12. waking up… again

minimi22

A few hours after the operation Tomoka started regaining her consciousness. Her entire body still felt numb from the anesthesia while her mind was kinda slow. As she began to move her mother stood up from the chair near her bed. 

“Tomoka! I was so worried!” Hugging her daughter with all her strength, Himiko began crying her eyes out. She had been worried and stressed for the last six hours! As she thought of how much her daughter worried about her she became angry.

“Mom… can’t… breathe” Tomoka was trapped in her mother’s death grip. Her lights were going out as she felt her ribs about to crack. Fortunately her father came to the rescue.

“Honey you should be careful, Tomoka still needs to recuperate and have her final checkups” Even though he said that he wouldn’t let Tomoka go easy. If his wife was the hot-headed type then he was the cold anger type. 

A second later Himiko let go of her daughter as her expression shifted from anger to worry and back to anger. Seeing this Tomoka knew that she was in big, no, huge trouble now. 

[Should have listened to me. Now you are in trouble. Seeing this will be fun]

‘Kurama, I will drag you down with me’

[Now that is just unreasonable] 

A moment later doctor Motoi came into the room as the nurse in charge had just informed him about the patient waking up. Without saying anything he went to Tomoka and began inspecting her right arm. 

“Does it hurt? Can you move it?”

Tomoka looked at her arm for the first time after waking up and was surprised to see the black markings. For her, it looked like tribal tattoos from her past life. After a moment of inspection she began moving her arm then her fingers. It didn’t hurt, as a matter of fact her arm felt just like before the accident. 

“It doesn’t hurt but… what are these markings?” She thought that perhaps it had been doctor Motoi the one that placed those markings on her for her treatment or something. 

“Actually I was wondering if you know. A lot happened during the surgical procedure on your arm” Motoi didn’t have any expectations for the little girl to know. If her parents didn’t know then how could a one year old be any better. 

Unexpected to doctor Motoi and Tomoka’s parents something happened. Curious Tomoka decided to command her chakra into the markings. Something in the back of her mind was telling her that by doing so something would happen.

Indeed something happened. From the markings in her arm a black substance appeared and covered  her arm from the fingers all the way to the elbow. A moment after a black carapace was formed. Tomoka could feel how the black carapace was constantly absorbing her chakra to sustain itself. 

“What is that!? Tomoka what did you do!?” In panic Himiko couldn’t help but scream and worry for her daughter. Her arm was now covered by a black shiny carapace that made her arm look cursed or some such. 

“Eh? I just flowed my chakra into the markings?” Tomoka didn’t know why her mother was panicking so much. Her arm felt just fine, no rather it felt stronger now. Though the amount of chakra needed to keep it up was rather large. 

“Stop, stop it!” Himiko worried that the markings were a cursed seal or something like that. She worried that her lovely Tomoka would be completely covered by that evil looking carapace. 

Taking into account her mother’s panic, Tomoka decided to stop supplying chakra to the carapace. In all fairness she would have to stop soon anyway. Her chakra was near the limit with only a few seconds of having the carapace on her. 

As the supply of chakra disappeared the carapace cracked and before long fell apart revealing Tomoka’s arm. Her arm looked just like before with no change to it or the markings on it. 

“Ahem. Himiko-san please calm down. While your daughter was sleeping I got to study the remains of the first carapace and a sample of the liquid it’s formed from. The structure is a crystal-like biological armor resembling spider chitin.”

“Spider chitin? What does that mean?” Nagi was confused. Why would his daughter suddenly have spider chitin forming on her arm? 

“Precisely that Nagi-san. We believe this might be some kind of new kekkei genkai. The fluid sample I collected the first time brought some insight into the process. It is mainly made of a soup of different proteins that when exposed to Tomoka’s chakra becomes the chitinous armor. 

As you can see. When the armor stops receiving Tomoka’s chakra it loses its stability, becoming fragile and brittle. However, we theorize that the more chakra she feeds it the tougher it becomes. It is truly an interesting substance.”

After Motoi’s explanation an awkward silence fell in the room as everyone thought and process the information. Tomoka was happy since she believed this was something like a power up. Himiko was worried that it might have some costly drawbacks or backlash. Nagi was trying to think of a reason why this power would appear. After a while Himiko broke the silence. 

“Is it dangerous? Will the markings spread?” She needed an answer. If the answer was not satisfactory she would have the markings sealed at all costs. 

“Well, there is no definite answer to that question but I believe it is safe. The markings seem to be part of her as well as the armor. There are traces of her DNA in it so it most likely has something to do with her DNA as well.” With that said Himiko released a sigh of relief. As long as her little Tomoka was safe nothing else mattered.