66. Hurtful truth

Tomoka’s body felt heavy and her mind groggy. Despite having the best sleep of her life, the exhaustion of months of planning and a very eventful night couldn’t be cured by a night’s sleep. Even so, she felt bliz as she cuddled with her warm pillow. It felt so comfortable she couldn’t help but rub her cheek against it. 

“T-Tomoka, s-stop that, it tickles” A sweet voice assaulted her ears, jolting her mind with realization. Opening her eyes Tomoka realized she had been rubbing her face against Nozomi’s nape, like a cat marking what is theirs. 

“Sorry” Moving as quickly as her tired body would allow, Tomoka disentangled herself from Nozomi. Though while doing so she felt reluctant she didn’t want the situation to become even more awkward. 

“Erm, I know you must have a lot of questions so ask away. I will answer truthfully no matter what.” Tomoka hadn’t thought about things till this point. Her sole priority was to keep Nozomi safe. Now she had to somehow explain things. 

“Why are your eyes pink?” Nozomi looked straight into the pair of pink orbs. They were hypnotic to her with the extra pupil constantly appearing and disappearing.

Tomoka, hearing Nozomi’s question, felt confused until she realized she could see Nozomi’s chakra aura. Her kinagan had remained active through the night as she slept! Panic assaulted her mind as she feared that Nozomi would find her kekkei genkai creepy. 

As the red head focused her sight on Nozomi expecting to see fear or disgust instead she found fascination. Nozomi’s eyes shone with curiosity and a tinge of longing which greatly confused Tomoka.

“Don’t you find them creepy? or disgusting?” 

“What!? No! They are beautiful!” Taken aback by Tomoka’s question, Nozomi answered instantly. 

“T-thanks” The sudden compliment made Tomoka feel embarrassed and giddy. Coughing to re-gather her composure she decided to go back to the original question. 

“This is my dojutsu. I call it kinagan. It allows me to see the chakra aura of people, things and whatever else might have chakra. It also lets me steal some of it for myself. I haven’t told anybody else about it, not even my parents so please keep it a secret” Tomoka answered truthfully as she trusted Nozomi. 

As Nozomi listened to Tomoka she felt awe. She knew of the sharingan and byakugan. However, she had never heard of anything like Tomoka’s Kinagan. She wanted to know more but seeing as Tomoka looked uncomfortable talking about it she decided to ask something else. 

“Where are we? and why are we here?” Having satiated her curiosity for Tomoka’s eyes she decided to go back to her sudden and mysterious situation. 

“We are inside a cave I designated as a safe space. As for why? This will be hard to believe but know that everything I speak of is the truth” Tomoka’s gaze was pained and uncertain. She didn’t know how to break the news gently so she decided to just go for it. 

“Your clan, the Uchiha clan, has been massacred by the clan’s heir Itachi Uchiha under the orders of his superior Danzo the leader of a secret organization in konoha called root.” Tomoka decided to just tell her things as they were, not even hiding information she should not have.    

Nozomi’s mind went blank for a moment as she desperately tried to process the information Tomoka had just told her. She wanted to scream, to call her a liar, she wanted to deny every word that had left her mouth. 

Even though Nozomi wasn’t well liked by the clan’s members she was still part of the clan. Not to mention that the non-shinobi from the clan did treat her fairly well. Being told that all of them were killed was hard to believe.  

“The reason why we are here is because I knew of it beforehand and did whatever I could to protect you. I am sorry I couldn’t do more for your people” Tomoka chose her words carefully. She needed to handle the situation with tact so Nozomi wouldn’t hate her or the village, though the latter could be handled with ease if it came to that. 

“Y-you knew! Why didn’t you tell Hokague-sama! He could have done something about it!” More than anger, Nozomi felt confused. Why!? Why hadn’t Tomoka helped her clan?

“I didn’t because things would have been even worse then. Even if Hokage-sama stopped the massacre things would have become even worse. Do you know why the Uchiha patriarch called all the clan’s men?” Nozomi simply shook her head before Tomoka continued. 

“It is because he was going to announce the start of a coup” Hearing that Nozomi’s mind went completely blank. She wanted to shout, to scream that Tomoka was a liar. However, deep in her heart she knew that Tomoka spoke the truth. Not being able to cope with what she heard she passed out.