Fighting With One's Self

Chapter 19 - The Reason

 Yume-chan is avoiding me more than ever. She avoids everyone because she still holds a grudge because of the prank, but she avoids me more. I suppose it's because I never told her the reason for my mutism, but it made me realise something.

I could talk to Sakura when we were alone together. That means that she would never do anything to harm me. But what about if it was against her will? If that is the case, does that mean that other people in Konoha know about me? Am I a wanted fugitive now?

All these questions just fuel my desire to know the truth about Pein, and why he wants Yume-chan and me to be a part of Akatsuki. But I had one problem. Even if I could find him - and that will not be easy - how can I get him to fess up without talking and being afraid for my life?

Yume-chan, to my dismay, does not seem to have any interest in knowing the reason. She's as obsessed as ever with Itachi-san. She literally follows him wherever he goes. When he exits the building, she practices her fire jutsus to impress him. And she avoids everyone else. When I talk to her, she suddenly starts mumbling non-stop. When I strain my ears to listen, I hear words like 'suck-ups' and 'fucking annoying'.

While I am trying to come up with a plan, I am continuing my training with both Kakuzu and Kisame-sensei. Kakuzu is finally making me heal human wounds. The only downside is that I have to make the wounds on myself before healing them again. He says that it's good, that it will help me to become strong, because I cannot handle pain. He's correct on the second half of the sentence. I just don't see how hurting myself is helping at all. It just reminds me of my old self. My old, self-destructing self.

Kisame-sensei is teaching me new, stronger water jutsus. By now, I can do the Grand Waterfall Jutsu, the Great Exploding Current Jutsu, Great Exploding Water Collision Waves Jutsu, and I am busy learning the Water Prison Jutsu now. He says that I am going to learn his favourite jutsu next, the Water Shark Projectile Jutsu.

Weeks pass, and with it, my seventeenth birthday. I do not tell anybody, because it's a day just like any other. But I think that Yume-chan is cooling down again, because she seems to have told Dei-kun, and he secretly got me a small heart-shaped chocolate cake and gave me an especially nice wake-up kiss early in the morning, just before I am due to start my training. That night, he also takes me outside to the lake, but the winter brought snow with it. I managed to make a Water Prison just big enough for the two of us, and we sat crouched on the water, drinking hot chocolate, before going back inside again.

One especially cold winter's day, I am training with Kisame-sensei in our own training room, when he gives me a bit of odd news.

"I think the Leader has a special interest in you and the other girl," he says. He stopped liking Yume-chan at the dinner after the secret of the prank was revealed, because she was so unnecessarily rude to me.

"Why would you say that?" I ask.

"He has never stopped giving us missions just so that we can train," he replies, "All of us are already strong enough. He's putting everything on hold so that the two of you can get stronger."

"That's ridiculous," I say, "Why would he do that? He doesn't like either of us."

"All the same, I think he knows more than he's letting on. Maybe he knows something about your ancestory."

"My ancestory wouldn't be of any interest to him."

"For all you know, one of your forefathers also came here, like you did, and he turned out to be a great ninja. There must be a reason you and your friend turned up right outside Konoha, right where you would be found by us. It can't all just be coincidence."

"Suiton Suirou no Jutsu!" I say, forming a bubble of chakra in the pool beside me and expanding it to form a Water Prison so that I don't have to answer. I don't know what to say, anyway.