Naruto : Path of Wind

I make the trip to training ground seven in high spirits the next day, despite my lack of sleep and pressing lateness, with a bounce in my step and a satisfied little grin on my face.

After these last few days of not being able to get any real training in and trying to figure out Sakura's sudden insanity, Hinata's special jutsu had been just what I needed to take my mind off things and relax.

I haven't gotten as much sleep as usual, but I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow last night, which is better than the last few nights where I stayed up for hours trying to puzzle out that skeletal nukenin's jutsu and shape transformation and Kazu's genjutsu and-

Yeah. That training session with Hinata was nice.

Speak of the devil, I throw a wave to Team 8 as I pass their training ground, which they return with varying levels of enthusiasm. Their sensei, a smoking hot jounin whose name I never learned, waves back at me like a normal person. Kiba shouts a boisterous greeting followed by a taunt which his sensei promptly swats him over the head for, and Shino just nods. Hinata turns away, no doubt poking her fingers together while she does it.

But that's Hinata for you. That girl is the Sasuke of the Hyuuga clan, I swear.

Having reached my stop, I veer off into the entrance of training ground seven, bracing myself for Kakashi's cheerful beratings. But to my surprise I find the place deserted. I glance around warily- I wouldn't put it past Hatake to set up an ambush for me as punishment for my lateness. He'd probably call it a training exercise and have Sasuke and Sakura in on it too, the prick. When a few minutes have passed and the rounds are still empty, though, I start wondering.

I can understand Kakashi and Sasuke being late. Kakashi is pretty spotty with his punctuality, and Sasuke had that thing with his brother last night. From what he tells me, those things can get pretty intense. They might still be going at it if Itachi doesn't have anything to do today.

But where's Sakura?

I ponder this for a while, standing there in the middle of the clearing, thinking up all sorts of horrible possibilities in my head. I almost convince myself to go and track her down, but then I realize I don't know where she lives. Finally I sigh and shake it all off.

"I'll worry about it in an hour," I mutter resolutely, and turn heel to leave. If they all decide to miraculously show up while I'm gone, then good for them. I was the closest to being on time.

The path to Konoha's public hybrid library is a familiar one, even though I've never actually been inside the building before. It sits on a corner leading into the market square and stands almost as tall as the Hokage Tower itself, so I always get a solid eyeful of it on my way home from the Academy, or more recently from training. The civilian crowd is still waking up, so I pass through the square unhindered, relishing in the ample personal spaces between myself and the other early risers.

The reason I've never been to the hybrid library before, which beats out the one the Academy offers on all accounts, is two part. First, you're not allowed to touch a single scroll in the shinobi section of the library without shinobi identification, which means civilian reading only for Academy students. Second, even as a genin you're only allowed access to general texts that don't involve the actual arts, some scrolls on public (and thus subpar) Taijutsu styles, and non-elemental jutsu of D-rank or below.

In short, it has nothing to offer me as a shinobi until I make chunin, and what little else I need info on I can find easily enough at the Academy without the added hassle of a library card and strict, chunin-enforced return dates. The only problem is now I've run into something that the Academy can't help me with. Several somethings, actually.

It's been a busy month.

I shoulder the grand entrance doors open, stepping in onto plush red carpet, and simply admire the place. The walls are lined with dozens of curving bookcases that climb almost to the domed glass ceiling, filled to the brim with all manner of text. There's a circle of empty space in the middle of the library allowing me to peer up at the rising sun through the glass ceiling, and surrounding me on both sides are two grand spiralling staircases belonging to the civilian side and the shinobi side of the library respectively.

I just stand there, basking in the atmosphere of the place for a while. Then a civilian walks by dressed in a tidy civilian school uniform. He takes one look at me and my clothes that I have yet to wash since I put them on at the hospital, and makes for the civilian staircase with his nose turned up. Tch.

I stalk off in the opposite direction, taking the stairs two at a time as I climb the levels. I bypass several combat oriented floors without a second glance, until I reach a floor about a quarter of the way up the staircase labelled Fuinjutsu. I step out onto yet more red carpeting, and am immediately staggered by the sheer magnitude of scrolls and books. There have to be at least three times as many scrolls in one of those shelves as the Academy's entire Fuinjutsu section!

A plaque labelled "Novice" on one of the bookshelves catches my eye, and I quickly head over to it, remembering my mission in coming here. I go down the line, quicker than I probably should, flickering from scroll to book to scroll, mentally noting several pieces to check out later, until I land upon one particularly beefy tome with the word "Subseals" emblazoned across its spine in a flowing white font.

"Gotcha." I pluck the book out, exit the maze of Fuinjutsu, and grab a seat at a nearby table. Flipping it open to its table of contents, I note the page number and proceed to the section of the book devoted to listing the subseals themselves out for easy use. I notice right away that the list is far more extensive than the book that I looked over from the Academy, and I feel a little bit of hope bloom in my chest.

I scan through the first indicated page with no luck. The second page goes by similarly. And the third, the fourth, the...

"Damn it," I growl, slamming the book shut. I return to the bookshelf and grab another book, this one about half the size of the first, and look through it with identical results. Rinse and repeat. Finally, after I've accumulated a pile of half a dozen books and a neat little pile of scrolls, I scowl fiercely, slap both of them off the table, and bury my head in my hands, simultaneously disgusted and distraught.

"You alright, kid?" Someone asks. I lift my head to see a woman with short brown hair in a chunin vest standing in front of my table with her arms crossed over her chest, watching me with an expression that's half curiosity and half annoyance. I'm in the middle of a sarcastic reply when I notice the bright red bandana tied around her left bicep, and shut my mouth with a sharp click.

See, the shinobi side of the library is a bit different than the civilian side. Where the civilian side has one librarian stationed on the second floor to check out books for that entire half of the place, the shinobi side has a librarian/supervisor for every floor. And depending on which floor you're on they may be a chunin or a jounin, so that they can be counted on to kick the ass of anyone that tries anything funny. They wear red bandanas on their arms so they're easy to find, and they don't enjoy their turf being abused.

I get out of my chair and pick up my books and scrolls.

"Sorry," I say quietly. I still have a couple things I want to pick up here, and getting myself kicked out will pretty thoroughly prevent me from doing so. "I'm trying to find this thing, but none of these books have it."

"I saw you going in and out of the Novice section. It might be somewhere more advanced," she suggests. I shake my head.

"Nah, it's nothing fancy. I'm just looking for some subseals."

"That's it?" She grins. "Here, why don't you describe them to me and I'll see what I can do."

Oh, that's right. The supervisors usually specialize in the skill they're presiding over. There's been a Fuinjutsu specialist here the whole time. Brilliant, Uzumaki.

"Well, they're kind of hard to explain," I say sheepishly. "Do you have a scroll I could use?" In response she tosses me a small blank scroll seemingly from nowhere, which I decide to chalk up to storage seals. I pull out my sealing brush and ink blot from my weapons pouch and get to sketching.

I didn't have very long to look at Sakura's seal yesterday, but it was enough. My hand stumbles and jerks across the paper, bringing to life the demented restriction seal one malformed symbol at a time. After the first couple of strokes the chunin moves around the table and leans over my shoulder, her brow furrowed and her eyes intent.

"Do you have any ink that's not black?" I ask when I've finished the shell. She hands me a small blot of red ink wordlessly, and I start on the part my teammate is supposedly trying to seal.

When it's all said and done I lean back and flip the brush around, jabbing at each of the restriction subseals that I was able to pick out yesterday. "I recognize all of these, though they're being used for something I've never seen them used for before- they're all supplements. Everything else is a mystery to me."

"What does the red represent?" she asks after a long silence.

"Blood."

"Are you qualified?" she asks immediately.

I shake my head. "Nope."

"And you seriously expect me to help you with this?" She turns away from the seal just long enough to give me a deadpan look.

"To be fair, you offered," I say, grinning. She scoffs, and traces the seals making up the containment... shape. Since the ink she gave me is bright red, the distinction is much more clear than with Sakura's.

"Even if you were qualified," she continues pensively. "I've never seen a seal like this before. You said the restriction subseals were supplements- that makes this one big restricting seal, right?" I nod. "Do you know what it's supposed to be restricting, specifically?"

"It's for my teammate."

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