[Open] It was a rare day off...

[hyuugachild]

...and Hanabi didn't see them often. She considered herself, at this point, little more than a drone of the Hyuuga estate, fated to take on the much respected, prestigious role of heiress, and subsequently fated to losing much of her childhood to training, studies, and other assorted etiquette lessons and fine arts like calligraphy, weaving, ikebana and tea ceremony. All to ensure she grew to be a splendid young lady.

She certainly didn't feel splendid. She felt exhausted.

But it was a lovely day in the midst of winter, and for once, Hanabi was in the midst of Konoha, breathing in cold hair and watching mist form in front of her mouth. Hoheto, her Branch companion of the day, stood some distance behind her and followed her slowly, as if to appear as though he weren't directly watching her.

She felt self-conscious, being fourteen and still needing a keeper to tag along everywhere, but Hanabi learned quickly that this was life, and a privilege to have so many people dedicated to keeping her in the best of physical health.

Still, thinking dark thoughts wasn't going to improve the day, so Hanabi wanted to make the best of it. She walked slowly up to a shop selling yams and bought one, savoring the taste (though it wasn't as good as the ones spiced by Hyuuga hands).

It was cold, but it was a beautiful day. A day of freedom.

If you ignored the bodyguard tailing you.

Hanabi had tried an inordinate amount of times to ditch them, and failed every time; they were jounin, and she was decidedly not. Still, with every new year of training, she dreamed of escape.

Escape, the thought spread a fuzz over her brain that felt like drinking warm hot chocolate.

With the sight of the Byakugan, she eyed Hoheto's location.

She could make it.
She could.
She would.

With a small signal, a bunshin and a kawarimi no jutsu later, she was running giddily toward the forest. At the longest limits of her vision, she could see Hoheto was not following, and shortly, he'd be out of range.

"Well, it seems like you're having fun," an eerily familiar voice said...just before something hit Hanabi couldn't see hit her squarely in the gut and made the world black.

* * * * * * *

The first thing she noticed was that she was cold. Then, slowly, as sensation returned to her body, she realized her mouth was dry, like she hadn't had a drink in days, and her head and stomach hurt terribly. Shifting alone gave her gut-wrenching cramps. When she opened her eyes, she was surrounded by white.

Snow.

Snow? In Konoha?

No. Not Konoha. Definitely not.

Instantly, Hanabi assumed the worst. She must've been abducted. Kidnapped to blackmail her father. The snow was probably genjutsu...it would be silly to leave precious cargo lying about to freeze to death.

She shakily lifted her hand to make the seal of the ram. "...kai..." Hanabi whispered, hoping the genjutsu could be released simply.

Too hopeful, she chided, staring up at the snow that didn't fade, and the chill that was starting to make her clothing wet.

Hanabi was sure that she was in over her head. For a day of freedom, this was the punishment.

No. Move. Get up. Find out what's going on.

Get up, Hanabi ordered her body. Get. Up.

Comments

[hyuugachild]

Hanabi looked between him and the paper. "...was I mistaken?"

[smallstepstopower]

He made a soft noise of amusement and met her eyes. "I will not say before you give me a proper answer."

[hyuugachild]

Hanabi sucked in a breath and looked down to her work. "Well...technically one could say that these can be broken down further, however, in a proper seal there must be balance. I've looked through many, many books of different seals...some elements nearly always come together, or must come with a complementary element. So I drew each basic element with all the elements that can complement it, or must complement it. In some cases, like these, they can stand alone. In even-numbered seals we have pairs of two, and for odd numbers, there are even groupings of three that must work together."

The explanation was long and unwieldly. "Or...I might've overthought it..." She looked again, hoping she'd be able to find any errors that existed before she was corrected.

[smallstepstopower]

"I approve. It is not basic so much as a thorough syllabus of the common possibilities. Have you tried to create any seals of your own?" He put down a fresh sheet of paper, sticking the first on a shelf near the desk.

[hyuugachild]

"I told you," she said sullenly. "Father insists I learn Juuken so I have stopped at theory."

[smallstepstopower]

"Making you focus that way is a waste of both talent and interest. You didn't tell me if you actually tried however." He waved to the paper. "So show me what you did."

[hyuugachild]

Hanabi eyed Orochimaru carefully before finally admitting: "I cannot. I tried to draft an improvement of a complicated seal that my family commonly uses. Revealing it would be nothing short of traitorous."

[smallstepstopower]

"The do something simpler that you think hasn't been done to a more general seal. I wish to see the degree of your flexibility."

[hyuugachild]

Hanabi stared at the paper carefully, before switching to a fresh piece and drawing out a basic exploding tag seal.

"You know..." she began, considering the parts of the seal. "I've always wondered...bombs...explosions...they're a scientific way for things are unstable to return to a stability. But...exploding tags are so balanced."

She gestures to the image. "Surrounding the character itself it's an even-numbered tag. And even the finishing points are even-numbered, leaving you with a, at least element-wise, completely symmetrical tag."

On the second half of the paper, she began to work on a secondary tag. "At the same time, if there is too much imbalance, you not only blow up your enemy, but yourself. What if we purposely introduced instability? I'm really up to 7 point tags yet, but if we used these 5 points, and then shifted the even number of outliers to 8 in a circular fashion...we'll have a more powerful explosion that can still be contained."

[smallstepstopower]

He looked it over and hummed, then waved his fingers to a spot she'd changed on the edited one. "And why do you think that this was here, specifically?"

[hyuugachild]

Hanabi scratched her head. "It needed to balance this one here. I think it would be improved with a 7 point seal on the inside, but..."

[smallstepstopower]

He hummed softly and his tone colored with humor. "Hanabi, I have a question for you. How would you activate your version of this note?"

[hyuugachild]

That was easy enough to answer. "I want full control over something with this kind of power. I'd use a hand seal to make sure all my companions were out of the way."

[smallstepstopower]

He waved his fingers over the note. "But how would you -ignite- it? You see this seal here, which you moved to keep it stable? That cuts off the reaction before it could actually ignite."

[hyuugachild]

Hanabi frowned, running down calculations in her head. "Since it's a hand seal activation...we want an activation from a single point...if we..." She changed one symbol to a larger, longer one. "And close it up here...how about this way?"

[smallstepstopower]

"There's no way to put any sort of timer on that. You better have it placed exactly where you want it, and this." He paused here, shoving the breaks in the main circle of the seal. "Means that if you're not careful other chakra use could set it off."

[hyuugachild]

Hanabi stared at the design. "If we shortened the cracks..." she mentioned as she did so. "It would shorten the distance of chakra use necessary to set it off, wouldn't it. It would be interesting if the target's own chakra use set it off. It would have to be placed on their body. The tags we have now are better for generalized use. Actually--"

Hanabi took up another paper and began to draft a slightly different version of the seal. "Hyuuga are close combat, generally. If the seal could be placed via chakra alone...it would be ideal for someone like me to get a lot of power from a weaker hit. You'd press it directly onto the body, act like you're retreating and boom."

[smallstepstopower]

"The only problem then would be how you keep it stable until it can be placed onthe appropriate target."

[hyuugachild]

"It should stay stable until ignited with chakra--oh."

Which meant that if chakra was used by the target before you could get away, you'd get caught up in the blast. Hanabi closed her eyes and thought for a moment.

"So make the seal out of your own chakra. Begin with part and using chakra manipulation allow it to complete itself on the target. That would also solve the timing problem, you could take as long or as short as you wanted. But..."

She let out a breath. "You couldn't let...slower shinobi do this kind of thing. The kind who get swept up in battle and can't think. And if you look too focused while manipulating the chakra, the enemy will begin to notice. You'd need someone with a good head on their shoulders."

[smallstepstopower]

"And someone incredibly fast, yes. I know how to place seals more complete than this with a touch, but not many are at my level, let alone better."

[hyuugachild]

Hanabi had always been taught that most masters didn't brag about their own skills, but apparently Orochimaru wasn't one of the bunch. Politely, she says nothing except: "Will you teach me?"

[smallstepstopower]

"What do you think I'm doing now Hanabi-chan?" He tapped the paper. "Fix it."

[hyuugachild]

"...er...I thought this prototype was sufficient..." She stared at the design. "The power in this design is in its instability...but because of that, it's necessarily to only write parts at a time or risk an explosion in your face. The ideal way to do it would be to make the seal able to complete itself, but I haven't gotten a clue how to go about making that possible."

[smallstepstopower]

"The ink at this table has no chakra or blood. So long as you use none, it will be safe." He waved to it. "Continue."

[hyuugachild]

"But I don't know how," Hanabi repeated, her eyebrow twitching in annoyance. "Are there some books I can research in for the information?"