DISCLAIMER: Masashi Kishimoto is the one true maker of the story of Naruto.
This is purely a work of fanfiction and the only thing that belongs to me are the characters I create. So far there's just one. Haha.
There are Japanese terminations used in this fanfic. Unless I write a glossary for them, please resort to googling for translations.
The prologue is set post-Pein Arc. The rest of the story is before Part I
Please enjoy. (^_^)
Once I had a Sister
Prologue
Bleary eyes awoke to bright, almost searing sunlight. Was it noon already? The occupant of the rumpled bed turned a sore neck towards his alarm. The clock beside the bed read half past nine.
Sixteen year old Uzumaki Naruto sat up, yawned and scratched his head lazily. What was he going to do today again?
A knock on the door signaled the arrival of the pink-haired bombshell that was his teammate, Haruno Sakura. "Ohayoo Naruto, you there? Kakashi-sensei's taken the day off!"
Naruto swung the door open, leaning on the door frame. "Huh, Sakura-chan?"
Sakura gave her teammate a friendly (a.k.a, slightly less than brain-damage-inducing) knock on the head. "No training, Baka Naruto. We get the whole day off." The kunoichi cheered exuberantly at the thought of some girl-time with Ino.
Naruto still looked clueless.
"Why? Did someone dump him?" Naruto asked, intuitively.
An exasperated huff at her whiskered teammate's brand of intuition was the reply. Her excited expression fell ever so slightly. Sensei had been hitting on the sake bottles again and she was planning to visit him later. Ever since the many attacks on the village, the latest one being Pein's; their silver-haired, Icha-Icha fanatic team leader had been more withdrawn, at least from them, than was usual. For some reason, she remembered the time he'd told them that all the people important to him were dead.
"Are you doing anything today?" She said, bringing her thoughts to Naruto once again as sisterly concern washed over her features. Naruto was Naruto, and even though he had grown up in near miraculous bounds, she still had to watch out for him. They all did.
Turned out there was no need to worry – his features lit up as his tired mind finally comprehended what a free day meant for him. "Well YEAH, dattebayo! I haven't been to Ichiraku' in aaagggeessss."
Sakura sighed out of habit. "You and your ramen." You'll never change but I guess we all like that better… "Well, later, Naruto!"
"Yup yup, have fun with Ino."
"Take care!"
He stared at the shut door for a few long minutes as the last dregs of sleep dissipated from him. He'd had such a vivid dream last night he almost, almost believed he wasn't going to wake to an empty apartment and that a brunette, familiar face would knock cheerily at his window, but – baka Naruto. She's dead.
He had somewhere to be today.
Naruto yawned one last time before turning back to (not so clean) apartment and making his way to the bedroom so that he could get changed.
"Uhhh… What flowers are good for placing at grave sites?"
Yamanaka Ino blinked at Naruto's request. "You're visiting a grave?" She'd been under the impression –in fact she'd actually assumed it the moment the orange-clad jinchuuriki walked into the store – that Naruto was finally going to buy flowers for Hinata but this was a surprise. "I mean, whose grave are you visiting?"
Naruto was touching the tips of his fingertips across the silky petal of a geranium. "Neechan's." He answered shortly.
"Oh." Being born with an innate sense of understanding – literally, rather than figuratively since she did read people's minds for a living. The florist shop was her pocket money source – she kept her reaction minimal. Of course. Everyone knew Naruto's big sister, the one who'd Naruto had always stuck to as a kid before… Ino cleared her throat. The girl knew her too, at least from having to write her name down on many bouquet cards. "Iruka-sensei was just here for the usuals before actually. When's the last time you visited?"
The blonde chuckled nervously. "A long time?"
"Tut tut, Naruto-kun. You're going to have to buy her something really nice then."
"I know."
"She'll probably ground you for a week. Ban you from Ichiraku."
"Put a prank in my bed or something." Naruto grinned. "Any ideas – I'm not exactly the flower expert here. I shouldn't be putting so much thought into this..."
She snorted. "Well, I know just how important she was to you, so let's go for something really meaningful." Swinging her long ponytail back, the Yamanaka started looking about the various shelves, ticking off meanings and flower names in her head as she looked at each one, trying to figure out just which one would be fitting for such a thing. Roses, no. She was still saving the perfect bouquet for him, the one she would devote all her genius to specifically for when that numbskull finally gave one to Hinata.
"Something small would be nice," he put in helpfully. "I'll put it in my pocket."
"But of course." It was an odd request, to be sure- whoever thought of putting flowers in pockets?- but this was Naruto, so she would try and find something that would work. Her eyes fell on a springtime posy sitting small between the array. Springtime, an assortment of shades, vivacious, lively. It seemed perfect.
"Naruto. This." She said, showing it to him. "I think she'd like it."
It was small, more suited to putting on a breast pocket than give as a gift, but it ticked off everything on the list. "Springtime, huh?" Her customer smiled. "I'll take this, thanks!"
Ramen bowl in hand, spring boutonniere in his pocket, the clear sky earlier had caved in to grey clouds gravid with rain, threatening downpour. The boy quickened his pace until upon reaching the entrance way of the Konoha Cemetery, Naruto noticed a familiar pineapple-shaped ponytail and stopped.
Quiet and polite, Iruka-sensei hadn't changed over the years. He was still the same and still the only one who could get Naruto to follow orders. He nodded as Naruto made eye contact with him but they didn't say anything. Here in the graveyard, amongst the many headstones springing out from the turf, no words really needed to be said. They both knew they were there for the same reason.
The bowl in his past student's hands made his intentions obvious. 'For neechan' Naruto mouthed.
Naruto watched as the man fingered the scar across the bridge of his nose with a hint of nostalgia. '"I know."
.
.
.
Among the stone memorials of the cemetery, there is an acacia tree at the edge, its large boughs bending over as if to shelter the grave under it. On its lower boughs a crow silently perches above it, as though it were standing guard.
If you brush the fallen leaves aside, there is a single name etched on the stone.
Haruna.
No surname, no ninja rank, no splendid epitaph. Just Haruna, and a wolf print beside it.
'Maybe it was a good thing she didn't,' Naruto thinks, 'because her gravestone would have been as big as the memorial stone…"
iTi
"I brought your favourite" Naruto greeted as he sat down beside the grave. One life among many, one name only a select few recognised and maybe remembered with regret, with respect, with longing. The sight made his eyes water almost out of habit -the cause alternated between missing her and realising how bad the world would still seem if she hadn't appeared in his life.
Haruna. Naruto's self-proclaimed big sister, the one who'd taken him under her wing when the rest of the world shut him out.
Much had occurred since her passing, and for a moment he wondered whether his neechan would be proud of him.
There was another bouquet and a single lighted candle arranged on the stone. Naruto knew who they came from. He placed his own little offerings on the stone beside them as well, imagining her surprise at them. There were, perhaps, many other graves, many other names in that graveyard who meant something to him, but this one in particular was the most important.
You see, Haruna was a lot of things. She was an avid prankster, a wild child, a ramen enthusiast, and she was much too lively for her own good, much less for the wellbeing of her teammates – ANBU or not. She was rough, bold, brave, as well as being innately and instinctively perceptive. She wasn't from Konoha, but was fiercely loyal to her friends and the village that gave her a home when hers burned with her village. She could also be, contrary to her looks and quirky behaviour, silent and startlingly lethal in a fight. Her attacks were quick and precise, traps unfailing, her katana slicing the air with poetic grace before ending her opponents.
Haruna was, in short, someone who couldn't be tied down; sneaky and slippery, spontaneous.
And Naruto, Iruka and the rest of Konoha who didn't resent her, never ceased to miss her.
"I don't know where to begin from where I left off…"
He used to come every day but somewhere between the rush of things and the many battles since her passing, time at the grave had been cut shorter and shorter. People used to think it was weird and typically rude of him to talk loudly or even look excited in the place where the dead rested but Naruto just couldn't stand being sad. He'd had enough of being sad and those who knew his relationship with his self-declared big sister understood that she wouldn't stand to see Naruto looking anything less than upbeat.
And so he crossed his legs and began to pick up from where he left off. He told her about Ero-sennin –you know him right? – passing away (and then I got so… mad, I even lost control of the Kyuubi), mastering Sage Mode and Senjutsu and meeting his dad. "My DAD. He's the Fourth Hokage, did you know that? You probably did, I know. I still can't really believe it though."Then he told her about Hinata, how she said she loved him and that he was too scared to say it back to her and that it was funny because when he heard her say it, it was almost as if he knew it all along.
And at that point, he also said, with no small degree of gratitude alongside it, that the villagers accepted him now. That he was called a hero, even though he'd failed to bring Sasuke back after he left. That he was one step closer to becoming Hokage.
And, like so many times before: "Thank you."
.
.
He didn't know how much time he spent at the grave; by the time he looked up again the sun had travelled a little higher in the sky and the clouds had disappeared. News relayed, the gravestone cleaned, he stood up to leave.
"You're still watching me, I know." he said to the stone. "I'll be Hokage soon."
Naruto turned, taking a deep breath of the cool air before making his way back toward Konoha.
Behind him, the solitary candle flame flickered, the tiny flame moving with the presence of another.
AUTHORS NOTE:
Greetings, readers of my first ever fanfic. If you managed to make it to here without falling asleep at my writing, I sincerely hope you would continue to give this series of mine a shot as a fellow Naruto-fan.
To begin, I know OC's suck most of the time. They're usually way too OP, or become another classic Mary Sue and they don't keep the rest of the canon stuff in character. I know. That was my biggest fear when I started to create this. However, people, as you can see from this prologue even, she isn't another Over-Powered Original Character. I mean, she died, for starters. (Major spoiler, but I'll lay it straight from the get-go). She'll be strong, but not TOO strong. I'm hoping to keep her in sync with the other characters in the Naruto-verse who, in the words of Itachi, "even the strongest of opponents have a weakness".
That aside, now why on earth did I ACTUALLY decide to create this character Naruto calls "Neechan", who Kakashi and Iruka visit and the village all remember? Simple. If we go back to Naruto's childhood, was it actually clear how the villagers would hate Naruto, and did any of the shinobi feel the same way? And how was Naruto supposed to act before he met Iruka when he was what, like, 12? Did it take him THAT long to find out that he had a bond with someone? In my book, I decided there was someone in Naruto's life before the series started when Naruto is 12 in the Ninja Academy, and yes, this is only a slightly AU fic so it ties in with the story long before Shippuden. Just thought it'd be nice to add that Naruto had someone else… someone who, somehow, kinda-but-not-really takes after a few fangirls I know… ahem, anyway -Have no fear folks, I appreciate a good fanfic just as much as the next person – and so I hope this fanfic does the great anime and manga that is NARUTO justice!
Thanks very much and I hope you enjoy the rest of the Once I had a Sister series!
- Alatariele C.
in collab with Noetic Sky