Disclaimer – I don't own anything regarding Naruto in this fic except my own characters.
A/N – I'm sorry for the late update.. But I'm still stuck with exams and I did this as soon as I could.. Reviews are appreciated..
Chapter 3 – The stranger
(The next week... which is the week the Team 7 disbandment will start)
The sun shone brightly over Konoha on a Monday morning. And in few hours the streets will be buzzing with life and liveliness that only a peaceful village can manage.
But only few people were loitering in the streets, a few drunken villagers and women doing early shopping were some of them. Others were shinobi coming to Konoha after a mission or the remaining few who were in charge of night duty guarding.
Uchiha Sasuke was an early riser. He was since he was small and learned that Itachi was up even at 4 o'clock in the morning. And he wanted to be the best like Itachi which led to him asking his mother to wake him up when she was rising too. She had to cook and the Uchiha's were all early risers. Only Sasuke, since he was little, slept in a bit.
But now here he was trying to wake his son, who was an exact copy of him only to get sleepy insults, 'he wondered where he learned those words, they were really colorful', and soft snores for his efforts.
He gave up after trying pulling his son's leg and almost dragging his off the futon and finding that his son was, apparently, a really heavy sleeper.
Sighing to himself he set out to the training grounds in the compound hoping to start his daily training and get it done before Satoshi woke to find that there was no food in the house, not even a single vegetable.
'I wonder how he eats all that much food and stays so small, he's underweight but still eats food enough for ten.'
He arrived at the training grounds to find the targets he had practiced yesterday still in the same positions. 'Satoshi didn't train yesterday?', he thought surprised. His son was the top rookie in the academy and was intent on keeping the title to make his father proud.
'He must've used the other training ground then. But it's more advanced than this one. Wonder what he's up to.' His thoughts were stopped when he unshielded his Kusanagi to start his kenjutsu training.
He had a 2-day mission to complete with Kakashi and Riku and he had to make sure Satoshi will be able to take care of himself when he was away.
Konoha was alight with the bright morning sun at 7 in the morning when Yamanaka Ino took her shift at the flower shop her family owned. She had several weeks off missions because she was injured in her previous one and the Hokage told her to take a rest before resuming duties at the Interrogation squad with Ibiki.
She was at first surprised when Hokage asked her to take a position in the Interrogation squad. She had been promoted an ANBU only a year ago and she was still trying to get used to the hard lifestyle.
Then Tsunade had said that her family jutsus could be very useful against captives and her father had already worked as an interrogator. She was a bit squeamish with working with Ibiki, he had scared her at her Chuunin exam and the fear hadn't ebbed away even a bit.
He was known for his harsh training and even harsher demands from his squad. But they were the best, as her father had said. Every shinobi had cracked under Ibiki's squad. No captive stood a chance even to think up a lie for second.
But Sakura had already started her path as the next Tsunade. Her medic abilities were only surpassed by Tsunade and Shizune, who were both top medic nin in the whole of shinobi countries.
Ino had thought maybe she could go into medic nin field. Hinata had already started her training and was catching up to Sakura fast. Almost everyone of the original rookie nine had a long term stature in Konoha.
Chouji worked in the academy with Iruka sensei, Shikamaru was a top ANBU and also the Hokage advisor when needed, Sakura was a top medic nin and was assistant Supervisor at the Hospital, Lee was going after Gai to become a Taijutsu master and teacher, Neji was ANBU and was only second to Sasuke and Shikamaru, Tenten had also taken after her father to take care of their weapon shop and was teaching Weaponry art next to Lee's Taijutsu, Hinata was working at the hospital and also a competent medic nin, Shino and Kiba were both ANBU and were learning duties as clan heads like Hinata.
'I felt so insecure after realizing that', Ino thought with reminiscent, 'I was scared that I'll be left behind and took up the offer the very next day', she thought with a small smile.
'I don't regret it though', she arranged the yellow dandelions in the large bouquet she was making, 'even if the training and the demands of old Ibiki were beyond my imagination I can never regret what that harsh short time made me, strong, and a proud kuinoichi of Konoha'.
"Oi, Ino-pig, what the hell are you doing?" demanded a very irritated Sakura "I had been calling you for five minutes and here you were dreaming of Sasuke-kun again probably. I told you he'll never be yours!" she shouted.
"Urusai forehead girl!" a tick appeared on Sakura's forehead at the return shout. "I was thinking about the past and how long we've come," Ino said all the while adjusting the large bouquet with yellow roses, dandelions and twigs.
Sakura's anger vanished in seconds and a small rueful smile appeared on her face.
"Yeah, that's true. We've come a long way, ne? A long way from little girls who were afraid of the new world." Ino smiled in response towards her best friend and rival.
"Hah! I was never afraid! You were the one who was always crying." She said with her tongue out for good measure.
She saw another irritated tick appear on Sakura's forehead before she replied, "Oh, real mature Ino-pig. Anyway I came to tell you that Shishou called you to her office. I think she's going to give you a mission, with me in it" Sakura grumbled out the last part.
"A mission?" now that surprised her. 'She was still healing, damn it!'
"With you? Ha-ha, that's rich, your forehead will only get in the way and I probably won't be able to see the path, large-forehead girl" she replied with the usual teasing that got Sakura riled up. And sure enough she wasn't disappointed.
"Why you! Ino-pig! You'll probably sabotage the mission with your boy hunting and flirting. At least I'm capable of handling a mission" Sakura replied with an indignant huff.
"Oh really? And which one of us is ANBU and in Interrogation squad?" the response to her jab was only having Sakura bristle.
" Whatever, can we get there already, you know how shishou hates waiting." Sakura said while walking to the door "and I talked to your mother, she'll be here in second to take up on your shift."
Just as Sakura said this Ino's mother came through the back door of the shop which was connected to their home.
"Oh Sakura! Thank you for informing about this. Ino was moody and always whining that she didn't get a mission," she ignored Ino's glare and continued "I hope that you will get along fine. Ino's stubborn but she's not an idiot. Much anyway!" she replied with a smile and an affectionate glance at her young daughter.
"Thanks mother." Ino grumbled out her annoyance while Sakura laughed out loudly.
"I'm sure we'll come back in one piece Yamanaka-san." she said before walking to door. "Don't worry we'll be safe. Ja ne." she waved goodbye and walked out while Ino hugged her mother and came after her.
"So what do you think we'll have to do? I hope it's not another seduction mission." Ino started while shuddering at the memory of her mission which was to seduce a lord while her team mates looked through his house for the scroll they were supposed to get.
"Yeah I hope so too. I haven't done a seduction mission before but I heard from others that they're horrible. I guess they would be when the person you're supposed to seduce was a 70 year old man with two daughters our age." Sakura commented.
"Well let's hope it's interesting then." Ino said with a forced cheerful smile sending away her disgusting memories of that particular mission.
At the Hokage's office,
Tsunade was signing paperwork while holding a sake bottle on her left hand when Sakura and Ino entered her office. She looked up when they opened the door.
"Ah so you're here, finally. I can get this over with." Tsunade said while shuffling around her table which was overrun with papers.
'Probably trying to find the mission scroll. But didn't Shizune-san clean the table yesterday? 'Sakura thought with a sweat drop.
"Ah ha!" Tsunade exclaimed while fishing out a scroll. "Well I'll start explaining, this is your new mission, and it's to help Iruka at the academy." Tsunade said bluntly. Both Sakura and Ino had to agree that their Hokage wasn't one beat around the bush.
"Sakura, you're to teach the children some healing jutsus, not high detailed ones; only some small healing jutsus for healing a deep cut or small wounds. Ino will help you with their chakra control teaching and just to keep them in line. Her mouth will do that work for her." she continued, oblivious to Sakura's and Ino's growing horrors.
"You want us to teach some snotty obnoxious brats?!" yelled Ino while trying to wrap the idea of HER teaching any child. Sakura was still trying to understand what Tsunade had said, she was still in shock.
Then she straightened out for her reasoning to decline the mission (which can be said as Sakura's reasoning to bail the mission).
"Hokage-sama, both of us are very capable kuinoichi. I'm a medic nin and Ino's an ANBU and Interrogator. This mission won't do anything to us or help us with future missions." Sakura thought she gave some agreeable excuses… reasons.
"I know about your achievements and everything Sakura," Tsunade sounded annoyed. "But you will have to take a genin team soon. Take this as practice if you want. It's because of your capabilities that I assigned you to this mission. And you WILL complete this mission or you can always do D-rank missions for a while." Tsunade smiled sadistically. 'Oh yeah, she loved being Hokage when she was able to torture people like this.'
Both Sakura and Ino heaved a mutual tired sigh when they saw the expression on Tsunade's face. They couldn't get out of this one, and they didn't want D-rank missions. They had enough of those when they were genins.
They were almost closing the door when they heard Tsunade say what made their hearts sink to the floor.
"You'll be teaching this year's graduate and the ones supposed to graduate next year. You will teach them well because I'll be there to check how well they do."
2 days later,
Sakura was tired. She was so tired that she was walking around like a zombie while the students around her skipped around excitedly, thrilled to learn a new jutsu and a healing one too.
Iruka had changed the learning methods and syllabus after Tsunade had requested him to do that. The students were much more advanced than they were when they were still academy students.
Ino didn't have to teach much to their chakra controlling except some more advanced methods she had learned from her sensei, Asuma. The students had already done Tree walking, so she taught them water walking and to control the amount of chakra given to a jutsu to make the damage of it minimal or large, depending on the situation.
But she was tired too, tired from the same thing that had Sakura walking half-dead. The kids were beyond hyper-active. They had no idea how the children had that much stamina, unless Iruka had done something.
And the most tiring and sad thing about it was what that stamina brought to their memories. Memories that were buried in their heads were coming to life like a tape recording. Memories of the person who had that much life in them. And the life they had lost.
Sakura smiled at the bitter sweet memories, the nostalgia overwhelming her when she saw a kid while wild hair talking a mile a minute to an annoyed girl and boy. 'How things can change in a second, how words can hurt, whether intentionally or not', she thought ruefully watching as the other boy said something to the wild-haired boy, probably something insulting judging from the screaming reaction brought from him.
Ino was having similar thoughts. But she didn't have the heart to bring back memories. They hurt, so she just concentrated on calming the children, also meaning threatening them with an hour with Ibiki.
They both sighed when they thought about how long they were going to have to keep on doing this.' I hope I survive to tell the tale', was the somewhat similar thought running in the heads of the 'new beautiful senseis'
Sasuke sighed when he entered his home. It was dark outside and the lights in the house had been switched off.
'Hinata must've left early today then. She usually waits until I return when I ask her to watch Satoshi.' He switched on one of the smaller lamps on the living room.
He was dead tired from the mission. It had been long and tiring. 'A mission to run after two run away children doesn't exactly need top shinobi. Such a waste of money and time, and only to find them hiding in their grandparent's attic.'
Sasuke saw the similarities of the recent missions he had been going on as a jounin. They were absolutely ridiculous.
Like the previous one when he had to deliver a scroll to a small house in the wind country only to find that it had been a letter to the old man from his daughter. The client had paid enough money to catch a C-class missing-nin to deliver that scroll.
'This must be Tsunade taking revenge or something. Only revenge on what I don't know, nor do I care.'
He treaded slowly on the wooden floorboards towards Satoshi's room. He peeked in and saw his son sleeping peacefully with a toy kunai tucked under his arm.
He picked the toy kunai and set it aside with the rest of the set before wrapping the blanket that was carelessly draped across Satoshi's ankle more firmly on his body, carefully bundling him up.
Sasuke gave a soft nuzzle to his son's small forehead before smiling and walking back silently and closing the door behind him.
Then he suddenly sensed it. His sharp senses, honed by the constant training and his dangerous ANBU missions, caught on the difference in the atmosphere of the hallway he was standing.
Grabbing his kunai firmly on his hand and activating his sharingan he set upon searching the hallway and then the rest of the house looking the reason for the sudden wariness and feeling of danger that crept into him before.
After searching almost two hours, and five times all around the house and the compound he forced himself to think that he had probably imagined it and because of his weariness as he walked to his room.
He was opening the door when a sudden impulse came over him to look over his shoulder. When he was about to turn his head he heard something that made his heart race and constrict in a matter of milliseconds.
The echo of a voice he hadn't heard in almost six years, a voice he had only in his dreams and the same voice that brought him from dying at the last minute after killing Itachi. The voice of a forgotten childhood dream.
"Sasuke-teme…."
The voice echoed in the silent hallway, shifting in the sudden change of air, a slight wind appearing making the voice sound mocking to Sasuke's ears as he stood shock still, fear and excitement and shock all blended into one expression as he stared into the empty hallway.
The tall figure cloaked in midnight black was almost invisible in the darkness of the night. But the shine of the crescent moon and twinkle of the numerous stars hanging in the dark sky illuminated the outline of the figure.
He stepped into the clearing as a slight wind blew across it making the tall grass sway slightly. The figure silently looked around, searching for something. After finding nothing he looked up. The black cloak whipped around him as the wind picked up while he stared.
The figure was standing in the clearing that bordered Fire country and Wind country. He stared silently at the direction Konoha was located at. Then he disappeared suddenly; leaving not a trace of his presence. Only a whisper hanging in the wind said that he had even been there at all.
"It has been long. Too long. I will make you proud Otou-sama. I will not fail again. I can't fail again. After all I have promised my soul."
An owl hooted in the clearing as it swooped on to catch his prey of a helpless mouse as the wind picked up again; making the almost soundless whisper disappear just as its mutterer had done milliseconds ago.
A/N- wow... that's a really long story… I'm sorry if it's a bit boring at the beginning.
I'll update as soon as I can... But there are some math exams I'm a bit stuck on. There's a bit of days free from 11th though… Hmm.. Let's see ne?
Reviews please
Ja ne..