Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_208

Rikku knocked on the locked door but got no reply. She waited for a couple of moments before knocking again, and there was a response.

“Go away!”

The tone was angry, and the voice muffled. It told Rikku that Iori was still in bed, hiding underneath the covers. It had been three days since they had returned from the Gojiro gold mines, and Iori had spent most of her days in bed, rarely getting out of her room, and not once had she stepped out of the house—even on a clear day with ample sun—and Iori loved the son.

Being in bed itself wasn’t a problem. They had just returned from a deadly operation, and they deserved the rest. Iori had her fingers severed; rest was recommended. But Iori had refused to eat more than one meal a day, which was left half-eaten at her door as she didn’t come to the mess hall. She had bathed only once after returning to the base, and refused to do any cleaning except letting Rikku do bandage work on her fingers.

None of it was healthy, and Rikku knew that it couldn’t be allowed to stay.

“I’m coming in,” she said.

“No!”

Rikku ignored the refusal and walked into Iori’s room. The curtains were drawn, blocking out the light, plunging the room in complete darkness until she opened the door.

After resting for a day, cleaning their gear was the first thing every shinobi on the Gojiro gold mine operation upon return. Dirt, grime, and blood needed to scrub off from everything. As Iori’s hand was injured, Rikku took over the job for Iori. The clean clothes and gear were still sitting where she had put them.

“Get out!”

Rikku walked to the curtains and pulled them apart, flooding the room with light, and then opened the windows to let some well-needed air in. Iori pulled the covers over her head and shrunk her body into a fetal bed on her bed.

Rikku didn’t say anything and just sat on the bed beside Iori. A silence sat with them as Rikku said nothing and simply sat on the bed with her feet on feet on the ground. Rikku didn’t mind the silence, but she knew that no matter how much Iori wanted to ignore her, she would find the silence awkward.

Rikku was right; after a few minutes, Iori pulled the covers down from her head and stared out the open window listlessly. Her right hand was bandaged with a splint to keep her fingers in the correct position for healing.

“Let’s get you out. A walk around the base will be good, come on,” said Rikku softly.

“I’m not in the mood, Rikku. Please leave alone,” Iori said and turned around to have her back face Rikku.

Rikku knew what to say to get Iori moving in her current mood. There was only one thing her teammate cared about in the current moment. “It’s time to have your hand checked out by the iryo-nin. Come on, get up. I will be waiting, so wash up and meet me downstairs. We leave in forty-five minutes.”

Rikku got up and left without waiting for a reply.

An hour later, Iori was bathed, dressed, and downstairs, ready to visit the iryo-nin.

———

.

“This is coming nicely,” smiled the iryo-nin kunoichi. “Maybe another week or five days before it’s completely healed and you can start rehab.”

Rikku stood to the side as the iryo-nin checked Iori’s hand.

“…W-Will there be any complications?” asked Iori, desperation in her eyes.

The iryo-nin’s smile was comforting, but there was also a hint of something that told that Iori had already asked that question multiple times before.

“The re-attachment was done properly, but it depends on how long the fingers were detached before the re-attachment,” explained the iryo-nin. “There’s no infection, and the swelling is low, which are excellent signs of a full recovery… but we will only know for sure after it heals completely.”

Iori’s body shook for a moment. She closed her eyes and then calmed down before nodding. She got up from her seat and left the building. Rikku nodded to the kunoichi and then followed after Iori. She caught up to Iori who was heading toward home, but Rikku directed her into the other direction.

“One hour. We stay out for one hour,” she said.

Iori seemed reluctant but nodded.

They walked around the village, which was again drenched after another night’s rain. Rikku didn’t know what meaningful to say to Iori. From her perspective, Iori was right to be worried, but she was overreacting. Her recovery period wasn’t even over, and she was so down in the dumps that Rikku could barely recognize her from the well-spoke, the social girl she knew before the injury.

Rikku would understand if Iori had confirmation that her hand was ruined for delicate work, but Iori didn’t know that, and she already had no hope. That bothered her more than anything—but she didn’t know how to say it—Rikku understood she wasn’t the most eloquent woman.

“How does a storage seal work?” asked Rikku.

If her words couldn’t bring hope, then perhaps Iori’s passion would do that itself.

Iori glanced at Rikku but then continued to walk in silence until a minute later when she started to speak.

“Storage seals are an application of space-time jutsu. They work by creating an artificial space parallel that can be used to store objects, with the seal itself serving as the access point for the artificial space. There are restrictions, of course; weight and size of the load need to be within the parameter of the created artificial space, or there’s a risk of the seal failing—which is dangerous.”

Rikku asked. “What dangers?”

“There are two fail states,” Iori replied. “The good failure state is that the seal spits out the stored items as the artificial space deteriorates, and the seal goes bust—it’s annoying and bothersome, but it doesn’t do much harm. However, the bad failure state is that as the artificial space deteriorates, it destroys the stored items, turning everything into a dangerous flux of matter that, in many cases, is spat out with an explosion. It was a huge problem back in the day.”

There was a time when ignorant shinobi would stuff storage seals beyond the recommended load, thinking that a little over the limit wouldn’t do any harm—but it did do harm. It led to a perception that storage seals were inherently unreliable, which was false, but people blamed the storage seals anyway rather than accepting it was their own fault.

The First Hokage had to issue a state-wide order to fix the ‘unreliability’ problem. The fuin-nin around the Hidden Leaf village and the Land of Fire got to work. After three years of intense research, someone figured out how to implement constraints to storage seals. The constraints added a weight and size restriction to the seals, which made it so that any attempt to put a load beyond the storage seal’s capacity wouldn’t be allowed to enter the artificial space.

The unreliability problem was solved as shinobi could no longer misuse storage seals.

“However, the Hidden Leaf didn’t figure out a solution,” said Iori, her dull eyes now holding a glimmer of admiration. “The Hidden Whirlpool, our allies, figured out the solution to the problem. Their Uzumaki clan, renowned for their fuinjutsu, are the ones to be praised. Lord First and the clan head of the Uzumaki clan were close friends, and when Lord First told the Uzumaki clan head about the problem, he asked the experts of the Uzumaki clan to look into it.”

Rikku didn’t care about any of that, but seeing the light return to Iori’s eyes was all the reason for her to continue the conversation.

Iori held her index finger and thumb at a small distance away from each other. “When a fuin-nin creates a storage seal and primes it, the artificial space is the size of a small glass marble. The chakra provided by the fuin-nin is enough to sustain that marble-size space for a long time, but it’s not infinite—the space would collapse eventually, rendering the storage seal useless. When a user wants to use the storage seal, they provide the chakra and activate it to expand that space to its intended dimensions—and same as before, storage seals have finite lives—especially when in use as the dimensions are expanded and utilizing more chakra. They will die down and spit everything stored out.”

“Why can’t you just pump more chakra in?” asked Rikku.

“It’s not currently possible. I prime the seal; you activate it. That’s the only two times the formulae and the ink can handle a chakra input,” Iori replied.

Rikku made an ‘is that so’ expression.

They continued to walk around the village until they reached a small field where they found Kameko sparring against Anko.

“… I didn’t know Kameko was sparring with Anko,” said Iori, asking Rikku a question.

“Today’s the first day,” Rikku replied. “Kameko wasn’t happy with how she did in the mines, so she asked Anko to spar with her once a day.” In fact, increased training was popping up around the base—fear and a close encounter with death had driven people to put in more training.

Rikku had seen this behavior before from other shinobi in the past. Which was why she knew most would drop their efforts and return to normal before the month ended. She didn’t know if Kameko would be the same, but she did give her friend her confidence.

She glanced at Iori, who was staring at Kameko, desperately trying to fend off Anko’s attack. Rikku had no idea what Iori was thinking, but she could sense that she shouldn’t be disturbed. Rikku herself watched Kameko and Anko—focusing on the chunin and her every single move in the hopes of catching some useful insight into her style of combat so she could integrate it into her own.

In the middle of the fight, Rikku noticed Anko look in their direction. Anko flashed Rikku an almost imperceptible smile, which Rikku knew was for bringing Iori out of her room.

“Let’s go,” said Iori.

They continued to walk in silence, and Iori immediately headed home at the end of the hour.

Rikku didn’t expect Iori to make a complete turnaround with just a walk and some talk—but she did hope that it would elevate some of her gloom. But Iori returned to her room and shut the door.

Rikku sighed before continuing with her day. She would try again tomorrow.

However, that evening when she passed by Iori’s room, the door was open, and Iori was on her desk, flipping through a book with several fuinjutsu seals.

It brought a smile to Rikku.

She didn’t disturb Iori and let her be engrossed with her work.

———

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AN: Passed the Bechdel Test in this chapter. A lot of death in the gold mine operation, every involved has some reaction. Iori has let her worry over take her. Rikku is trying her best to support her teammate despite it not being her strong suit. Kameko is working out with Anko.

AN[2]: Here's some FanArt drawn by Kodah. Pretty fucking awesome, if you ask me.