The next day, Seina handed the fanny pack over to Sasuke along with the kunai pouch. She wished she hadn't asked Sasuke for anything in return because he clearly couldn't cook. She glanced at the porridge, or whatever it was supposed to be, and caught Naruto's eye as he twirled his spoon in the air, watching breakfast jiggle with a horrified expression. Sasuke was eating his own bowl in silence, as if unfazed.
"Maybe it tastes good," she said internally to Naruto. "Some dishes look like a nightmare but turn out to be edible."
"Oh, really? Well, you try it, genius."
She scooped up a bit on her spoon and slowly put it in her mouth, struggling not to spit it out. Naruto felt her emotions and bit his tongue to keep from laughing at her. It was indescribable. Lukewarm, lumpy, and liquid at the same time, bland but with a cardboard aftertaste she couldn't place, and something else that was indescribably awful. She couldn't stomach it.
"Nee-chan, we need a distraction to get rid of this infernal dish."
"Okay. I'll create a distraction and make the contents disappear. We'll pretend we've eaten it. Try to eat, even if it's just a spoonful, so he doesn't notice."
"Ugh... Fine."
She chewed slowly what was in her mouth and vanished it before it could ball up. She focused and made a thud sound on the kitchen window. The three of them turned at once. Seizing the moment, she made the food disappear. Naruto brought the bowl to his lips as if gulping it down, and she put the spoon back in her mouth.
"Not bad. What's the dish called?"
Sasuke looked at her strangely.
"It was cereal."
"Ah..."
"Seriously!?"
"I'm going to get dressed," Sasuke said, gathering his things and cleaning them in the sink.
Seina and Naruto stayed at the table, watching him go up the stairs. As soon as they heard his footsteps on the third floor, they jumped up and ran to the fridge, which was actually a magical pantry. They ate some toast with cold cuts and some pieces of fruit.
"Never again," Naruto said, his face slightly green. "How did he manage to turn milk and cereal into such... a thing?"
"I don't know, but we need to give him other tasks besides cooking, or he'll kill us."
"Are you ready or what?" Sasuke asked, appearing at the door minutes later.
"Yeah, let's go."
They walked to the training ground. Naruto filled the silence with his usual monologue, complaining and talking excitedly about training at the same time. Seina didn't quite understand it. Sasuke, on the other hand, completely ignored it. Kakashi-sensei, who now was only half an hour late, appeared halfway with a bulging bag. Naruto approached to see what was inside but the jonin easily dodged him.
"Ah, ah. None of that," he clicked his tongue.
"What do you have there, Kakashi-sensei?"
"Maa... You'll see soon enough," he said, smiling with his eye. "You'll love it."
What they were supposed to love were a couple of chains with handcuffs at both ends. Seina picked one up and looked at the jonin, wondering what he could be planning. Whenever they trained with his crazy plans, they ended up exhausted, although they learned much more than they had initially imagined.
"I want you three to chain yourselves together with one of these. By the ankles," he grinned maliciously.
"Nani!?" Naruto shouted. "What do you want to do, you pervert!?"
Sasuke chuckled and then took the chain from his hand to chain one ankle. Seina sighed, took the other end, and chained herself to Sasuke. Naruto groaned in frustration but chained himself on the other side.
"And now what?"
"Now you'll try to hold out for half an hour, and we'll fight without dirty tricks: only taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu. If I knock all three of you out, I win."
"And if we win?"
"I'll treat you to yakiniku on our next outing."
They looked at each other, realizing what they were up against, and then formed a circle to talk amongst themselves. Seina let her clones handle studying textbooks, practicing water ninjutsu from the other day, and honing their shuriken aim. Naruto, not to be outdone, copied her.
"Seina-nee? Can you silence our conversation?" Naruto asked.
"Of course!" She moved her index finger slightly and activated the Muffliato spell. "Okay, guys, he can't hear us."
"He can't hear us?" Sasuke asked, surprised, then gave her a knowing look. "I see. I guess he can read lips so let's try not to show our faces."
They nodded and leaned their heads closer to cover each other's.
"What are we going to do?"
"Well, we need a way to communicate," she thought aloud. "Naruto, you and I can talk mentally, but Sasuke is a problem."
"You two can talk mentally?" Sasuke asked again. "You know what? I don't care. Do you have any ideas?"
"Several, actually... We could use some kind of spoken code to refer to a certain movement, but as we use it, he'll anticipate us," she told them. "We could also use imperceptible signals, like I've read the ANBU do, but being chained next to each other makes it less effective. I would have to be looking at you to know what you're trying to tell me."
"Isn't there some way to connect with Sasuke?" Naruto asked, and they both turned to look at him, surprised. "If we could talk to him mentally, problem solved, right?"
"Is it possible?" Sasuke asked, his eyes lighting up.
"Mmm... I've never tried it, to be honest," she murmured.
She had never needed to do something like that before. The only time she had been connected to someone was during Occlumency classes and with Naruto. How could she achieve it? She would obviously have to enter Sasuke's mind and create some kind of mental bridge between them, but she didn't know if it could end up being permanent or if it would require a lot of magic... She didn't know. For the first time in a long time, she was at a loss.
"Do you mind if I try something, Sasuke?"
Sasuke indicated for her to go ahead, and she looked into his eyes. Suddenly, she was in Sasuke's mind, which had no protection except for the innate defenses of any mind, and even those seemed weaker than normal. For someone like her, those barriers were virtually paper-thin. Fortunately, she knew how she was connected to Naruto, so she went to that part of Sasuke's mind and tried to create a door between Sasuke and her. It took her longer than expected. Sasuke's mind couldn't reject her because he didn't even know she was there, but it also didn't contribute anything to helping create that door. After minutes of flooding Sasuke's brain with her magic, the rune-filled door didn't vanish. She exited Sasuke's mind, leaving the door open, and returned to reality, then immediately entered her own mind. To her surprise, she had succeeded. She wondered if any wizard or witch could do it with someone without natural barriers, if they tried.
"Sasuke?" she asked him mentally, and he jumped at hearing her in his head.
"Seina?" he asked, looking at her face, and she nodded.
"Are you talking to him?" Naruto asked, and Sasuke jumped again.
Though Naruto wasn't directly connected to Sasuke, he was connected to her, and she was connected to Sasuke. That meant, as long as she kept both connections open, they could hear each other through her, even though Sasuke thought Naruto sounded "further away" than her.
"Dobe? This is incredible," Sasuke said, impressed, and since they were in his mind, they could easily perceive it.
"And now what do we do to fight without him knocking us out for half an hour?" she asked. "We're still chained."
"Are we going to start one of these days?" a voice asked behind them, and they turned at once.
Naruto waved him off, and Kakashi-sensei sighed, pulling out his porn book. Seina sensed the laugh Sasuke wasn't going to let escape at their sensei's exasperation. Naruto, who also sensed it, smiled. Then she began to hatch a plan, and as soon as she thought it, Sasuke and Naruto knew it before she even explained it mentally.
"Okay. We can use genjutsu, ninjutsu, and taijutsu. There are 3 of us, and we can combine 2 of our chakra natures," she said.
"I've managed to perform all 3 jutsus, though I need some practice," Sasuke informed her even before she asked how he was doing with his lightning nature ninjutsus. "Do you want to combine 2 attacks each time, varying so he can't predict it?"
"Exactly. Let's put attack 1: Naruto and I combine wind and water, and you use genjutsu. Kakashi-sensei dodges it. Attack 2: taijutsu from Naruto and you, and I use genjutsu. Something like that."
"And clones to distract and lead him where we want," Naruto said when he grasped her improvised idea.
"Sounds perfect. We need one person to lead our efforts, otherwise, it will be chaos... Shall we leave it to chance, Seina? Okay."
They planned a few combinations and then turned around. Kakashi-sensei instantly closed the book. Clearly, he had been waiting for them. He observed their confident stances. Naruto's arrogant smile, Sasuke's confident eyes and her raised eyebrow in challenge. She saw Kakashi-sensei smile.
"Alright then. Let's begin."
"Before anything, Kakashi-sensei. Can you choose a number: 1, 2, or 3?"
Kakashi-sensei raised an eyebrow, not understanding why they wanted him to, but he played along.
"2."
"It's your turn, Sasuke. Good luck."
"What a lucky bastard!" Naruto said, then ignored Sasuke's thought that he had chosen number 1 before the others.
"We're ready."
Kakashi-sensei lunged at them without hesitation, and they all jumped back as they felt Sasuke's thoughts. They spent some time defending themselves with taijutsu against Kakashi-sensei's attacks, as planned, while they got used to fighting as one and let Sasuke lead the whole group. The jonin quickly noticed their coordination, narrowing his single eye, and then changed tactics. He disappeared. Naruto and Seina's ears caught nothing, and Sasuke urged them to hide.
Seina noticed the genjutsu first. The fully open connection between the three provided them with the same protection. Seina heard the rustle of a leaf behind them, and they all jumped off the branch, watching as a few kunais struck. Kakashi-sensei followed suit, leaping after them. Sasuke knew what he was going to do, so she raised his hands to use her long-range suiton jutsu.
"Suiton: suidan no jutsu!"
"Raikyū!"
"Kage bunshin no jutsu!"
Kakashi-sensei's single eye widened in surprise as he saw the massive water cannon with a giant lightning sphere inside heading straight for his face. As they thought, he swapped places with a branch and then attacked them from behind. Naruto's clones intercepted the attack, protecting their blind spot. Sasuke used the paralyzing genjutsu, and while Kakashi-sensei easily dispelled it, Naruto's clones taunted him while Naruto himself launched a tornado of wind in his direction followed by another water cannon. However, the typhoon wasn't as easy to create as the first attack, and Kakashi-sensei escaped again by swapping with one of Naruto's clones.
They heard the air between the jonin's fingers as he formed seals above their heads, and Sasuke urged them to use shunshin and hide from him. They escaped a second before a fireball intercepted the ground they had just stood on. They caught their breath behind a rock, hidden by a bush, and Seina noticed the genjutsu again, much more powerful than before. Sasuke and Naruto closed their eyes, taking refuge in her mind, until Seina dispelled the illusion by disrupting the chakra. A click indicated they had given away their position.
They jumped again, and as they did, Seina had an idea that Sasuke used. She used the water jutsu again, making it seem like she was trying to hit Kakashi-sensei when all she really wanted to do was flood the clearing where they were fighting. Naruto promptly distracted the jonin while Sasuke threw senbon surrounding the terrain, hidden among the bushes, connected to each other with conducting wire. Kakashi-sensei's taijutsu made them retreat just where they wanted, and as soon as he stepped back on the ground, they used shunshin to disappear just as Sasuke electrified the puddle his opponent was standing on.
Caught off guard, Kakashi-sensei froze for a second, and they managed to surprise him with taijutsu appearing from the cloud caused by the clones that had been electrocuted by Sasuke. They only made contact with a couple of punches to his ribs when Kakashi-sensei's kick sent them flying back into the trees. Naruto hugged them both and then switched places with one of the clones they had hidden elsewhere beforehand.
Breathless, Sasuke ordered them to distract the jonin while they recovered for a few minutes hidden under genjutsu. Nearly 5 minutes later, Kakashi-sensei got fed up with fighting dozens of clones and disappeared. Sasuke made them get up abruptly, and Seina heard the almost imperceptible sound of earth rolling from a hand at the same time. Naruto jumped a fraction too late, and a hand grabbed his ankle from the ground. At the same time, Sasuke threw a shuriken charged with electricity, and Kakashi-sensei dodged it, allowing Naruto to escape from being buried. They used shunshin again, but Kakashi-sensei was already there when they appeared. Seina barely understood what was going to happen when it happened, and she lost consciousness.
When she regained consciousness, her head was throbbing. Sasuke was sitting in the grass, looking irritated, while Naruto was snoring next to her.
"We lost, didn't we? Ugh."
"As soon as I wake up Naruto, we'll talk about your defeat."
Seina groaned.
"You don't need to rub it in our faces."
"Consider it karma for using my book against me," Kakashi-sensei laughed, yes, laughed, unrepentantly, and Sasuke shot him a murderous look, but she could only smile. "Naruto, hey. Naruto!"
She watched as Naruto woke up after Kakashi-sensei nudged him with his foot. He looked around, alert, and then realized he had been unconscious. He lay back in the grass after letting out a deep groan.
"We almost had him!"
"Not bad. I have to admit you've impressed me quite a bit," the jonin congratulated them, with a surprised tone of voice. "I knew with Seina in the mix it wouldn't be hard for you two to agree, but I thought it would take longer for you to coordinate your attacks considering the limitation of movement. You made good use of your knowledge of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu, but you focused your entire strategy on one card."
"What do you mean?" Naruto asked.
"Kakashi-sensei got rid of Seina, once he figured out how we were communicating, and then our plan went to hell because there was no plan B," Sasuke summarized, frustrated.
"Exactly. Even though you two tried to cover for Seina, you were really up against it: not only is she the only one who can mix her chakra nature with yours to enhance attacks, she's also the only one who knows medical ninjutsu, the only one immune to genjutsu, and... the only one capable of connecting all of you mentally among yourselves. Am I wrong?"
The three remained silent, which basically meant they were admitting he was right.
"Now that we know this. What could you have done so that Seina's loss wouldn't mean the end of your team attack?"
"If Sasuke and I could get out of genjutsu faster, we wouldn't need Seina-nee's immunity."
"Alright. Improvement number 1. Anything else, Sasuke?"
"We could learn medical ninjutsu, like Seina, to avoid the weakness of having only one medic on the team."
"We could have communicated Sasuke and I without needing Seina."
"Improvements 2 and 3. Not bad," Kakashi-sensei nodded. "When you do real missions, it's very likely that in combat one of your teammates will fall. If this had happened outside the village, you'd be dead. I'm not saying this to discourage you, but to make you see the points you need to improve. So far, these past few weeks, I've seen three genin training very hard on their own, but not much as a team. Even now, Seina's clones are studying cytology by themselves, and Naruto practices ninjutsu alone."
"And what can we do?" she asked, feeling disheartened as she realized he was right.
"Easy. You need to eliminate those weaknesses I mentioned and work as a team. You also need to train to know what to do if one or two of you become unconscious. What would you do if you found yourselves in enemy territory carrying both of your teammates? Not only that," Kakashi-sensei explained, "it's not the same if Seina were alone, taking care of you two, as it is if it were Naruto or Sasuke. You need to find and study these differences. Before undertaking a C-rank mission or higher, you need to truly work as a team."
"So... we're not going on a C-rank mission tomorrow, are we?" Naruto sighed despondently.
"Let's do this. I'll give you five days to train and repeat the exercise. If you manage to last half an hour next time, the following day I'll accept a C-rank mission."
"Yatta!" Naruto exclaimed, then turned to look at them. "What are we waiting for? We need to train!"
Sasuke, Seina, and Naruto began discussing what they planned to do, then continued training. That day was the toughest of all in terms of training. Until now, they had never practiced so many skills at once, and suddenly, they found themselves fighting as a team using everything at their disposal. Except magic. Still, despite not even an hour passing since they stopped fighting, she realized how much she had learned that same afternoon.
"We have to take advantage of living together to train more," Sasuke told them. "Kakashi is right when he says we can't rely 100% on just one strategy, but I wouldn't dismiss training all our available skills right now either."
"You want to learn to fight connected mentally," she affirmed, and Sasuke nodded. "Actually, I was going to suggest that too. In many situations, being able to speak mentally would be invaluable. We just have to avoid relying on it."
"Exactly. I was thinking about our weak points. In my case, it's my chakra reserves. In Naruto's case, it's genjutsu, and in your case, it's taijutsu."
"It's curious," she mused aloud, lying on the couch like a rag. "If you think about it, among the three of us, we cover the team's weaknesses."
"Ugh... I don't know how you guys still feel like talking about this," Naruto complained, sitting on her legs.
"We're talking about this, dobe, because Kakashi-sensei has basically told us that we could potentially become a great team. As Seina just realized, we're a very balanced team. Look at the other teams, how many of them have accomplished in less than a month what we've done?" Sasuke rolled his eyes, surprisingly speaking more than ever before.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it? To become strong. You said you wanted to kill someone. I guess you were talking about your brother..."
Naruto raised his head abruptly, looking first at her and then at Sasuke.
"Is that true?"
Sasuke's expression darkened at her words, but Seina wanted to clear the air. Sasuke was on the verge of becoming obsessed with becoming stronger. Not only because he thought about the team but because of his desire to kill his brother. If she let it go without addressing it, she knew it could backfire.
"I don't want to kill my brother," he denied, with a growl. "I'm going to kill my brother."
"Alright. Promise me something. Promise me you won't do anything stupid. You want to become strong? That's fine, but do it with us. You want to kill your brother? Great! But we'll be there with you. No running off on your own. Promise me you'll use your head, coolly, and that you won't leave us behind. If we're a team now, we'll still be a team in a year or when we face your brother. Understood? There's no point in wasting time if you're just going to leave us behind to go alone."
Seina and Sasuke looked at each other for a long while. Then, she had an idea and opened the connection between them. For the second time that day, she found herself sharing her mind with her brother and with Sasuke. She let him understand what she thought and felt so he would know she wasn't just talking idly. Anyone else would have tried to restrain him, tell him his brother was too strong for him, to leave his capture to other ninja departments in Konoha... Seina was telling him that if that was his desire, they would kill him, he would have his revenge, he would triumph over his brother, but with them by his side and being smarter. Using the system and not facing everyone alone like Sasuke sometimes did. It was just a matter of time.
If anyone understood Sasuke and his desire for revenge, it was her. Not only did Voldemort kill Lily and James, but the false Madara assisted in the death of Minato and Kushina. And Seina would kill him. After torturing him for a few weeks.
"I promise."
Seina and Naruto nodded, and she made a decision. If it weren't for having seen inside Sasuke, every molecule that formed him, she wouldn't have even considered it. She felt her teammate's curiosity when he sensed her resolve.
"Let's bathe, have dinner, and then I'll tell you a story," she assured him.
Sasuke nodded, and each went to shower in their respective bathrooms while a couple of clones prepared dinner.
"Are you sure?" Naruto asked when he learned she had decided to tell Sasuke the truth.
"Sasuke is on the edge of a precipice, Naruto. Haven't you felt that spark of obsession this afternoon? If we don't do something to remedy it, all he'll think about is killing his brother, at any cost. He believes no one is capable of understanding him, and he's right. As long as he's the only orphan who lost his family at the hands of someone close, no one will be able to understand him. My own parents were betrayed by one of their best friends. Even though he didn't kill them with his own hands, their death was his fault. My blood family, the one I grew up with, hated me to the point where I think they would have killed me if they had known my people weren't watching them. Sasuke and I are alike in a certain way. He needs to know that someone understands him. When he sees my memories, he'll know what I'm talking about and, perhaps, learn from my mistakes. Plus, if we don't help him, do you think anyone else will?"
Naruto didn't say anything, but he had a terribly sad expression. She sensed her twin brother feeling bad for not having been there with her, in her other life, supporting her. Desolate because it had to be only her who felt that pain. They hugged for a few seconds, both drawing strength from the other, and then went to shower. They had dinner in silence, each immersed in their thoughts. Sooner than expected, the moment she had promised Sasuke arrived.
"What I'm going to show you... you might think I'm crazy, but this is my second life," she said to him, and Sasuke looked at her surprised. "I remember perfectly my previous life. In it, I was a witch, and when I died, I was born in this body with my soul intact, so I still have my magic."
"If it weren't for everything I've seen, I'd think you're crazy, but I can't deny that answers a lot of questions I had. And you, dobe?"
Naruto shook his head.
"I don't have magic, but I do have my connection with Seina since we were born."
"I want you to see my previous life," Seina explained. "I think you'll understand many things, and you'll probably learn something."
"Why?"
"The one who ignores history is doomed to repeat it," she warned him. "Maybe you'll learn from my mistakes and successes."
"...Alright."
They sat on the couch, the three of them, and Seina opened her bond with Sasuke and Naruto wide open. She showed him everything. From the memory of her parents' death and their screams of pleading, her abuse at the hands of her relatives, her years at Hogwarts, Sirius, the persecution she was subjected to, the war, the deaths, the betrayal of some friends, the pain, her sacrifice... the recovery, her relationship with George, her family, her studies, her career as an auror, her death.
When Seina finished showing him her memories, she showed him what she thought of him, of what she had talked about with Naruto. How she wouldn't allow him to become a monster like his brother, consumed by revenge. How she knew that, despite that, he needed to take justice into his own hands, and how she understood it.
Sasuke spent a long time processing it all, with his eyes closed. Seina and Naruto sensed Sasuke crumbling as he realized he wasn't alone, that she truly understood him. Inevitably, he couldn't stop his sobs when they started. Seina hugged him, and Naruto, somewhat uncomfortable because he didn't know if Sasuke would accept him, touched his shoulder as he had done with Kakashi-sensei, but then Seina pulled him into the hug.
That night they slept on the couch.