NOVEL NEXT 83: Catharsis
The evening found Sumika outside in a courtyard of the Uzukeishi Manor, her posture awkward and rigid as she stared out at the early winter dusk. Ear mufflers hanging loosely around her neck, her mind idled amidst the familiar ambience of approaching night.
A feeling of exertion danced around in Sumika's body, a waltz of effort and exhaustion together with a sense of relief and easing.
It felt as if the very air she breathed was lighter, like until now she had been breathing mud or sludge. It created an impression that all along her lungs had been choked and stifled by a weight clogging, pressing, and straining around her heart. The sensation likened to the pressure of a bowstring pulled only halfway taut, and as if held for too long, accompanied by a growing sense of anticipation and incompleteness.
The change had progressed slowly over the afternoon, as she had studied and contemplated the papers in her hands, line after line of Lady Mito's neatly summarized details for possible choices, options, insights, and warnings. Rarely was a coherent path forward clearer, and rarer still did her goals feel so closely within reach, so firmly held in her attention.
Safety, peace, quiet, knowledge, training... and more recently these intense pangs of rediscovered emotion, as well as the people who allowed her to feel them... each of whom contributed to the girl's growing understanding of 'Family'. All of this and more could be possible here with the the help of her... clansmen?
Every detail begat dozens more ideas, stirring up a jittery feeling somewhere between nervousness and urging. Eventually Sumika recognized it as excitement, though how exactly she even knew that seemed uncertain in the moment.
Thus, the overwhelming thoughts of her future, of satisfying her hunger for answers, were plenty sufficient to distract Sumika from the accumulating senses of change and shifting of weight within her body.
But now it felt as if all that weight had flowed out, still present, but dispersed all around her body. It was much easier to bear such a pressure in a thin layer across her whole form rather than focused all in one place near the center of her chest. It was almost frightening how suddenly the fog of confusion muddling her imagination burned away... and apparently not without good cause.
Blinking the faraway feeling from her eyes, Sumika felt more composed than ever as she pondered her... surprisingly unhurried predicament. Wherever her awareness floated, her skin practically vibrated with energy, to the point where the hairs on her neck rose and tingled.
Focusing on the sensation prompted Sumika to examine herself in the present, glancing down to see the skin of her arms coated in a thin but dense layer of light, shades of purple and amethyst quietly twirling and roiling in tight coils: her chakra, let loose to flow freely in her body... and around it. A dance of feeling and color indeed.
The effect had been building up for several hours now, though to her... embarrassment, she hadn't immediately realized how much of an impact it was having on her surroundings. The reason she'd hastily fled out into the neighboring courtyard was to avoid further damage to the floor and furnishings in the waiting room.
Her chakra practically radiated from every pore, its heft and presence pressing on a small area of the gravelly winter courtyard directly around the girl. Wisps of light stirred the air, and the wood of barren trees nearby creaked and groaned. And more strangely, where that light touched, tiny buds and green leaves had popped up along those same trees' branches, defying the winter cold.
It seemed anything made of wood would be particularly affected, hence avoiding... further damage to the manor's carpentry construction and furniture.
Thus also was the source of Sumika's... yes, the mild sense of heat on her skin and fluttering within her stomach confirmed to her again that this was indeed... embarrassment.
The feeling had peaked when the stewardess, the inimitable Ikehara Kyoumi1Surname Ikehara, Given name Kyoumi. Sumika subconsciously refers to Kyoumi more formally in her thoughts, addressing her by surname. To be honest... few people on the planet would dare address Kyoumi by her given name., had returned with a wrapped package containing the replacement artifact mask for Sumika, only to discover the ceramic tableware cracked and shattered atop furniture growing branches and a floor carpeted in blooming leaves.
Somehow Ikehara's wordless acceptance and gentle assurances that 'accidents happen' and that she'd 'seen much worse before' and that it was 'pretty mild for the clan' had done little to ease the vaguely familiar and twisting feelings in Sumika's heart, despite corroborating sentiments about the inevitability of such, err, 'accidents' in sections of Lady Mito's notes.
But even that wouldn't have been so discomfiting had not Kushina, with damp hair and hastily dressed, picked that exact moment to escape from whichever of Ikehara's subordinates was charged with escorting her, practically bursting through the door... and nearly colliding with the manor's chief overseer.
The moments of silence after had given way to what Ikehara had politely phrased (warned of?) before as undue excitement, cut short only by the increasingly dangerous tone and surprising grip strength of the slender woman as she dragged off an enthusiastically shouting Kushina to... well, presumably clean up one mess at a time.
Sometimes it was hard for Sumika to fathom that she'd just met the two of them mere hours ago, given the way Ikehara so seamlessly adapted to whatever chaos manifested before her with that air of practiced control and prudent expediency.
It was even kind of heartening, in a sort of warped way, that Sumika was considered the less volatile concern than Kushina being on the loose; Sumika was apparently trusted to handle herself unsupervised even after causing a mess and with her chakra still flaring around like it was. Though it felt like there were some unsettling implications there, ones which her mind still failed to articulate...
Or... or maybe Kushina had just that magnitude of impact on Ikehara's attention, which given what she'd witnessed, was... not unbelievable either.
Sumika could only describe the whole experience as surreal, especially given that whatever was happening with her body was still affecting her... rather noticeably.
And in that regard, another part of her also wondered if she should be concerned that Kushina had caught sight of her secret, as a wielder of the Senju's infamous kekkei genkai. Sumika's own paranoiac tendencies aside, Tsunade, Lady Mito, and others had also emphasized the severity of that secret, time and again really, ever since the meeting near the Yamakuni Sanctuary.
But at the same time, for once, Sumika couldn't bring herself to fret.
This exception to her usual opinion came as a sort of wry surprise, even more so due to the fact that it was based almost entirely on the baffling and instinctual feelings of affinity and recognition that soared whenever she thought of the girl who looked so much like herself. Those feelings felt trustworthy, and she begrudgingly admitted that they hadn't failed her before in Fuzō's or Tsunade's cases either.
Perhaps it would have been worse had not the look on Kushina's face borne such guileless joy and amazement...
Well, for better or worse, Lady Mito's notes suggested quite heavily that both of their situations were intertwined, even to the point where they might work together for this... 'cover story' intended for Sumika's protection. The idea left Sumika cautiously curious, but certainly not unwilling. On sentiment alone, from just their brief interactions thus far, Sumika couldn't find any real reason to reject an arrangement to their mutual benefit.
...Not when she recalled the primal empathy and... kinship that coursed through her during their spontaneous meeting. Mere hours
ago..?Shaking her head slightly, Sumika tried to clear her focus and glanced back at the door to the waiting room she'd inadvertently wrecked.
Taking a few steps towards it, she nearly tripped as she staggered forward, the speed of her motion mismatched with her expectation. Before she would have had to actively concentrate or react on impulse to move this way, but now her perception of what it took to casually stride forward seemed excessively vigorous.
Fortunately, she had caught herself and adjusted her balance immediately.
Unfortunately, some of the branches nearby cracked and fell the ground with a crunch, an errant flare of the girl's chakra having washed over them.
Blinking, Sumika noticed more leaves sprouting from the severed branches a short distance around her, fluttering and swirling as her chakra passed over them.
To her surprisingly blank mind, this phenomenon struck Sumika as problematic, though all of the reasons why that might be the case synthesized into a sort of mixed thought-feeling, which more or less resembled 'Oh, whoops'.
"Oh, whoops- Eh?"
A sudden bout of confusion struck her, only for an answer to immediately float up from somewhere in the back of her mind.
It was alarm and then embarrassment, those were the thought-feelings. Again.
She felt her own expression contort, then settle back into its usual neutrality.
It was inexplicably easier to recognize these less-familiar feelings now, even if that recognition was somewhat delayed.
Making sense of the situation was always such a rare gift to appreciate, as she well knew, and it provided Sumika a distinct sense of pleasure and gratitude... which promptly allowed her to dismiss those other, problematic feelings and focus on appropriate actions to take.
Taking a deep breath of this still-somehow-lighter air really did wonders for her ability to think. It seemed so much less effort now to pivot her thoughts and actually focus on the problem at hand, of which 'intense physical manifestation of her chakra' easily ranked number one on her list of problems to handle right now.
Sumika's instinctive response had of course been to stifle and suppress her overflowing chakra, controlling it so as to refrain from more... embarrassing damage to her surroundings. That seemed a proper and reasonable reaction to have, and one which had served her well enough when similar overflows had happened before.
Yes, that's right... she could strangely recall similar sensations much better now. A few times soon after she had escaped the Land of Grass. A few times at the Yamakuni Sanctuary, too, though those had been eased by the delightful hotsprings to great effect.
Problem was... the more Sumika tried to rein in the chakra coating her whole form, as she had done in the past, the stronger the sounds of creaking and strain echoing from within her body became, along with some sensation that was not quite pain, but close. Tension or discomfort was the best she could describe it as for now. So eventually she had to let up on trying, which did decrease the roiling of her chakra, but not by all that much.
But it was a place to start...
Placing a hand to her chin and running it across her face, clearing away a clump of vibrantly-flowing red hair in the process, Sumika couldn't help but recall how prior instances of her chakra overflowing had caused substantial discomfort as well, or even left her unconscious for a time after. In each case leaving her somewhat disoriented or clouding her mind, along with other unusual or new sensations.
But something had always seemed more pressing, or quickly distracted her.
Right... after her brush with death escaping into the Land of Fire, she'd fallen face-first into a pond and spent Heavens-knew how long... asleep in there? This was true as well with her many hours being submerged in the Yamakuni hotsprings, all without breathing. The only times since her escape she had ever really slept had been regarding those incidents.
Why was it easier to make that connection now? Just how much had she failed to see in her haste and distraction? What was different about each successive incident, about how severe or mitigated it had been?
A slight frown creased the corners of Sumika's lips, and her robes billowed around slightly more harshly in response to the wave of energy mirroring the shift in her contemplation.
Prior to both those times too, she had recently... exerted herself and her chakra in ways she could scarcely recall. It was as if she had understood in the moment, and then the information was faded. Something about a wall of fire and earth? Something about the interactions of speed and force, of angles and aim? Even then, knowing concepts and diagrams and images not from any book or scroll she could recall.
And that was concerning.
Again, just earlier today... mere moments after laying eyes on Kushina. Clansman, kin, ally in distress, concepts that provoked reactions both visceral and inexplicable, Sumika having felt her body respond to the intensity of her desire... to protect - and before that, to survive, to flee, to fight.
The chakra cloaking her now whirled in different patterns through her flesh, her chakra network, even her blood itself, all in response to the various phantom intentions. She could feel it tingle and surge with every heartbeat, like a shadow or reflection of her pulse.
Even just watching Dan and Tsunade spar a while ago, why did their movements and strikes feel familiar? Why did it feel like their exchange made sense on a fundamental level? It reminded her almost of muscle memory, ghost sensations of moving her own body in a similar way.
That sort of blank and hazy feeling, too, occurred whenever she acted without truly understanding how, whenever her mind demanded action, to fight, even to kill, and her body obliged with lethal fervor. Yes... and after every time, and with each day passing, the pressure within her had grown. The longer she tried to hold in her chakra and hide it from notice, the more difficult it became.
And now that chakra was out and flowing freely, the sense of weight lifted, and it had done wonders for Sumika's clarity of mind and ease of focus. The irritations flitting at the back of her attention, the constant stress and fear, and even the omnipresent confusion had mostly abated.
Just what had she truly been doing to herself? That which had built up slowly and over a long enough time that she failed to notice to magnitude of the change until the release of it practically knocked her out?
Sumika paused, still balanced in her awkward mid-stagger pose.
Wait... did they all have to deal with this, this overflowing font of energy and chakra within? All of her... clansmen felt it too?
Tsunade had said as much plenty of times before, hadn't she? And other comments here and there from the others...
'Pretty mild for the clan'
Sumika let out a hiss of breath, which fogged in the frigid evening air - whose cold the girl felt no discomfort in.
"Letting off some tension..." she muttered under her breath, recalling Tsunade's words, "Letting it loose, I'll... feel better?"
The thought seared through her like lightning, connecting what she considered to be disparate feelings and worries into something coherent, something more whole.
What's more, rather than just recalling the words, for the first time in what felt like forever, Sumika remembered the looks on their faces. The faces of everyone she had ever felt those weird mixes of affinity and familiarity with, but this time there was... more.
Tsunade, her words, her tone, her actions... her openness, her thoughtfulness, her dedication.
From all of them, Fuzō, Kaoru, Lady Mito, even... even Michiko all that time ago.
The looks they gave, the meaning in their voices and reflected their eyes.
Sumika felt her throat squeezing up, hitching on the breath she neither needed nor noticed she'd tried to take. Her heartbeat again accelerated, the pulsing in her ears echoed by the tender flaring of her chakra.
She could see it now. Before it was like she had only ever been able to see shadows of the truth, guessing and inferring its shape, but now being able to look at it directly.
With all of it together, she felt...
An agonizing clench of joy and grief.
She felt loved, which wasn’t something she had ever put into words before. Something she hadn't even been able to put into words before. But nevertheless, the feeling was deeply familiar, a core memory. The remnant memories she'd hung onto all this time.
She felt it from the heirloom tying up her hair, where it glowed a brilliant green color entwined with her own amethyst.
She felt it from Tsunade's bone-crunching embrace and thoughtful gifts, from Fuzō's pained smile and haunted eyes, from Kaoru's handmade handkerchief and caring respect, from Michiko's offer of shelter and tear-stained expression.
She felt it in Lady Mito's words, spoken and painstakingly written to help her understand.
Yes... this feeling had emerged before plenty of times, but none more strongly than when she felt the sudden touch of her mother's azure chakra in Lady Mito's chambers. To feel that again, both through memory and through others, well it was more than a little heady. Euphoric, even.
So caught up in the surge of emotion and realization was Sumika that the pressure within, the slamming of her heart, the creaking strain of her bones and muscles, all went unnoticed.
Unnoticed until her own voice leaked out in quiet trills of pain, finding herself on her hands and knees in the courtyard, five amethyst chains extending out from her back and phasing into the ground around her.
Unnoticed until the sense of exertion and energy and pressure had once again spiked and wracked her body, the taste of blood filling her mouth.
With a cough through gritted teeth, the crimson fluid seeping from her lips seemed to evaporate, turning into a fine red mist that faded just as fast as it came, flaring like sparks as it dissipated.
With a few labored heaves of her lungs, blood again splashed and leaked out, even that which stained the ground soon fading as sparking mist. Absurdly, each cough of blood made her feel markedly better.
Within moments the roar of her heart matched with a spike in pressure and chakra around it until a sharp sense of piercing wrung itself from her core.
Inhaling raggedly, Sumika numbly pushed herself up into a kneeling position as she wiped at her mouth, examining her hands to see that no residue remained on them.
The glowing light of her chakra was once again contained within her flesh, no longer flaring out at hers surroundings. Whatever just happened, it couldn't have taken longer than a couple minutes
She sat there for a time in silence, resting on her calves and tilting her head back to gaze at the sky in relief, emotionally exhausted from the whiplash of sensations.
But from the corner of her eyes, she caught the amethyst glow of her chains digging into the ground all around her.
Except floating up from her back, a sixth chain rose.
