When they arrived in Konoha, they were quickly allowed to take Natori to the hospital, where none other than the Hokage was waiting for them.
"Kakashi, Seina. I'm glad to see you both back," she greeted them, indicating where she wanted Natori to be placed. "You've given me a lot of work with so many bodies."
"We still have to hand over all the live prisoners," Kakashi-sensei said without flinching.
"Go to the interrogation department. I don't want to hear anything about anyone until Inoichi gives them the green light. Later, I'll wait for you in my office."
Her teacher and she exchanged a glance before leaving. She ended up accompanying Kakashi-sensei to the interrogation department, listening to him murmur with several high-ranking ninjas from the department. Anko escorted Seina to the underground cells to begin extracting all the prisoners from her suitcase.
"Damn Orochimaru!" she muttered angrily when she saw how they had filled an entire floor with people, most of them imprisoned by Orochimaru and treated by her. "It will take weeks to interrogate them all."
"That's not my problem anymore," she replied in a tired voice. Anko snorted with laughter.
"Go to sleep, kid."
Seina left before she could change her mind. She found Kakashi-sensei now speaking with Inoichi and the guy who was in charge of the chunin exams, Ibiki Morino if she remembered correctly. As soon as she appeared at the door, all eyes turned to her. Kakashi-sensei and Inoichi smiled in her direction, while Ibiki stared at her with an inscrutable expression.
"You've done a good job," he said, and then looked at her teacher. "We'll start right now with Orochimaru's ninjas. You can be sure of that."
"What will happen to the civilians and other ninjas who were kidnapped and we rescued?"
"It will depend on what they know and what the Hokage decides," Inoichi shrugged.
"Well, if you don't need me, I'm going to sleep," she said.
"See you soon," Kakashi-sensei also said goodbye. The others nodded. "I don't know about you, but I'm going to take a shower first."
"I thought that went without saying," she snorted with a tired laugh.
They walked out of there. As soon as they reached the first corner, Kakashi-sensei suddenly scooped her up and used the shunshin. In a few seconds, they were home.
"Huh. Thanks," she said when her feet touched the ground.
"You looked like you were about to crash to the floor," he smiled, winking, clearly teasing her.
Seina gave him another weak punch on the arm.
"Nee-chan!" Naruto shouted. She groaned, completely exhausted. "Where have you been!? You didn't leave a note!"
"We had a pretty urgent mission together," Kakashi-sensei replied. "If you don't mind, we're going to sleep for a while. We'll talk tomorrow."
"B-but-"
"Lower your voice, dobe. Can't you see they're not even paying attention to you?" Sasuke rolled his eyes, appearing at the door. "We'll interrogate them later."
Seina showered and went to bed in less than 10 minutes.
When she woke up, it was noon. She had only slept about 6 hours, but it had been enough to bring her back to normal. When she went downstairs, she noticed her brother and Sasuke had grown tired of waiting for them and were training in the shed, while Kakashi-sensei was sitting on the couch reading a book.
"Good morning. How did you sleep?" the jonin smiled in her direction.
"Deeply."
She decided to have a piece of fruit and wait until lunchtime, so she sat on the couch next to Kakashi-sensei, eating a banana.
"What are you reading?"
"I'm still not quite sure... It's a science fiction book with murders," he shrugged, showing her the cover. "All I know is there are a lot of rats."
"What?" she laughed at his explanation. "Where did you get that? That wasn't in the library, right?"
"No. I bought it second-hand. I'm starting to understand why they sold it."
She lay down on her side, closing her eyes, while Kakashi-sensei read his ridiculous book. She could hear the birds in the garden, using the various trees to play and build their nests. You could already feel the warmth of spring, even though February wasn't over yet. It was just a week away from March. She had exactly one month left to find out where the jonin exams would take place, and she still had a few things to review. Even so, she was confident she would succeed.
"What are you thinking about?"
Seina opened her eyes when she heard the question. She saw he had left the book on the armrest. One arm rested on her shoulders and pulled her close. Fortunately, he wasn't wearing his vest, so she was able to bury her face in his warm chest. It wasn't as hard as the vest, but still... She had to admit he was in top shape.
"Nothing."
They heard the footsteps and bickering of Naruto and Sasuke even before they opened the door.
"Were you like that too at 12 years old?" Kakashi-sensei asked, surprisingly.
"Huh. No," she laughed. "I was more distant and tried to stay unnoticed, although, to my bad luck, I didn't succeed..."
"When you were 12, you killed a basilisk and saved your best friend's little sister, didn't you?"
"That's right. Good memory."
"How could I forget?"
"What were you doing at 12?"
"We were at war, so I imagine I was with your father, sabotaging some enemy mission."
"What a depressing conversation," Naruto complained, appearing through the door.
Seina straightened up, sighing, and Kakashi-sensei picked up his ridiculous book again. Sasuke completely ignored Naruto as he sat in the armchair in front of the sofa, positioned across from them behind the small coffee table.
"What was that you wanted to talk about this morning?"
"Oh, right! Do you know where we've been on a mission this week?" her brother asked, but no one answered. He rolled his eyes, seeing how no one was playing along. "We were in Takigakure."
"Really? Why?"
"Because Hisen, the leader, was killed last week."
"Seriously?" she asked again, this time surprised and very interested. "He seemed to have everything under control a few weeks ago."
Naruto and Sasuke explained how the rogue ninja that Hisen had feared, and who had gone after Kobayashi, finally got tired of waiting and killed the leader of Takigakure. Hisen's eldest son became the next leader but needed Konoha's help to deal with internal problems.
"And why hire a team of genin and a chunin?" she asked aloud.
"I said the same thing," Sasuke replied, throwing a glance at Naruto. "Apparently, he didn't have access to the village's funds due to complications with his rise to power, so he had to hire the team he could afford with his own money."
"We gave Suien a huge beating! That's what counts!"
"I'm actually not too surprised," her teacher interjected for the first time. "After all, you two have the level of chunin, even if you don't officially hold the title."
"And the other chunin was Shikamaru, so it wasn't too hard," Sasuke shrugged.
"And where were you two?"
"Rescuing a civilian and a Konoha team that was protecting them. They were kidnapped by Orochimaru," she answered. "Why do I feel like almost all my missions, except for a few, involve Orochimaru?"
"Because he's the biggest threat to the village right now," the jonin laughed. "Tsunade-sama knows your powers give you a huge advantage in hunting him, and avoiding him. If you hadn't been with me on yesterday's mission, I'd have needed a Hyuga or an Aburame, plus a medic. By the time we would've found the civilian and the chunin team, more than one of them would have died."
"Were they in that bad of a state?"
"Yes. Luckily, I'd say they'll all survive."
"What do you all want to do today?" Kakashi-sensei asked, getting up from the sofa. "We could take advantage of the time to train together if you're up for it."
"Sounds good to me," she said. "Tomorrow and the day after, I have to work at the hospital, so I won't be available."
"Great! I want to keep practicing fire-style ninjutsu," Naruto said, jumping up with too much energy from his seat.
"I want to learn that genjutsu you told me about," she requested, staring intently at a smiling Kakashi-sensei.
"I promised I'd teach you."
"What genjutsu are you talking about?"
Kakashi-sensei explained how he had created it, how it worked, its limitations, etc. Her teacher's new genjutsu covered one of the weaknesses of her invisibility bracelet. When the bracelet was activated, one could go completely unnoticed as long as no chakra was used with visible effects. This meant she could use chakra to perform a henge without anyone noticing because the effect reverted on herself under the invisibility, but she couldn't use a fire-style jutsu because, despite being invisible, everyone would notice the giant fireball that appeared out of nowhere.
It was actually a significant weakness that limited the bracelet to escaping, sneaking around, and infiltration but not to attacking invisibly. This was due to the fact that the runic bracelet was designed for her to use alongside her magic, which was already undetectable to ninjas. In fact, this device had been outlawed in the magical world because it allowed criminals to escape detection. But here, who was going to stop her from making one and using it?
With Kakashi-sensei's genjutsu, which manipulated the brain to make the victim believe that their attacker didn't exist, thus not being detected by any of the senses, her teacher had managed, as an indirect effect, to make it so that his chakra couldn't be detected either.
"Basically, the brain believes no one is attacking, so it convinces itself that it can't perceive foreign chakra because it thinks no one is there," she summarized after listening to Kakashi-sensei and seeing Naruto's somewhat confused face.
"Exactly!"
"...I think I get it..." her brother said, clearly lying.
Sasuke sighed, seeing his unconvinced expression.
"Think of it this way, dobe: your enemy suddenly becomes a civilian, and you're a ninja hiding in a tree, throwing a kunai at their back. By the time they notice, they'll be dead."
"Oh! Now I get it!"
"What?" Seina asked incredulously. Kakashi-sensei exchanged a blank look with her. "How did you understand it with that cheap analogy and not with the exact explanation?"
"Analogy? What are you talking about?"
Seina rolled her eyes and proceeded to explain what an analogy was to her brother, while Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei shook with laughter.
"Anyway, I get it now. Let's get to it!"
They practiced the genjutsu. According to Naruto and Sasuke, it was like Kakashi-sensei vanished. He simply didn't appear on their radar. Seina had to take their word for it and see him through the open link because they couldn't put her under the genjutsu. After that lesson, they continued practicing the mountain of ninjutsu Kakashi-sensei had given them. Later, when they got tired of ninjutsu training with dozens of clones, they practiced some taijutsu and kenjutsu.
"I think it's time to call it a day," Kakashi-sensei finally said, putting away his weapon. "We've been here all afternoon."
"And I'm starving."
They took turns showering while their clones prepared dinner. Tonight, after several months, since they had nothing else to do and were all together, they pulled out a deck of cards. Being ninjas, they couldn't help but cheat, so the winner was the one who could cheat the most without being caught. Basically, her. Since she could transform the cards into whatever she wanted and everyone knew it, her team spent more time trying to stop her than cheating themselves. In the end, the game was utter chaos.
"There are not nine fives in this deck!" Sasuke exclaimed, grabbing the pile of cards and inspecting them.
"Oh, there aren't?" she asked with a huge grin.
Kakashi-sensei stifled a short laugh behind his cards. Meanwhile, Naruto kept rearranging his hand, still unaware that the others could anticipate his moves because they knew he ordered them from lowest to highest. Whenever her brother played a card from his left hand, she could imagine it was a card from 1 to 5, approximately, and vice versa. The biggest troll was Kakashi-sensei, who used genjutsu against Naruto and Sasuke, and against her, he used hidden cards up his sleeve that he quickly swapped.
Sasuke squinted, placing a card face down on the table. She threw other cards on top. Kakashi-sensei, to her left, looked at them suspiciously.
"If I flip them, they'll all be the same, won't they?" he sighed.
She said nothing. As everyone expected, she ended up winning again to Naruto and Sasuke's complaints.
"Dammit," her brother cursed. "You should use your powers to prank the villagers, not to beat us at cards!"
"Pranks like what?" she asked, grinning from ear to ear. "Like this?"
She transformed the cards into an animated teddy bear in the blink of an eye and made it launch itself with a high-pitched battle cry onto her brother's face. Naruto only had time to widen his eyes before falling backward, still sitting in his chair, screaming and trying to pry off the bear that gripped his head with all four plush limbs with superhuman strength.
There was a brief moment of silence as Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke stared in astonishment at what had just happened before they burst into laughter. Sasuke more than Kakashi-sensei, but it was clear he was trying not to laugh too openly at her brother.
"I love you, oni-chan!" the teddy bear said in a tiny voice, still clinging to Naruto.
Seina started crying from laughter, feeding off Sasuke's amusement through their link. The best part was feeling Naruto's horror and watching him unsuccessfully try to free himself from the plush bear. She transformed the bear back into cards, observing her brother's red face from the effort and indignation.
"SEINA!" Naruto yelled at the top of his lungs, pointing an accusatory finger at her. "NOT ME! DO IT TO TEME!"
"Sorry, sorry," she apologized while wiping away tears. "I don't want to turn the house into a battlefield with pranks."
Naruto started smiling as he felt the laughter that Sasuke and she had shared watching him.
"Do you guys know what I just thought of?" Seina burst out laughing again as she watched her team shudder. "I want to give Kiba a stuffed dog that only activates when he's alone and tries to hump his leg, you know? Like a real dog! Imagine his mom and sister's faces when he keeps telling them the stuffed animal is alive and trying to hump his leg like a dog in heat!"
Naruto and Sasuke, who were imagining the scene with her, started laughing hysterically. They knew Kiba well enough to picture his horrified face. Kakashi-sensei stifled a few chuckles, probably thinking the same thing. He had to calm down to catch his breath.
"It's been a while since you pulled a prank," her brother smiled.
"Have you done something like this to someone before?" the jonin asked, a bit surprised.
"To the old pervert."
"You played a prank like this on Jiraiya-sama?" he asked again, even more incredulous.
"She gave him an enchanted letter that made him look like a drag queen!" Naruto burst out, and then Sasuke started laughing as he recalled the memory. "The best part was that he was the only one who couldn't see himself!"
Kakashi-sensei turned to look at her with an expression that was equal parts pleased, surprised, and intrigued.
"Can I see it?"
Seina raised a finger, thinking about her brother's memory, and implanted it in him. Kakashi-sensei pressed his lips together to keep from laughing when he saw Jiraiya with a bubblegum-colored afro and gaudy makeup. But the longer the memory went on, and as he saw people walking into lampposts and tripping over themselves as they looked at Jiraiya, he couldn't hold back. He ended up crying from laughter for several minutes. Naruto, Sasuke, and Seina watched him laugh so hard, something they rarely saw.
"Tsunade-sama would pay you for this memory," her teacher swore once he recovered from laughing. "I can't believe this. Turns out forcing people to sing is the least of your talents."
Kakashi-sensei watched her with a smile, probably recalling her own prank with Ensui. She winked at him without Naruto and Sasuke noticing.
The next day, she had to go to the hospital, like every Thursday and Friday. As soon as she arrived, she noticed it was busier than usual.
"What's going on?" she asked one of the nurses.
"We have some civilian patients waiting to be discharged," they answered while signing some papers. "Apparently, they were prisoners somewhere."
"Huh..."
She immediately understood who they were talking about. These must be the civilians they had rescued and handed over to the interrogation department. If they were here now, it was because they weren't a threat. She let them go about their work as she headed to the locker room. She changed while thinking about the team of chunin who had brought them back to Konoha.
When she got to the ninja ward, she saw Kotetsu and Natori side by side in the semi-critical wing. She was surprised to see them there, considering how bad their condition had been the night before, but it was good news. One of her assistants approached her with the medical file of the patient she had scheduled for today.
"Seina-sama. Here's the file," the assistant greeted her while handing over the paperwork. "The patient is currently waiting in operating room 4."
She flipped through the complete medical history. As she had told Tsunade-sama, she had managed to invent something with runes so everyone could use her diagnostic spell. That something was a "wand" of quartz and metal with runes, connected to a tray with blank paper. All they had to do was touch the quartz part to the patient and make sure the tray only had blank paper. Now, every qualified medical ninja loyal to Konoha at the hospital had one of these registered to their ninja number. In fact, they only worked when the specific ninja activated them because they were bound to them through blood runes. This decreased the chances of anyone else using them, so there was no point in stealing them. Everyone was happy to have something that saved them hours of paperwork, patients could be treated faster and more efficiently, and Seina was less harassed.
She entered the operating room and began her day as usual. She had only booked two slots that morning for two patients, so when she finished an hour earlier than expected, she focused on organizing paperwork: documents that needed to be filed in the hospital, others that were classified, medical records that had been replaced with newer versions that needed to be destroyed, etc. Normally, her clones handled this while she scheduled appointments for the following weeks, but she had plenty of time to kill, and unless someone asked for help, there was no reason to wander around the hospital taking work from other doctors.
When she left her office, she found a recently graduated genin waiting for her in the lounge. As soon as he saw her, he jumped to his feet.
"Tsunade-sama asked me to give this to you," he said, handing her a sealed note.
"Thank you."
She watched him leave after bowing. She raised an eyebrow but let it go. The note turned out to be a request from the Hokage to meet her after lunch. Since it wasn't an order, Seina figured it wasn't too serious or urgent. When she got home, her team had already prepared lunch and was waiting for her at the table.
"How was training?"
"We teamed up with Team 8," Sasuke reported. "It went well... at least when the idiot stopped laughing like a lunatic."
Naruto burst out laughing again, wiping a tiny tear from his eye as he remembered.
"I couldn't stop thinking about what you said about the stuffed dog for Kiba!"
"And since the dobe doesn't understand subtlety, he started laughing in Kiba's face like it was nothing," Sasuke rolled his eyes, though a hint of a smile played on his lips. "Obviously, Kiba got mad and asked him what was so funny. The dobe couldn't stop laughing, so they ended up fighting like a couple of fools in the mud."
Kakashi-sensei snorted a short laugh while Seina started to giggle.
"This team is literally full of clowns," the jonin said as he watched his students burst into laughter again.
"As if you weren't one yourself..."
Kakashi-sensei ignored Sasuke's comment.
"Do you want to train together later?" Sasuke asked. "I think I'll finally learn that lightning jutsu today."
"I have to go see Tsunade-sama later."
"Hey! Me too!" Naruto chimed in with a smile. "Did you get a note saying to meet her this afternoon?"
"Actually, yes."
Seina blinked as she realized that only Naruto and she had been called to the Hokage's office. She noticed the calculating expression on her teacher's face and knew he was guessing something. When their eyes met, she raised an eyebrow.
"I think it has to do with yesterday's mission."
Then she remembered. The red-haired girl. Kakashi-sensei had said he thought she might be an Uzumaki. It must be about that. Naturally, Naruto started asking questions while Seina pondered. Kakashi-sensei gave him short answers, as they weren't sure of anything yet.
"We have to go to the office, nee-chan!" Naruto shouted when he realized the possible reason.
"I suppose the sooner we go, the sooner we'll find out..."