Try as You Might ~ Chapter 1 ~ Adoption
A/N: You might be wondering: what happened to 'Masked Koi'? 'Why is there a new fanfic?! What are you doing?! Are you abandoning it?' The answer: no. I'm just taking a break. It's taken a lot out of me.
But for the time being, enjoy this new one. Please don't kill me. (殺さないで下さい。) (also, no, this is not from Google Translate.)
And, warning: Updates will be sporadic. Sometimes a flurry of them when I'm pressed for time, and sometimes it'll seem like I've dropped off the grid. Pairings are undecided but if you have any lovely ideas, don't hesitate!
So…enjoy^^
Iruka pulled out a paper with a flourish. It gleamed white with black ink impressed into it and Naruto tensed in his seat. If Iruka was smiling that much about nothing more than a half sheet of paper with his messy handwriting on it there was only one thing it could be. Naruto's face scrunched up into a pained one as he gripped his blonde locks in horror. An oral test! I didn't study at all!
"So," Iruka smiled. "I've arranged you all in pairs to complete a research project, which is due in five days."
Naruto blanched and barely heard his own name when Iruka called it out. "Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke, your research topic is a minor clan of Konoha. There's a list in your textbook in the back," Iruka said shortly before continuing with a few names.
Naruto's head dropped on the table with a dull thud. This is…this is so much worse. I know I have bad luck, but this is pushing it. Couldn't I have been with Shikamaru or something? Sasuke is nothing but a jerk!
"Now, I want a detailed report. Please pick up one of these papers as you walk out; they have your outline," Iruka said as the bell chimed with orange rays of sun slowly meandering into the room. Naruto evaded Sasuke's eyes that burned holes in him and ran as fast as he could, anywhere but close to Sasuke.
Naruto's arm was caught so suddenly as he passed his swing that he fell to the ground, scraping his elbow painfully. He jerked his arm back from Sasuke, who'd easily caught up to him, and nursed his wound that stung with dirt mixed into his bloody elbow. "What was that for?" Naruto looked at Sasuke accusingly.
"We have to go buy supplies for our report," Sasuke said coldly. "And I'm not failing this just because you're my partner."
"Not like I wanted to be your partner either," Naruto huffed. Sasuke sent him a withering glare before motioning for Naruto to follow him into a store with all kinds of supplies for arts and crafts. Naruto's eyes bulged at the prices. He wasn't a math genius but he quickly realized that most of the things here would cost around thirty or forty bowls of Ichiraku Ramen—it was expensive.
Naruto made the mistake of looking the shopkeeper in the eye; the old woman with only a few teeth left and gnarled hands glared hatefully at him. Sasuke peeked at Naruto, wondering what kind of ridiculous face he might've pulled to get the old woman to glare at him but went back to the paper in hand.
"Oh, Sasuke-kun, what do you need?" she smiled sweetly at him. "I'll let you have everything you want for fifty percent off. Now, let me see what you need."
Naruto bitterly watched as she picked up the best looking things for him and rang it up and bagged it for him and forced Naruto to carry it. Sasuke didn't even thank the woman. To his shock, she didn't even seem angry. Naruto glared at Sasuke's head as he followed his partner to his home.
Yellow tape was simply cut in the middle of the gates and swayed from the sides when a breeze blew past it. Naruto could only stare in horror as he saw the white outlines of so many people that had died. The sheer amount of white was enough to make Naruto feel sick but the thought that Sasuke had seen the bodies and the killings was a thousand times worse.
Naruto was a dreadful pale white when he stepped into Sasuke's home. A cat jumped from the shadows and purred against Naruto's leg, its whiskers ticking his legs. The blonde boy smiled and patted the tabby cat on the head before it scampered away as Sasuke moved it aside with his foot and motioned for Naruto to follow.
"What'd you do that for?" Naruto scowled as Sasuke sat at a large low table that didn't match the room.
"It was annoying," Sasuke said, stating the obvious. "I'm going to get some food. You stay here, don't move, don't touch anything, and pick a clan."
Naruto grumbled a few choice words before picking up the book and flipping to the back without regard for the care of Sasuke's book. He looked at the list of minor clans and squinted at it. Most of the clans listed were affiliated with Konoha but had the label of being destroyed during some war.
Naruto sighed, "Minor clan…minor clan…" he trailed his finger on the list, looking for any without names that weren't too hard to write out in kanji. "…um…Ha…Hatake? Maybe this'll work," Naruto decided with a nod. It was peculiar, having only one person left, and that's what caught his eye.
"Hey, Sasuke! I chose one so get your butt over here and help me! And get me some food too; I'm starving!" Naruto hollered. As if on cue, his stomach rumbled loudly. He smiled sheepishly at his stomach. I forgot to eat that breakfast that the ANBU made me. It was pancakes today too…
"Hey, SASUKE!" Naruto yelled out again with his chin resting on his palm looking bored.
There was no reply. Naruto flipped to the page it was on and began to read about the clan. Three paragraphs in, the blonde was bored to tears with so many words he didn't know and a history he really could care less about. He groaned and stood and began to look for Sasuke.
He heard muffled screams and walked to the source. The sliding door in Sasuke's room was ajar and the Uchiha boy was being restrained by two figures much taller than either boy. Naruto took a step back in shock and fear, not wanting to get beaten. Sasuke sent him a wide-eyed look with his mouth covered tightly and his body as still as a stone with the kunai at his neck.
Orange light bathed the room that filtered in from the window and Naruto charged at the two men. The force at which Naruto threw himself at surprised them and they let go of Sasuke, not expecting Naruto's brute strength. Sasuke launched himself at them with taijutsu kicks landing solidly. A puff of smoke later and it was nothing more than a scroll. Sasuke whirled around only to see Naruto fall to the ground with the kunai slicing his side and staining his shirt red with blood. Sasuke froze with his mouth slightly agape and the same helpless feeling washing over him. We're going to die! The intruders gathered both boys and dashed out of the Uchiha compound. Naruto struggled against his attackers, screaming and thrashing despite the horrible pain he was in. More blood seeped out and Sasuke's throat vibrated with terrified screams.
The sky turned upside down and Sasuke and Naruto hit something hard and landed painfully on the ground outside. Naruto held his wound in pain, growing dizzy. Sasuke watched in shock as a Konoha ANBU quickly drove a tanto blade in their stomachs and slashed behind their knees and grabbed their collars in a gloved hand, "Who the hell is your commander?"
The man spit at the porcelain mask and the ANBU killed him instantly. The other man smirked at the grey-vested ANBU and was then drowning from the inside out from his own blood gushing into his lungs. Not a scream could leave his throat and he thrashed violently until he lay still.
"Where are they?!" faraway voices angrily yelled within the compound along with their hurried footsteps. Sasuke looked and saw a plume of ash and smoke and smelled burning only a few houses down. He screamed as another explosion burned down another house. They're looking for me, aren't they? Itachi's coming to kill me!
Instead of Itachi, more people bearing a foreign hitai-ate and strange getups appeared with kunai in their hands. The ANBU stood in front of the two boys, clutching a tanto with former-living people's blood on it. The ANBU seemed to become as fluid as water as their body moved from enemy to enemy like lightning and rivulets of blood pooled onto the ground after spurting like a broken dam onto the standard-issue ANBU vest and tanto.
More enemies gathered like flies to honey towards the lone ANBU. The ANBU sighed audibly and a lightning dragon materialized before roaring. Sasuke shielded his eyes from the too-bright jutsu and when it was gone, bodies littered the streets, twice as many as had died on the street just recently within the Uchiha compound.
It was a bloodbath. Sasuke's hands unclenched and clenched as his teeth chattered and his wide eyes stared at the stench of death and the bloody, dead bodies in fear and just waited for Itachi's kunai to slice his throat.
Only, it never came.
The ANBU gathered the boys gently and Sasuke could only stare at the bloodstains on the gloves, the vest, and the strands very short silver hair that tickled his face. Naruto was regained consciousness as the ANBU adjusted his or her (Sasuke honestly couldn't tell) in their bloody arms and the ANBU stopped again atop a roof to wrap the boy in bandages. During the brief stop, Sasuke got a good view of Konoha. The gates and market district were completely overrun with flames and demolished buildings and distant ants that wielded fire and water and earth jutsu. The Uchiha boy couldn't see the rivers of blood that flowed through the streets of Konoha like hundreds of broken arteries. By the Hokage faces, there was a line of dark dots against the tan stone: the civilians desperate to get into the safe areas behind the faces.
The ANBU started to jump over buildings at Jounin speed and was moving towards the Hokage tower. "Hey…why are we going there?" Sasuke asked. "Shouldn't you take us to the Hokage faces?"
"Hokage-sama ordered me to bring you two to him," she said plainly. Sasuke imagined the face behind the mask. He imagined soft feminine features that matched the voice and wondered why her hair was so short. Was it in a bun? Sasuke craned his neck to see, to distract himself from the horror that bled below him and the stains on her uniform. He clung to her neck to get a better look at her peculiarly (silver hair, he noticed) short hair and she adjusted Naruto in her arms again. Sasuke was reminded of a mother holding a baby with the way her arm supported him gently yet firmly.
There had been a few women with small children in the Uchiha clan before they'd been murdered who held their exhausted children like the ANBU when they walked back from the park, and Sasuke had played with a few of the younger children. One of them was a boy who was half Uchiha and half something else three years behind him named Sugi. If Sugi had been alive right now, he'd be five. Sasuke almost smiled at the memory of Sugi; he'd been awfully smart for his age, even for an Uchiha, and already had a few jutsu in his repertoire. Sasuke hadn't been jealous of Sugi; in fact, he'd told his father Sugi should go into the Academy and become really strong and cool, but Fugaku's scathing reply was that the boy wasn't a full Uchiha (it showed in his features with his not-quite black hair and narrower face and thin, long, slender fingers and somehow un-Uchiha body physique) and therefore wasn't worthy of such a high honor. Sasuke had told Sugi apologetically that Fugaku wouldn't allow it and Sugi nodded like he knew Fugaku would say that and said it was okay and that it would be best if he didn't stand out. That had been a day before Itachi had killed him.
The female ANBU stopped at the outdoor steps of the tower and pulled open the door and a cacophony of voices yelling orders to copy that scroll and then destroy it to Genin's orders to assist in speeding up the evacuation process. The ANBU acted like there was no one in her way and she briskly walked to the Hokage.
"Hokage-sama, I've brought Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto," she bowed after letting them down. She knelt to patch up Naruto's wound and she froze for a moment, seeing that the wound was closing before her eyes and patched him up. She looked back up to the Hokage after putting away the gauze and giving Naruto and Sasuke each a piece of candy to bring their blood sugars back up.
"If I may, can I leave these two with a Genin so I can return to the front lines?" she asked.
"You are not needed there," Sarutobi said coldly.
"Then where am I needed? Evacuation?" she stood up straight, ready to spring out like a rabbit to carry out her orders.
"No," Sarutobi's fighting gear helmet gleamed like an old, tired horse in once-gleaming armor that stood rusted and too old to run into battle. Yet here he was, a loyal steed. "Naruto and Sasuke are the goals of this invasion, if the current rubble and ash claiming the Uchiha compound and village are any indicators. Kakashi-kun is taking care of much of the front lines along with many of his Jounin peers. Naruto and Sasuke need to be kept safe and the shelters aren't airtight. Our attackers are persistent and skilled and will break through those shelters and endanger the whole of Konoha. As a result, these two need to be kept somewhere they won't be found easily. You are the only shinobi I can trust with this assignment."
"Hokage-sama," her voice turned to ice dipped in acid. The room dropped several degrees. "This band," she pointed to the red one around her upper arm, "Means that I am unstable. I'm afraid I can't accept this assignment. Please let me go to the front lines. I promise I will be of much better use there. If I don't go, Kakashi-san is going to be killed."
"Nonsense," Sarutobi snapped. "You're not unstable. If you were, you wouldn't even be active duty. I don't want to hear any more excuses!" Sarutobi clenched his fist. "Your mission is to protect Naruto and Sasuke until it is safe enough for them to come back. In other words, you are adopting them," Sarutobi held out two scrolls, one slightly bigger than the other. "That contains your more detailed S-Rank mission assignment. I need to go before the village burns because you've wasted enough of my time whining and making up excuses—"
"I'm not making excuses!" she yelled defiantly. "My son was stolen from me! You've never felt the feeling of losing a child!" she breathed in and out and clenched her slender, lady-like fingers and Sasuke felt the same fear coming from her when he saw his parents dead on the floor.
"Please," Sarutobi's eyes softened as he made his way to the door and placed a hand on her shoulder, making her flinch hard and stop breathing for a moment, "If not for me, then for your child."
The ANBU could barely speak as her voice grew more and more nonexistent, "Hai, Hokage-sama. I will do my best."
Sarutobi disappeared in a flash. Naruto tugged on her vest, "Lady…what's going on?"
She ignored Naruto's question and took him and Sasuke in her arms. She sprinted out of the tower at full speed and something wet hit Sasuke's hand. He ignored it as fear rose in his chest and he shut his eyes tight, wanting nothing more than to run away.
She casted a genjutsu over herself and the two boys and put in all her strength to jump over the front lines, something worse than a bloodbath, and landed on the top of Konoha's gates. She slipped past the other enemies and fellow dying Konoha shinobi unnoticed except for one shinobi with a thousand birds chirping in his hand as he drove it through another enemy.