Eight

Copper

The Ghosts of March Keep Whispering

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"So if you're not, like, a seal-sy person, how come you knew I was good at it?" Kiba drew his spoon through a bowl of dark red stew and took in some light colored meat, a kinda-jello cube, and a potato all at once. The spice hit him as quick as the heat and he swallowed without chewing as his mouth set aflame. "What the—what the fuck is that," he whispered.

Across from him, Mabui chuckled into her hand before taking a sip of her own meal. She didn't share the same visceral reaction and continued to eat like the devil themself wasn't in her food. "I will admit that Tragopan Blood Stew is an acquired taste, but it's one of our milder dishes."

Akamaru woofed around the yak bone he was gnawing on and lolled his tongue when his partner glared through watering eyes.

"Take some butter tea. It will help."

Kiba downed the cup in one gulp and hung his tongue out his mouth, hoping the frost of Kumo's air that rolled in every time someone opened the front door could chill his taste buds, and Mabui took a moment to mull over the past few months.

She had to give Kiba a whole new set of clothes when she let him out of the cell because the plain clothes could have the potential to be too telling, so she'd taken some liberties with his style. The standard-issue black pants stayed but she'd pilfered through her apartment and her brother's old clothes for some outgrown mesh shirts and a couple of black track jackets with a white stripe down the middle of the back and around the elbows. Those ones ran a little big, but she figured he would grow into them. Long-term planning and all that.

The thing she was most mindful of, though, were the metal bands and brown tattoos on his person that would instantly announce his status.

She had him wrap his ankles and forearms with bandages colored the signature Kumogakure red and told him never to leave his cell without them. Only when he agreed did she have him keep several rolls for convenience.

"But to answer your question, even though I didn't understand much of what you'd written on the walls, I understood enough that it belonged in advanced theory," she said. She tore a piece of flatbread and dipped it into her stew. "Tell me, Kiba-kun, what led you to study seals?"

He bent over his bowl and slowly dug out another piece of meat, careful to get as little soup as possible. "I wanted t'know how ta' reverse seals."

A pang rattled just behind Mabui's rib cage. Those seals... it nearly slipped to the back of her mind. After they'd been brought in from the border and examined by a seals expert sworn to secrecy, they'd confirmed the seal work to fall under the 'cursed' category due to its manipulation of body, mind, and will, and had also confirmed its unwilling application by the apparent stress marks amongst the black lines.

It sickened her to her stomach to hear of such a thing. The Kumor developed their sealing techniques through skin once a long time ago, but the move to paper mediums came because of the permanent, detrimental effects that were consequence with their use.

Some of the older generations who still live with them were blind or deaf or had lost all movement in one arm or the other, or their skin on a leg had been burned so thoroughly even if the clear ink of the seal still remained. Or maybe they couldn't remember their own name longer than a day but could recite their favorite book cover, notation and all.

Those who currently utilize powerful skin seal knew of the risks they took. But nowadays, there were so few.

"I ended up gettin' really into it," he continued. "Turns out I'm pretty good at it? Sakura and Shino thought I could do a lot with it and I have a teach' back in my old village. Or, uh, had." Akamaru set his head atop the hand his partner rested on his lap. Kiba cleared his throat and quickly fished for a jelly cube thing. Jelly cube? Oh, it was blood. Definitely congealed blood. "But it's still cool. Am I allowed t'look at the sealing books in your library?"