EDITED: April 2014. Major edit: the Uzumaki clan taijutsu has been entirely removed from this story, which was originally introduced in this chapter. It's removal has affected very little in the grand scheme of things. Also grammatical edits.
Author's Response: No, I haven't forgotten about Tenzo/Yamato. He'd currently be… nine or ten at this point in the story, so he's off busy being a Chunin. Also: the timeline is only partially canon right now, for those of you wondering. Also Also: these folks are ninja, remember; underneath the underneath and all…and yes, that's a hint of sorts for something. Last Also: meet Anko. She's twelve.
o- The Clan from Whirlpool -o
By: Renatus
Harry's convalescence lasted a few weeks and would end with his return to the Academy for its winter session. He had missed completely the ending tests of the three month session he had started in. As the long winter break wound to a close, Harry got the chance to introduce his first friend to his student peers. Obito trailed him through the village, his head and arm bandaged to near ridiculous degrees and half his face purple from bruising. His recent wounds didn't seem to deter the teen's cheerful mood at all, and Harry was glad for that.
"Where're we going, Hari?" he asked, letting Harry lead him through the village's streets towards the interior training grounds.
Harry gave the taller boy a grin. "Swimming!"
Obito's face morphed into something that was almost indulgent, but it faded quickly into anticipated happiness. Harry decided to ignore the indulgent and just focus on the happy.
They ran into Lin in the shadow of a building, and the red-haired girl greeted him with a bright smile.
"Hisui!"
"Lin-chan," Harry greeted, "This is Obito!"
The two exchanged their own hellos, and the three continued on to their favorite swimming hole. Lin shot him a few penetrating looks through the thick ropes of her hair, which Harry did his best to ignore. It had been near two months since she had seen him, after all, and Harry knew rumors had spread about what had happened. The few times he saw one of the Academy students in the streets the last couple weeks, they always gave him very intense curious looks.
By the time they arrived to the training ground and the pond therein, Lin had apparently decided that Harry was still Harry and was relatively whole and she was no longer worried about him. Her worry had instead changed to curiosity. Harry ignored that, too.
Kabe and Idate were already in the water, splashing and making such a ruckus that they didn't even notice the new arrivals.
"Boys," Lin grumbled, eyeing the two with distaste. "Wouldn't see a damn mountain until it dropped on their heads."
"Hey, I've an idea," Obito said brightly, forming a seal with his hands. Harry and Lin watched him with undisguised fascination, and Obito grinned widely at the attention. The teen flashed through several seals, two of which Harry didn't even know, before ending in the familiar seal of the ram and stomping the ground hard with one foot. He intoned the words of an earth release technique and with the combination of his voice and the stomp, the ground rippled out from beneath him.
Harry and Lin stumbled into each other as the ground pushed up under their feet and spread out like a ripple in a pond. It rumbled loud and low, and sunk under the bank of the lake with a small splash. Harry stared at the water as it rippled subtly, disappointed at the seemingly failed technique.
He was about to turn to Obito when a loud crack sounded through the clearing. It was followed closely by a great splashing wave that surfaced from out of nowhere in the middle of the pond and pushed up high into the sky like a geyser. The two boys in the water yelled out in surprise as they were displaced along with the lake water. The water shot up, crested and then fell back to the ground like a sudden downpour of rain.
In the midst of it, Idate and Kabe waded in the lake, stunned and staring as the pond water rained down on them, drenching them in a way that their splashing hadn't quite been able to do.
Obito crowed in delight.
"You have got to teach me that technique!" Lin said, staring at the soggy boys with glee.
o-
Harry's return to the Academy was heralded by a mass rise in tensions due to the war. Having arrived in Konoha well after its starting, and only having been barely exposed to it at all, the concept of a Great Shinobi War was rather foreign to him. He knew about it, of course. He knew that it was dangerous. He knew that almost weekly ceremonies were held where names of Shinobi were called out as heroes. Fallen heroes.
Harry understood it enough to fear hearing Kushina or Minato's names called.
He also knew, intellectually, that he was being taught to some day take part in it, should it go on for that long. Despite that, he had a hard time imaging what a battle between Shinobi was really like. His classmates talked about it, a lot, embellishing their schoolyard spars with imagination to something beyond reality. Their speculated stories were punctuated with made up techniques and bravado and ending in glory.
Harry wasn't so sure that was the way battles really went.
They also stared at him for the first few days, knowing that something had happened but not having been told what or where he had been for nearly two months, only that he had disappeared for a month, been gravely injured and spent weeks in the hospital and then at home. They knew that the Sannin, Orochimaru, had been chased from the village by the Hokage last month. They also knew that the Shinobi of Iwa were pushing hard at the northern borders and had infiltrated some of the tall Fire Country forests lately and most of the Jonin of Konoha were not currently in the village (statistics Harry knew to include Minato and his team) nor many of the Chunin, though the masked ANBU were in plentiful supply.
All of these things coincided and left Harry feeling like they looked at him as a piece of the informational puzzle. He did his best to ignore the stares and took his seat in the classroom, the familiar sight of Chouga something of a comfort, though the chalkboards full of kanji was not.
They had moved on from muscle anatomy and were now studying the chakra system. Due to Harry's incarceration and following time in the hospital, he had missed the end of session exams, the two week winter break and the start of the winter session. Kushina had merely shrugged and told him to do his best.
And so he did, armed with a few weeks break that included much time with his cousin. Harry was ready to tackle the arduous task of Academy lectures again. Harry dictated his notes carefully, and wondered what all he had missed.
His return also coincided with another new physical defense instructor, or rather an assistant to Aoba, who was no longer bruised but still had his arm in a sling. Anko wasn't all that much older than some of the older students in the Academy. With violet hair, gold-brown eyes and a red, cropped shirt over a mesh body suit, she was very colorful next to the grey and black-clad Aoba who was considerably taller.
They were like night and day.
Aoba sat them all down in the shade of the wide tree in the yard. Harry plopped down next to Kabe, breathing hard and sore from their runs. It was a blazing afternoon, hot and humid. He felt as if he was completely worn out already, and his large friend gave him a fleeting, worried look. Harry shook his head and tried to control his breathing. The runs around the complex yards hadn't worn him out so much since his first months in the Academy.
He felt as if he had started over.
"We'll be starting lessons in weaponry," Aoba told them, setting a box down at his feet. Harry and the others craned their necks trying to peer into it to see what surprises it held for them. Aoba's teenaged assistant crouched down next to the box, ruffling through it and making clanking sounds. She caught the increased looks of interest from the students and gave them all a rather wild grin, which Aoba didn't see at all.
Harry frowned at the girl as she pulled an armful of something out of the box.
"We'll start with kunai," Aoba told them. "It is a standard and versatile tool and we will be working with them for the rest of your time at the Academy. The kunai will be your closest friend, when we're done."
A set of a dozen dull-edged kunai were passed out to them by Anko, the girl grinning at them as she handed out the braces. Harry received his with a straight face, eyeing the weapons with a stirring of trepidation. Anko's grip tightened and didn't release them, and Harry raised his eyes to meet hers. Her thin grin morphed into something wide and a little sinister and something in it sparked a burst of dark familiarity and fear in him.
Harry let out a low hiss and jerked backwards, pulling the brace of weapons out of her hand. Kabe moved next to him, his bulk almost looming, but comforting in a way that Anko's bent over form was not. The girl's look turned into triumph and she moved away without a word.
Harry watched her go with a guarded expression, his thoughts whirring.
"Alright?" Kabe asked, his voice so quiet Harry barely even heard him.
Harry nodded, feeling his body settle and his heart rate slow back into something more normal and less panicky. He glanced around, but his classmates weren't paying him any attention, their eyes on their own new weapons or on Aoba as he spoke of the kunai's usefulness.
Anko didn't look back at him, continuing her route through the seated students and passing out kunai. Harry eyed the girl, unsettled.
Her grin had reminded him very strongly of Orochimaru.
"Pay attention!" Aoba called out. Harry gripped the brace of kunai in his lap and tried to ignore the teenaged girl moving around them while simultaneously keeping alert for her exact position in relation to him.
Harry and his classmates were then lectured on the basic and myriad uses of this standard Shinobi tool. It could be thrown, stabbed, used as a knife in a battle or to dig roots or cut tough ration bars. It was effective as a hook to tie steel wire to, or a weight to throw flash tags, or used as leverage to scale a tree or sharpened and tied to a staff to make a spear. Aoba stressed the kunai's versatility, while Anko twirled one around her fingers with a demented grin behind his back.
Harry fingered the set that rested in his lap as he listened, thinking of the Iwa boy-Shinobi in the forest that Harry had stabbed in the arm.
She didn't even look at him again.
o-
Harry was crouched over his meticulous notes from Academy at the kitchen table when he was joined by Minato. The blonde raided something out of the fridge and slid onto the bench opposite him with barely a sound. Harry felt his presence more than he heard it, but the sound of the man's chopsticks breaking apart had him raising his head. The blonde gave him a smile as he offered a second pair to Harry.
Harry took the offered utensils and pushed his schoolwork aside. Minato set the boxed lunch down in the middle of the table, rice and fish and snow peas and candied carrots. Harry grinned as he snatched a slice of sugary carrot out of the box and popped it into his mouth.
"Good thing Kushina is off on a mission," Minato commented, pulling the fish apart into bite-sized pieces. "Or she'd yell at us for ruining our dinner."
Harry smiled around his mouthful.
"When will she be home?" he asked.
"Probably late tonight."
Harry just nodded and dug into the fish of the bento box. The two males ate in silence, both thinking of their absent housemates. Kushina had taken a mission, which Harry knew no details of, and Kakashi was assumed to be off in the training grounds lost somewhere. Harry was quite sure that Rin and Obito were with the white-haired youth, but he didn't actually know for sure. That Minato was home while his students were not was unusual.
Minato finally broke the silence half way through their cold meal. "What are you learning, Hari-kun?"
Harry swallowed his mouthful of rice to answer. "Chakra systems, terrain tactics, sweep kicks and kunai throws."
"How are you doing with them?"
Harry shrugged. "Fine."
Minato gave him a level look that was laced with expectation and Harry ducked his head a little into his shoulders.
"I do alright with the study and tactics if someone explains it to me," Harry admitted. "And the yard activities are easier now, but I still get tired fast." This last was said with a scowl.
"You were inactive for nearly two months," Minato said a little slowly. "It is expected that your conditioning was set back some. Is it going easier for you now?"
"A little."
"Good. How is your aim?"
Harry was glad the man wasn't asking him about his lectures. His ability to read the complex writing systems was still sketchy and not a little embarrassing. Harry didn't like to talk about it and rather hoped that the blonde knew nothing of his struggles.
"We just started throwing them," Harry said of the kunai. Then, in an attempt to railroad any discussion of his mediocre ninja skills Harry asked about Anko.
"Anko?" Minato looked surprised. "She's at the Academy?"
"Helping Aoba-sensei in the yard," Harry confirmed. "She's –" Harry trailed off, unsure how to explain the teenager. She unsettled him.
Minato was silent for a while, watching and Harry didn't offer anything more. The blonde didn't ask, either.
"Anko-chan was once Orochimaru's student. One of his Genin," Minato finally said. Harry stared. No wonder she reminded him of the man. "He gave her and nine others a very similar Cursed Seal to the one he gave to you, though they were a little different."
"They were different?"
Minato nodded but didn't explain the differences. "She was the only one of the ten who survived. That was two years ago."
Harry was confused and was sure it showed on his face. Orochimaru had done all that to someone else? Years ago? Minato seemed to read his confusion and questions.
"The Third chastised him, even grounded him from active missions for a number of months." The blonde let out a carefully controlled breath of air and stared over the half wall that separated the table from the kitchen and out the window to the back garden. "Orochimaru produced documents that showed that the ten Genin had given their permission for the seal to be placed on them. While the technique was dangerous, Orochimaru said he did not know it would kill them, and expressed regret that it had. The Third granted him some leniency and classed the technique as a Forbidden one."
Harry caught the traces of fury and indignation from the man and the leaking traces of them had the boy stilling in response.
"Anko-chan doesn't remember being Sealed," Minato said. "Her memory is clouded of that time. She is understandably sore about it. Her sensei gave her the Cursed Seal and cast her aside."
Harry wasn't sure what to think of that, but knew what it was like to be rejected. He also knew what it was like to receive a Cursed Seal. The pain had flooded him like an acidic poison. He wondered if it would be better to not remember the application. Maybe he would stop flinching when somebody got too close to touching his shoulder if he didn't remember.
"Orochimaru is responsible for a great deal more than we had ever thought," Minato commented, watching him with a careful eye. Harry bore the scrutiny, his mind distracted by the hazy, pain-filled memories of Orochimaru and the more stark encounters he had with Anko over the last few days at the Academy.
Harry finally pulled himself from his memories only to look up to Minato's dark look. He pulled back slightly in surprise which had Minato's face softening immediately into a thin, though comforting smile.
"Kushina and I would both like to get our hands on Orochimaru," the blonde said, a coldness flickering through his icy eyes. "So we could wring his neck for what he's done to so many. And especially to you."
Harry stared. He'd never had anyone be so full of revenge for him. Towards him, yes. He'd dodged Vernon's knuckles and Petunia's wooden spoon enough to know that look of dark promise well. But no one had ever taken up retribution on his behalf before.
It stunned him into wonder.
o-
Uses Of The Kunai became a daily addition to their afternoon lessons in the yard. The students would be split into smaller groups and rotate through stations, some running, some grappling, some throwing kunai or practicing various other uses of the blade and then they'd all switch after a time.
Harry found he rather liked the kunai throwing practice. He would line up across from the row of round straw targets with his group, and rotate through the three different kinds of throws they had been taught. Over the shoulder, full arm throws that had the kunai spinning head over hilt, that were difficult to get the pointy end to strike the target at the right time. Then across the chest throws that were done facing the target sideways that sent the blades straight at the target and under-handed throws that had them pulling the kunai from their leg-pouches and throwing all in one smooth motion. Then they were to switch hands and do them all again, a dozen times each, and then repeat.
Harry liked the repetition. It was soothing and he could fall into it with a steady rhythm of concentration until Anko bounced up behind him.
"Hisui-kun! Throw harder, use more force!" She leaned up right behind him with her nose next to his ear. Her sudden proximity startled him so badly that he jerked violently away from her, unbidden memories of Orochimaru's slithering touches and hissing in his ears surfacing and causing him to sweat.
Anko stared at him in startled surprise that was quickly replaced with a gleeful, dark grin. Harry thought that it looked like a promise of much future discomfort.
"Such reflexes, Hisui-kun," she said, darkly happy. "Did I scare you?"
Harry didn't give her a verbal reply, and only returned her look with an irritated one of his own.
"You'll have to get over that," she said more quietly. She looked at him as if understanding, but also with determination. Dark shadows flickered in her bright eyes, dulling their color, and Harry studied the girl with Minato's words echoing in his ears. She had survived Orochimaru like he had. Perhaps she had suffered similarly. He couldn't help but feel something of a kinship with her, despite his edginess with her unexpected closeness or creepy grins.
"Yes, Anko-sensei" Harry conceded giving her a single nod.
She grinned at him, but this time it wasn't dark or demented or gleeful; just happy, sharing.
o-
They discovered one of the cursed seal's side effects only a few days after Harry returned to classes.
The dreams had always been there, even back in England, misty visions and feelings of foreign places and people; pain, shadows, fear, hatred – they would jerk Harry awake with a muffled gasp, sweating and clammy and cold, even in the warm air of Fire Country. He rarely remembered them, never understood them, and the agitation they caused would fade with the morning to be picked up again the next night when the moon was dark.
Sometimes, when he was home, Kakashi would reach across the floor in the darkness and press his fingers against Harry's shoulder - there and firm.
Then he had one that made him scream.
He woke to hands on him, pinning him down, escalating his fear and he thrashed violently.
"Hisui!"
Harry stilled, gasping in deep lungfulls of warm air, eyes wide and staring into the concerned bicolored eyes of Kushina. Her face was close to his, etched in worry, and her hands felt strong and reassuring against his shoulders.
"Kushi-nee – " sister, he called her. He couldn't help it.
She drew him into her, wrapping her strong arms around him and he clung to her support as the dream seeped from his mind, leaving a dull ache and a fog behind that was barely felt through the lingering fears. He noticed distantly that he was trembling and his breathing was short and gasping. She shushed him and rocked him and Harry never wanted to let her go.
"Is he gone?" he asked desperately.
"Who, baby?"
"Him…is He gone?"
Kushina hesitated and it only served to make Harry's trembling worsen. "Yes," she finally said, "He's gone from the village."
Harry wasn't quite sure who he was asking about. There was Orochimaru, and then there was the dark familiar presence in his nightmares that was so similar but yet so different at the same time. The yellow and red snakes were hissing and spitting and writhing in his mind and he couldn't even determine if they were angry at him or fighting each other, and he could only knot chains around the mess of both and pull the links tight and muzzle them and then flee.
But even in the tree-covered yard of his mind, with the house closed up tight and dark, he could hear the echoes of the snakes hissing from deep within its confines.
Kushina sang then, a lilting tune that spoke of waters and wind, waves and leaves, of deep surfs and all the colors of the rainbow found in the scales of fish. Harry realized that it was a child's song. It taught him of the ocean, which he had never seen before, but he felt like he knew something of due to her song. It was long, and repetitious, repeating lines and verses in differing orders, like the ever-continuous thrum of waves on the shore.
The foreign malicious anger and his own terror settled as the song went on. As his trembling ceased her voice softened to a hum, continuing the song's tune but leaving off its words. Harry continued to listen, wondering what it would be like to stand on the ocean's shore and feel the waves hit his shins.
"What's it like?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper in the dark of the room.
"What?"
"The sea."
Kushina's arms tightened around him and when she spoke Harry could hear the smile as well as the sadness in her voice.
"It's endless," she said. "It goes on and on until it reaches the sky. And then it comes back in waves, some small, some large, some curling and foaming and massive in their size, taller than a tree, wider than a mountain. And sometimes its still, even though it still has a heartbeat. I used to swim in the lagoons, deep still pools of water off the coast, sheltered by rocks and shoals and covered in coral reefs. They were filled with colorful fish, teeming with life. It was where the Jade Kingfishers lived, too, and they would flit around my head, just out of reach. I would swim with them all day, diving to the cool depths, digging my feet into the sand at the bottom and looking back up through the waters to the sun that tried to light up the sea from the sky. It would look like sparkling crystals."
"I've never seen the sea," Harry told her, enchanted by her story.
"Our clan is from the sea," she said. "Our ancestor, Uzumaki Katahama made a pact with the boss of the Eastern Swirling Sea, so long as he respected the waves and the life it brought, it in turn would not destroy the life he built on its surface. So he built Uzushio in the Land of Whirlpools, right atop the rocks that rose from the sea."
"Is that where you were born?"
"Yes." Kushina's voice lowered in sadness.
"What happened to it?"
"Fire and tsunami. It sunk into the sea."
His cousin did not explain the details, and Harry could hear the depth of her own memory in the words that she spoke, as if she had seen her village's ending. He wondered how old she had been, and he regretted that he would never be able to see the brightly colored roofs that rose out of the waters from his picture.
He fell into a dozing sleep in her arms, half in her lap even as they both sprawled atop his futon, until after dawn when he fell deeper into sleep. He had never felt so safe.
o-
Minato chose to put a seal on him after that, despite Harry's assurances that the two snakes in his head weren't going anywhere.
"Just in case," he said, leading Harry into a building he hadn't ever been in before.
With stark stone walls, and windowless rooms, Harry felt both confined and sheltered. ANBU roamed the halls at odd intervals, focused and unstopping. None of them greeted them and Minato didn't try to talk to any of them in turn. Harry watched them when they encountered one, never having been so close to one of the masked Shinobi before, fascinated by the different styles of masks and the uniforms they wore.
"Here we are," Minato said, and led him into an open room. Harry inspected it as the blonde shut and locked the door behind them. It was empty save for a pail and a few brushes lying beside it in the center of the room. A single bare lightbulb hung low from the ceiling.
"Strip down, Hari," Minato said, pulling his flak vest off and leaving it in a neat pile by the door. "I'll have to draw the scripts on your skin. You can leave your shorts on."
Harry did as instructed and was soon shivering as he sat cross-legged in the center of the chilly room. The light swung over his head.
Minato used the brushes to draw concentric circles of scripts that Harry couldn't read on the floor, and his finger to draw them onto Harry's back, down his arms and around one of his shoulders. It was then that Harry realized that the dark paint in the bucket wasn't paint at all, but rather blood. It smelt coppery, and was cold.
"This is a sealing technique, a fuinjutsu," Minato told him as he worked. His voice was low and even and comforting to Harry. "It is called the Fuja Hoin, and while it can completely seal low level techniques, Orochimaru's juinjutsu is not a low level. So the Fuja Hoin will rely on your own will to suppress Orochimaru's evil chakra to work fully."
Harry was both relieved and worried with the explanation.
"But since you have already sealed Orochimaru's chakra within you," Minato continued, coming around Harry to paint scripts down one side of his chest. "Perhaps the Fuja Hoin will work very well."
Minato trailed the line of seal scripts over Harry's hip, down his thigh and onto the floor where it connected with a spoke of one of the circles already painted there.
"I'm also including the mark for my Hiraishin," Minato told him, giving him a quick smile. "So I can always come to your aid if you need it."
Harry found that to be remarkably comforting. He had spent a month holed up by Orochimaru, unfound, no one knowing where he was or who took him or what had happened. If Harry had the mark of Minato's transportation technique on him at the time, the man would have been able to find him so much sooner.
"Done," Minato announced. He caught Harry's eye with both tension and encouragement written across his face.
"This will hurt, some," he said, regretful. "Are you ready?"
Harry pulled in a slow silent breath that filled his lungs and raised his shoulders. He nodded.
"Good."
Minato moved to stand behind him, and after a prolonged moment of anticipation, he began.
It did hurt, but not as badly as when Orochimaru had bitten him in the first place. Harry clenched his teeth together and endured the strange aching sensation, watching the script lines curl and retreat to the point where Minato's hands hovered over his left shoulder. They itched as they moved and a dull ache rose at the seal's center.
As the scripts disappeared from his view, and the pain faded, Harry was left exhausted and gasping. He felt like he had just run laps around the Academy complex for hours.
"Alright, Hari?"
Harry felt himself nod even as his body slid bonelessly to the stone floor in a rising tide of sleep, the snakes in his head muffled beneath a shroud of inky script lines - dark ropes that stood out against his own white chains.
o-
It took over a month for a physical sign of Orochimaru's meddling to make itself known. Minato had noticed it first, as he and Harry sat around the table. Harry was on his knees for height, head bent over the surface as he carefully copied the scripts of a flash tag. Minato had caught sight of his carefully copied Academy notes one night, and had promptly pushed a paper tag and a stack of blank papers in front of him.
"This is the scripts for a flash seal," the blonde told him, pointing out the half circle design with radiating lightning bolt patterns, "A flash tag. It's a basic seal technique and most Shinobi are able to draw these out on their own, with a little patience." Then the blonde gave him a bamboo brush with a narrow head, and a pot of ink. "Seals use blood and chakra to work," he told Harry. "So we mix our blood in with the ink, which gives it our chakra, so long as its fresh enough. Without the blood, and without the chakra, the seals are just pretty scripts of lines."
Minato smiled at him and showed Harry how to cut his finger or palm in order to add his blood to the pot of ink. The blonde bandaged his finger, then Harry got down to making careful copies of the flash tags.
"You'll be able to use these," Minato said, watching his progress with a critical eye, "And maybe anybody closely related to you by blood, but anybody else would likely make it malfunction. It's why Shinobi draw their own seals. Using someone else's seals can be very dangerous."
Harry had given the man a mumbled, "yes sir," his attention already focused on his new task. Minato ruffled his hair and the two fell into silence as they worked. Harry had gone through four copies, one of them rejected due to a mistake, when Minato spoke again.
"Hari –"
Harry moved the brush away from the tag he was working on and raised his head, but Minato's fingers pressed it back down again. He watched the man through his fringe, puzzled. Minato was staring at the top of his head with a focused, confused gaze. The man had both hands digging through Harry's hair now, pulling at strands as if to get them out of the way. What was so interesting about his scalp? "Hari," Minato said, pulling at his hair. "Your hair is growing out a different color."
"It is?"
Minato nodded and finally let go of his hair, so Harry could raise his head. He pushed his fingers through the wild locks, pulling them forward and trying to see what the man was talking about. All he saw was the over-grown fringe of his bangs, as dark as it had always been.
"Yes," Minato said, "Blonde maybe. It's a very light color."
Harry gave up trying to see is hair and cocked his head at the man. Minato simply pointed a finger towards the kitchen and the decorative mirror that they both knew hung in the window over the sink. Harry scrambled off his chair and into the kitchen, Minato watching him over the half wall that separated the table and the kitchen proper. It took a little effort, but Harry climbed up onto the counter, balancing on the edge of the kitchen sink. The mirror was floral-shaped, separated into sections of petals. Harry pulled it towards him without knocking it off its hanging string and angled it above his forehead.
It wasn't very noticeable, the change in his hair color, but once it was pointed out to him it was very obvious and he wondered how he hadn't noticed it before. Harry pulled his bangs to lie flat, revealing the roots of his hair and the very light coloration that was growing in place of his normal black. Harry stared for a while before letting the mirror clink back to its resting place. He turned in his perch and looked back at the blonde. Minato was still at the table, sitting back against the wall, watching him.
"I don't know what it means," Minato said softly, reading the questioning, almost scared look Harry was giving him. "We'll stop by the Hospital tomorrow. Maybe someone there will have an idea."
Harry wasn't really comforted, but as he slid back to the floor and returned to the table, he decided he wasn't really bothered by the change of his hair either. He didn't feel any different, after all. He just wanted to know why.
The Hospital staff had no information to give them. His hair was simply growing a different color. As far as they could tell, there was nothing wrong with him, they took a blood sample and poked and prodded and had nothing to offer. Minato sent Harry off to the Academy with a mumble about someone named Tsunade.
o-
Harry's lessons at the Academy were augmented by the occasional lesson at home with Kushina or Minato or at times Obito or Rin , depending on who was in the village when. Each would focus on different things with him. Kushina with her chakra lessons about chaining and restraint and love and occasional lessons in cooking or gardening or trips to ramen stands. She also taught him how to swim, telling him about the sea she learned in, and all the fish that she had caught in the waters to take home in tanks and line her room with. Then Rin, who would help him decipher his notes from the lectures, and Obito who loved to grapple in the back garden or show him hidden ways through the village to secret spots, telling him loud stories and silly jokes all the way. Minato, though, would sit with him in the living room on the rare occasions they were home together alone and Harry would learn about the fancy scripts the blonde had drawn on the floor and his skin that helped to seal away the snakes in his head.
It was his strong interest in sealing that focused his attempts to learn the written language he so struggled with. His sudden focus got him through his first set of exams, barely, and he finished with some of the lowest scores of his classmates. Choug told him not to worry about it too much. When he asked Harry some of the questions verbally, Harry was able to give an answer. He just struggled with the kanji.
"It's the exams in your second and third year that matter more," Chouga told him. "For now, the exams just help us to move advanced students through the curriculum faster. Just do your best, Uzumaki-kun, you are learning fast."
Harry, since his kidnapping by Orochimaru, was never alone at home and always had someone to walk him home from the Academy. Harry relished the company and attention, but their careful handling of him was slowly driving him insane. He had never had people care so much before.
In contrast, Anko's sudden appearances outside of the Academy were full of surprises, sharp edges and the occasional flash bomb and she didn't treat him like he was about to fly off the deep end or spiral into depression, or rather, she treated him as if she was looking forward to the point where he went mad.
She also started giving him weaponry. She favored small projectile objects that could be sharpened to fine edges and points and hidden away behind strips of cloth, into pockets or stuck in her hair. She had been ecstatic when she discovered he kept the senbon from Kushina on him at all times - ever since Orochimaru.
"See, you can hide them all and carry lots of them in all different places," she said, wrapping his wrists in white bandages. It was after lessons had ended and Harry was sitting in the swing tucked into the corner of the complex yard while Anko stood next to him, rolls of white linen and shuriken and kunai scattered at her feet. "Your hair is too short to tuck up with senbon," she trailed off, eyeing his shaggy hair. "Did you know your hair has two colors?"
Harry nodded. He did know. It was very obvious now. A two fingers width of black at the ends, and the same of blonde near his scalp – a blonde so light it looked nearly white next to his black. Harry hadn't let Kushina cut it yet, wanting to keep a hold of his original hair color for as long as he could. He was almost beginning to like the duo-tone look, except people always gave him strange glances, their eyes lingering on his head. Like Anko, who was almost cross-eyed as she stared at his hair.
Finally she shrugged and continued right where she had left off at, "but you can slide them under your sleeves here."
She demonstrated by slipping a few of his senbon needles between the folds of the linen wrapped around his forearms. They sat snuggly next to his skin, hidden under the wrappings.
"Try slipping them out and hitting the tree," she told him, pointing to a single paper target that had been slapped onto the tree trunk nearby.
Harry did so, standing and slipping the skinny needle from the linen around his wrists and flicking it at the target. The motions were a little jerky and not as smooth as he had seen Anko do, but the needle struck the edge of the target regardless.
"Sloppy," Anko informed bluntly.
Harry scowled and repeated the motion, this time focusing on combining the actions of slipping the senbon from the bandages and throwing into one movement. He missed the target by a handspan, but his movements had been smooth.
"Well, you'll get it eventually I guess."
Harry frowned. "I'll practice."
"Damned right you will," Anko said forcefully, but with a wide grin.
Harry did it again with the third senbon tucked against his arm and managed to both keep a continuous action and hit the target, though not at its center.
Anko shrugged and handed him a roll of linen cloth. "You can hide things against your legs, too, kid," she said. "Dead useful, this stuff."
Harry agreed, but thought she over-focused on its use. She had both her legs and her forearms wrapped joint-to-joint with the stuff. He wondered how many senbon she had lining her shins.
o-
The backyard of Kushina's townhouse was no wider than the building but ran deeper, enclosed by a tall, wood-slatted fence that was taller than Minato but no hindrance to any of the houses's inhabitants. A tiered garden butted up to the house in order to take advantage of the full afternoon sun, and a narrow porch ran out between the garden beds from the backdoor and down to a lawn. A stretch of grass ran away from the house, decorated with a series of targets and wooden posts and dummies used for training. The back of the yard was shaded by a copse of tall fire country trees that was shared by the two houses on either side as well as the civilian day care that backed into the yard from the street over.
The yard was a popular area for the house's residents and one could often be found there - Kushina or Harry in the garden beds, Minato lounging in the trees as Kakashi or another of his students used them for target practice.
So when Harry arrived home form the Academy to find Obito attacking the wooden dummy in the yard, he was not surprised. With rice-balls in hand and a bowl of sliced apples, Harry lingered on the patio space amidst the flanking garden beds and watched the energetic teen as he finished his snack.
Obito did not use the standard Konoha style of taijutsu that Harry had been learning at the Academy. Harry picked up the basics of the goju-ryu style of unarmed combat with relative ease, but with varying degrees of success. It was sometimes an odd mixing of general techniques, incorporating hard striking attacks such as kicks and closed hand punches with softer open hand circular techniques for attacking, blocking, and controlling the opponent, including locks, grappling, takedowns and throws. It had two basic forms, hard and soft, which were loosely designed to work both separately or together, and to which most students found affinity with one or the other. Harry had an easier time of the soft form where he could use his speed and evasion to evade blows and strike at sensitive areas rather than the hard style, that relied on physical strength and power.
Obito clearly used elements of the goju-ryu, but Harry did not recognize most of his forms and katas. The boy's familiar Academy-style strikes that spun the wooden dummy around on its stand would flow into an evasive sort of style that had him moving along with the dummy's spinning arms and twisting as if turning an opponent's strikes back on them. It looked like an awkward melding and Obito's disgruntled expression did not help.
Obito stopped shortly after Harry had finished the last of his slices of apple and the older boy ambled over to the patio. Obito plopped down next to Harry with a huff, glaring mutinously at the idly spinning dummy, but giving Harry a smile of welcome regardless.
"Was that goju-ryu?" Harry asked him.
Obito shook his head at the same time as shrugging which gave an unsure sort of aura about his response, "mostly."
"What else was it?"
Obito looked rather grumpy about this line of questioning, but before Harry could change the subject, he answered.
"The Uchiha taijutsu," Obito said, still string moodily at the dummy in the yard. "Mostly. Some of it. I've had to add in some of the striking stuff I learned at the Academy though."
Harry thought abut this for a minute. "Doesn't the Uchiha taijutsu have strikes?"
Obito let out a huff that could have been either amusement or derision. "Sure, but I can't get someone to teach it to me properly."
"Why not?"
The older boy huffed again. "They won't bother with me much until I can wake my Sharingan."
Harry knew what this was, abstractly. Obito talked about it enough and about how he'd gain it and be the best shinobi ever and show up his clan, too. Harry wasn't exactly positive what the Sharingan did, but he knew the word and that it was something that belonged to the Uchiha and them alone and that Obito for some reason wasn't fully Uchiha without it.
"So they won't teach you taijutsu?"
"Well yes," Obito said, though he shook his head no at the same time. "But no, oh, sort of."
The teen must have seen the confusion on Harry's face for he tried to explain.
"They'll teach me some stuff," Obito said. "I learned a lot when I was young, before the Academy and some during the Academy, like all my cousins did. But after a while they kind of stopped. I'm a Chunin! And I still haven't woken my Sharingan, so they won't bother much with me."
Harry didn't ask if the boy's dad would teach him. He knew that Obito's parents died years ago, when he was really young and could only remember sort of what his mother looked like.
Harry thought this was terribly precious. He had no idea what his mother looked like except that she had red hair.
"My clan doesn't like me much," Obito said softly, slouching on the porch next to Harry. His shoulders were curled in and he had his arms akimbo across his raised knees so his hands could hold up his head, but only barely. His chin was still nearly level with his knees.
Harry eyed him for a long minute. "My Aunt and Uncle didn't like me either."
Obito shifted from between his knees just enough to peer at Harry.
"They didn't like it when I did better in school than Dudley so they wouldn't let me do my homework anymore."
Harry didn't usually talk about the Dursleys. Mostly because he just didn't have anything to say about them and he was pretty sure that Kushina wouldn't like anything he did say about them anyways. Harry wasn't really ashamed, or embarrassed, but he understood enough to know that the Dursleys weren't nice and weren't supposed to make him sleep in a cupboard or call him Freak instead of Harry.
"They sent you here, though, right?" Obito asked, still peering at him from between his knees.
Harry nodded.
Obito sat up and gave him a wide, happy grin. "Then they did something right!"
Harry supposed that was true.
"C'mon!" Obito said, bounding up to his feet and dragging Harry with him. "Let's spar or something."
Harry let the teen drag him into the open yard, happy to see the other's smile again.
o-
By the time his hair reached below his ears Kushina cornered him in the kitchen, fingering a kunai and standing next to a wooden chair. Harry knew what she wanted to do and glanced over his shoulder towards the door on the far side of the living room.
"Oh no you don't," she said, grabbing the back of his jacket in a firm grip. "Your hair is a disaster!"
"But –"
"No buts!" She said, grinning as she plopped him into the chair in the middle of the kitchen. She stood in front of him and waved the kunai's sharp end at his nose. "And don't make me tie you up!"
"She will," Minato said from his seat at the table, grinning at them. "She's done it to both me and Obito, though somehow Kakashi has managed to evade her so far." He trailed off, looking thoughtful and Harry scowled at him, unamused by his lack of aid.
"His needs a trim, too," Kushina said, eyeing the blonde.
Harry shifted in his seat and the redhead shot her attention back to him, making him freeze in place.
"Sit still," she commanded, raising her kunai and circling him. "I know what I'm doing."
Minato made a strangled sort of coughing noise, which earned him the kunai in Kushina's hand sailing at his head. He only tilted his head out of the way, grinning and holding his hands up in surrender.
Harry made to break for it out the back door but didn't get further than half-standing from the chair before her hand pushed him back into it.
"Don't worry, Hisui," she said, a little too sweetly for comfort. "I've got another one."
Kushina slipped a second kunai from her leg pouch, pulled at his hair, and a sudden sound of a blade slicing through strands caught his attention. Locks of dark hair edged in light blonde dropped into his lap. He stared at it a bit mournfully. She was cutting the dark color completely off. He'd be completely white-haired when she was done with him.
"I suppose we could leave some length on the top," Kushina speculated.
Harry shifted as she pulled at his hair and he was showered with loose strands.
"Sit still, Hisui!" she admonished, "I don't want to cut you."
Harry glowered and did as he was told, ignoring Minato's faint chuckling from the table.
Kushina didn't leave him with much. Clearly her thoughts of a decent haircut included very little hair left on the head. Harry stared mournfully into the mirror she held up to him. He pushed his fingers through the short hair left, eyeing the very light strands a bit warily. He looked so different without the dark hair he was used to. What was left was short, spiky blonde – blonde so light as to be called white. He looked like a relation of Kakashi's.
"A little short don't you think, Kushina?" Minato asked, eyeing Harry's knew haircut.
"It's handsome," she defended.
Minato's gaze moved from Harry to her. "You cut it unevenly too many times, didn't you?"
Kushina sniffed and glared at him, which told both the males that, yes, she had cut it unevenly and the short length was due to her correcting the mistake.
"It's handsome," she said, close to growling it at him.
Minato just hunched his shoulders and told Harry, "It'll grow," which got Kushina snarling at him. Harry took the opportunity and edged out of the chair away from her. He was just about to slip out the door when Kakashi slipped in through it. The two boys froze and stared at each other – Kakashi at his hair.
"What happened to you?" he asked.
Harry merely pointed over his shoulder to Kushina. Kakashi nodded and gave him a look that told him he should have been able to avoid it. Harry, unimpressed with the older boy's unimpressed look, stuck his tongue out at him and pushed past him out the door to the yard.
"Oh good! Kakashi!" Kushina's voice followed after him. "You're next."
Harry wished someone had taught him how to perform the Body Flicker. Kakashi's quick escape from Kushina's hair-cutting-kunai only served to remind him of his failure to do the same. Kakashi paused in his escape to perch on the fence circling the yard and waved at Harry before disappearing in a swirl of leaves and smoke. Harry stared after him blithely, fingering the short strands of his white hair.
o-
Harry woke the next morning a little groggy, so it took him a while to notice that Kakashi, who had beaten him downstairs, was staring at him. Harry went through the motions of collecting a handful of rice balls and a glass of milk from the fridge before sliding into the seat across from him. Kakashi continued to stare.
Harry stared back and finally spoke, "What?"
"Your hair."
Harry blinked, confused, and ran his hand over his head, digging his fingers through his shaggy, wild locks of hair. He paused, and yanked on his bangs, pulling them in front of his eyes.
His hair had grown over night, right back to a length that brushed the tops of his ears. The white-blonde strands were long enough for him to see them over his nose. He shrugged and turned his attention onto his breakfast. He ignored Kakashi's continued staring.
The other residents of the house found the overnight growth of his hair to be a little strange, but Harry merely shrugged it away. It had happened before, after all, when Aunt Petunia had decided he needed a haircut before Primary. She had sat him down much the same as Kushina did and proceeded to hack at his hair with her sewing sheers. She had left him with little more than uneven fuzz and he was so mortified he had plotted half the night about ways to convince her to not send him off to school like that. He had eventually fallen asleep and woke the next morning, tired and grim, Aunt Petunia rapping on the closet door and already yelling at him. She had yelled a lot louder when she caught sight of him, his hair grown back to exactly the way it was before she had cut it. She had never tried to cut it again.
"It's an interesting manifestation of chakra," Minato commented, studying his head with no little amount of curiosity. Harry dodged the man's groping hand, shifting he and his breakfast out of the blonde's immediate reach. Minato just chuckled and wandered into the kitchen looking for his own breakfast.
"It's strange," Kakashi said, still staring.
"Not so much," the blonde countered. "Unusual, but not completely strange."
Harry spared the two half glances, more concerned about filing his stomach than about the overnight growth of his hair.
"His hair grew overnight," Kakashi insisted with a narrow-eyed look at Harry, which the younger blithely ignored.
"Haven't you ever used your chakra without express knowledge of doing so, Kashi-kun?" Minato asked.
Harry eyed the white-haired youth with a mixing of curiosity and amusement at the nickname. The teen in question gave his sensei a flat, unimpressed look over his mask and didn't respond.
Kakashi's silence didn't deter Minato in the least. "I seem to remember you charging your strikes once or twice when your frustration got the better of you when you were still at the Academy."
Kakashi sniffed with disdain and bent his head over his breakfast with an air of stubborn disregard. This made Minato chuckle again and Harry looked between the two, curious about how to charge one's strikes with chakra.
The teen kept his silence and Minato stopped teasing him as the three finished their breakfast.
Harry stopped by the bathroom before leaving for the Academy that morning and inspected his hair. It was wild and standing on end as it had always done. It was still white, though, but he was almost used to the idea. He pushed at his bangs, revealing the scarring above his right eye, a criss-cross of old and older wounds that left silvery traces behind. The scars meshed with each other, losing their definitions and it was barely discernable anymore which was the old scar from the car crash of his infancy and which was from Orochimaru's infected nail-scratches. Harry frowned and pushed his bangs down over the marks, hiding them behind a curtain of white-blonde.
It didn't look bad on him, he thought, and his eyes looked very bright and colorful in contrast.
o-
Time passed and before Harry new it, he was turning seven and he had been in Konoha for almost a whole year. Kushina made an occasion out of it. She invited over almost everyone Harry knew, from Minato and his team to Anko-sensei and Chouga-sensei and some of his classmates and Kushina's friend Mikoto-san and her young son Itachi, and the old man who ran the ramen bar and his baby daughter Ayami, and one of Minato's friends that Harry had met a couple times who had the same blonde hair but was taller and his hair was in a ponytail that went all the way down to his waist. Their narrow townhouse, which sometimes seemed very large with only a few people in it, was small with the crowd.
Harry, who had never before had a birthday party and had never been invited to one, was utterly overwhelmed.
Armed with a new, green hooded jacket from Minato and his team – which Obito had presented with a wide grin and a bright "Happy birthday Hari!" that nearly out-shown his teammates' smiles in its brilliance. Harry had it zipped up to his chin and felt a little less exposed with everybody's attentions. It sported the whirlpool crest on its arms in black and white, but instead of the same design on the back, it had a pattern after the Kingfisher stitched there, the jade threads blending in with the cloth but showing in sudden catches of shape when the light hit it right. It made it look like he had camouflaged wings that would twitch as he moved. Harry thought it was the most awesome thing ever.
"Hari?" Kabe asked, picking up the name Obito had shouted. "Is that for all those senbon you carry around all the time?"
"Or because he's skinny as a needle?" poked Lin.
"Seven?" Kabe asked, grinning widely as he shouldered his way past the smaller Lin to get to Harry's side. Lin scowled at him, but Kabe only patted the girl roughly on the shoulder.
"We're the same age," Kabe informed him, "my birthday is next month."
Harry was probably half Kabe's girth and barely came to the other boy's shoulder. That they were the same age only served to annoy him. He was probably one of the smallest of his classmates, one or two of whom were up to two years younger than him.
Kabe ignored his irritated look and handed him a brace of shuriken with a bright green ribbon tied into a complex double dragon knot. They had been learning knotwork in their afternoon lessons, and Kabe had taken to the skill quite well. Harry turned the brace over and slid one of the small weapons from the casing. They were five-point shuriken, newly sharpened and iron-shiny. They were practice weapons, with their reflective surface, but Harry was quite happy with them. He had only used the basic four-point shuriken handed to them at the Academy, and the new, smaller shape interested him greatly.
"Thank you," Harry said, sliding the weapon back with its brothers.
Kabe grinned again, splitting his face in half.
"Here, you'll need this kid," Anko said, suddenly behind him. Lin, who had been standing next to Harry twitched at her unexpected appearance. Anko was no longer at the Academy, having been drafted back into missions months ago, but neither was Aoba-sensei. However, none of the students forgot about the teenaged Chunin. She tended to leave quite the impression and had a habit of dropping in on a few of them unexpectedly. Harry seemed to be her favorite target, and he'd gotten used to her jumping out at him when he least expected it but not all the others had gained the same immunity as him.
He no longer jumped when she did so, which always made her grin maniacally at him.
She gave Lin a condescending pat on the head, which caused her roped hair to fall into her face. Lin slid away from her, scowling darkly and grumbling under her breath. Harry, whose ears were better than most of his classmates' caught a few of her words, insults all.
Anko pushed something into his chest and Harry scrambled to catch it. It was a leg pouch, like the one he already wore on his right leg that was, along with his hip bag, overflowing with weapons and tools. Most of them were from Anko, who in tandem with the generous Kushina, had gotten him well used to accepting small gifts over the past months.
Harry grinned and with only minimal fuss, fastened it around his left leg and slid his new brace of fancy shuriken into it. Anko left him with a ringing knock of her knuckles on his head, which Harry largely ignored.
Despite his initial discomfort, Harry settled down and enjoyed the party in his honor.
Kushina, Mikoto and Rin had prepared a veritable feast for the lot of them, and Harry sat at the head of the table set up in the back yard – a seat of honor he had never taken before – and suffered through everyone's questions and well wishes, even while secretly quite happy with it all.
It was after the meal, and the impromptu duel between Anko and Obito that had to be broken up by an irate Kushina, that she pulled Harry into the house alone. Harry followed her silently all the way up to the second floor and the open office space that took up half of it in conjunction with her bedroom.
"I have something for you Hisui," she said, smiling as she crossed to a low-slung chest stacked over with extra blankets. She pushed the blankets to the floor and cracked the box open with a sound of protest. Harry didn't catch all that was within it, but she pulled out a narrow, long box and sat it on the floor. With a come-hither motion, Harry dropped to his knees across from her, the plain wooden box sitting between them.
"I have told you stories of my Clan's home and of its sea," she started, her hands caressing the box even as she smiled at him. "It was once a vast and numerous Clan, with a powerful reputation. I remember some of them, from before the destruction of the village. They were good, proud people. Skilled Shinobi and craftsmen."
Harry nodded.
She laid her hand on the lid of the box. "This is for you, Hisui."
Kushina opened the lid of the box, and Harry was to the contents within it. Nestled amongst a red woven cloth was a full set of sealing tools: half full jars of black ink - ready for chakra-laced blood to be added - a set of carved bamboo brushes in a range of sizes next to a ribboned stack of parchment and linen slips. Complementing the set were brush rests, ink plates, a stick of red wax, a flint firestarter and a bronze wax seal. Harry pulled the seal out of the box, inspecting the carved jade handle in the shape of some sort of long-legged water bird and inspected the inlay. It was an encircled bird in flight with tapered wings. It looked like a kingfisher.
"The Uzumaki Clan was also renowned and feared for their unrivaled skill in fuinjutsu," Kushina said softly, something darkening her tone. "Their seals outshown all others."
Harry ran his fingers lightly across the soft bristles of the largest brush. It was easily twice the circumference of his thumb.
"I will teach you this Art," Kushina told him. "What I know of it."
Harry replaced the jade wax seal, and hovered his hands over the ink pots, hardly able to wait to learn, barely able to touch the beautiful sealing kit and happier than he had ever been in his life.\
o-
It was a rare evening after lessons, that Harry was lingering just inside the complex gates alone, twirling a kunai around his finger in absent boredom, that Kushina's friend Mikoto showed up to escort him home. Itachi was with her, and both the four-year-old and Mikoto looked grave.
Fear and worry bubbled up in his stomach.
Mikoto motioned for him to follow, and without a word between the three of them, Harry trailed the two Uchiha's to his home. It seemed like a very long walk to Harry as Itachi intermittently looked back at him from his place by his mother, his eyes dark and watchful.
The house he shared with Kushina and Minato was quiet, and the blonde was not in the living room. Kushina was there, with Rin and Kakashi. The white-haired older boy was standing in the wide doorway to the kitchen, eyes closed and head bowed. His forehead protector was at an odd angle and covered his eye. Rin, who was usually politely cheerful at all times was silent and downcast as she huddled in a chair across the room from him. Kushina stood very near her, one hand across the girl's shoulders even as she watched Kakashi with sad, worried eyes.
Harry looked between them all and wondered where Minato was, and feared.
"Kushina-nee?" he asked, lingering in the front door, reluctant to enter the house.
Kushina spared him a small, strained smile and motioned for him to come. He hesitated for a moment but obeyed and crossed the living room into her arms. Mikoto and Itachi followed him into the house, but stayed by the door.
"How was Academy, Hisui?" Kushina asked, running her fingers through his wild white hair. Harry played along, and told her that it had been good. They were learning techniques that utilized caltrops of varying shapes and Harry had added another weapon to the pouch strapped to the back of his shorts. He had found the handful of little metal spikes particularly useful in spreading behind him as he scaled a tree by kunai. It had, in their spars that day, derailed Idate very effectively, who had recently taken to flips and handstands that launched him around the yard. Idate had been grumbling and cursing under his breath at him all afternoon, nursing the punctures in his palms.
Kushina gave him that little distracted smile again.
When she did not volunteer what had happened, Harry asked. "Where's Minato?"
"At the mission's office," Kushina said softly. "He'll be back later."
Harry looked from her to the still downcast Rin, to Kakashi who hadn't moved an inch, to the two silent Uchiha's at the door and back to Kushina again.
"Where's Obito?"
That got a much different reaction. Kushina's eyes tightened and saddened even while he heard Rin flinch in her chair and from the corner of his eye he swore Kakashi got even more still than he had already been.
And Harry knew.
He hung his head, his chin settling into the zipped collar of his coat and masking his face up to his nose. He didn't bother to ask if Obito was at the hospital. If he was, they'd all be there, Harry knew. Like a couple months ago when the older boy spent three days wrapped up in bandages and trying to sneak out to no avail whatsoever. Harry had spent his evenings with him and Rin, sneaking him dango and folding hundreds of little paper cranes that Rin had taught him how to make. They had nearly filled that room with the colorful paper birds, much to Obito's ire and secret amusement.
"Hisui," Kushina started, her voice laced with sadness, which did nothing but confirm what Harry already knew. She trailed off, clearly unsure how to say it.
"The mission went bad," Harry said, soft and quiet. "Didn't it?"
"They completed the mission," Kushina said, "But –"
Harry's decisive nod told her that she didn't have to try and explain. Harry knew well enough that the details were probably classified, and he didn't want to hear it anyways.
"Obito-kun saved us from a trap set by the Iwa," Rin said. "He was –"
"Very brave," Kakashi finished for her.
Harry looked over to the white-haired youth. Despite having often enough shared a room with the boy, Harry didn't know him very well. Kakashi was often off somewhere training or on missions, and rarely spared Harry much time or words. He seemed very different to Obito, whom Harry had found himself a bit attached to over the past year. Kakashi spoke less than Harry did, and the few times that he was in the house at the same time as Obito, he would frown at his teammate as the Uchiha gave time and tips to Harry in the yard.
Harry had always gotten the impression that Kakashi didn't think very much of him, or really, of anybody except maybe Minato.
Kakashi pushed himself away from the wall and took a few steps towards them. He was eyeing Harry as if he hadn't really seen him before, his look almost sad and rather intense. Harry bore the scrutiny, taking in the newly healed wound that scratched down the upper portion of the boy's cheek from his covered eye. It almost matched the light scarring that Harry had from Orochimaru's nails that hadn't yet faded entirely - and likely wouldn't ever.
Kakashi pushed his forehead protector up over his brow, revealing the full extent of the wound and the three-pronged tomoe swirling slowing around his iris.
Harry, who had been suffering occasional nightmares of yellow and red snake eyes for a year in alternating patterns of terror and mania – both of which wanted to swallow him whole – caught one glimpse of Kakashi's new red eye and recoiled, violently.
His reaction was so sudden that Kushina hadn't been able to keep hold of him and Harry spun out of her grasp and back against the wall of the living room in a swift agitated movement. His brain caught up with his reflexes seconds later and he panted as he stared at Kakashi in a mixed sense of shock and apology.
Kakashi, for his part, looked stricken.
Harry had seen an Uchiha Sharingan before, in a passing Konoha Policeman, and had flinched at its coloration. He had also seen Mikoto use it once, and his reaction had been far more controlled the second time. He didn't know Obito had one as well, having suffered the boy's griping about the lack of that particular family talent quite a few times. Seeing the Uchiha Sharingan in Kakashi's eye, however, had surprised him greatly.
He knew, somehow, that it was Obito's. Obito who had always yearned for it just so that his clan would accept him and no longer disregard him because he didn't have it yet.
"Sorry," Harry whispered, watching Kakashi's sad face. The other boy seemed to accept it and moved forward slowly, not covering the eye, and simply watching Harry for any adverse reactions. Harry didn't move away, but he didn't move towards him either, and when Kakashi reached out to brush his fingers against Harry's shoulder they both relaxed.
Harry had not startled because of Kakashi, but because of his dreams, and the white-haired youth seemed to know that. Kakashi had been present in their room on more than one occasion that Harry woke gasping and sweaty from a nightmare with no source. Harry in turn, had witnessed a few nightmares of Kakashi's. Neither had spoken of those nights to each other. Both used the simple, short touch of fingers to shoulder to let the other know of their presence, their understanding, letting the other know that they were awake now, offering comfort that was enough to return to sleep in the dark hours of the morning.
"Sorry," Harry said again. Kakashi shook his head slightly in both acceptance and denial that Harry need apologize. He reached up, and pushed his forehead protector back down over his eye. Harry didn't realize he had started crying until then. Wet tracks of water trailed down his cheeks.
The sight of the red Sharingan in Kakashi's face hit home hard and deep that his first friend was gone.
The war had taken one of his precious people.
o-
Harry stood between Kushina and Anko at the ceremony of remembrance and treaty. Minato stood a few rows further forward, just behind his two Genin. It was a Konoha event, and despite it being about the treaty, no Iwa Shinobi stood in attendance. The end of the war had come suddenly, but even with its cessation the tension in the village did not wane. Regardless, the ceremony was held and the village remembered all those who had given their lives to protect it.
Harry listened to the Hokage speak of sacrifice, of the Will of Fire, of the village which was more its people than the buildings, which made it precious, and the youth, which gave them all a future.
And he remembered Obito. Loud and direct, with energy to spare at all times. The older boy had been Harry's friend, and his first one ever, besides perhaps Fuyu who lived in Tokyo and had let Harry sleep on a futon on her floor and taught him Japanese and bowing. But Obito had called Harry friend, and had taken him on grand tours of the village filled with adventure and strange foods. He had accepted Harry without question or thought and Harry was going to miss him desperately.
But the war that had taken all his precious people away so often for unknown missions, and caused worry beyond anything Harry had ever felt before, was over.
It was a bittersweet day.
The afternoon was spent at home, with Rin and Kakashi and Anko joining them. While Harry taught the girls how to play go-fish with a deck of handmade cards, Kakashi sat silently in a corner with a pile of kunai to sharpen and dull with pitch. Harry sat at an angle so he could see everyone, and watched Minato and Kushina sit next to each other on the sofa, his arm draped around her shoulders as she braided long lengths of thin red string into thick cords of rope. The worry that had always lined Minato's face had not faded, but only seemed to have deepened. The blonde watched Kushina's deft fingers in contemplation, occasionally shifting the finished cords off her lap to pile at their feet.
Harry had heard the rumors. That Minato had single-handedly took out a troop of Iwa Shinobi on a field in seconds. A feat that had so shaken Iwa that it had ended the war. Harry was smart enough to realize that the blonde was a target because of that, and war over or no, any Iwa would try to kill him if they could. Harry was simultaneously awed and curious.
If Minato was so fast, why was he so worried?
o-
It was only a month after the war's official end that Namikaze Minato was made Hokage and he married Kushina in secret.
o-
Author's Note: I know that none of Minato's students are Genin anymore. Harry knows this, too, but they were, once.