Chapter 89.4- One Thousand Hands

“It’s fine, I waved them on in” I said, taking the blame.

“No, no. They shouldn’t have been able to get inside at all. There’s a lock seal on the door” He said. Looked over at the door, and looked and behold, there was a seal tag on it that should have kept the door locked, but someone had scribbled a few kanji over it. I wasn’t all that familiar with the sealing language— it was probably the Konoha basic, but I could see that the seal had bypassed the lock by confusing the matrix and turning it back on itself. How interesting.

“Again Rukia?” He asked, turning his attention straight to one of the girls in the crowd.

“Sorry, Inoken-sensei. We just wanted to talk to Hokage-sama” She said, kicking her feet against themselves while looking straight at the ground. Her lips were set into a pout not quite hidden by her hair falling over her face.

Inoken just sighed, placing his hand on his nose. “It’s— it’s fine. Just be careful please. The fact that these prisoners are unconscious doesn’t mean they can never be dangerous. We try to keep a good schedule of poisons and other means and methods rot keep them docile and complacent but there is every chance that something goes wrong, and when it does, we wouldn’t want any of you to be in range for something to go wrong” He said.

“I think we can give them a pass this time, Inoken. I am here, after all. There was no safer place for them in this village than in this very room with me” I said, and where would have cringed at the brag before, now I just accepted it as the truth it was. Saying the truth wasn’t bragging. Not when I could back up all my words with actions when the time came.

“What I really want to talk about is this” I said, pointing to the seal.

He looked over at it as well, and then a look appeared in his face I wasn’t quite able to decipher,

“Oh that? We train them in some basic fuinjutsu as part of the program. Why do you think I was so curious about the explosion seal you made that first day in class.

“Of course, I was never good enough to really achieve all that much. But Rukia is something of a genius with the seals.” He said.

“How interesting.” I said, having a feeling build in my stomach.

“She can show you how good she is, if you want” He said.

“She can, indeed. Can I borrow her tomorrow for an assessment?” I asked.

“Sure. I’ll move things in the schedule. But back to what you wanted”

“Were you able to find it?”

“Even better. I was able to find the jutsu yes, and how it works, but I was also able to find an interesting piece of information that I’m sure you’r going to find utterly fascinating”

“Don’t keep me waiting then. Spit it out” I prompted when he didn’t immediately get to talking about the information.