Defying Gravity

Chapter 51

Third person pov

By the next morning, everyone knew what had happened. The father of the girl who'd joined the notorious Team Minato was dead by suicide. Minato's blood had run cold the second news reached him. The look on Rin's face was something that would be burned into his mind's eye for the rest of his life, but Kakashi's was far, far worse. The way his expression twisted beneath his mask when he learned that Ethelia had seen her father hanging there. He was no doubt seeing the parallels between what she was going through and what he experienced as a child.

However, it was still odd. The village was... well, just fine. Obito wasn't at the training grounds, but he was usually late so it was nothing to bat an eye at. Ethelia also wasn't here though, which obviously made sense. She'd just lost her father in one of the worst ways possible. Nobody was expecting her to show up. They were, however, expecting her to blow up. No offense to her of course. She wasn't the most pleasant person, but she was their teammate and they all cared to their respective extents. It was just...

Her immense chakra was heavily controlled by her emotions. That much they knew, and had always known. There was no getting around that fact. It was something they'd known since day one. If she got too emotional, she'd blow up. That was that. If her temper rose to new and terrifying heights, she'd kill everyone in the village. If she panicked too much, she'd simply combust! The same went for grief, and for joy. Were her emotions not muted, they'd destroy Konoha. Simple as that.

That's how things would be until she got better control over her power. That's why it was so odd that the village was still standing. She'd found out yesterday, so why weren't they dead yet? It had been displayed several times that she loved her father. He was all she had left, and they were close. Close enough that he was distraught to learn she was becoming a ninja. Close enough that he... over the fact that she was... 

"D-Do you think she's in a state of shock, still?" Rin asked shakily. Ethelia was still in the village. Her chakra was immense and a constant presence. It was near impossible to notice unless you were aware of it, because it had been there for over twelve years now, coming up fast on the thirteen mark. The signature was fluctuating heavily, though. Minato had noticed it last night, as had Kakashi. They hadn't thought too much of it at the time. Now, it made far more sense. 

"It's possible. If that's the case, we need to find her fast before..." Minato trailed off and left the inevitable unspoken. They needed to contain Ethelia somewhere she couldn't hurt anyone. Of course they didn't want to hurt her or upset her more; that would only serve to further the issue at hand. They just wanted to ensure the safety of her and everyone else, that's all. And that meant finding Ethelia.

"She and Obito are friends. I say we go get him first." Kakashi said smoothly, trying not to let his unease show. Because he knew what Ethelia was going through, and what she was feeling. If anything, it was worse for her. He'd been six when his father... when his father ended his own life. He hadn't truly understood what it meant back then, and hadn't known how to process it. All he'd known was that he was upset and angry. Angry at his father and the villagers who shunned him, and angry at himself for not being there.

Ethelia was in a world of hurt. She was close to her father, and anyone with half a brain and the bare minimum of no eyes could see that. They were important to one another. A family. While Kakashi had long since forgotten what having that felt like, that didn't mean he didn't understand it any less. To know someone you loved and cared for would take the easy way out, and to known that you weren't able to stop it... she was breaking. He just knew she was.

He wasn't really friends with Ethelia. She was a slob, and lazy. She complained about everything and ate more than he ever thought possible. He found himself silently theorizing that a small black hole had taken root in her stomach due to the chakra she had, and she had to feed that as well as herself everyday. There was no way she'd be able to stuff herself and still stay thin as a twig otherwise. Not with how little she'd worked out prior to joining Team Minato.