What Shikamaru showed her was amazing, as she had expected. He had learned to create strategic points of light to use shadows in the darkness thanks to the light spheres. If he was already dangerous before, now Shikamaru had levelled up.
The next day, fortunately, went by relatively quickly. The entire morning was occupied with the anbu team that had made her promise to train with them. Kakashi-sensei went on a mission, so she didn't see him all day. The same happened on Wednesday, the day she had planned to meet with her friends, but unfortunately, it wasn't possible as they had all been sent on missions except for her team.
On Thursday, as always, she went to the hospital. She immediately realized that the medical-ninjas and civilian doctors had made a clear effort to discharge most of the patients who had come from Orochimaru's base/prison the previous week.
"Seina-sama, here is the patient's medical history that was prepared for today."
"Just one? What happened to the other man?"
"He was called suddenly for a mission," said her assistant with a distressed look.
"Well, it can't be helped… By the way, is Yanjirobee still here?"
"I believe so. Let me check for a second… Yes, he's still here. He's tentatively scheduled for discharge on Sunday."
"Then put Yanjirobee in my second slot in the morning. Let's see if he can leave the hospital with a new leg."
She reviewed the full history of the first patient. He had lost an ear, the vision in one eye, and part of his skin due to severe burns caused by an explosive talisman. She first treated the burns with one of her magical creams, easily regenerated the ear since it was an area without many blood vessels that could bleed profusely, and then worked on restoring his vision.
"Here you go," Seina said, handing him the prescription. "You'll need to apply this ointment every night until the burns disappear. Most likely, you'll be completely free of them in less than a week."
"Thank you very much."
The chunin bowed before leaving her office. She cleaned and sterilized the entire room before calling her assistant.
"Send him in if he can come. I'm ready to see him. Oh, and send in my assistants, please."
The patient was the first to arrive, resting on the same floor as her. As soon as she saw him, using crutches and wearing new glasses he hadn't had when he was rescued, she knew she had seen him before. He was one of the chunin who had chased Naruto after her brother "stole" the secret scroll of the First Hokage. Fortunately for him, when he saw her, he didn't make a face or insult her. If he had, she would have made sure to prank him with a spell as soon as he left the hospital.
"You can sit on the examination table," she instructed, seeing him still standing by the door.
"Thank you."
While he sat down on his own, she skimmed through his medical records to see if his septicaemia had subsided enough for her to regenerate his leg. She also reviewed the other tests and saw clear progress. Honestly, except for the leg, he could go home just as they had scheduled for Sunday.
"Sorry for making you wait," one of her assistants called, entering the operating room quickly.
"It's okay. We just got in."
She spent exactly 2 hours reconstructing the leg. She did it more slowly than usual because, after all the injuries he had suffered, he couldn't afford to lose more blood than necessary while she regenerated his blood vessels and tissues. When he woke up from the spell, he couldn't take his eyes off the leg, his eyes almost filled with tears.
"I thought I wouldn't make it. Then I thought I wouldn't recover my leg."
"But you did recover," she comforted him. "Maybe not from the mental trauma, but physically you've defeated Orochimaru."
"I know, though right now that doesn't console me much…"
She saw him off while suddenly thinking about the Inuzuka. What could have happened to him? Was he still under 24-hour surveillance? Had he made any progress? In the end, she decided to ask, taking advantage of the few minutes left before finishing her shift at the hospital.
"What happened to Mamoru Inuzuka?"
"He was transferred to the Psychiatric Evaluation Department," the receptionist informed her with a sympathetic expression. "Apparently, he needed more attention than we could provide here at the hospital."
"Thank you."
Seina left the hospital. It was clear that the attention he needed was mostly psychological. It didn't surprise her.
"Seina, are you done?" Sasuke asked mentally.
"Yes, why?" she asked quickly, taken aback by his sudden call.
"We were coming back from training and ran into Neji and Hinata's team, so we thought about going to eat, you know where. Are you coming?"
"Of course!"
She turned around, heading down an alley to go towards the centre, and went in search of the Akimichi restaurant. When she arrived a few minutes later, everyone was already seated. Sasuke had saved her a seat to his left, between Neji and him.
"Seina," Neji greeted her, smiling. "Long time no see."
"That's right. Where have you been?" Tenten asked from across the table. "We hardly see you!"
"It's understandable. Between field missions, her work at the hospital, and training, she probably doesn't have much free time," Shino commented, in his usual monotone voice.
"We were thinking of asking if everyone wants to get together every Wednesday for lunch. Like a tradition!" her brother said.
"That wouldn't be bad! You know I'm always up for any meal," Kiba said.
"YOSH! This is the first tradition of the Konoha 12! Guy-sensei will be so envious that we surpassed him!"
They were talking and laughing for a long time. Seina learned that Hinata and Neji were now training together almost whenever they could at their house, that Hinata had greatly improved in her family's Jūken and had also started water manipulation training. Tenten had acquired new pieces for her weapon collection thanks to missions in various countries. Shino, on the other hand, had begun breeding venomous kikaichū and developing resistance to poisons after his scare against Kankuro months ago. Lee was still learning new taijutsu techniques with Guy-sensei, while Kiba and Akamaru had managed to increase their ninjutsu repertoire to become stronger as a pair. Akamaru had even grown a bit since the last time she saw him.
"And you two?" Tenten finally asked when everyone had finished sharing their news.
"We're still training hard and learning all the ninjutsu that Kakashi-sensei knows."
"That will take you years!" exclaimed Lee with a surprised expression. He wasn't the only one.
"Actually, we're making good progress," Sasuke shrugged. "With clones, we can learn a jutsu as quickly as the number of clones we create. Since I realized that Naruto and Seina surpass me in chakra capacity, I've been constantly doing chakra exercises to increase my reserves. At first, I could only summon one shadow clone, but now I can keep up to four active, and it hasn't even been a year."
"Plus, we train with different ninjas at the dojo that Guy-sensei recommended. Seina-nee also trains with some of Kakashi-sensei's friends."
All eyes turned toward her, and she nodded.
"I train just one day a week, but it's incredible. In fact, one of Kakashi-sensei's colleagues is Shikamaru's cousin."
"And we also train with Team 10 every Monday!" Naruto smiled while slurping his noodles. He had ordered ramen despite the full menu of different dishes… Her brother was unbelievable.
"What?!" Kiba shouted. Fortunately, someone had thought to give them a table away from the others, near the entrance door. "Why are you training with them?"
"Ino asked us for help," Sasuke replied. "Apparently, they were worried about the Chūnin Exams, especially since Shikamaru won't be teaming up with them."
Seina sighed as everyone started talking over each other about the injustice of them training together and leaving the others out. Between Kiba, Lee, and Tenten, they managed to get Naruto to reveal where, when, and at what time they trained. She knew that the following Monday, she would see them all there, eager to train together so as not to fall behind.
While they were talking about it, Neji turned to look at her discreetly.
"By the way… can I ask you about your forehead?" he said in a low voice. "Now that I'm next to you, I can sense it."
"It's a seal that Tsunade-sama taught me to complete my training with her. I have to fill it for a while before it takes effect."
"Is it the same seal that Tsunade-sama has on her forehead?"
"Yes."
Neji didn't probe further about the seal. He probably knew that she couldn't tell him anything without the Hokage's permission, so he didn't waste his breath trying to question her.
"I imagine you're going to participate in this year's Chūnin Exams, right?" she asked Neji.
"Of course. This year, I won't make the same mistake as last time. Besides, the exam is in Sunagakure, so it would be wasting a valuable opportunity not to go."
Seina understood why he said that. Neji, like Sasuke or herself, wouldn't be welcome in certain villages. It was better for him to take the exam in the Land of Wind than anywhere else, except Konoha. Especially now, since Seina had removed the seal from his forehead, and no one except a few knew about it. Tenten, who had heard everything, nodded seriously when their eyes met. She didn't know if she and Lee were aware of the seal, but she hoped they would protect Neji if needed because if not… They could be in trouble with the Hyūga clan.
A while later, when she began to feel tired, she decided to head home, much to the disappointment of her brother and the others. They agreed to meet on Monday to train together, and since they were all already gathered, they would also have lunch together the same Monday to kill two birds with one stone. It sounded perfect to Seina.
Sasuke, beside her, stood up as well. He had improved a lot, but social interactions still drained him and left him exhausted. He was truly an introvert. Naruto, seeing that he was going to be left alone, got up too, bidding farewell to the others.
"What did you think about having lunch together? It was awesome!"
"Whatever you say, but all that chatting left me exhausted."
Seina nodded. When they arrived home, she noticed that Kakashi-sensei was present but locked in his room. It seemed a bit strange, but she didn't mention it to her brothers. Since they weren't connected to the house's magical barriers, which she had put up out of sheer paranoia since they weren't really needed under the Fidelus, they didn't notice. Without the barriers, she wouldn't have known either since the door and windows that Kakashi-sensei had closed were magically soundproofed, and her spells couldn't penetrate his rune protections. Not to mention the jōnin's chakra, which was completely withdrawn to go unnoticed.
"It's clear that something is going on…" Kurama nodded figuratively.
"I'll wait for him to come out or, at least, until Naruto and Sasuke go to sleep."
Nevertheless, the wait felt endless. Kakashi-sensei showed no signs of life, and Naruto and Sasuke didn't notice anything. She spent the afternoon in her suitcase, accompanied by a small army of clones, sketching and transforming materials to start building her house inside. She hoped the project would distract her long enough not to go crazy over the mystery of Kakashi-sensei.
Her team was down there with her, but it was clear they had no idea how to build a house from scratch.
"Think about it, there are many things I can skip: plumbing, the electrical system, the sewage, gas, heating, and ventilation… even the garden wouldn't be real despite looking totally authentic," she said, actually explaining what she needed to do. "I can replace all those things with runes. This would be a truly magical house, unlike ours, which is more of a hybrid."
"So, what do you have to do?"
"I imagine deciding which rooms it should have, right?" Sasuke asked.
"I was thinking that since we don't have space limitations, I could make a U-shaped house. The right wing could be the bedrooms, the central wing the common areas, and the left wing the leisure area. It doesn't even have to have two floors if it's big enough horizontally."
"That would greatly simplify the construction work since you'd only need to put up walls and the roof…"
"Exactly," she smiled in Naruto's direction. "The question is, what do we want it to have?"
"Are we thinking of this house as a temporary place, or can we put in everything we want?"
"We're going to keep living in the house upstairs," she pointed outside the suitcase, "but if we need to rebuild it, this new house should contain everything we wouldn't mind losing…"
"In other words, more than the house itself, what's important are the irreplaceable belongings of our clans, right?" Sasuke finally said, nodding. "Then we should build an impenetrable vault. The cells are down here. The possibility of anyone escaping is practically nil, but I wouldn't want our confidential documents to be stolen."
"Good thinking."
When they returned to the outside world, she saw that night had fallen. Dinner time arrived, and Kakashi-sensei was still in his room. It got so late that Sasuke and Naruto went to bed, leaving her alone in the living room. She wondered whether to wait downstairs, in case he came down to eat, or to go straight to his room and knock on the door.
"Why don't you just go ask him directly and stop wasting time?"
"What if he's asleep? What if it's nothing, and he's just tired?"
"What if, what if, what if?" Kurama mocked, extremely bored. "You won't know what's going on until you talk to him. Are you planning to stay down here all night waiting for him to show up?"
"I suppose you're right…"
"I'm always right, midget. Don't forget it."
Kurama's yawn made her smile. She felt him fall asleep within her, leaving her alone. Seina took the opportunity to turn off the lights after grabbing something to eat on a plate. Judging by the time he had spent locked up in his room, he should be hungry. Just as she stepped onto the first stair, ready to go up, she heard one of the doors upstairs open. She turned on the floor lamp next to the sofa and waited, sitting down.
As soon as she saw him appear at the top of the stairs, she had to suppress a surprised gasp at the sight of his face. He was dressed in pyjama pants and a dark short-sleeved shirt, barefoot, as if it wasn't cold yet. He wasn't wearing his ninja headband, as expected, nor his face mask, but he did have his invisibility bracelet on. That's why she could see his expression in full. He was paler than usual, looking exhausted and even somewhat sad.
The first thing he did upon stepping onto the floor was turn to look at her, not surprised to find her sitting on the sofa. He glanced at the food, the dark dining room, the lamp, and then at her, and sat down next to her. Seina had to bite her tongue to avoid asking what had happened, even though it was clear that something had. She remembered how much she had hated being hounded in her previous life, so she took a deep breath and armed herself with patience. She didn't even touch him since she had no idea how he would react, not knowing the reason for his… state. She let him eat the bowl of puree, the piece of meat, and the peeled fruit she had prepared, taking a bit of everything from the leftovers of that night, in silence.
After a while, when he was finishing the last pieces of orange, he spoke.
"It always happens when I see the… atrocities they commit against children. There are some very sick people. And to think I believed I was half crazy! And even so, it's not comparable to what some people do."
She understood immediately. Whatever he had seen on his last mission, it was clear that it hadn't been pleasant. Hurting children, the elderly, certain sick people, and animals always made her stomach turn. Especially, she mentally noted, defenceless civilians, since some ninja children and elderly weren't exactly saints. Nor were the ninken, now that she thought about it, but she was getting off-topic.
She extended a hand, letting him decide whether to take it or not. Kakashi-sensei didn't hesitate for a second. He took her hand, intertwining their fingers, and leaned on her shoulder as she had done many times before. It would have been somewhat comical, if not for the situation that had brought them here, to see her nearly 1.90-meter-tall teacher resting on her shoulder like a child silently seeking comfort.
Then she had an idea.
"Can I try something?" she asked him.
She felt him nod against her neck, so Seina hugged him against her chest and closed her eyes, thinking of all her loved ones, past and present. She kissed the top of his head while mentally chanting the Patronus charm. She knew it had worked because she heard and felt Kakashi-sensei's surprised gasp against her neck, where he had buried his face while she hugged him. Her guardian did not appear in corporeal form; instead, her lips glowed with the characteristic mist of an incomplete Expecto Patronum.
Suddenly, something happened that she would have never expected. She felt the jōnin's shoulders tremble in her arms and sensed the tears running down his face. She realized that either the mission had affected him more than she had thought, or he wasn't aware of just how much it had affected him, or he had more than one trauma that needed healing.
Seeing that a simple kiss wasn't going to be enough, she closed her eyes again and enveloped him entirely with her magic. She let him cry in her arms for a long time. At first, he tried to stifle his sobs, but eventually, he couldn't contain himself due to the emotions the Patronus invoked. Seina soundproofed the ground floor so that no one could hear him.
"I'm here. You're not alone anymore," she comforted him. "I'll take care of you."
She didn't know how long they stayed there. She didn't even realize when he fell asleep, completely asleep, in her arms. Seina was stunned by the fact that he wasn't merely dozing, as ninjas do in the presence of others, but was fully unconscious. She couldn't help but smile when she realized the trust he was placing in her. Normally, they only slept that deeply in their bed and alone, after setting some protections. Unless the other person was someone of total trust.
She hesitated for a second about whether to enchant him or not to apparate into his bed, but she ultimately decided that he seemed to need to sleep deeply, even if just for one night. She carried Kakashi-sensei in her arms and apparated to her own bed.
That was the first night they slept together in her bed. It wasn't the sexiest situation, nor the best scenario, but Seina wouldn't have changed it for anything in the world.