Chapter 5 - Secret Revealed: A Headband is Earned

As the smoke from Tenma’s unsummoning dissipated on the wind, Akai and the remainder of the pack remained still. The wolves and even Akai himself could not believe what had just happened. Just when it had seemed hopeless, that the crazed Tenma had won, they had somehow turned it around. Akai stared blankly ahead, still holding his final stance, at the place where the silver wolf had been only a moment before, mere inches from his face. His breathing was starting to slow down now, as was Hishin’s, who still stood next to him.

“Nice job,” panted Hishin, without looking at Akai. He cringed for a moment as his hind left foot touched the ground. The leg was obviously badly broken.

“Thanks,” Akai replied, eyes still facing forward. Hishin thought his voice seemed somewhat distant, and looked up just in time to see Akai’s eyes roll into the back of his head. As the shinobi started to fall forward, Hishin, in spite of his leg, quickly maneuvered around to catch him. Waizuten and Kazeshin were there almost immediately, concern on both of their faces.

“He’s still alive,” Hishin informed them with an effort, “I can feel him breathing. He’s just unconscious.” He shifted Akai on his back so that most of the shinobi’s weight was away from his injured leg. “Check on Mizubuke, Seishouchi, and the pups. Akai will be fine.”

“Sure,” replied Kazeshin, who was realistically the only one who could offer any help to anyone at this time. She turned to go check on her pack mates but stopped when she and the other two heard something moving in the trees nearby. Hishin cringed as he looked in that direction.

“What now?”
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When Akai came to, he at first didn’t realize wear he was. He was lying on his back with a canopy of leaves above him, and he could feel a gentle breeze. He could also see sunlight pouring threw the trees. He tried to get up, but when he went to move he found that his muscles were stiff. Since they were sore as well, he knew he wasn’t paralyzed, but he also knew he wasn’t going to be moving very much for a while.

“So you’re awake already, huh?” Akai recognized the voice and, despite his aching muscles, turned to his left to see Lady Tsunade, a bottle of sake in hand, seated on a small log. Seated beside her was Iruka sensei, and Waizuten was there as well.

“Lady Hokage,” started Akai, instinctively trying to rise so that he could bow. He winced once again though, and then found a brick-colored paw on his shoulder, pushing him back down. Hishin was standing on his other side, with Kazeshin, Mizubuke, and Seishouchi a small distance away, playing with the four pups.

“Rest,” Hishin said to Akai, “you need it.”

“He’s right Akai,” added Iruka, coming over and kneeling next to his student, a note of concern in his voice, “by all rights, you should, at least, still be out cold.”

“Why?” Akai asked in return, “other than being sore all over, I feel fine.”

“Why? Because people who have all of their chakra drained by a curse mark don’t normally even survive,” said Lady Tsunade, still sipping her sake, “yet according to Hishin and Waizuten here, you not only survived but were also able to jump up and start fighting again. That being said, some jonin I know would not even be close to conscious yet, but here we are, having this conversation.” She gave a smug smile, as if her own sarcasm amused her. Akai was confused.

“But I can’t have had all of my chakra absorbed, I’d be dead. Are you sure Tenma’s curse mark wasn’t defective?” He turned to Waizuten as he asked this.
“With as powerful as that curse mark was,” the old tawny wolf responded, “there was no way it couldn’t have drained all of your chakra. I expended most of mine trying to suppress it, trying to keep it from killing you while Hishin and Mizubuke fought Tenma.” He shook his head in amazement. “I had never expected you to rise again after the curse mark removed itself, which could have only meant that it had drained the last of your chakra.” None of this made sense to Akai.

“But how can that be?” he asked, still just as confused as the rest of them.

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Tsunade replied, finally setting the bottle down. “Kazeshin tells us that she saw some kind of pattern on your stomach glowing for a moment, like a sealing jutsu releasing itself. Do you know anything about that?” With all eyes on Akai, he looked down for a moment to think. After a few minutes, a look of realization suddenly appeared on his face.

“No, it couldn’t have been,” he said quietly, as if to himself. Iruka, still next to him, heard this.

“What is it, Akai?”

“I’m not sure, but I think I know what might have happened,” Akai said to his teacher before turning to Tsunade. “Lady Hokage, you have some knowledge of sealing jutsu, right?”

“Well, yes. I’ve developed several of my own,” she answered, a little surprised by the question. She raised an inquisitive eyebrow in curiosity. “Why?”

“If some of a person’s chakra was sealed away by a jutsu, would that chakra be accessible to a curse mark?” This question struck the Hokage as even more odd, and she had to think about it for a moment.

“I’m not sure, but I guess that’s possible.” When Tsunade had finished, Akai sat quiet for a moment, thinking.

“All right, then is it possible for a sealing jutsu to have no visible signs but still be in effect?” he asked after a moment. It was Iruka that answered this one.

“Actually,” the chunin said, remembering what he had learned about the seal that kept the Nine-Tailed Fox inside Naruto, “certain kinds of seals are completely invisible unless it becomes stressed and threatens to break.” Hearing this, Akai went back to thinking. Iruka noticed this and asked, “does that mean something?”

“Well, about six years ago,” started Akai, “I was studying sealing jutsu, particularly those developed by leaf shinobi. I think some of the ones I studied were created by the Fourth Hokage, actually.”

“Why were you studying that?” asked Hishin, still next to Akai.

“I was trying to develop one,” Akai responded, before suddenly sitting up and looking around for his satchel, a fact that did not escape the notice of the others. He found it lying next to his jacket, which had been folded and laid nicely nearby, and started to rummage through it. “I think I actually still carry the scroll with me, since I never really finished it.”

“What was this sealing jutsu supposed to do?” Iruka asked, now just as curious as Tsunade. “Knowing the kind of jutsu you usually make, it can’t have been all that simple.”

“It was supposed to be a partial chakra seal, but I never got past the primary testing phase with it,” Akai replied, still digging through his leather bag. Then, he stopped and pulled out a scroll with an ornate brass case. “Here it is.” He handed the case to Iruka, who then opened it and the scroll inside and started to examine it.

“My theory at the time was that if you limit the amount of chakra a person has available to use, that person has to work harder with the chakra he or she still has, which would mean an acceleration in the growth of the person’s chakra network, similar to the way resistance training works to promote muscle growth,” Akai explained to the group. As Iruka passed the scroll to Tsunade, he added, “It was just a theory though.” The group remained silent while the Hokage took a moment to examine the scroll herself. When she had finished, she rolled it up and handed it back to Iruka, who slid it back in the case. Akai could read nothing from either of their faces.

“You said that you never made it past the testing phase with this jutsu,” Tsunade asked after a moment, “does that mean you did actually test it?”

“Yes, Lady Hokage, on myself,” Akai replied. When he saw Waizuten and Hishin’s shocked reactions to this statement, he continued, “I wasn’t going to test it on anyone else in case something went wrong.”

“And let me guess,” interrupted Iruka, “you stopped after you tested it the first time and saw that there was no visible sign.”

“Yeah, that’s why I asked about invisible seals.” After Akai said this, Tsunade snapped her fingers together, turning all eyes on her. She looked at the group with a smile as she reached for her bottle of sake again.

“I think I know what happened last night,” she said, and everyone in the group watched her closely. “The jutsu depicted in that scroll appears to be effective. It takes the user’s chakra reserve and basically cuts it in two, sealing one half while leaving the other to be used. It would over time continue to add more chakra to the sealed half, maintaining an equilibrium with the rapidly growing unsealed half.” After she said this she looked at Akai. “I believe that when you tested it and believed it had failed, it had actually worked, meaning that you have been carrying this seal for the past six years, greatly building your chakra reserve over time. The end result of this would be that you have only an average chakra reserve normally, but also have a back-up reserve of chakra equal in strength to your normal one.”

“I still don’t see how that allowed him to survive if this second reserve of chakra was sealed away,” said Hishin, “wouldn’t he have had to unlock the seal?”

“No,” responded Iruka calmly, “a seal like that would require a small but constant flow of chakra to be maintained. Once the curse mark absorbed all of the unsealed chakra and started to recede, the seal would have had nothing to fuel it, causing it to unlock on its own.”

“Then,” continued Waizuten, catching on, “the formerly sealed chakra would have spread rapidly throughout the body, quickly restoring the chakra that had been stolen from the body’s cells. That replenishing would explain how he survived, and how his chakra was so depleted once he was awake again. Almost all of it had gone to the cells, literally bringing him back to life.” When he stopped, Akai was finally catching on to the idea.

“And without the seal,” he said, rising to his feet and starting to pace, catching everyone by surprise, “my chakra reserves would come back very quickly after being depleted, which explains how I am already awake and moving about.” He paused in his pacing for a moment. “Wow, and I thought the Eight Trigrams Chakra Suppression Jutsu was a failure.” The group fell silent, all in agreement that this was the only way Akai had survived the battle with Tenma.

“Well, now that the matter of how you survived has been cleared up,” Hishin said, breaking the silence, “I think it’s time to tell you what is going to happen because you survived.” He looked over at Waizuten and added, “Elder, if you would do the honors.”

The tawny wolf stood tall now, taller than Akai had ever seen him stand during the previous night. It was then that he realized something seemed different about the old wolf.

“As the new Alpha of the Eihei Wolf Pack, due to Hishin’s election to retain the position of Beta, I hereby grant my approval to Kajihana Akai.” He looked Akai in the eyes before continuing, “You have passed your test. And as a reward…” he glanced at Hishin, who then grabbed something near Akai’s feet and dropped it in his hand, “the Eihei Wolf Pack Summoning Contract, the gift that the Grey-One had wanted you to earn.” It was the grey parchment scroll that had been part of the jutsu that summoned the wolves, the blank one that had hidden the ornate one.

“I’d say you earned it,” added Hishin with a smile, “not many can come back from the dead and defeat the person that killed him.” Akai smiled and looked at Waizuten.

“Thank you, I will do my best to use it wisely,” he said as he bowed to the new Alpha.

“Good, but you should probably sign it first,” responded Waizuten, “take a knee.” After Akai had dropped to one knee and opened the scroll on the ground before him, the old wolf continued with a speech that it seemed like he had been preparing for some time. “Kajihana Akai, you have earned the Eihei Wolf Pack’s respect, may this serve as a symbol of that accomplishment,” the old wolf fired a small bolt of electricity from his forehead which struck Akai in the temple, leaving a cut just above his eyebrow. “Use the blood to sign your name on the contract, and then allow the cut to heal on its own. The scar will remind you of the respect you have earned, and also that it can be lost if you are not careful.”

Akai raised his left hand to his temple and wiped off the blood that had appeared, then he used it to sign his name on the grey parchment of the scroll.

“Done.”

“Good,” said Tsunade, standing up and facing him, “now that you have passed this test, and have proof to show for it, I pronounce you to be an official Leaf Village genin. We will worry about finding you a team later.”

“I think now would be a good time to pull out that hite-ate I gave you, Akai,” added Iruka, smiling at his student, “I think that means you can wear it now.”

“Thanks, Iruka-sensei, Lady Hokage,” Akai said as he reached into his satchel and pulled out the blue headband that Iruka had given him the previous morning. Resting the metal plate against his forehead, he tied the ends together behind his head. Once it was on, it felt right to Akai, like it was always meant to be there.

“Don’t let it go to your head now,” said Hishin, looking Akai in the eyes.

“I won’t, Hishin, but thanks anyway.”

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