Laughing at his amazement, Tsukai jerked her head in the direction of the pool, and began to walk over to it without waiting for his reply. Pausing, he wondered what she was getting at, but seeing as everything in his view at the moment was laced with light and power, he jogged over, standing next to her as she smiled softly, a strange look in her eyes, before whispering gently,
“This is how I knew. Look.”
Narrowing his eyes at her words, he eventually obeyed, stepping forward to gaze down at the water below, an action that made his eyes widen once again in amazement. He’d never thought to look at what effect the drug had had on him, but looking at his reflection he could see it in full. He too had runes decorating his body, and the glowing core Tsukai had had, although his seemed a lot dimmer than her own was, the veins that wormed their way around his body not of the same intensity either. His skin also didn’t have that same sheen to it. But the idea of this drug making all these things appear overrode that, and not taking his eyes off the runes on his body, he questioned a second later,
“What...what is it?”
Giggling at him, she took a deep breath and began to explain;
“The glow is chakra—the potential there to create jutsu and use the skills of a ninja. The veins that run throughout it all...it is the deeper power within everything. A power that doesn’t need handsigns or chakra to be used. It is all around us and runs through everything you can see—and everything you can’t.”
Nodding absentmindedly at that knowledge, Hidan suddenly remembered something, and looking up now, back into eyes of gold that were like pure light, he asked in a whisper how this helped in knowing he was Jashinist, barely able to speak as he got lost looking into her eyes. They emanated a light that didn’t seem to have a source—the core and the veins contributed, but it wasn’t the true source. The sheen on her body...that was to do with it, but Hidan was way too busy searching through her eyes to take in her entire body. Smirking at his whispered voice, Tsukai glanced away, releasing Hidan from their spell as he looked round, blinking in order to get back to normal after what seemed like a dream, before he concentrated back on her as she responded quietly,
“Not many people have runes, Hidan. You have them because you are a Jashinist. They are all different symbols which mark you as having completed the experiments and become one of the brethren. That’s how I knew.”
“But...wait...can you see this all the time?” Hidan asked in wonder, glancing down at it all. It would be kind of cool to see it constantly, but kind of weird at the same time. But shaking her head, though shrugging as she did so, Tsukai said difficultly,
“Not exactly. I don’t actually need these leaves to see them; I can anyway, but it’s just easier to carry them around if I want to use my chakra for something else. But it’s not actually all the time, but instead...I can feel certain things. You may see the veins, the cores of light; but I feel them. And seeing you...I know the feeling, and knew you were a Jashinist from that.”
Narrowing his eyes at her, Hidan considered what it was like to feel what he was seeing. Not only that, but whether it had come on at birth or it was something she had learnt over the years. She seemed to know so much about the forest; seemed so much more at home in places like the ones they were in now than in places like the village. But then he realised that that fact itself wasn’t entirely strange, when thinking about the differences in the light on their bodies. She had an incredibly bright glowing core—more so than his—and the veins were brighter as well. He didn’t have a sheen to his skin, either, and though she wasn’t a Jashinist—at least, if she was, she hadn’t told him—she too had runes across her skin that glowed. But before he could ask what hers meant, she cut in,
“Listen...I think I can help you get back. I mean, you might have to tell me a little more about what you did in the temple, but whatever it was, you’re gonna have to create the same sort of power you did there in order to open up the portal to get back.”
“Why did it transport me here? I mean, like you said, this place in the middle of nowhere, so...why?” he questioned, thinking it all over. The temple could have transported him anywhere in the world, so why this particular place? He wasn’t protesting to the idea of being here—not now he had Tsukai—but it still seemed strange it had been picked as his destination.
Sighing, Tsukai returned to the fire and sat down, beckoning for him to join, and though at first he was a little reluctant at her reaction, she simply revealed that there was some stuff to explain, and settling down in front of her, she began,
“The portals, like the one you came through to get here, are in relatively easy to get to places, right? They’re spread out over the world, so the knowledge of them can be spread. But the true temples that have been here since the dawn of time...those are the ones that are placed in the middle of fucking nowhere. Places like here. People often used to go from one to the other using the power in them; but obviously, over time...the precision’s gone a little bit shit, considering you ended up in the middle of the fucking forest.”
Laughing at that, she sighed again, softer this time, and shrugging, looking slightly sheepish, she confessed afterwards,
“But...it’s gonna be difficult. You being a Jashinist will help a lot of course, but to control the portal enough to get back to the proper temple...you’re gonna have to learn how to truly fucking see the things around you. Like I can see and feel the runes and light and stuff at will, you need to follow in the same kind of pattern.”
“What do you mean? Sure, seeing the light and the runes and shit, but...you say it like there’s other stuff.”
“There is. You’ll need to learn the language, for one, and the power I mentioned? That runs through everything—that can be used in any situation without chakra? Yeah, you’ll need to learn how to use that too.”
Falling into silence, Hidan looked down at the floor, thinking it all over. He’d gone through a portal. Headed to a village only for them to treat him like shit and push him out of there. Met a girl who was bat shit insane, made him drink her blood and some sick tasting herbal concoction, and then given him drugs that made him see light everywhere and runes on his body. And now she was saying she could help him get back to a place that had been his comfort zone in the past, when he hadn’t even known her a day. The absurdity of the situation was beginning to hit him, but strangely enough, it wasn’t having any affect at all.
He trusted Tsukai. He knew he did, without a doubt. Sure, he hadn’t known her for even a day, but he didn’t need to. In that time, she had pretty much saved his life from the villagers, then healed him from the poison, then taken him to a safer place and given him food and drink, and shown him the most amazing thing he had ever laid his eyes on in his life. She had been right so far on everything they had done together, and he couldn’t sense anything suspicious about her that he could be wary of. If she was helping him to get back to the others, allowing him to learn the language of his religion and access a whole new power...
“What the fuck have I got to lose?”
