Landing back at base

“Bathe?” She whispered the question to herself, almost a bit curious about the implication. Did Hana usually bathe after battles? Was that normal? She had no idea. Was it some code word for something else? She turned to look at Akihiro for clues, but for some reason his gaze was pointed directly down towards Hana’s ass. In fact, he had been transfixed, completely silent for a while staring at it like that. A bit of self consciousness rushed back to Ikomiki’s head now as the topic of Hana’s ass came back to the center of her mind. She would frown, glaring a bit at Akihiro now in a similar silence.

“Hana Kaguya. My name is Ikomiki Otsutsuki.” From her position in the possessed corpses arms she would face back towards Hana, giving her a sideways stare with her Rinnegan still present. Just from her rear end Ikomiki could tell Hana was a dangerous woman. She would have to keep a careful eye on her in the future. “It was nice working with you. Make sure to keep what you saw here a secret. My eyes included.”

Ikomiki's last tidbit was just as important to reiterate on her end. The last thing Hana needed is another sacking Iron incident. As innocent as the man's mistake was, it costed Hana her entire political career. Hana and the Kaguya were seen as murderers. There wasn't much that could be helped, but the best she could do is ensure it would never happen again. Making sure she had all her equipment on her including the kind she gave Akihiro to seal temporarily she would equip them on her body in the regular fashion. "It's important to note we never speak about this attack again. Not unless we know we're in a secure location free from anyone else. Go it? Anyways, enjoy yourselves. And sorry about the desk." Hana did feel a bit guilty about smashing Akihiro's desk but it wasn't her fault she was teleported in such an odd location. Opening the door she headed out, closing it behind her. After seeking direction and talking whatever Mockingbird guards down from attacking her, Hana would eventually find herself out the labyrinth and seek the nearest bath house in Konoha.

[Exit]

Akihiro blinked twice, and then came to his senses. The day had been long up until now, and he had spent more chakra than he as used to. During the fight with adrenaline rushing through his body it wasn't hard at all to keep functioning with only half his chakra reserves, but onc ehe got home he sort of relaxed a little and suddenly it was like all the exhaustion he'd been ignoring rushed over him in place of adrenaline. He sighed.

"I suppose we still have work to do..." he sighed again. He definitely wasn't looking forward to having to report this event to the Hokage. In fact Akihiro was still wondering whether he should do this or not. Perhaps if they got lucky the world would never know it was them... and it was important that both Ikomiki and Hana kept their abilities and presence there a secret. No, he definitely could not tell the hokage about this.

Akihiro then eyed the paths created by Rinnegan, made from the corpses sealed in the scrolls Ikomiki so quickly stole from him. "Aren't you an artist, huh? It seems you have two big body guards now to hold you. Aren't their arms cold, tho?"

She shook her head quickly, Akihiro seeming to finally come back to his senses. Although they weren’t cold, laying in their arms like this was a bit uncomfortable and strange. Nothing like a cushion or a couch. Slowly she would shift to return to a standing position, the two corpses remaining to her sides like loyal bodyguards.

“They’re warm. They didn’t die too long ago, and also the chakra flowing through them keeps it like they’re alive. More or less. You can touch them and feel for yourself if you want. I don’t think a sensor would be fooled though…” She turned back, staring up at the Rinnegan that were now in Damien’s eyes.

“Speaking of. If a sensor happens to come my way, I don’t think there’s anything I could do to hide from them. With how much chakra I have especially, and with these two now as well… It’d be easy to tell that I’m an Otsutsuki if anyone looked. Probably they’d be able to see the Senju too.”

She had the urge to shrug, which had become a common habit of hers as of late, but with a bit of effort she resisted it.

“I’m sick of having to hide myself and be afraid.” She said it with her eyes still averted, not exactly looking at Akihiro.

Akihiro raised an eyebrow. The bodies were...warm? There was something distinctively upsetting about warm corpses. Every logic he could follow told Akihiro that corpses were supposed to be cold. Even zombies he imagined to be cold. But then again Ikomiki's explanation also made a little bit of sense. This was chakra after all and was there anything chakra couldn't do? Of course not.

He'd get up from his chair and approach both Ikomiki and the two Paths. With one hand he'd poke Damien's cheek while with the other hand he'd poke Ikomiki's. "You're right, the temperature seems to be about the same. What a remarkable technique." He'd comment, unless his finger had been bitten off by the point. The next words Ikomiki said would make him happy. Not because he particularly enjoyed the prospect of having sensors trying to hunt down his friend, but because she didn't seem too worried about it.

Instead of Ikomiki shrugging, Akihiro did. Then he'd throw his arms up in the air stretching his back, slowly lowering both his hands to rest on the back of his neck afterwards. "Well I guess I did a good job then, no? Do you know how many people can pull the kind of moves you did back there? I can count them with my fingers.

While we'd be wise to lay low in the next few weeks, I don't think there's a need for you to hide. You're strong enough to fight now, scary even." It was true, Akihiro was glad to have Ikomiki on his side. The sheer amount of raw power she brought to the battlefield was enough to make him want to avoid conflicts with her at all cost.

She pouted a bit as her cheek was poked, throwing a bit of a childish glare over at Aki. Biting him was something she considered for a moment. She wasn't actually upset, of course, but it was necessary to make scary faces to discourage uncalled for poking and touching of her face. If he wanted to touch her then headpats were the desired method. Anything else was a more risky proposition, although she wouldn’t verbally complain. Instead her tongue would come out after, sticking it up at the Uchiha.

“I don’t know how many people could do that sort of stuff… I’ve spent so much time around you that you’re my only real comparison. I don’t really know many other people. Just Kureji. I guess Hana too, but I don’t know if she counts.” There weren’t really too many other figures in Ikomiki’s life. There had been that Oni from Kumogakure that she had met during the Chunin Exams, but she couldn’t recall her name and that had been years ago. Then there was Shinsui, who she had murdered. Then there was her brother Nikoban, who she also hadn’t seen in years… That was it.

“Where will we lay low? Anyone with a Byugakan in Konoha would be able to spot us… Will we be living somewhere in the wilderness? Or a different village? With the war going on, I don’t know if there’s anywhere people wouldn’t look. Almost all of the villages are involved.”

Akihiro would also stick his tongue out at Ikomiki. After all they had done today, he felt like being a bit childish and silly as well. Because why the hell not? If there was anyone he could relax around, that would be Ikomiki. With all the sorts of crazy things she said and did, it was hard to think she0d judge him for anything. He'd smile back at her tho, instead of making a pouty face. His hand would rest on the top of her head and he'd scratch gently behind her ears. "Well I don't know Iko, but the world is a big biiig place. I considered the Land of Iron for a while, but I think you'll be too cold there. But I definitely need to find a safe place. There's something else we need to hunt...something big.The biggest game there is, even. And I'd very much like your help with it." He'd make a pause, considering what Ikomiki had said. It was true she seemed to have very little experience with other people.

"Well maybe you'll be able to make more friends within Mockingbird. I wouldn't want you to feel left out, you know?"

It would be hard to resist displaying some very typical feline traits as Akihiro went down to pat at and scratch the top of her head. Her eyes would close, and slowly she would tilt her head as to aim his fingers to a specific spot behind her ears. It was clear from the face she was making that she was enjoying the attention as well. Maybe for a normal human doing this sort of thing would be strange, but Ikomiki definitely wasn’t either of those things. Not normal and not a human. Even as far as Otsutsuki went she was an oddity. All things considered she was lucky she found someone who accepted her so willingly like Akihiro did.

She would give the slightest nod of her head in response to his words, not wanting to disturb the patting-scratching moment all too much. Really, Ikomiki was more than content with it being just the two of them. She had grown awfully attached to Akihiro… Maybe a little too attached. After all this she was struggling to imagine going off and doing things on her own like she used to.

“I’ll hunt it with you. No matter how big it is. It doesn’t matter. I know that if we’re together we can hunt anything.”

Akihiro's smile widened at her words. "You don't know how glad I am to hear you say that, because what we're hunting..." he'd make a pause and stop scratching behind ikomiki's ear for a little bit, to open up his cloak and lift off his shirt and armor a bit displaying the Eight Trigrams seal over his stomach. "...is a bijuu! The two-tailed beast, to be precise. It's still inside me, but its angry all the time and I think it'd be wise to try to get him to calm down a little, you know? " He was hopeful Ikomiki wouldn't be discouraged. Usually any shinobi would call Akihiro crazy and straight up refuse to go against a bijuu, but Ikomiki was different.

He'd pull down his shirt and armour again. "When you go hunting, do you usually go look for information about the prey first or do you just go with the flow and hope for the best?" It was an honest question. there was no way Ikomiko had studied animal anatomy when she hunted back at the forest, and yet she was an expert hunter. And she likely knew where and when to strike animals for quick and efficient kills based purely on instinct. Akihiro wondered if this was a skill he could pick up from her. He'd pull out a scroll from a drawer of his now completely ruined desk, and would extend it over one of the halves. It showed a picture of the Two Tailed beast and all the information he had on it.

Ikomiki froze. Her serene expression from the head scratching immediately ended, and her eyes shot wide open. Looking at Akihiro now she had an expression somewhere between “Are you serious?” and “Did I really hear that?”, like she couldn’t believe her own ears. The fact that he continued on after admitting that their target was a bijuu made it impossible for her to pretend she had misheard him. It would have made her seem awfully dumb after what she had just said too, that mushy stuff about being able to hunt anything together with him. Eventually that look of shock would begin to fade away into something a bit more serious.

“It’s unlucky for you that I don’t have the Outer Path. With that it’s easy to restrain Bijuu…” She sighed a bit. “Although the Gedō Mazō usually isn’t something people would expect to use to domesticate a Bijuu. I imagine the Two-Tails would rather flee on sight from it... Oh well. It’s the same either way. Wood Release is pretty well suited towards fighting Bijuu though… Theoretically. I’d have to train a bit with it more but…”


She didn’t expect Akihiro to have the same understanding of the Rinnegan’s powers as she did, so likely none of that made a lot of sense to him. She would snap back to focusing on him, having been lost in her own preparatory thoughts for a few moments.

“When hunting it’s best to watch your prey before striking. Figure out whatever you can from its movements, body type, and language. You can usually tell just by looking at an animal whether or not it’d be a good idea to hunt it. The position of its eyes, its teeth, and then whether or not it’s alone. There’s a lot of factors…” To a certain extent a lot of her knowledge on animals came instinctual from the Animal Path, but that wasn’t really something she could explain. Once the picture of the Two-Tails was shown to her she would look over it.

“... Of course, I don’t ever hunt or kill other cats. It would feel wrong. So I don’t have any experience with… Well. It’d be starting from scratch.”

...

"Also, I can't read."

Perhaps Ikomiki wasn't completely different from other ninjas after all. Or perhaps the fear of Bijuu was something so deeply ingrained into every living creature that she couldn't help but be afraid of it too. Was it fear he saw in her eyes? Or was was it doubt that fled her rinnegan? Once again Ikomiki was hard to read. He was about to tell her she didn't have to come along if she didn't want to, when she began speaking about the Rinnegan Path.

"So the Gedõ Mazõ statue is a real thing huh? I'd read about it before but I figured its abiilities had been greatly exagerated in order to make it stuff of legends. Its hard to imagine a Bijuu fleeing from anything, to be honest... But after what I saw you do today, I'm inclined to agree it is definitely possible. As for whether I'm lucky or not....Well, I think I am. You chose to call me instead of anyone else and now we're here. I really can't complain about my luck, you know?"

He'd glance over at the scroll while Ikomiki described basic hunting principles. all of them made sense and it wasn't all that different from hunting enemy ninjas. "Well looking at it I can't say hunting it down is the best idea I've ever had. But I don't have a choice if I want to master this power. As for what it can do well...it's fast, has many teeth and the strongest fire release I've ever seen. Honestly we should come with a pl-" he interrupted himself, and blinked twice.

He'd been a fool. Of course she couldn't read! Knowing her past Akihiro should have deduced this, but the ability to read was so common among ninjas in this day and age that he hadn't ever considered it.

"Oh. Would...you like me to teach you how to?"

She stared at him blankly now. Reading was one of those things she didn’t understand the significance of, really. She could write her own name but that was about the limit of her literary skills. Being illiterate had never stopped her before with anything she had wanted to do so it wasn’t as if she had ever particularly cared enough to try and figure out how. She always just viewed it as one of those human things, and thus stuck her nose up to it. But if Akihiro was offering to teach her she really couldn’t say no.

“I guess if I have to. If you’re the one teaching me it shouldn’t be too hard.”

Away from the subject of reading though, she focused back on the matter at hand.

“I know a little bit about the Bijuu… If I could find the Otsutsuki who had the Outer Path and tie them down for long enough I’d be able to get my hands on the Gedō Mazō, and that would make hunting the Two-Tails a sure victory. I’m sure if you asked it right now it would admit that as well. Of course, that would take a lot of time. We don’t know where that Otsutsuki is, or what sort of protection they might have. Hana said there was an Otsutsuki in Kirigakure by the name of Arisu, but there’s no way of knowing if Arisu has the Outer Path. Or even if she has any Path at all. It could just be a normal Otsutsuki. Plus, Hana made it clear she’d stop any fights from breaking out. I doubt we want to pick a fight with our allies right now... Although, you did promise me you'd help me find the others one day so we could hunt them down. Remember?”

She casually made reference to that promise that they had made so long ago. Not that she doubted Akihiro would remember.

“The other option is… Are you confident enough that the two of us could fight it? I can use Water Release, I guess… Wood Release is also pretty useful, but it’s hard to know if that would be enough.”

Akihiro listened to Ikomiki's explanation but by the end of it all he could do was shrug. "If you manage to master the Senju Wood Release techniques, then it shouldn't be too hard. I mean it'll definitely be difficult, but we should have enough combined firepower to take it down. Plus if nothing else works, we can always retreat and come up with a better plan. My seal is not only probably the strongest bijuu sealing technique in existence but it is also still pretty solid so we have quite a margin of error to work with."

He would then blink once and activate his sharingan, at which point he'd stare at Ikomiki and use his dojutsu to transfer the knowledge about the written and read language. This likely wouldn't be enough to teach her how to read fluently but at least she would have the memories of what each character meant and how they were supposed to be put together to form words. In addition she would learn the correct way to pronounce the syllables.

Ikomiki now knew how to read. Perhaps not fluently, but with practice she'd get there. Akihiro would then deactivate his sharingan and yawn. "Well, I have to go pick up Hana's 'Chigetsu' at Iron, whatever that is." In all fairness, Akihiro never met Chigetsu and he wasn't entirely sure she had been referring to a person. Kirigakure had the strange habit of applying all sorts of odd names to their swords. "See what you can make out of the scroll now. I'll be back in a bit,"

And with those words, he vanished.

[Exit -> FTG mark Iron harbour]

She nodded her head. More work to do. More things to train. There wasn’t any time for rest. She had just finished training the last batch of techniques that Akihiro had given her, and now it was on to the next. First the Senju Wood Release Techniques, then the rest of her elements, then other Non-Elemental things, then Taijutsu, Genjutsu, Summons, Rinnegan Techniques… Then she had to worry about gear, secrecy, tactics… It was a lot to deal with, but she would manage. It just meant she had to get to work now. The more she did now the less she’d have to do later. And Akihiro was counting on her, so she couldn’t let him down.

[Exit]

Akihiro landed back at the seal on top of his destroyed desk. It still hurt a bit to see the destroyed pieces of furniture Hana's fat arse had ruined. That was his favorite desk and one he had ordered custom made to perfectly suit his every need as a scholar. And two butt cheeks had completely ruined a perfectly good desk. He really needed to start paying more attention to wherever it was he was placing his Flying Thunder God formulas. He looked around, Ikomiki was nowhere to be seen. The girl was quick to run away and go do cat things whenever Akihiro wasn't present. It had only been a moment since he left and yet she was already gone. Oh well, he still had things to do before he had to go find her.

[Exit]