Aki laid in bed that morning, the sun was barely up, just enough to send a weak ray of sunlight through her curtain-less window. She felt tingly when the small ray hit her face, slowly crawling over her opened eyes as she breathed out softly.
Static was edging her mind, dulling the sounds of the barely waking village. The shinobis guarding, patrolling. The morning bird song was nice to listen to. Brows furrowed as she thought about stuff.
Then she felt like she was forgetting something.
She knew she dreamed often, but she could never remember her dreams. The voice said it was never her time to remember them yet. But she always felt tingly, like her mind wasn't quite a part of her body in the mornings. Just barely clinging to her physical being. It wasn't the worst feeling, at least she didn't think so.
There were worse things out there.
The tingly, static of her mind gave way to calm breaths and relaxed limbs. Eyes half lidded as she enjoyed a quiet morning at dawn.
And then footsteps came up to the village walls. She didn't know them. That was new. And they weren't native to the forests, that was for sure. They were cautious in their steps to make sure they didn't trip over anything, didn't know how to move through leaf litter as quietly.
Even civilians from the leaf knew how to walk over roots and on the leaf covered ground well. Not as well as shinobis, but remarkably well for civilians.
Their heart beats were another thing she didn't recognize. It made her a bit anxious.
They smelled kinda dusty, like sand from the river bed, but dry.
A summer breeze and old paper for one. That one was the girl, Aki at least thinks. She would need to see her to prove it right.
One of the boys, the oldest she's pretty sure, smelled like wood and paint. Specifically wood paint and... Something acidic?
Both smelled very faintly of blood. Normal for Shinobi.
The last one was a bit... odd. Like a raccoon, but a dog at the same time. She thinks they're called Tanuki's? why would he smell like a tanuki? He also smelled like sand, and blood.
A whole lot of blood, it was something that she had to dig through to get to the other more faded scents. It honestly kind of scared her.
She was used to smelling blood on shinobis, especially the older ones that went through the war. The third Hokage was absolutely covered in it, so was her sensei. But this was different. More malicious, more scared, confused, controlling. Recent.
The static receded quickly after that, but the calm still lingered and the floaty feeling was still on the edge of her consciousness
She got out of bed, going through the motions of changing into her clothes. Under armour, plain shirt, plain hoodie, pants with a belt and then all her kunai and shuriken.
Forgoing breakfast, she headed out of her house by her room window.
She had people she wanted to watch.
<->
Aki tilted her head from the tree branch she was on. There were three Shinobi in her village. They don't belong to her village. Their walking with little fear.
None of the Konoha shinobi were attacking them either.
They were watching them closely, tensed and ready for a fight, anxiety rolling off them in waves with twitchy hands.
Aki blinked, focusing on the scent of the three, matching them to the faces and listening to their bodies. They were tense, blood rushing a little quicker as they walked leisurely.
She stared, shifting on her tree branch as she observed them. One girl, two boys. Family, no doubt. The smallest, the redhead with the horrible eye bags, stopped walking. He blinked and looked up at Aki. She blinked back. Static blared briefly when he moved his hand.
Something in his gourd shifted, growing, roiling and grinding against itself.
The air around them rises in temperature, a familiar feeling of sparking fire building in Aki's stomach. Flowing to her hands, palms lighting up with a soft purple glow. Magma started to drip through her veins-
"calm."
Aki paused and tilted her head, the boy blinked in surprise and he faltered. Hairless eyebrows- he had no eyebrows..?- dipping down. He looked at her, body relaxing the tiniest bit and his hand dropping back down.
"Gaara, you coming?"
The other boy asked, turning around and giving Gaara an odd look. The girl turned too, raising an eyebrow.
They both smelled wary. Edging on scared.
"Yes."
He muttered, voice tired, scratchy, dry. Like he didn't have any water for a few days and hasn't talked in weeks. It made the static in Aki's head stronger, trying to block out the sudden jolt of anxiety it caused her.
With one last glance, he walked away with his siblings. The other two didn't seem to notice her.
One thing was for certain.
He was not well.
<->
Aki kicked her legs faintly as she sat on the railing of the bridge, looking at the water. The sound was nice, the trickle of it as it seeped into the dirt and grass, running over the smooth pebbles with soft gurgling.
The other three talked behind her, or... argued behind her.
Something she didn't have the brain power or attention span to pay attention to today. Trying to block out the increasing amounts of foreign heartbeats. All were jumpy, anxious, excited. It made it hard to focus.
Static edged her hearing, narrowing it down to the three behind her, the one walking up to them and the water bubbling under her.
"Sensei! Sensei! We saw other genin in the village that weren't from Konoha!"
Naruto chirped, bouncing up to their sensei and hugging him round the waist. Aki looked over and stared with slightly clouded eyes.
That would explain why they smelled faintly of blood and sand
"Aki, come on," Sakura pulled at her hand and Aki blinked, refocusing on the conversation as she hopped off the bridge rail.
"there is reason for them visiting Konoha, Naruto. The chunin exams are taking place in about three weeks." He explained, messing up Naruto's already messy hair. "And I've nominated you four for the chunin exams."
Naruto cheered and Sasuke smirked, both smelled happy. Sakura cheered, but she smelled more uncertain and wary than anything. Kakashi watched them, observed them and Aki leaned back.
Chunin exams. Interesting. So that's why those genin were entering the village.
She tuned out the rest of Kakashi's explanation, she could pretty much understand based on the name itself.
Chunin exams, most likely for genin's that are looking to be chunin, probably a series of tests and it'll need a team, or at least team work.
Actually.....
Didn't she hear about it throughout her years in the academy, weren't they held in different ninja villages each time they came around?
She's pretty sure it happened once or twice while she was in the academy, or something.
But that wasn't important, what was important was: Did she think she was ready to be a chunin?
She didn't know honestly. Sure there was that mission at wave . They managed to survive.
Only barely, and it was mainly Kakashi that had done the heavy lifting. They had just managed to not get killed.
Not to mention she was still figuring out how to get good control over that new fire... thing she did. She lit herself on fire a few times in the past weeks actually.
But she was getting the hang of it.
Her musings were interrupted by Sakura pulling on her sleeve again, a conflicted look in her eyes.
The two boys had gone and Kakashi was a little ways off, probably listening for them.
He always did like to listen to his students when they didn't know he could hear them.
Aki tipped her head to the side, a silent what?
Sakura looked away in response, nervous. Blood rushing to her face in a blush, as she took a deep breath.
"I was wondering if you knew what you were gonna do for the genin exams?"
Aki shrugged, bringing her hands up to say something, but paused and sighed.
"I was just- I was curious, was all," she mumbled, shuffling in place. Aki stared and continued to ponder, tilting her head the other way and then back again.
She pointed to Sakura, then herself, repeated a few times and then finger spelt go.
You go, I go.
Sakura smiled gently, but still looked uncertain, scrunching her qipoa up in her fists. "I don't know though, that's the thing. I want to go, but I don't know if I'm strong enough to."
Aki thought about it, and nodded. Sakura wasn't the strongest, and when they did go on the mission, she had mainly stepped back to protect Tazuna. A strength in its own right, and discipline in another because that was their original mission. But outside of spars, she didn't have any real combat experience.
They don't try to kill each other in their spars and she has yet to face that. Or, at least head on.
Aki blew air out through her nose, grabbing Sakura's shoulders and smiled.
She willed Sakura to understand that she could do it if she wanted to. If she failed, she failed. There was nothing wrong with that. If she didn't want to, she didn't have to.
But if there was a will, there was a way.
Sakura blinked at Aki, before giggling and bringing the shorter girl into a hug, burying her face in rust-red hair as Aki turned her head to the side. Arms wrapped around Sakura's upper back.
"Thanks, Aki."
She hummed, letting go of the hug, (Aki didn't want to let go. It made warmth unfold in her chest. It made her feel safe-) and took a step back.
"ya'know, for a mute girl, you sure can say a lot,"
Sakura teased, a smile lighting up her eyes as she started to jog away with a small wave and cheerful goodbye.
Aki stood there for a second, blinking in surprise as she processed the words and tried to figure out what that meant. Was that a good thing? Bad thing? She was mute, she couldn't say anything. Sure she had her hands but-
She shook her head. That was a sentence to unravel and think about when she was in bed and the village was quiet and asleep.
And the few people that were up were quiet and guarding the walls.
When the night animals came out and the crickets sang and the wind hollered unbidden.
With a final confused glance and a small wave in the direction of Kakashi's heartbeat, she jogged off.