Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but if I did, the show would focus on the BACKGROUND characters.
This is a Fic I've been working on for a while. The main character (Wolf) is my dear friend Mindcaster15. The reason of the story is to repay her in whatever small way I can for being a great and honest friend, and for making me feel good by saying I'm better than I really am! She is an excellent writer, and I admire her greatly. I dedicate this story to Mincaster15, check her site out, she'll be one of your favorites!
(plus It's been REALLY fun to write, and I LOVE the plot.)
I personally think this is the best chapter out of the whole cahoot, so sorry if you don't like it.
Also! Read the thing at the bottom please!
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Clean Slate
Chapter 1
The Zebra, the Penguin, and the Troubled Tea
Dedicated to Mindcaster15
It was night, and the three ANBU elites had just departed on their mission to Tea country. The country had been in ruin since the end of the Great War. It was their duty to get the citizens back on their feet.
Wolf was the team leader, and the second eldest of the three at nineteen. Penguin, Wolf's kid sister, was just fifteen, but she would be sixteen in a couple days. And Zebra, Wolf and Penguin's best friend, who was twenty-two. They had all known each other forever, and were the best recovery team in Konoha.
It was a day to Tea and back, plus the two days that the mission required, and Wolf had been to Tea before. It was just a routine mission, and it would be very easy. They had been running for three hours, and the sun had set long before that.
It was late, so she spoke up.
"Let's make camp. We'll start again tomorrow at oh' six hundred hours. I'll take first watch."
They searched around for a few more minutes to find the opportune place to set up. Penguin took a branch in the tree they camped under, and Zebra stayed low to the ground. Wolf decided to lean on a large branch halfway up to get the opportune view of the surrounding area. She would watch for rebels or wild animals while her companions slept. Of course, they weren't really sleeping, they were in an easily breakable meditative state, which would allow them to escape quickly.
She jumped down from her branch, and looked into the reflection of a nearby puddle. She didn't look any different from the last time she checked. Same eyes, the blue was still the same color as a calm ocean (Her sisters said they could see tsunami's swirl in her eyes when she got mad. It always annoyed her). She had the same golden hair in a bun, streaked with various browns and blonds that had been with her since birth, resulting with a color unique to her crown alone. Someone who didn't already know would be shocked at how long and full it was, running at full length past her waist, never cut since the day she was born.
She had traded in the standard ANBU uniform for something a little more unique and modest. It was a black Chinese style ch'i-p'ao, stopping at the knee to allow for easy travel. From the thy there was a mesmerizing flame pattern running to the hem of the dress. It was very difficult to get the seamstress to sew it the right way, so she ended up embroidering it herself. She hated sewing. It was worth all the pain, though.
The thought of fire brought her to stare at her arms... No, she wasn't horribly burned or anything, she had very interesting clan markings. From just under the hairline at the back of her neck, she had blue lightning running to the palm of her hands. They were what defined her in the bingo book, being unique to her clan, and were difficult to hide during undercover missions. Needless to say, her and penguin (They were biological sisters, and therefore had the same bloodline and markings), didn't get many of those.
Her favorite part though, was her longbow. Engraved in pure silver script, it was the most majestic bow she had ever laid her eyes on. It was created with wood from an ancient Sequoya tree, and was given to her as a gift for restoring honor to a Native people on the other side of the world, well outside of the elemental boundaries. That had been an amazing mission. Her longbow seemed made just for her. The way it hung felt right. She never could find a bow that suited her liking before this. They entrusted her with three dozen arrows, each with the strength and heart of the Sequoya itself. It was promised to her that they would never miss. And since the day she got them, they never have. She loved the feeling of the bow in her hands. It made her feel like she was the battle, she controlled the flow of motion, she was the archer.
But that's another story, meant for a day more pleasant than this one.
She looked over at her "sisters." Zebra was her sister just as much as Penguin.
She wanted to get back to Konoha quickly, to give Penguin, Her little sister, her surprise birthday party in a three days. In fact, this mission was to persuade her that they wouldn't be doing anything special, just a small cake. But this was her sweet sixteen! She wouldn't let that go by without some serious ice cream-age!
Wolf's sister, Penguin, was sleeping right below her and had no idea just how much fun she would be having when she got back! They had the place rented out, the invitations made, the decorations were up and all they had to do was buy the cake and ice cream! Zebra, Wolf's best friend since the Academy (and, by default, Penguin's), had it all planned out, and had been saving up her mission money for months. Of course she would occasionally bust into Wolf's loft and raid her fridge, but that was okay.
Penguin, Wolf , and Zebra weren't their real names of course, but they were on a mission, so protocol was the boss. Although enjoyable at times, being ANBU wasn't all fun and games. Saying your real name on a mission could prove dangerous in many unknown situations.
They all liked their animal persona's anyway, being as they got to choose them. They weren't just ordinary ANBU, so they didn't get assigned names. They got to pick them, and change anyone below them who already had that name. Yeah, being Special Opps was awesome.
Wolf was the Captain of the first official "Special Clean-up Unit Mindcaster 15" team. It was kind of long winded so they preferred to call it "SCUM 15." Why 15? She had no clue! There were only fourteen teams! Maybe the creator had an unruly fondness for numbers divisible by five... But no matter, the point was they normally got special missions.
Here was where her thoughts usually took a dark turn. The Fourth Great Ninja War.
Usually their mission was to be a source of comfort. In other words, give therapy to, or if that didn't work, wipe the memories of innocent civilians that had found themselves in the middle of the Fourth Great Ninja War. It sounds Big, sure, but you have no idea. Thousands of Ninja had died in the Battle of The End, which was the deciding battle to win the war, and hundreds more died in the following enemy rebellions and vengeance attacks. The civilian death count was up in the millions at the peak of the war, and continued to to rise as the aftershocks raged on.
Countless civilians, everyday people! Farmers, traders, toy-makers, pastry chefs, and Kindergarten teachers! Every day, hundreds witnessed neighbors, acquaintances, friends and family murdered on the sidelines. Their life driven from them, their only crime being that of an innocent bystander. It drove most to insanity. Some even farther. Civilians just weren't able to handle that kind of stress. And sometimes, neither could Ninja.
It was sad, but true. She had seen comrade after comrade succumb to the harsh laws of life, and they just stopped. They stopped going on missions. They stopped training. They stopped using weapons. They stopped looking at weapons.
Eventually, if they suppressed it long enough, they just shut down. Visiting, Laughing, Talking. They just didn't do it anymore. If they lived close to a training field, they moved away. The sound of fighting was just too much.
So her and her team's job was to console them, talk to them. And when that didn't work, they wiped their memories. Instantly they would be better, but most times, they still had nightmares, they were still afraid. In the case of a Ninja, the nightmares grew so bad that if they went on a mission, they would just freeze up when a kunai came too near. The fear had been magnified in their subconscious to be so much more than it was. The memories combined with the dire situation piled worry on top of fear on top of pain. If someone were to die from fear, that was how. They would often just stand there while their partners, friends, family, or even they themselves were slaughtered. And there was nothing they could do about it.
So, to counteract the problem, if a Ninja had their memories wiped, they never again went on a mission. It was a risk that the Rokudaime was not willing to take.
Which is why counseling is first given. If therapy works, normally the nightmares aren't so bad, and the individual can continue with their lives, having worked out the horrid memories. They were still scarred, but the thought didn't haunt them. Of course, having their memories wiped wouldn't stop a civilian from returning to their job, seeing as no one's live depended on them staying alert and unemotional. The nightmares could be brushed off as fear of what could happen, and they vanished with time. Though harsh, the memories of lost loved ones usually melted down to a passing thought, unimportant to the trials of the day.
Unfair as it was, she loved her job, and enjoyed it daily. Civilians were so innocent and trusting, unlike hardened Shinobi and Kunoichi of the day, so stiff and cautious from years of betrayal and war. The actual war was over, but many groups still tried to oppose the peace. They created chaos and confusion, but not many were effected, as there were never enough rebels to actually cause trouble. But you could never be too careful.
Speaking of careful, her clan was annoying her. Did they have to be so cautious?
Here she was, she had made ANBU at just eighteen, and she was now twenty-two. She was the captain of her own Unit, and she had made it very far in a short amount of time.
Her task perfectly suited her bloodline, for goodness sakes! And her clan hadn't approved of her working outside of the Fire country boundaries, either. They should be proud of her. She had made a name for herself out there.
No, literally, they called her Shiroi-shima (White-streak), because she had the wolf summon, and her favorite was a wolf named Yuki (snow). She was streak white and very proud of it. Yuki was three feet taller than Wolf from shoulder to paw, meaning she was about fifteen feet long, not counting her tail. She wasn't the Alpha summon, just a friend who had always been there.
She should summon her more often, now that she thought about it. When she rode Yuki, she was a proud and strong warrior! She defeated foe after foe, and during the war she was a source of great awe and respect!
And if the Nicholi clan, her clan, couldn't appreciate her worth, than who would?
She was brought out of her musings by Zebra, who rolled over and groaned something like "go get the newspaper." This was immediately followed by Zebra's arm swinging over her head and hitting Penguin smack on the snob. She awoke, suddenly alert, and was filled with great feeling for the situation.
That feeling was pain.
Wolf couldn't help herself. She started giggling madly, putting her hands on her mouth to contain the sound. It was actually really adorable, but no one dared tell her so. She was an ANBU after all. They all feared her wrath.
"Well, now that we're all awake, Penguin, your watch!" This was proceeded by the sticking out of tongues, and a sisterly punch on the shoulder. (Just because it was sisterly doesn't mean it didn't hurt, though!). Wolf rubbed her arm as she walked over to the tree. She trusted her sister with her life, and was calmed by a sense of security as she drifted off to sleep.
In the morning, Wolf was awaken by her sister, who had already gotten Zebra up. she stood up, yawned, and slung her bow around her back, making sure all of her arrows were still in the quiver.
Penguin and Zebra stretched in preparation for the heavy travel ahead, joking a bit when Zebra tripped over her foot, knocking over a tree. An ENTIRE tree.
They did a few stretches, getting ready for the long run. It was a whole 'nother day to Tea country, and they wanted to get their quickly.
Wolf looked around her. It was cold, so she ran a little chakra over her skin to warm her shivering arms up. She was always a little colder than everyone else. She glanced around, observing the bright sunshine, the fluffy clouds she could see through the trees, and the sweet music of the morning birds.
Like every morning, she flared her chakra a bit, stretching out her coils, and scoping out the area. She smiled. ANBU did this every day. It made her feel like she was a part of something. And she was. She was ANBU elite, and proud of it. She flared her chakra once more, seeing if any animals were nearby, and what the weather was like. No foxes, wolves (besides herself, obviously), boars, or dangerous animals nearby. No rabbits either. Dang, there goes lunch. Now that she thought about it...
A strange, chilling feeling came over her. She started to breathe heavily, suspicion settling in her bones, freezing her to her spine.
That was wrong.
That was SO. WRONG.
Realization came over her, frightening her so strongly she started to hyperventilate. 'NO! Calm down! You can't do this now!'
Penguin noticed her sister's plight, "Wolf, are you okay? Is there something wrong?"
One thought repeated in Wolfs mind over and over.
The birds.
There were no birds.
Than why could she hear them?
"WOLF? Answer me! What's wrong?"
She could only utter one word.
"Genjutsu."
She hastily put her hands in a tiger seal "KAI!"
Chakra signatures appeared all around them. Thirty, no, Forty, signatures suddenly could be felt all around them. They weren't just Regular signatures, Oh no, These were NINJA. High Jounin to ANBU. They were rebels, out for revenge on the leaf, the largest rebellion ever gathered. They were most likely on their way to must not have had a genjutsu expert with them, because they forgot to remove all the bird sounds. If they had, they probably wouldn't be alive now. They wouldn't stay that way unless they bolted NOW.
"Zebra, Penguin, RUN! It's an ambush!" But they were already VERY aware of the intruders, being ANBU themselves.
And off they went. They ran for their lives, they twisted around trees, cutting corners, fighting back when one got too close. They used every cheap trick in the book. But there were too many, they were too fast, and they were too close.
Zebra tripped in the rush they were in, but caught herself on a branch a bit away from them. Trust a rebel to use every chance. They filled in the space between the girls, driving Zebra away from the two sisters.
It was clear that they couldn't separate the remaining ANBU with a chase, so they brought out the kunai and shiruken. Wolf prepared to run, to save penguin from the inevitable pain that would ensue. But her sister wouldn't let her. Penguin pushed Wolf out of the way, and fell to the forest floor herself. She got up quickly, and with a slight limp, drew half of the remaining force with her. Now only a third followed Wolf.
They were all separated now.
There were too many Rebel Ninja.
Their chakra signatures drew together, and Wolf breathed a sigh of relief. They were together now, and they could protect each other. She could feel their light source, their souls. They were warm but full of fear. Wolf withdrew two arrows, and strung them both on the niche of her longbow. Her bloodline powered her eyes, and the morning light sharpened into a tunnel, zooming in on the target. Once she locked on, nothing could escape. She started to methodically shoot down the seven or so ninja on her tail, using cheap shots to win. When all were dead or dying, she made her way back to the two sister's familiar glow. If they were together, they could win, saving Konoha and themselves from unnecessary death.
But like a knife through the heart, the light went out.
She couldn't feel her sisters anymore.
She ran as fast as she could. If they were hurt, she didn't know what she would do. It would kill her.
She arrived at the open field where her sisters had been when she sensed them last. There were bodies of dead rebels everywhere, littering the ground. Obviously her sisters, where ever they were now, had put up at fight.
She started to rejoice, she could feel them again! They were faint, but she could feel them!
But she could also feel another, stronger presence.
She bolted to the lights, hoping she could make it in time. Maybe... just maybe she could run fast enough!
The Rebel thrust his Katana through Zebra's chest, and twisted it. Zebra's screams reached Wolf's ears, filled with agony and defeat.
"ELISIA! NOOO!" Code names were nothing when they were dead. It didn't protect them anymore. Tears flowed like a river down her cheeks, and she felt numb. Anger welled up in her, taking control of her mind, but she was frozen.
Until his weapon aimed toward her last living sister, who had gone to aid her sister. Fury made it's way from her feet to her stomach. When it reached her heart, the burning rage had swelled so that her eyes came alive like lightning, and her arms were covered with silver fire, spawned from the birthmark stained onto the body of every child born into the Nicholi clan.
She jumped, slashing at his face, knocking him to the ground.
He jumped up, ignoring the deep gash across his right eye, and prepared to retaliate. But not before he ended the life of the younger sister of his future killer.
"SHILOH!" Her cries rung through the cold air, silencing even the wind.
It was too late for him, her back straightened, her shoulders relaxed, and her longbow was poised to kill. Cold and calculating eyes burned into his soul, the calm ocean sea now raging with a pain that cannot be described with words.
He died quickly, to Wolf's regret.
She rushed to her sisters' side. They weren't dead, but they were close. "Elisia, Shiloh... This is all my fault..."
"Don't be stupid..." Penguin, or rather, Shiloh, said weakly to her big sister. "We are all grown Kunoichi! We were just... caught by surprise this time."
"Yeah," Zebra, or Elisia, joined in, "If you blame yourself I'll haunt you forever! I'll hide all of your left socks, put disgusting sticky stuff under your mattress, and make your hair go crazy!"
Wolf wiped away the tears, rubbing furiously at her cheeks. "Hey! What are you talking about? When we get back to Konoha, you wont have to haunt me..." the tears refused to stop. "You still have to turn 16! We planned it out and everything, we rented a place just for you! Come on... get up guys! Guys?"
"Calm down sis! It's not the end of the world!" Elisia whispered. She and Shiloh shared a look saying, 'Good grief, how long is she gonna cry?', and raised their eyes to the clouds.
"Look, Wolf! Look at the sky! Do you see it? It's beautiful... It's so bright..." Then, at the same time, they started laughing. They laughed weakly, and it was ridden with wheezy coughs, but they laughed. Wolf didn't understand what was so funny. They weren't laughing at her... It was more of a giggle, like they would laugh when they were children, playing at the park.
They laughed as they died, their final breath released with an innocent smile on their faces, and their eyes, filled with joy, set on some invisible point in the blissful heavens.
"Shiloh? Elisia? Guys? Come on, get up... don't scare me like that! You know I hate surprises. guys?"
"...why wont you get up?"
A slow realization came over her.
They were gone.
Dead.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
This wasn't how it ended. It wasn't supposed to go that way.
Not ever.
Lifelessly, almost like she was the dead one, she picked up the bodies of her sisters.
She supported them like babies, fragile as they were.
But her mind was the fragile one.
If she protected them, she would be protected. If they died, so did she. There was simply no other way.
She carried the bodies of her sisters for five days, running at top speed home, exhausting her body beyond it's limits. She carried two people for over one thousand, two hundred miles. Her tendons long since ripped, her muscled had torn long in vain that there was some way she could save them.
By the time she had gotten back to Konoha, her clothes were soaked in blood, her body was sore and broken.
But she finally reached the gates, almost collapsing from fatigue. Kotetsu and Izumo, the guards, ran to her, and called the medics.
Vaguely she could hear words, but they didn't make sense.
"ANBU-san? ANBU-san? Can you respond? What happened?"
Why weren't they checking her sisters? Why weren't they being helped?
She glanced over at her sisters, relief flooding through her. The medics were attending them.
"Will they be okay?" She asked, cautiously. Her mind wasn't working right, and denial had set in long ago.
The medics froze, realizing her fragile state. There was no way someone wouldn't notice that these two were dead. One medic tried to brake it to her, nervously, "I'm sorry, but they've been gone for days, there is nothing that we can do."
The medics somberly removed the masks and closed the eyes of the two deceased ANBU.
That couldn't be.
They would be okay.
They weren't dead.
No.
They were dead, and she could do nothing but fall to her knees, silent tears streaming down her heart clenched so tight, and it felt as if she would die. She wanted to die. It was her fault. She requested that mission. If they hadn't gone, they wouldn't have died. She blamed herself, and the pain, that agonizing torture built and built.
The guilt buried her alive, and she couldn't breathe under the weight. It suffocated her.
It really was suffocating her.
The medics rushed to her side. If she didn't calm down she would have a seizure!
Leaving the dead ANBU lying in the dust behind them, they vigorously tried to stabilize wolf. But her bodily injuries, along with her degrading mental state made the situation look grim.
Through all this, she had one thought in her mind.
She didn't think it on purpose, but it was there.
'Why?'
'Why did this happen?'
But no answer came.
Instead. her thoughts drifted in senseless directions, finally stabilizing on this;
She had been chosen to lead her team for one reason. Her bloodline. She could replace the memories, beliefs, or ideas of anyone with just one look, one touch. She could cast an illusion to make you believe you were a frog from a mile away. She could zoom in an target a mind with ease, from vast distances. She was called "The Mindcaster".
The overload of pain flooded her brain. The pressure of losing her sisters, also cost her her sanity. Her mind couldn't handle the grief and the pain anymore, and had something of a short circuit.
If the memories were the problem, than the problem had to be dealt with.
Her bloodline turned carnivorous, devouring her memories from within her.
Rocking her sister to sleep on stormy nights. Meeting her best friend in second grade. Seeing Elisia's sister, Grace, off to study Ninjtsu in Suna. Having fun sleep-overs in a tent in the back yard and getting rained on. All of it. She remembered nothing.
If she could remember, the Wolf from the day before would have wept, shaking in agony at her loss. Now she was alone. She refused to count her clan as family. And now she had no friends, no sisters, no loved ones. According to her memory, she never did.
She would never again feel the security of the night before, never sleep that well again. Never hold in her arms her little sister, never eat a meal with her comrades. Never lie awake at night, laughing to herself at the stupid things Penguin and Zebra had roped her into. If she could remember, she would realize she would never be the same. If she could remember, she would die inside.
But she couldn't remember.
She was a clean slate.
End of Chapter 1
I need names! There will be several wolves in the Chapters to come, and they will either be red, red-brown, or Black. Also, the students of Lee, Naruto, and Temari will be mentioned, and I'm still searching for their identities!. Please give me ideas for some names! I will try to use all
R&R with ^ suggestions ^ please!