wasn't being questioned, she had time to realize just how pleased she was with herself for making the Hiraishin work. She'd never admit to that feeling out loud. It would be highly inappropriate to be anything less than demure and humble, especially since she hadn't really had to work as hard as she should have for the technique. She had been able to basically crib from Minato's notes and avoid the problems he had in tailoring the technique and had been able to use his changes as a model. The actual elemental changes had been inspired by the conversion seal Jiraiya had designed for her.
Really, very little of the seal was her own original research. Of course, all of those resources would have been useless if she hadn't happened to be a cerebral individual with much more education than any of her peers. Having access to even a basic education from a world that thought in a totally different way gave her twice as much material to use as reference points where someone like Jiraiya would have to come up with ideas that were entirely new to the Elemental Countries on their own.
But hey, it was still really cool.
'The whole 'passing out and bleeding from my face' thing was slightly less cool, though,' she acknowledged in the safety of her own head. The symptoms Tsunade had described fit in with her theory that the Hiraishin involved displacement of air and other molecules, however. She must not have been engaging in perfect displacement, either through inexperience or distraction as she had gotten excited and light-headed.
'Come to think of it, being light-headed might help explain why I was giddy and less rational,' she realized. 'So perhaps the physiological reaction to the Hiraishin seals wasn't entirely a side-effect of the justu so much as that I was …doing it badly.'
Well. That was embarrassing.
This would require some experimentation. Either it was a problem of learning her limit—how many times and what distance she could use the Hiraishin without negative repercussions—or it was a problem of perfecting the technique.
In either case, it was thoroughly possible to acclimatize oneself to function more effectively with lower oxygen levels. That was how people in high elevation lived, after all. Whether this was an irritation she would need to work around permanently or one that she could eventually fix through better control of her technique, gradually repeated exposure would help make the symptoms less severe.
When she met with Tsunade the next morning, she was actually ushered into a conference room she had never seen before. The table was loaded with what appeared to be breakfast and her entire notes from the past month and a half. She took a seat without prompting and rolled a pear in her palm consideringly. Tsunade didn't seem to care one way or the other. She was cutting up some sort of rolled egg concoction and staring blearily into the depths of her coffee.
The fruit was sweet and juicy, wetting her lips when she bit into it. Aiko closed her eyes to enjoy it better.
"I don't suppose the light of day makes what you told me yesterday make more sense?"
She opened her eyes unwillingly to gauge Tsunade's expression. Her voice had sounded so tired. It was strange. "I'm not sure what you mean," she confessed.
The older woman gave a deep sigh. Tsunade unfolded a blank piece of paper and pushed a bottle of ink across the table. "Demonstrate."
So she did, easily inking the seal she had made three times just yesterday. The Hokage tugged it out of her grip and examined it closely, closing one eye to squint at some of the sigils. When she seemed satisfied, the paper was tucked into a folder. Then she picked out another piece of paper from the same folder and set it on the table.
"Uzu… Aiko.." She propped her chin up on her palm. "Look at this, and tell me what you see."
Confused, Aiko took the paper. Her eyes widened.
"It's my official statistics report."
She hadn't actually seen it before. She eagerly ran her gaze over the page, cataloguing the information Konoha had collected on her. The skills breakdown was particularly interesting.
Ninjutsu 2
Taijutsu 2.5
Genjutsu 1.5
Intelligence 4.5
Strength 2
Speed 3.5
Stamina 2.5
Hand Seals 4
Which gave her a total of… 22.5 out of 40. That was actually really respectable. Wasn't Kakashi-shishou's score something in the mid-thirties?
"That paper has not been adjusted to account for either your chakra chains or the Hiraishin, as they would skew the data. Do you see the problem, Uzumaki?" She didn't wait for an answer. "When I look at this sheet, I see a damn good Chuunin or a respectable Jounin who would excel in certain roles. And that is a major problem."
Well, that wasn't what she'd expected.
"You're already known for those chains that skew your otherwise lackluster ninjutsu scores disproportionately high, but the Hiraishin is in a completely different league. Aiko." Tsunade caught her chin and tilted it up. Aiko was so close that she breathed in the other woman's heady floral perfume.
She couldn't look away, not even if her chin had been released. Up close, those amber eyes were strikingly intense.
"You are not anywhere near the level you need to be in order to deal with the type of opponents you will draw using the Hiraishin. Your skills are skewed towards the training you've had as a tracker type."
Aiko couldn't deny that. Although she had worked on her own to master the few ninjutsu shishou had given her and to make her taijutsu high Chuunin levels, shishou had been the one to work her hard on speed and endurance. She could track down damn near any runner.
"So far, you have been compensating for your relatively small and underpowered ninjutsu collection with your intellect. That's a good tool. But spitting a little lightning isn't going to put down the type of shinobi who want to take a swing at a Konoha nin using Hiraishin. I don't think you understand what everyone else thinks of that technique. It is internationally reviled. Everyone will want you dead. "
She swallowed, hard. Then she averted her eyes as best as she could without tugging her face away from Tsunade's grip.
Though she couldn't see it, she could hear the sigh that whooshed out of the older woman. "Listen to me, girl. You do not have the hitting power, either in taijutsu or in ninjutsu to take down S-class ninja who will flock to kill you. I'm sure you can see your weakest points as well as I can. Some of them are more crucial than others. For example, you can survive without being able to cast genjutsu, since you can break them well, but you are pitifully weak in the physical sense. Isn't that why your arm was broken on your last mission?"
Embarrassment turned her face red with heat. She had been stupid. If she had stopped to think, she would have known that using Hiraishin would make her a target. It was probably actually the specific reason behind the decision to hide the twins' parentage. Every Academy student knew that Minato had ripped through entire armies with the Thunder God technique. Rock would want her dead quickly.
"I see you understand." Tsunade released her, turning her face to the side to avoid Aiko's eyes. She cleared her throat. "I had been planning to send you to Sand in a week, you know."
Aiko lifted her head, interested despite herself. Why Sand?
As if the Hokage had heard her thoughts, Tsunade continued, "It doesn't matter, unless you're taking the mission, which we will see about after a re-evaluation. Uzumaki, I absolutely forbid you to use or speak of the Hiraishin until such a time as I clear it, unless it is an absolute emergency. Hatake is out of the village, and will be for weeks. That's a problem for you."
'I didn't know shishou was gone…' It hadn't been that long since she'd seen him last, after all. 'Then again, it's probably an ANBU thing again,' she realized. That would explain why he hadn't told her he was leaving town.
"I'm giving you a two week cram period before I consider you for any missions, Uzumaki. If I were you, I would find a short-term mentor in either ninjutsu or taijutsu. Two weeks won't make you an S-class shinobi, but that might be enough for you to build muscle mass and work out some of the kinks in your taijutsu. I thoroughly expect to hear you've been on the training grounds at least eight hours a day. When Hatake is back, ask him for an upper class jutsu or two. Understood?"
She nodded silently. It made sense.
"I think it's time I told you something." Tsunade tapped her fingers on the table. "Didn't you think it was strange that Jiraiya, a man you barely knew, would entrust you with notes from a former student with the Hiraishin in them?" She watched the girl carefully. She'd half-expected this outcome, but she was still a little surprised to see the girl shake her head. Tsunade narrowed her eyes, cataloguing the tiny tells the girl was giving off. It was easy to see that Aiko was mildly uncomfortable—her gaze wandered away from making eye contact, and her pulse jumped in her neck. But at least she knew she couldn't lie to the Hokage.
"You knew," she said slowly. Aiko nodded.
Tsunade closed her eyes. "I see. Did Hatake tell you?"
"No. But it's obvious, isn't it? Naruto looks exactly like the Fourth Hokage. It's amazing that he hasn't noticed."
A good, truthful answer, but that wasn't everything. "Do you have any questions?" At the negative reply, she sighed. "Fine, then. Get out. I have a meeting coming up."
~~~
"Gai-senpai?"
The man turned in unison with his apprentice, eyebrows raising impossibly high. They'd hardly spoken before, after all, and she had never been the one to initiate more than pleasantries. Aiko gave a short bow to break eye contact.
"I was hoping to ask if I could train with you while Kakashi-shishou is out on a long mission. My taijutsu needs work, and I know that your taijutsu abilities outstrip even shishou's."
Shishou might actually be cranky with her for this, she knew during that first workout while Gai beat the absolute crap out of her and shouted cheerful encouragements. She wasn't entirely certain if the older men had a very strange friendship or if Gai really did just butt in on Kakashi-shishou's life. Either way, it wasn't really her place to intervene or use that connection to her advantage.
But the Hokage had been right. She needed to bring her other skills up to at least A-class in order to survive being known for an S-class skill. Solid B-class taijutsu would get her killed in a heartbeat. And Aiko wasn't completely blind to her shishou's faults as a teacher. He didn't seem to know how to teach some things. Being a literal genius at the shinobi arts didn't necessarily translate into being a good teacher of them, after all. That was why people like Iruka and Ebisu were so valued.
Gai was a little disconcerting to work with, however. He had the most formidable force of personality she'd ever encountered, topping even Naruto. The experience reminded her of times when she'd walked too close to a civilian teenager boy who'd apparently bathed in his cologne and the smell felt like a solid wall, burning her eyes and nose. The cologne wasn't bad, it was just too much for the human senses to properly compute, so her brain sort of flopped helplessly and tried to shut out the excess stimuli.
She did genuinely like him, however. He actually reminded her of a Daoist monk. He didn't care at all for convention or reputation, and it was impossible to forget the philosophy he articulated whenever someone seemed to be flagging (or when they were doing well, or before practice…). A man who cared about worldly things would not be caught dead in that jumpsuit. If you switched out mentions of "youth" for "the way", it'd be a perfect fit.
'Would it be sacrilegious to try to rewrite a sacred text?'
Aiko definitely did not have perfect recall and enough specific memories to reproduce the 'Classic of the Way of Power' in a state anywhere like it must have been when she'd read it, but she remembered some of the metaphor and meaning. Something is better than nothing, right?
She had to abandon that train of thought when Gai grabbed her wrist and sternly shook his head at her. "You are thinking too much! All your being must be focused on hitting the post."
Aiko valiantly resisted groaning, glancing down at her bleeding hands. She'd been set to doing this as soon as she was too shaky to meet Lee's blows in the second spar of the day.
This wasn't a training regimen Kakashi proscribed to, as far as she knew. Hitting posts was so old fashioned! Kunoichi and ninjutsu specialists rarely needed to callus their hands the same way that taijutsu specialists did. In fact, the roughened hands could be a detriment for her fingers' flexibility or the ability to blend in as a civilian cover.
But it would improve her physical strength, one of her lowest skill scores. And she could hardly turn her nose up at the training Gai offered when she had asked him.
~~~
The neat pile of books and notes on her low table painted a confusing picture that didn't entirely mesh with the quiet, professional girl she had spoken to earlier that day.
Shizune had gone out drinking with a few ANBU friends, leaving Tsunade and Tonton at the mansion alone. Tonton was sleeping, snorting and kicking at the soft, circular rug designated for his use.
If she could just stop mulling over her inconclusive analysis, Tsunade would have been sleeping as well. She had more than enough on her plate to be thinking about something as minor as this. But something just wasn't right about Uzumaki Aiko. Or at least, she didn't know exactly how to pick apart how the oddities about the girl tugged at her attention. The notes from Uzumaki had been impressive enough. She'd expected that—both Anko and Jiraiya had noted separately that she had significant natural ability. That was practically her inheritance, however, so it hadn't been entirely surprising until she'd actually parsed through just what was so strange about the notes that bothered her.
They were methodical, perhaps too methodical to have come from a teenager. It had taken Tsunade a while to analyze the pattern Aiko seemed to utilize, and it definitely wasn't how she would have been taught to experiment with fuinjutsu. Tsunade had never even heard of someone recommending the system of testing that Aiko used. It was full of odd words like 'controls' and 'blind' that didn't make any sense in context. Why would Aiko think to refer to unaltered seals as 'controls'? What was 'blind' about not knowing which seal she was testing? That was better described as 'just plain stupid'. At least, she had thought so until she realized that there was sound logic behind each of those choices and other strange ones throughout the notes. It was a completely foreign way of thinking about seals, and the girl had apparently dreamed it all up on her own so nonchalantly that it didn't even occur to her to explain what her terms meant.
Aiko had been noted by her primary teacher, one Umino Iruka, as having high intelligence, an independent personality, and a tendency to get bored and distracted during class when the material was too easy which seemed to manifest as doodling and writing in a diary. Judging by that, Sensei's choice to place her with Hatake made perfect sense. They had a lot in common, aside from the diary bit.
But those reports hadn't indicated intelligence anywhere near this level. Which meant either that Umino was incompetent, or the girl had been downplaying her mental capabilities.
Tsunade had tested that by showing the girl the statistics with her adjusted intelligence score and not commenting on it to see if Aiko would think it odd. 4.5 was unreasonably high for a teenager, after all. Intelligence didn't just measure natural mental proclivities, but how well they had been developed and honed. Either the girl had an enormous ego, or she'd had no reason to think the elevated score was unusual.
Judging by the books Yamanaka Inoichi had borrowed from his daughter to show her, it was the latter. He'd been impressed when little Ino claimed that the books were written by her friend. He'd been mildly alarmed when he'd realized just how many of those books there were. That was the work of years of writing. Tsunade had flipped through a couple herself and was easily able to see what had so alarmed Inoichi. They were obviously not the work of an adolescent psyche, and the writing project must have started when the girl was still in the Academy.
It was no surprise that her teacher had noted she was bored, Tsunade realized. The girl had to be a genius on Hatake's level to have been this articulate at such a young age. When a prodigy cropped up in their ranks, (and a real prodigy, not just a genius like that Nara boy or how they'd gauged Aiko to be) they wouldn't be left to languish in the Academy. It was a waste of resources. Tsunade wasn't certain if she thought the girl had been benefitted or damaged by slipping through the cracks for so long.
That, combined with what little she had managed to conclude of the girl's personality in person, did constitute something of a picture. Aiko had taken criticism well, proving that although she had to be at least a little overconfident (trying an S class fuinjutsu without guidance proved that bit) she wasn't arrogant and prideful. She hadn't balked at a superior giving her unpleasant advice.
The analysis was even stranger in juxtaposition to her brother. Tsunade was definitely fonder of Naruto. Unlike his sister, he was an open book with big dreams and a strong emotional intelligence. He was empathetic and sensitive to others, and almost had a sixth sense for cutting to the quick of their deepest fears. Naruto was a true inheritor of the Will of Fire, and if Tsunade had anything to do with it, he would be her successor to the position of Hokage when he was strong enough. It was almost unthinkable that he would fail to become an excellent shinobi, despite his lackluster academic performance. He had a strong drive to succeed.
'I wish I knew what was motivating his sister,' Tsunade frowned. The only reasons she could think of for a child to hide their intelligence would be related to avoiding excess responsibility and danger through premature promotions. But the way that Aiko worked spoke of a strong work ethic, which just didn't fit with the other information. Was it just an attempt to impress her sensei? It had been noted more than once that Aiko idolized Hatake. If that wasn't a hint that Aiko was a poor judge of character, Tsunade didn't know what was. He was a good shinobi, but a very broken person.
Personally, Tsunade thought it was adorable that he'd finally found someone more socially inept to mentor. She rubbed at tired eyes and made a mental note to have those books returned to Ino in the morning with orders not to let Aiko know they had been out of her hands. There would be no point in letting her know that others were poking around, after all.
As much as high level shinobi were often highly secretive and private people, Tsunade didn't like to have shinobi rapidly rising through the ranks that she couldn't sum up at a glance. Unknown elements complicated her ability to assign the right person to the right tasks.
Tonton cracked an eye open and sleepily got to his feet, snuffling quietly as he trailed behind Tsunade to her bedroom.
"I bet Shizune is closing down the bar," Tsunade muttered to the pig. He crawled up onto his little bed and collapsed. She let herself smile at the sight—a tired piggy was adorable—and tossed her green haori onto the chair beside her bed, fingers tugging on the obi securing her gray top.
She could worry about that later. Sleep was more important right now.