EDITED: April 2014. Mostly grammatical.
Author's Note: Kushina is related to Petunia and Lily as a sort of half cousin. Lily/Petunia's mother had a half sister, who is Kushina's mother in turn. That would make Kushina and Harry… third cousins I believe, disregarding the half. The specifics of that story is largely forgotten or unknown by the characters themselves, so it'll likely not come up.
o- The Man with Yellow Eyes -o
By: Renatus
Harry made the decision to become a Shinobi almost immediately.
He moved into the yellow townhouse with Kushina and learned quickly that it housed more than just his red-haired cousin. Living with her was the blonde from the forest, Minato, who had his own room, though Harry hadn't seen him since. Harry was given one of the two rooms at the very top, in the front of the house. Minato, he was told, had the second room, which sported a narrow bed and a tall, skinny window that overlooked the back garden. There was a large bathroom and a linen closet for the floor to share, and then Harry's room, which was really tall on one end, with the roof slanted as it was. It had one tall, skinny window too, which Kushina opened immediately and the sounds of the narrow little street floated in on the warm breeze.
"Kakashi-kun stays here sometimes," Kushina told him as she bustled around the room. "So you two will have to share when he does. He won't mind. You don't do you?"
Harry shook his head in the negative but Kushina had continued on without seeing it, picking up spare socks, kunai and a couple empty plastic cups of something like soup.
Harry didn't mind sharing the room at all. He didn't know what to do with so much space. His cupboard at the Dursley's had been considerably smaller. Though it had a lumpy mattress. This room only had a couple rolls of thick, feathered pads that his cousin called futons. Harry thought they looked much more comfortable than his old lumpy mattress.
"You didn't bring much," the woman continued with Harry only catching snatches of her words, dumping her armload into a dresser drawer. "But I suppose you'll - - things fast -. I grew so fast a - - - that I was looking for new - every few months. You'll need a pair of - though, those old sneakers won't do at the Academy. Too -. Oh!"
Kushina stopped and whirled and was suddenly kneeling on the floor in front of him. She had moved so fast that Harry, who had been inspecting Dudley's most recent hand-me-downs that he wore, had startled back a step in surprise. She moved slower as she placed her hands on his shoulders and Harry was struck again by the variegated reds of her hair that caught the light from the window behind her in a fiery dislay.
"Hisui," she said. Harry did not know the word and told her so. He didn't understand a lot of the words she used. And she talked too fast for him to puzzle most of it out.
She smiled and spoke slowly. "It is the name of bird from my home. The Jade Kingfisher. They are sea-shore birds, and like the quiet - and small fish that they - up from the waters. They are shy, but beautiful and guard their homes strongly. Your eyes are the same color as their feathers. Do you not like it?"
Harry shook his head yes, then no, and giving up, simply said, "I like it."
How could he not? He hadn't been called such a wonderful name ever. The Dursley's and never even called him 'Harry' all that much, mostly when they weren't talking to him but about him.
"I like it too," Kushina said, smiling happily. "A hari is…how can I explain it? It is a needle, or a hook, like this." And she pulled a thin metallic rod out of her sleeve and showed it to him. Harry inspected it, noted the sharp ends and the slickness of its surface. It wasn't much longer than her hand, and very thin. "I think Hisui is better for a name," Kushina continued, letting Harry take the little needle from her. "But Hari-kun suits you too, really. I guess I'll just call you Hisui! It'll be my special name for you, cousin!"
Harry thought that was a splendid idea. "I've never had a special name," he told her. He didn't really think that some of the names Vernon or Aunt Petunia called him were very special. They certainly weren't as nice as the one Kushina had given him. So he didn't tell her about them.
She looked sad for a moment then smiled at him. "Well now you do," she said.
Harry nodded and made to give the needle back to her. "No, you keep it." She pushed his hand back to his chest. "It's called a senbon. It's yours now. I'll teach you how to use them!"
Harry just stared - awed. No one had ever given him anything before and here she had given him both a pretty name and one of her own belongings.
And with a quick warning about being careful of its sharp ends, she launched right back into talking, oblivious to the momentous moment in Harry's life.
"Hisui, do you know what a Shinobi is?"
Harry didn't so Kushina told him, explaining it all in a way that he could understand and follow with his limited vocabulary. It sounded like something from one of Dudley's movies, and Harry was rather amazed. Kushina led him to one of the windows in the room and sat with him on the low window seat. She pointed out the window to the roofs across the street.
"There, see him?"
Harry squinted and didn't see anybody.
"There, he's stopped, see him now?"
Now Harry did. It was the white-haired youth from the forest, one of Obito's friends. He had been running, or maybe he had just been somewhere else and suddenly was standing on the edge of the roof across the street. Harry had only seen a blur and then he was there, cool and masked and – he disappeared again. Except this time Harry saw him shift, then take a step and run. But he ran faster than Harry had ever seen anyone run before.
"Kakashi-kun," Kushina said, naming him. "He's a Chunin, one of Konoha's Shinobi."
"Are you a Shinobi?" Harry asked her, looking up at her face.
"Yes," the woman said with a smile, putting her arm around her cousin's small shoulders. "Yes, I fight to protect this village and its people. It is my home, and the home of my precious people. And I will fight for it until the day I die."
Kushina smiled, tugging him against her so her hair fell around and enveloped them both. It burned brilliantly in the light coming through the window.
"You are one of those precious people now, Hisui," she said. "I hope you'll like having Konoha as your home."
Harry couldn't care less where home was, so long as she was there. He did like Konoha, though.
o-
The morning Harry was to start at the Academy dawned chill and bright and clear. Harry, in his anxiety turned excitement was up with the sun and in the kitchen earlier than he was normally. The house was quiet; quiet enough for Harry to hear the bird song from the back garden through the closed windows.
He dressed in new clothes and sandals and he paused in the bathroom to look at them more properly. He wore grey shorts that were long enough to cover his knees, "For you to grow into, Hisui," Kushina had said, and a green shirt with long sleeves and a spiral pattern on its front. He had never had new clothes before. They felt small on him, used as he was to Dudley's large hand-me-downs.
He grinned, patted at his wild hair in a barely-there attempt to tame it and scampered silently down the stairs to the kitchen.
He found cold rice balls and fish in neat little metal boxes in the fridge complete with bamboo chopsticks stickered to their lids. So armed he slid to the floor in the corner made by the counters meeting the wall under the stairs and proceeded to eat his breakfast in the silence of the morning.
So when a yawning, bruised and blonde Shinobi wandered into the kitchen, Harry was surprised. He hadn't heard the man come down the stairs that he sat under, and hadn't seen him or his students since the day he had arrived a couple weeks ago. Harry and Kushina had had the house to themselves and had filed their days with language and village tours and delicious foods Harry had never ever seen before.
Minato, at first, didn't seem to see him and Harry sat silent in his corner, watching. Minato blindly moved through the kitchen, opening the fridge, which completely blocked the blonde from Harry's view and closing it again with a matching box of breakfast in hand.
Then the man saw him.
It was probably luck – very good luck – but Harry was only slimly saved from a skewering. The blonde reacted suddenly, blindly, shooting out a kunai from some hidden pocket straight towards the crouched form in the corner of his kitchen.
Both of them moved so fast that it took Harry a moment for his brain to catch up. Harry ended up staring over the lip of the metal box he held before him like a shield, staring at the man who now stood meters closer to him than he had been only seconds ago. The blonde had thrown the weapon and caught it before it even reached the corner. Harry only recalled a quick blur of color and sound as if the blonde had moved across the room in a blink, but the blonde had somehow caught his own kunai midair after he had thrown it. It never even touched its intended target.
Harry's fingers were white from the grip he had on his breakfast box – and he doubted it would have saved him if the blonde hadn't caught the weapon. He stared wide-eyed over the rim into equally startled blue.
Minato let out a string of words that Harry didn't know, but he sounded almost-angry. Harry didn't move. When Vernon sounded like that Harry usually got slapped if he was within reach. If he could have backed up, he would have. The blonde shifted towards him in an agitated step, still letting out angry words, and – Harry couldn't help it – he flinched.
Minato went from surprised-angry to surprised-stricken in a heartbeat and with only some hesitation moved again towards the frozen boy in the corner. The forked kunai disappeared as fast as it had been drawn.
Harry's stillness had returned and the only movement he made was to watch the blonde's very slow progress towards him. Once Minato was within arms-length he crouched and reached towards the steadily held bento-box. His movements were very slow.
Harry still didn't move.
The blonde seemed to take this as a good sign and with a small, sorry smile took the box out of Harry's hands. Left without his makeshift and effective shield, Harry let his hands drop into his lap, and his breakfast. He looked down to find his rice and fish scattered across his lap and onto the floor; mostly though, in his lap.
Minato looked really sorry, which settled Harry's nerves a lot. Vernon never looked sorry, unless he had swung and missed Harry completely. The sorry look would usually go away fast to be replaced by anger again. But with Minato the sorry was still there on his face and Harry felt bad for flinching.
The blonde finally spoke again and this time Harry knew the words.
"I am sorry, kid," he said, touching Harry's shoulder lightly, slowly. When Harry again didn't flinch the hand became more firm on him. "You startled me and I reacted without thinking. I didn't know you were in the house."
Harry knew this already, but nodded anyways.
"Kushina's your family, then?"
Harry nodded again, which made the blonde give him a small smile.
"Sorry about your breakfast, too," Minato said, eyeing his lap and the spilled rice. Then Minato plopped himself down right next to Harry on the floor in the corner. Harry watched him with some confusion but when the blonde offered him a pair of chopsticks and held out his own boxed breakfast Harry cottoned on.
"We can share mine," the blonde said, giving him a bright smile.
Harry returned the smile but instead of digging his chopsticks into the offered box, he scooped up a piece of fish from off his knee and happily shoved it into his mouth.
"It's still good," he said around the fish, causing his companion to laugh at him. Harry grinned.
"You have good reactions, kid," he said. "You'll make a good Shinobi."
Harry just smiled, happy with the compliment and the company, his morning's brush with death already passed and not quite forgotten.
o-
Minato walked him all the way to the Academy, showed him the building's entrance and because they were early let him into the Missions room with him, which was located within the same gated complex, but in a different building. The round room was tall and large and echoed a bit to Harry's ears. It was, however, brightly lit and all the windows had been thrown open to let in the fresh air and it wasn't too busy, though Minato warned that at times it could be very much so.
Harry held his silence, his hands in his pockets where Kushina's senbon rested, a comfortable smooth presence reminding him of her acceptance of him. As he looked around Minato greeted and chatted and moved through the room. The blonde didn't introduce him and Harry didn't mind, distracted as he was by all the different people. Finally they made it to the broad desk sat to one side and the old man seated behind it.
His voice was about as wrinkled as his face, but he greeted them both with a smile that Harry thought was a real one. "Minato, who is your young friend?"
"Hokage-sama," Minato pulled Harry from his position half behind him so that Harry was standing in front. "This is Uzumaki Hari."
And hadn't that been a point of contention. Harry, having spent all his remembered days sleeping in the Dursley's cupboard under the stairs, had only ever been talked about, talked over, yelled at, sneered at or swung at. Rarely, and only by either Dudley or Aunt Petunia, had he been called 'Harry' at all. When Kushina had asked him his full name to fill out his application for the Academy, Harry had replied with the only name he had ever really known to be his. Harry. She had asked about his father, to which Harry simply said that he didn't know. Aunt Petunia had put down Potter as a name for him when he went to school last year, but she had also always called his dad 'that Potter' so Harry had always assumed his father's name was Potter, which was an odd name, and not really his name and that Aunt Petunia had only put it down on his school forms because he didn't have any other anyways and they, like the Academy in Konoha, wanted a second name for him. His teachers at the primary school had always called them by their first names, and Harry just didn't associate himself with the name Potter at all.
Harry thought it was odd. What was wrong with just Harry?
After her rant and fury at their mutual relatives subsided, Kushina had proceeded to fill in his application with her own family name, telling him in no uncertain terms, that he was now Uzumaki as well as Potter. "Potter is a silly name, anyways," she had said, sticking her tongue out, "but I suppose if it's your father's, it'd only be right for you to keep it. But Uzumaki is yours now too, Hisui." Family.
Harry had happily accepted it and he loved his new name, too: Hisui. It was elegant and special.
"Hari-kun," Minato said, gaining his attention with a bemused look at his mental wanderings. Then he proceeded to give him a little lesson in language and etiquette. "This is the Hokage of Konoha, Hiruzen Sarutobi. You should call him Hokage-sama. It's proper."
Harry nodded and did as he was told. "Hello Hokage-sama."
"Welcome to Konoha, Uzumaki-kun," was the response.
Minato poked him in the back of the neck with his finger.
"Thank you, Hokage-sama," Harry said dutifully, reaching up to rub his hand over the spot of his poking.
"I believe your application for the Academy stated your name as Hisui," the old man said. "Do you prefer Hari?"
Harry just shrugged, rather fond of his new name and not particularly attached to Harry as he hadn't been called Harry very much when the Dursley's had Freak, Boy and You Useless Thing to use.
The Hokage chuckled and leaned forward over his wide desk, a long, thin pipe puffing a thin trail of smoke in one hand.
"You've come a long way, I hear," he said.
Harry merely nodded but replied with a, "yes, Hokage-sama," when Minato poked his neck again.
"As quiet as you were at that age, isn't he, Minato?"
Harry craned his neck around in time to see the blonde's faint look of twisted exasperation.
"I doubt," the old man said, "being under Kushina's care will keep him so for long."
"If she stops talking long enough to let him do so," Minato said.
The Hokage chuckled and leaned back into his chair, puffing on his pipe and letting out rings of smoke that floated over his head. Harry watched them, rather fascinated.
"Looking for missions, Minato?" he asked.
"For my Genin, yes. Something close to home for a day or three, if possible, Hokage-sama. They're still a little banged up, despite their ready status."
"Not Genins anymore," the old man said. "And you looked more banged up than they, as I recall."
Harry glanced between the two, catching Minato's somewhat sheepish look and the older man's amused chastisement. The blonde was banged up, and his face still bruised along one side. Harry knew, having seen the man in a t-shirt that morning, that his arms were more colorful.
"They'll always be my Genin," Minato said.
"I'll see," the Hokage said, sounding suddenly sad. "There is a lull after the Hot Wash at Ando Point, but you know it won't last."
The two men descended into sudden silence and Harry wondered, not understanding. It was then he noticed the almost-there tensions in the room, how the Shinobi looked tired, and worn, many of them beat up yet still up and walking with a determined look to them. And also sadness and fear.
And Harry remembered that Kushina had mentioned a war in her letter to Aunt Petunia.
Minato nudged him lightly, "It's almost time for classes, Hari-kun," he said. "Time for you to go. Do you remember the way?"
Harry nodded and made to move towards the door. Minato's hand on his shoulder stopped him and the man pointed to the old man smoking his pipe behind the desk. Harry blinked at him, then turned and executed a bow from his waist. Fuyu had taught him about the bowing.
Harry straightened and turned to go again and caught Minato moving out of the corner of his eye; the man's finger aimed for the back of his neck again. Determined not to be poked into speaking for the third time, Harry dashed out of the way in the same manner that he evaded Vernon's swings at his head. Harry paused a couple paces away from the blonde, caught sight of his surprised look and still pointed finger, waved at the Hokage and dashed right out of the room.
He heard the Hokage's laugh until he was halfway to the Academy building.
o-
Harry didn't realize that he had a very large problem until he sat in his seat for his first class.
He couldn't read. He knew how to read English, he had learned that in his first two years of primary school back in England. But whatever was drawn on the chalkboard in the front of his classroom was definitely not English. He had no idea what it was supposed to mean. The teacher, a large, rotund man who had introduced himself as something-something Chouga (he had pointed to a portion of the board that presumably read his name, but Harry couldn't read it), was talking in simple enough vocabulary, but Harry's worry over his inability to read had him distracted enough that he couldn't catch more than one in ten words.
It only seemed to be about rules anyways, though Harry wouldn't have minded knowing them, he wasn't too worried yet about missing something important, like how to be a Shinobi. And maybe Kushina would teach him how to read the pretty writings.
It was just as he was calming down enough to listen that his teacher called his new name. Harry looked up, startled. Chouga stood at the front of the sloped classroom, smaller to Harry's eyes than he knew him to be. The man was easily as large as Vernon, but where Vernon was angry and pinched in the face Chouga was simply round and kindly with squiggly lines across the curve of his cheeks. The large man waved his hands in a standing motion.
"Uzumaki Hisui," he said again.
Harry stood slowly, not taking his eyes off his teacher, set to listen with all his might and hoping he'd know all the words and that the man wouldn't ask him to read.
Harry needn't have worried about the reading, or understanding the man's words. He should have been worried more about not knowing the answer to any question asked of him.
"What is the First Rule of Shinobi?"
Harry just stared. He had no idea. Was that what he had been talking about? Shinobi rules, not classroom rules? Something in his face must have tipped his teacher off that he didn't know the answer. Chouga gestured to the lines of script on the chalkboard behind him, as if prompting, and Harry nearly panicked.
"Would someone answer for him?" Chouga asked, his voice still as even and soft as it had been since the start of the class.
Harry chanced a look at his classmates and cringed at the myriad looks he was receiving. And the silence. No one had yet spoken up for him.
Then a clear, if softly spoken voice from the back of the classroom, had most of the children taking their eyes off Harry, who was still standing, if now curled a bit in on himself at the attention.
"The First Rule of Shinobi," Harry glanced over his shoulder to see a red-haired girl standing in the very last row, her tall spindly form bowed across the desk as she leaned over it. Her hair was thickly roped and hung over her eyes, and yet Harry thought she was looking right back at him.
She cited the First Rule as if she had known it all her life. "A Shinobi must always hold allegiance to their Kage."
"Yes, thank you, Lin-chan," Chouga said. "The Kage is a hidden village's head, its leader and protector. He is the strongest of the village's Shinobi."
Harry slid back into his seat silently, resolutely not looking at the others around him, staring down his large teacher at the front. He expertly fought down the urge to cry from frustration and embarrassment. Tears had never endeared him to any one before.
o-
Chouga had pulled Harry aside when the other kids filed out for lunch on the grounds. He spotted the girl who had answered his question for him as she slipped out with the rest. She paused in the hallway, the last out the door, looking back at him. He mouthed a thank you to her. Her head tipped forward into something of a nod, but before she brought it back up again she had slid the door closed between them.
Harry turned to his teacher, his eyes downcast, watching the man's feet.
"Uzumaki-kun," Chouga started, stepping towards him. Harry matched the man's step forward with two of his own. Backwards. There was silence and Harry kept his eyes riveted on the man's fat toes peeking out of his sandals. He could see his own toes, so small in comparison to the other's. Chouga was a big man.
Chouga took another step forward and Harry repeated his retreat.
Then his teacher took another route. "Where are you from, Hisui-kun."
"Surrey, Chouga-sama."
This earned him a chuckle. "Sensei, Hisui-kun. Chouga-sensei. Though I am flattered at the sama, I am not worthy of it, I'm afraid. I am only a Chunin."
"Surrey, Chouga-sensei," Harry repeated dutifully.
"Out of the Elemental Nations, I believe."
Harry just nodded. Chouga-sensei's feet turned and Harry peeked up through the wild disarray of his hair to watch the man round his desk and sit in the chair. It creaked under his weight but the man didn't seem to be at all concerned that it would hold him.
Chouga watched him in return, his eyes a warm chocolate brown that matched his hair and the warmth of his face. Harry didn't not trust him, and having the large man now sitting a few paces away from him settled his nerves and allowed him to see Chouga-sensei and not think of Uncle Vernon towering over him with a meaty hand.
Chouga then gestured to the board behind him. When he spoke it was kind, soft, unassuming and not accusing. "Can you read this, Hisui-kun?"
Harry eyed the scribbles drawn across the chalkboard with trepidation. This was a repeat of the first days in Primary back in England. When his teacher had asked him to read out the letters she had written and Harry was left gaping and staring, unknowing what she was even asking of him. She had asked him three times, before telling him to sit and asking another student. By then his entire class had been staring at him, egged on by Dudley's mean chuckling from the back of the room.
This time had been a little different though. No one had laughed at him. The teacher had not asked him again. Some one else had spoken up for him.
"No, Chouga-sensei."
"You'll spend your lunches here with me then," his teacher said, giving him a smile. "And I'll teach you how to read, Hisui-kun."
And so his days at the Academy began with rules, history and anatomy in the morning, lunches with Chouga-sensei for reading and writing, tactics after lunch, and what he came to know as unarmed combat in the afternoon where they ran, mostly, a lot, and learned how to roll, fall and get slammed to the ground without getting hurt.
o-
Harry suffered through the classroom lectures that forced him to struggle with the written form of the language. He enjoyed the time during lunch with Chouga, but his dislike for the fancy kanji only rose as his fight with it did not end. It was in the afternoons, during the physical exercises with the injured Genma that Harry excelled.
The Academy year was broken into three sessions, and Harry had joined at the start of the second. Despite the late start, he didn't feel like he had missed much. Chouga had described to him why. The Academy classes were designed to be joined at any session, with a rotation of subjects that let the students advance at the pacing they were able to do so. Exams at the end of each session would determine pass or fail and advancement into other classes.
The thought of tests made Harry nervous, but he enjoyed the afternoons out of doors.
The running and rolling and falling were old hats to Harry, who had been playing Dudley's Harry Hunting game for nearly two years – ever since they went to Primary and were let loose on the playground together. His speed on his feet was only rivaled by the long-legged Morino Idate who could outlast him in laps around the complex grounds, but Harry could beat him in short sprints all afternoon long.
Evading holds as they moved into learning grappling, was also something that Harry excelled in, and was experienced with. Initiating holds, however, was not something he felt terribly comfortable about.
Genma would only let him practice his evasion for so long before forcing him to do something besides dance out of his sparring partner's reach. "You can't pin him without getting a hold of him first, Uzumaki! Pins! Holds! Get him down on the ground!"
And Harry would obey and dodge into range and try to slip under or through the other's reaching arms and hands and most of the time he'd get a shoulder or the back of his shirt or arm caught and down he'd be on the ground with a knee planted in his back. It would always leave him tense, ready for a blow, like Dudley would have done. But none of the Academy students would take advantage once they'd pinned him, and Harry learned to relax a little, even with the largest of their classmates, Idate or Kabe, both of who were probably half again larger than Harry.
It was one of these times, pinned to the ground with Kabe's knee digging into his spleen, that Harry spotted Orochimaru through the complex gates. Harry froze, staring even as the man stared right back at him. Neither moved and Harry only really saw Orochimaru and his yellow eyes and stringy black hair through the vertical slats of the gate. He was smiling, that not-smile that said he was thinking of something mean to do and staring at Harry while he thought it.
A light blow to the back of his head pushed his chin down into the dirt and Harry shot his arms up to try and retaliate before he got struck again. He hit something hard and fleshy, something cracked and someone cursed and the weight on him slid to his side. Harry rolled and found Kabe slouched next to him, holding both hands to his nose, which was bleeding profusely. Harry had nearly forgot that he had been sat on by the larger boy.
Harry just watched as the boy's blood seeped through his fingers and slid down his wrists.
"That's better Uzumaki!' Genma announced, suddenly standing over them. "About time you broke a hold. Let me see that, kid."
Kabe let their teacher pull his hands away from his face to inspect the damage Harry's flailing had done. Harry took the time to look back at the gate, searching the wide road outside and the buildings across the street, even going so far as to eye every window and the rooftops.
Orochimaru wasn't there.
"You'll be fine, it's not broke," Genma said, slapping Kabe on the back jovially. "Well done Uzumaki."
Harry turned his attention back to his teacher and gave the man a nod. Genma looked down at him with a crooked smile, a senbon stuck between his teeth.
"Let's see you do it again," he said, revealing his teeth in a grin.
Kabe groaned, still holding his nose and Harry eyed the other boy with minor worry. He hadn't thought he had struck him that hard. How could he have, pinned as he had been? Regardless, the two got to their feet and faced each other again, barely a pace apart, crouched with arms held away from their bodies.
"This time try to hit him before he puts you on the ground, Uzumaki. Begin," was his teacher's advice. Kabe sent Genma a sour look and Harry took the opportunity to dash into the other boy's personal space. He hadn't learned how to strike, or kick, or anything of that sort – at least not at the Academy. But Harry had learned how to slap with the back of the hand (or the side) and how to swing and how to kick at things low on the ground simply by experience in receiving such blows and dodging them in turn.
So since Genma had told him to strike Kabe, and because Harry was shaken by seeing Orochimaru watching him and tired of being pushed down into the dirt so much, Harry did, which the larger boy was wholly unprepared for.
Harry tucked in close to him, skirted around his torso close enough that their shirts rustled together, and once at Kabe's back he jumped as high as he could and with his open palm, slapped the larger boy square in the back of his head. The force of it sent Kabe stumbling forward. He grabbed at the back of his head as Harry landed lightly and immediately danced out of swinging range even though Kabe didn't swing. He just held his arms over his head and squinted at Harry as if he hadn't quite seen him before.
Genma crowed in smug excitement, gripping Kabe's shoulder tightly. Harry wasn't sure who was holding up whom, but kept and eye on both of them anyways.
"That was beautiful!" Genma said, his senbon making audible clacks against his teeth as he talked. "That's the way to do it, well done, Uzumaki!" Then he slapped Kabe hard on the shoulder, which nearly sent the boy to the ground. Kabe turned a glower on their sensei, who was oblivious. "Never underestimate your opponent! Never take your eyes off him either. Your size doesn't matter if you don't pay attention, Kabe, my boy!"
Genma gave them both another, "good job," before finally limping away to torment their other classmates. Harry, having never quite forgotten him, looked through the gates again for Orochimaru.
"Yama Kabe."
Harry whipped his head around to his opponent, who was still holding one hand to his head and offering the other to Harry in a handshake. Harry eyed him for a moment, considering. He was a full head taller than Harry and just as more broad. Long limbed, and thickly built, he almost had no neck, but his smile was wide and his eyes were bright in his mirth at his own mistakes and their teacher's antics. Harry felt dwarfed next him, but he also didn't feel threatened.
"Uzumaki Hisui," he finally said, stumbling over his own name, but stepping forward slowly and clasping the other's hand in his own.
"Nice to finally meet you properly, Hisui," Kabe said, grinning. It was a crooked, easy grin that stretched his face into something not-quite-comical and scrunched his eyes up.
"Yeah," he agreed, "Nice to meet you."
o-
Harry's first act of rebellion came on a day of growing frustrations a couple months into his education at the Academy. He had woken to a quiet house, which was usual, and had eaten breakfast and walked to the Academy alone, which was unusual. A short note scrawled in Kushina's scratchy writing was taped to the fridge. Harry had been unable to decipher most of it, but had gotten the gist; Minato's team had come in late in the night (the blonde was sprawled over the couch, not having made it up the stairs to his bed or even out of his uniform) and Kushina had been called onto a team sent off on some mission to who knew where.
Harry hadn't been able to read that part. And so he trucked off to school alone and worried, his senbon his fingers twisting awkwardly across the back of his knuckles as he walked.
The morning's lessons consisted of muscle anatomy with drawings and labels in neat kanji scrawled across the multitude of chalkboards lining the classroom. Harry spent the morning painstakingly copying what he saw, each careful stroke of sound and word, unable to read most of it, too distracted by his worry to be able to split his attention between copying and listening. While he had each board carefully copied on a long scroll, he had no idea what his teacher had said about it all.
Lunch with Chouga wasn't much better. The large man was letting it hit home to Harry that many visual writings had different verbal meanings, even pronunciations, which Harry found to be utterly confusing and unfair and served only to frustrate him further.
So when Kabe cornered him between tactics lectures in the classrooms and an afternoon of grappling practice with their new combat instructor, Aoba, who had recently been injured, Harry was about done with the entire day.
"Ready to get out of here?" Kabe asked, winking at him even as he gripped Harry's shoulder and steered him towards a door.
"We're ditching for the lake," he continued. Harry wondered who the 'we' consisted of. "You're coming."
Harry didn't care enough to protest and by the time they snuck over the complex's fencing he was trailing Kabe without prompting.
The we was two other students, both of whom Harry was generally familiar with. While the Academy split up the students for classroom lectures, afternoons were a mass exodus of the younger students into the complex grounds for their physical lessons.
Harry had sparred with them both on occasion over the past months. Morino Idate, like the large Kabe, was tall and long-limbed but not as thick and was rather coltish with an easy grin and wide eyes. He held the honor of being the student who could run the furthest and longest. In contrast, the girl, Ky Li Lin, was smaller, though more average than the even smaller Harry. She was rail thin and had long fingers that she used to push her red hair back with. She was utter rubbish at running, decent at throwing, and spent most of the lecture time staring out the windows, which she always sat next to. If given a question, though, she'd always know the answer.
Harry had not forgotten that she had stood up for him on his first day.
Quick introductions were remade in the shadow of a tall apartment building and Harry added Idate and Lin to his short list of friends. Their quick and easy acceptance of him had him grinning along as the four ran through the streets of the village, away from the Academy and its lessons.
They spent that afternoon at a small lake located on an interior training ground. The high walls of the village could be seen through the trees and over the row of buildings nearby, even as the trees secluded the pond. Stripped down to his shorts like the others Harry jumped feet-first into the shallow pond. The water was cool and clear and helped wash away the heat of Fire Country's hot afternoons.
"Better than suffering under Aoba-sensei," Idate said, sitting on the bottom of the pond so that only the top of his head could be seen. "He's a little intense."
Harry agreed with this. While Genma had been loud and said a lot of words that most of the girls in the class yelled at him for, he had been a little easier on them, and grinned a lot. Aoba, in contrast, didn't smile, but it was hard to tell with the high collar of the cape he wore. He also tended to stand over the sparring students and intone all that they were doing incorrectly in a deep monotone voice and he hardly ever blinked while staring.
Idate was convinced that he was either a psychopath about to murder them all or a pervert. Harry just thought he was grumpy.
"What's up with all the different teachers, anyways?" Idate asked, staring up at the sky. It was a good question. While Chouga was still there, they had gone through two combat instructors and three tactics teachers in the past two months.
"The war," Lin said simply from the bank. She had stripped down to her snug shorts and a tank top, revealing a straight, slightly coltish body. "They've conscripted everyone over Genin level for war missions, and that includes the Academy instructors, who are all at least Chunin." She paused, yanking her hair out of her face, though wild roped strands fell back in front of her eyes regardless. "The ones we get are grounded or waiting for reassignment."
Idate shot up from the water with a splash and incredulous look for the girl on the bank. "Grounded? You mean injured," have you seen the color on Aoba-sensei's face?"
"Looks like he got hit with a tree branch," Kabe said.
"Or thrown into a tree face first!"
"Anyway," Lin said, stepping out into the water with a careful, slow step. "It's a war-time procedure, just like the rushed, three-year Academy curriculum instead of the usual five."
Idate gave a determined, excited look and slapped the water with his fist. "Good, I'm ready to get out there!"
Harry wasn't so sure he was ready to go anywhere. He saw what Minato and his Genin looked like the few times they had dragged themselves back to the village or to Kushina's dinner table. Battered and weary and sad and bruised. Obito even had bandages wrapped around his head so much one time that he could barely see or open his jaw enough to eat. He had tried to get Rin to feed him, but Kakashi ended up doing it, blithely offering the tandoori to his grumbling and embarrassed teammate in tiny little bites.
"You'll have to learn how to throw a kunai or something first at least," Kabe said, taunting.
Idate flushed and glowered and swung his arm in a wide splashing arc that sent water towards Kabe and Harry both. As the two larger boys degenerated into a competition of who could displace more water, Harry shifted away towards the bank.
It was then he noticed that Lin, who had taken a couple more short, slow steps into the pond, wasn't actually in the water at all, but rather standing atop it. She was balancing herself with her arms akimbo and her tongue between her teeth and in her concentration on her feet had caused her hair to fall forward and curtained almost her entire face, leaving only the line of her jaw and her lips visible.
She was walking on the water.
"What is that?" Harry asked, his voice quiet in his hesitancy to break the girl's focus.
Lin wobbled but remained upright, the water rippling around her feet. "Water walking," she said around her tongue. "Chakra control exercise."
A yell and a loud splash from Idate and Kabe's scuffle had the water making waves that splashed at the shore. Lin, her concentration and level surface both broken wobbled, tipped and with a shout splashed into the lake shooting up a spray of water and complaints.
Harry blocked the worse of the splash with his arm, grinning at Lin's sodden, disgruntled look.
"I win!" Idate crowed from the middle of the pond, wrapped halfway around Kabe's broad shoulders, his fingers tangled in the other boy's hair and his ankle hooked over a shoulder to hold him above the surface.
o-
The four trudged home as the sun was getting low, still wet, hungry and making up improbable ninja arts. The others were doing better at it than Harry, as he was unfamiliar with what was so-called normal in the Shinobi world, and what wasn't so much. They had shot down his idea of being able to see through walls very quickly.
"Oh, the Hyuga can do that," Idate said in a manner that told Harry he ought to have known already.
"Super strength would be awesome!" Kabe announced, flexing his biceps. "Strength to uproot trees!"
"Give it a few more years," Lin mumbled, as the boys watched the large Kabe demonstrate his future technique in uprooting the great Konoha trees. The larger boy wrapped his arms around the trunk, not even able to hug half the girth of the tree, and strained against it, making ridiculous faces.
"Flying," Harry suggested, as the three turned away from Kabe's continued attempts to will himself to super strength.
"Like, without wings?" Idate asked.
Harry shrugged. "Wings wouldn't be so bad."
Idate looked at him cross-eyed. "You'd look really weird with wings instead of arms, Hari."
"I suppose you could have a bird Summons," Lin said. "You could probably fly on some of their backs, if they were strong enough."
"There's an idea!" Idate said, clapping his hands together. "Summons! What about a dragon for a Summon!"
"That's unlikely," Lin told him, "They wouldn't stoop to answering a human's call."
"And other creatures are so high and mighty?"
A soft, hissing chuckling interrupted the boys' conversation. All four froze and turned to the source. Harry saw him first, leaning against the side of a building in its shadow, arms crossed and staring down at them with an amused smirk.
"Orochimaru –"
"Orochimaru-sama!" Lin said, covering Idate's lack of polite honorific.
Orochimaru slid out from the shadow, his yellow eyes flickering between them and coming to rest on Harry.
"How are your studies, Uzumaki-kun?" he asked, sidling up to Harry. Harry, stiff, shuffled back half a step but stopped when the motion only served to increase the strange delight in the man's eyes.
"Well enough," Harry finally answered.
"Good." Orochimaru's grin widened. "Are you getting stronger, Uzumaki-kun?"
The man reached out and gripped Harry by the bicep with long, strong fingers in a vice-grip. Harry figured he was getting stronger, what with all the exercises in the yard. He was about to answer with an affirmative but Orochimaru didn't seem to be at all interested in a response from him. The man's fingers squeezed hard and Harry repressed the flinch at the pain.
"Good," Orochimaru said, leaning down to speak into his ear. "It wouldn't do for you to be weak."
He released Harry suddenly and leaned away. "After all," he said, his eyes sliding between the four Academy students, "there is a war going on."
Orochimaru gave them his creepy grin again and took a sidling step back. Harry let the breath he had been holding out in a silent rush. The man noticed and gave him a knowing, patronizing look.
Harry frowned as the man turned with a bending, sinuous motion.
"Get stronger for me, Uzumaki-kun," Orochimaru said, slithering away from them down the street. Once he was out of sight, Harry's frown deepened and he rubbed his arm where the man had gripped him. He felt bruised.
"You know," Idate said into the silence. "He's damn creepy."
"He's a Sannin," Lin chided, "Be respectful!"
"He's the damn Sannin-Creepy-sama," Kabe quipped flapping his jaw ridiculously as Idate made a face at the girl.
"It's an honor to have his attentions, Hari," Lin told him, ignoring Kabe's insult to the man. "He likes you. Maybe he'll chose you as an apprentice!"
Harry was quite sure that if that happened ever he wouldn't be accepting it.
"And so young, too," Lin continued. She eyed Harry critically. "What have you been doing to get his attention?"
"Nothing," Harry said.
Idate gave the girl an incredulous look and waved his arm off in the direction that Orochimaru had disappeared in. "He's creepy! He was practically sticking his tongue in Hari's ear! He's probably a pedophile. Hari, watch out for him, don't let him try to touch you."
"Idate!"
Harry looked at the taller boy as if he'd lost his mind.
"He's a Sannin!" Lin exclaimed.
"Sannin or no," Idate said, waggling his eyebrows and sticking out his tongue lewdly.
Harry frowned again and looked back down the street.
o-
Academy was held six days a week for most of the day. By they time the running and rolling and falling was over with stomachs were growling and the sun was low. It was after a particularly weary day that Harry wandered out of the complex gates after the other students. He waved at Kabe as they turned to opposite directions. They had begun to learn joint-pins and locks, and Harry, with his small size, had found himself pinned to the ground of the Academy's training yard more times than not with Aoba spouting instructions at him as he tried not to breathe in the dust. It was only about one in five chances that Harry managed to secure a pin or joint lock before his opponent and the odds were continuing to frustrate him.
He was still shaking dirt out of his hair as he began his walk home, alone, which was unusual, but Minato was out with his team on a mission and had been for nearly a week, and Kushina had taken a C-rank that had her running messages to an outpost somewhere.
Harry had gone about his day with the knowledge that his cousin would be back in Konoha in time for dinner with him where they would try to make each other forget that Minato was still gone without word and she would pull books down from her shelves and read to him to help him with his growing Japanese vocabulary.
He was going to need it. The first session was nearing its end after three months and Harry had a tight ball of nerves up-setting his stomach from the thought of the written tests he was going to have to face.
It was as he was turning the corner to his street that something had him freezing in place, his senbon stilling from its path across his fingers. A shadow darted out of the corner of his eye and he whipped his head around to follow it. There was nothing there. Nothing except tall row houses, lit windows with families setting dinner, a cat in the narrow alley, birds – not singing.
The cat's eyes glowed yellow and Harry stared as they grew and shrouded his sight, filling all that he saw with their sickly yellow, slit eyes, and a darkly amused laughter rolled over him and suddenly Orochimaru was there and the cat wasn't a cat but a snake that slithered up his legs and wrapped around his chest and hissed obscene promises into his ear and Harry fell as the eyes claimed his mind.
A lone senbon lay discarded on the road.
o-
He woke in fits. At times coherent and others not so much. There would be times that it would only be blackness and he wouldn't know if he was awake or not or if Orochimaru and taken his eyes and now he was blind and couldn't see. Sometimes it was quiet and still. Harry would lay and not be able to move and not have the energy to try. Distant screams or pleadings or whimpers would echo around the ceiling and he'd scrunch his eyes shut and think of Kushina's endless waves of red hair. There were times that he'd wake and there would be only pain that simmered through his veins like some kind of acidic blood poison and he'd whimper and gasp and not scream even as Orochimaru loomed up over him with his snake eyes and hissed at him.
Once, Harry hissed back.
He thought he had asked, "why?" but Orochimaru, in his surprise never answered him.
And since waking only hurt, Harry slept and built a house in his mind and armed it was trip-wires and paper bombs and chain-link fences with barbed wire toppings and gattling guns and canons and dragons. He filled it with the smell of Kushina's cooking and her red hair and Minato's smile and Obito's laughter and the sparkling stars in the sky and shepherd's pie and dango and geraniums.
Pounding woke him briefly. It thrummed up through the table like a great heartbeat and his head hurt and the pain pounded in rhythm to the banging down some hallway. He groaned and tried to move but couldn't and suddenly Orochimaru was there, hissing obscenities down on him and grabbing his head in a vice grip that dug his nails into the soft part under his jaw and the scalp over his forehead.
Harry protested but was too weak to even shake his head or voice words.
Orochimaru was talking, gabbling quickly about a clan with long life and blood and something about natural disasters. Harry only heard his name – Uzumaki – and the mad desperation of a cornered man. Harry barely understood what was going on. The pounding grew louder, more forceful, and Orochimaru's nails dug deep enough to draw blood, and raked down Harry's face. He cried out at the sudden sharp pain of the scratches.
Harry thought he was going to kill him.
Instead he loomed and stretched and leaned over Harry where he lay. He brought his face so close to Harry's that their breaths mingled. And quick as a striking snake Orochimaru bit him. Teeth sharp and finely serrated slipped deep into the flesh where his neck met his shoulder and molten fire flowed through the bite, burning his veins and turning his flesh to ice as it passed.
Harry gasped in sharply, the air burning his lungs even as he struggled to breath it in. Orochimaru left him as quickly as he had come, but Harry barely noticed for the ice that was taking over his limbs. It was cold. Yet even then his blood burned and his insides churned.
It built up in a swirling mass and clashed and then something within his mind cracked and shattered and dark, slippery shadows surged forth and consumed him gnawing at his gut.
Harry ran; ran back to the house he had built with its dragons and geraniums.
o-
It was Kushina's voice that woke him again. She was singing, or humming with the occasional stream of words as if it was an old song and she couldn't remember all the words even though she never forgot the tune. Harry thought he was still in the house in his head until he saw a room he didn't know stretched over him. Painted almost all white, with blue curtains and a window that led to a hallway that was equally whitewashed. A faint and muffled beeping and voices that came and went floated through the ajar door.
It was a hospital.
Harry decided that it was a safe bet that he was no longer going to be subjected to pain upon waking and that it would be alright if he remained awake for a while.
Kushina was in the chair next to his bed, sprawled over it withher legs thrown over one arm and her hair over the other with her arms crossed over its back for her chin to rest on. While the chair was facing more or less towards Harry in his bed, she had turned herself to see out the wide window to the sky and the towering trees outside. She continued to hum and sing, seeming unaware that she was doing so out loud.
Kushina was also unaware that Harry was awake and thirsty.
His first attempt to speak got him only a rough gasping of air, which served its purpose in gaining his cousin's attention. She whirled in the chair and was leaning over Harry in an instant. Harry, for his part, was still trying to control the sudden fit of cough that racked him and had managed to push himself half upright.
"Easy," she said, sitting up on the bed next to him. "Easy, you're safe, just breathe, it's ok, you're ok, Hisui," she continued in a litany, curling her arm around his shoulders and holding him up while he worked to control his lungs and throat and just breathe.
Harry's body cooperated after a moment, and he sat hunched into Kushina's warmth in silence, breathing in her faint scent and relishing in the heat of her body being so close to his. He had so rarely been held like this.
"Alright, now, Hisui?"
Harry nodded and she shifted away, but didn't leave. She handed him a glass of water from the side table, and Harry cradled it in weak hands as he drank. She turned so she could look at him straight and Harry looked up into her mis-matched eyes. Brilliant and sparkling, they were like the summer sky and new cut grass rolled into one gaze. She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. No doubt it was a tangled mess. Her look of amused resignation confirmed it.
Harry finally gathered the courage to ask the one question he had from the beginning.
"Why?"
Her face was full of sadness and regret. "He wanted your blood," she said, resting two fingers on his chest over his heart. "My blood. Our clan's blood."
"Uzumaki."
Kushina nodded and Harry wished he could take the sadness away for her.
"What's special about it?" Harry asked.
She hesitated. "He wanted many people's bloodlines." She shook her head and ran her fingers over his hair again. "The Uzumaki clan has the potential for long life, vitality and stamina. You are a part of that clan, even if distantly now." She smiled at him, though it was a small, almost strained smile. "We also tend to have special chakra, and I think he wanted both things."
"Special chakra?" Harry looked down at the cup in his hands, half full. He didn't feel all that special. Just lucky. Sometimes.
"Yes," Kushina continued, still playing with his hair. "I will train you some, and see if you have this special chakra. Not all in our clan did."
"I lost your senbon," Harry said very quietly. Kushina looked at him with a confused expression, as if completely ignorant of what he spoke. "The hari you gave me," Harry clarified, wondering how she forgot when he remembered the gift with such incredible importance.
"Oh," she said softly, wide-eyed. Then she smiled sadly and her arm tightened around him. "I will give you a new one, Hisui."
Harry just nodded, ashamed that he had lost her gift and awed that she would so readily give him another.
She seemed distant to Harry, as if thinking about something far away. He kept his silence and watched her watch the scenery out of the window, content just for her nearness, comforted by her touch. The terrors of Orochimaru's dark lab seemed distant and muffled in the light of the morning. He wondered how long he had slept. He wondered if anybody else, who's screams he had heard echoing in the tunnels had lived too.
o-
Exactly what Orochimaru had done to Harry was mostly a mystery. His body told a story of needles and cuts, shackles and bites and lingering poisons. The physical wounds would heal, and with the medic-nin's attentions, quickly so. The poison residues would seep out on their own, and he'd feel better as they did, as if shaking the flu. Having never had the flu or even been sick, Harry found the come-and-go fever chills and general aching of his body a weary burden that he was anxious to be rid of. His chakra was reacting oddly, they said, coming and going in waves that was unusual, sometimes it would dim so low they thought he should be in a coma, and other times it would pulse and surge. They didn't know what to do about it, nor did they know the source of the odd reactions. But he was very young and the medics were optimistic that his chakra would settle on its own. He would live for sure and might still be Shinobi one day. Maybe; if he would ever be able to control his strange chakra patterns.
Harry found their words pessimistic and told Kushina so. She stared at him, then laughed, the sound rich and joyful.
"You'll be a great Shinobi, Hisui!" she told him, still grinning ear to ear. "Never give up!"
"Teaching him your way of the ninja, Kushina?" Minato asked from the door.
Kushina mumbled into Harry's ear about it being better than anybody else's so-called-way, but either Minato couldn't hear or chose to ignore the comment. Harry, for his part, was rather distracted by the look in the blonde's eye. It was hard, weary and chill as ice. But when Minato met Harry's eyes, his look softened if just a little and Harry was reassured that whatever had made the man so cold and mad wasn't anything Harry had done.
"How are you feeling, Hari-kun?" he asked, crossing the room to stand near his bed.
Harry shrugged, "Better."
Minato studied him and Harry endured the scrutiny in silence.
"Do you remember what happened?" Minato finally asked.
Harry jerked a little and suddenly Kushina's arms were around his shoulders again and the heat of her closeness comforted him. She was always so warm to the touch.
"Yes," he said. "Some."
Minato nodded, thoughtful.
"I was walking home from Academy," Harry said, preempting either of them asking. "Orochimaru came out of the alley. I fell asleep. I remember his eyes."
Minato's tense look started to return as Harry talked, but the man didn't interrupt or even prompt him to continue. Kushina remained unusually silent as Harry struggled to explain the disjointed memories of what had happened to him at Orochimaru's hands. He could recall very little of anything.
"I didn't wake up much. I remember screams from far away. And snakes. And dark lights." Harry hunched and reminded himself that Kushina was there, holding him, and the sun was shining and he wasn't hidden away unable to move underground where he had learned of pain on a level he had never known before.
"It hurt," he whispered, staring at his knees under the blanket. His cousin's hands tightened their grip, warm and strong and there.
"He bit me."
That got Minato's attention. "What? Where?"
Harry, startled at the man's sudden intensity, just reached up to wrap his hand over the place Orochimaru had bitten him. Minato moved so fast Harry barely saw him. He was suddenly leaning over the bed, pulling Harry's hands away from the spot so he could see it. Harry flinched at the sudden and unexpected contact but didn't otherwise move.
Minato, seeing the flinch, gave him a small, apologetic smile. Harry let the man pull the collar of his shirt aside to peer at the bite. His face darkened and iced over again and Harry kept his stillness and silence out of reflex.
"It's a cursed seal," the blonde said, "a juinjutsu."
"Is he going to be alright?" Kushina asked, her voice laced with tense anxiety.
"He woke," Minato said, shrugging one shoulder slightly, seemingly optimistic despite his short words. "Only one other with this mark did so, out of the eleven we found two years ago. You remember him biting you?"
Harry nodded. It was one of the few clearer memories.
"I can use a sealing method to lock away the worst of its affects," Minato said, still inspecting Harry. "But you seem to be faring better than Anko-chan had. She didn't remember receiving the mark. It was causing her a considerable amount of discomfort and negativity, but that could have been due to Orochimaru's continued proximity by still being in the village. The best way that she could describe it was that it felt like a burning snake crawling under her skin hissing at her in anger."
Kushina sucked in an angry breath and Harry felt her hands tighten and loosen again on him. Minato simply watched, as if waiting to see how Harry would describe what he felt. He felt weak, tired, at times chilled and others sweaty. He had a faint headache and the small cuts and needle holes dotted along his arms and legs still stung. But he didn't think he had a snake under his skin and told the blonde that.
"It's not under my skin," Harry said, then tapped his head, "They're here." This did not seem to comfort them at all. "And they don't hurt me, but they are hissing at me. And I have a headache I guess. I think they're angry, but they can't go anywhere."
And that was the difference. Harry had somehow trapped the essence of the dark chakra that Orochimaru had injected into him, chained it and sealed it away in a windowless room in the house he had built in his head. The snakes hissed, they writhed, they spit angry jets of poison, which Harry theorized was the source of his current dull headache. He'd have to chain them up better, and maybe muzzle them.
Minato and Kushina shared a look over him, but Harry was a little distracted with his internal attention on the ugly yellow and red serpents in his head and the white chains that he wanted to knot around their snouts.
"Hisui," Kushina's stunned voice caught his attention. Harry looked up into her eyes and found more than just surprise there. Was that pride? "I think those lessons on our special chakra might have to start sooner than later."
Harry blinked. Our special chakra?
o-
Once he was able to walk mostly steadily on his own, and the scratches on his face and arms had healed to angry red lines, the medics let him go home. He made it all the way out the front door of the hospital before becoming too winded to continue.
Kushina leaned over him, her hand on his shoulder, it rarely having left him since he had woken three days ago. "The poisons will make you tired very easily," she said, soft enough that only Harry and Minato, who stood behind Harry's other shoulder, probably heard her.
Harry just concentrated on breathing through the cotton in his chest, gripping the set of eight shiny new senbon Kushina had gifted him upon his checkout. He was quite determined to never lose them.
As Harry got his breathing settled and his legs to stop feeling so wobbly, they continued, slowly. Their way through the village was long, and littered with little pauses at small shops and a dango stand and at the gates to the Academy complex and in front of one of the public bathhouses – all disguised so that Harry had a chance to catch his breath and rest his weary body. All the while Kushina chatted to him about the village's happenings and her friends and their lives. Every once in a while Minato would add a few words of his own to her stories before Kushina talked over him again. Harry just listened.
He had been held in Orochimaru's underground facility for over a month.
o-
Harry's return to the Academy was heralded by a mass rise in tensions due to the war.
o-
