A dream within a dream

so... it's been a while. sorry about the huge break, but mid-April to mid-may will be the busiest time of year for me in the next couple of years, so this will always happen. but, for future reference, these... hiatuses? hiatai? will be regular, but not permanent.

now that we are already talking, I would like to ask a favor of you, you see, this may sound like begging to you... and that's because this is begging, but I would really appreciate any sort of feedback. I mean, I know full well that I'm not amazing at writing, and while practice (hopefully) helps, I would also really like to know if I am practicing awful writing. thank you to anyone who gives feedback, and thank you to anyone who has managed to slog this far through my book.

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I felt the cold stone all around me as I stood before Danzo, his gaze sweeping over my body, pausing on the empty space where my left leg used to be.

"do you know why I brought you into this organization? Why I choose you, after all, you must realize that there are more obvious candidates, so, why would I choose you even with your history of, questionable, choices?" Danzo asked.

I glanced around the office I found myself in, the metal desk Danzo stood behind shining dully in the dim torchlight, the wall behind him filled with cabinet after cabinet. He was right, he had no reason to choose me, I was a cripple who made choices so bad I managed to not only be useless, no, no, I had to take it to the next level and kill my friend.

"I don't know" I said.

"the reason for that is your potential, as, while you have shown questionable competence while on your own, I believe that with my unique experience in training shinobi, I can transform you into a shinobi who is capable of saving hopeless situations, especially with your rare affinity for fuinjutsu" he said.

Could he really? Even after everything, after all the things he criticized me for, and all the mistakes I made, mistakes so grand and idiotic that they managed to start a war.

"however, for you to be useful, you first need to be somewhat capable, a quota you barely fulfilled before you lost your leg, and which you now fall completely short of" he said as he looked down on me from where he stood behind his desk, his expression completely passive.

"I'm actually working on that, I sort of have been for over a year, at the start it was a completely hopeless project, but as I became marginally better it became possible. I had to put it on hold for a while in the land of water, I had no weapons and was planning to infiltrate the daimyo's palace, but I have been working on it again and I think the only problem left to solve is chakra consumption" I explained enthusiastically.

"Good, now for your next mission. Make yourself useful. You will have access to all of roots fuinjutsu texts, all food will be brought to you, and when you have found a way around your missing limb you will report to me and I will initiate you into root, and start training you properly" he said as he turned away from me.

"uh, when do you imagine I could see my friends again? I will still stay here and learn, of course, but I would like to talk to them, it's been a while since I last saw most of them, and, well, I should probably not just disappear... again" I said nervously.

Danzo turned towards me again "i suppose you could see them now if you wished, it doesn't seem like that bright of an idea to me, however if you must then I will not stop you. But do be careful, I hope you remember what happened yesterday, but if you insist, I won't stop you from making that choice, even if choices are not your strong suit" he drawled, looking at me lazily as if he was already disappointed.

My mind flashed back to what happened yesterday before I spoke "you might be right, it's probably better this way, I just have to stay here and do as you say, and they'll be fine, right?"

"exactly, now, I have business to attend to and as do you, so you may leave" he said, and I walked out of his office.

I entered the small suite I shared with Sai, only to find Sai sitting at our table working on a life-sized drawing of me, it was drawn with fantastic detail, depicting me hunched over the very same table as I worked on my fuinjutsu late last night to calm down.

"i appreciate that you like me Sai, but if you feel compelled to make a copy of me after we only spent hours apart I don't think this living situation will work out" I said.

"oh, no need to worry, when we need to replace someone we find a person with a ninety-five percent match in physical appearance, and then perform surgeries to increase it as much as possible. Although that would be rather hard with your strange appearance" Sai said with the same monotonal upbeat tone and a bit too friendly smile.

"It is truly heartwarming that you've put so much thought into deep-faking me, although I am slightly hurt by your completely unbiased opinion about my appearance" I said.

"oh, I apologize if you are hurt because you were never told about your abnormal appearance, you see, you are far paler than most of the population, and your blonde hair and blue eyes are also very abnormal, in fact, you are in the 0.0001th percentile, with being one of only three known blondes in Konoha outside the Yamanaka clan, if you take your rather absurd height into account, you might possibly be one of the hardest people in Konoha to replace simply due to your bizarre appearance" he said.

"it's called Scandinavian-ism! It's a genetic condition, it makes me tall, blonde, blue-eyed and gives me high cheekbones" I said defensively.

"that seems like a rather beneficial mutation in your genetic code, where did you discover this mutation? It is not on your Konoha medical records" he asked, smiling.

"Well, it's not all benefits, it also makes me incredibly prone to alcoholism and underage drinking... on a positive note, my strain of Scandinavian-ism does give me a healthy hatred for swedes" I said with heavy disgust on the last word.

"Who are these 'swedes' and why is it physically beneficial to feel hatred for them?" Sai asked with a pleasant smile and curious tilt of his head.

"no idea, really, I know that they are from a time before the academy, but, to be completely honest, I don't remember much from those days anymore, it's like... an old story I read inside a dream within a dream, nothing firm, nothing I remember... not anymore" I said.

And it was true, I barely remembered the times before, they had simply slipped from my grasp at some point, like a pencil that fell out of my pocket. The worst part was that I felt nothing when I realized I had lost the last memory of family I would ever have, at least until I made one for myself. Only... a strange emptiness when, after I made a comment that I would have preferred a cool glass of elderflower juice, I remembered that I no longer knew what it was.

"We have medical shinobi on standby if you feel the need to receive an examination, for either your 'Scandinavian-ism' or your apparent brain damage" Sai said with a helpful smile.

"I liked you better when you didn't know about my brain damage" I said.

I was bent over the table in our suite, the most hotly contested spot in the entire house as both of us tried to claim it whenever the other went to the bathroom. The new lamps I had installed shone above me as I focused on my work, but no matter how hard I focused I couldn't get around the problem which had been plaguing me since the very first prototype of my new seal.

"how long do you intend to hold our only proper workstation?" Sai asked.

"until I figure out how to overcome my CRUSHING DISABILITY of only having ONE LEG, of course, if you wish me to, I would be happy to get up and get up and work on the floor" I said.

"Perfect! If you would be happy to do so, Please vacate the table, I need it to work on a new drawing" he said

"... fair enough, I suppose it is my fault for forgetting that you ignore subtext even after living with you for two weeks" I said while clearing out the table and placing it in a pile on my bedside table.

"what is subtext?" Sai asked curiously, causing me to pause mid-movement.

"you know, or maybe not, but, either way, it's the things you say without really saying them, like sarcasm, or irony, or I don't know how many other things" I said, staring at Sai with shock.

"What an interesting concept, how are you supposed to differentiate between the, according to you, countless types of subtext?" he asked.

"well, it's mostly a question of tone, body language, context, and word choice, I think. It's hard to explain, honestly, most people just know through the social interactions they have experienced through life" I explained as best as I could.

"What an interesting subject, would you be willing to teach me more about social interactions?" he asked, still smiling.

"I suppose I would, though, as I said, it's a complicated, and honestly strange, subject" I said.

After hours filled with nothing but talking about the nuances of social interactions, he asked me a question I would have never expected just hours ago.

"what is the problem you cannot solve? I have seen you try countless variations of similar patterns and 'scripts', I believe you call them, over the course of your stay here, yet you seem to grow increasingly frustrated and dissatisfied. As your friend, I believe I should be concerned for you" he said.

"look at that, you're learning already. And yes, I do have a problem I cannot seem to solve, I won't bore you with details you can neither understand nor care for, but the core of the problem is this. For my new script to work, I have to designate my entire body as the target. I need the script to get around the problem of my, shall we say, lacking mobility. but, to do so, I either need to simply designate an area around me as the area where I want the effect to happen or 'area of effect' however that would, for this effect in particular, require me to permeate the entire area with my chakra, which would be both far too costly and far too focus intensive, not to mention the host of other problems such an approach would cause" I started to explain.

"that indeed sounds like far more of a problem than a solution" Sai said

"On the other hand, I could go for a more detail-oriented approach, but, the sheer amount of scripting and writing and planning to avoid the lines intercepting and- just-... it would simply require too many lines of script to function, the sheer amounts of characters I would have to fill with my chakra to even activate the seal would practically drain me" I said with a frustrated sigh.

"Then why not simply apply the script directly? You work with ink, why not get tattoo scripts?" Sai asked, smiling at me.

"no, it wouldn't work, skin simply isn't resilient enough to channel the amount of chakra the seal would need, even with the target designation part taken out of the equation. There are just limits to the number of characters a material can hold and how much chakra it can safely let pass, that's why the seals on my leather whips aren't as advanced as the ones on my gloves or senbon. Leather, and other organic materials for that matter, just aren't good at channeling chakra. I would need something sturdier" I said while resting my head in my hand, supported by my elbow on the table.

We sat in silence for a while, each pondering the subject at hand until, finally, I had something of an Epiphany.

"you're good with your brush, aren't you?" I asked.

"I am" he said.

"and that, at least to a degree, includes calligraphy, right?" I asked.

"yes, I even know a certain degree of fuinjutsu" he said.

"How would you feel about, hypothetically, doing a fun bit of calligraphy on, say, my sternum and ribs?"