Chapter Three

The next morning, Daddy fed us breakfast and left for a mission again. I promptly threw a temper tantrum, and my favorite genin team banished me to my room. Kato had a better reputation with them, since he usually sat and watched them throw kunai. Ew.

I shoved my pillows under the blankets and tucked Guwuh beside the illusion. Then I rolled underneath the bed. The house next to ours was for sale because it had major leaks and a colony of mold. I'd spent weeks figuring out the Substitution Technique (Kawarimi) and eventually I'd managed to transport one of the lightweight training posts from our backyard to the neighbor's. It took me a few tries, but I had the control down pretty well. I quickly found myself under an overgrown bush.

Chakra was a giddy, tingling sensation that hadn't really settled yet. I climbed the fence with sticky fingers and landed in a crouch. Now what?

Beats me. Was I testing my boundaries? I can still go to the Memorial Stone. Or Shika's house, if Yoshino-san doesn't send me home. I walked down the street, headed in the general direction of the Nara clan compound. What I most wanted was to see a few jutsus performed. Unfortunately, Daddy still wanted the polar opposite. I'm sorry, Daddy, I reflected as I waved at the people who recognized me and told them Daddy had finally let me walk to the Naras' alone. I'm too grown-up to stay in the house all the time. I need something to do. And something came.

I glanced up at the sky and saw the biggest black bird I have ever seen in my life. It cawed. I took in the glossy feathers, the majestic tilt of its wings, and. It looked better than Pakkun, shall we say. I focused my pint-sized chakra into my legs and kind of started running. I mean, following. At an enthusiastic pace.

The crow ended up in a clearing, where it shook the ground with its landing. I hadn't realized how big it was—twice as tall as Daddy, who was no joke. I fell in love. I arced around the creature and bowed to it, grinning my patent irresistible grin. "I beg your pardon for my intrusion, Crow-sama."

The giant bird blinked. "No apology was necessary, nestling," it rumbled. It had the cutest massive rumble.

I chewed on my lip. "Not a fledgling yet?" I mumbled privately, and I was startled when the crow let loose with a harsh, raucous guffaw. Its body spasmed with every chuckle.

"Skies," it snorted. "They all have the same ideas these days. Nay, nestling, you have manners, but you must prove your power of flight first. I will not be summoned for nestlings."

Summoned? My heart leapt. "Are you saying you would sign a summoning contract, Crow-sama?" Why, why—

"Shō-sama has already signed a contract," a male voice behind me said. "He did so after I displayed my abilities and answered his riddle."

I drooped internally, but I cocked my head at the pretty bird. "A riddle, Shō-sama?"

The crow chuckled and brought his impressive beak an inch away from my head. "Feed me and I live; give me drink and I die."

I frowned. "That's too easy. It's fire." Admittedly, the last time I'd heard the riddle it had been in another language, a good ten years ago. Possibly a slight advantage.

"The more you have of it, the less you see." A bright brown eye bore into mine, reminding me of why my hands were close enough to each other to use Kawarimi.

"That's darkness. When you entered the woods, you got me. You hated me, but you wanted to find me. You went home with me because you couldn't find me."

The brilliant eye blinked. The voice behind me said quietly, "The answer is a splinter." Okay, he was good. I turned around to meet this destroyer of my hopes, pretty certain of his identity.

Weren't an Uchiha. It was the spitting image of Nara Shikaku, come to haunt me from the shōgi-life. Now this is a riddle. I looked him up and down, hoping that he actually was Shikaku. This was way too convenient for a kidnapping, though. Wrong shoes. Hair's a bit short. I bit my lip. "You're not a Nara."

"Oh?" It wasn't even Shikaku's voice. "Why is that."

I seriously, seriously wanted to give him an entire avalanche of reasons. Shoes, hair, that he was just out of character, but I settled for something simpler. "Naras slouch," I pointed out matter-of-factly.

He smiled, and let himself slump into the generic Nara stance (Shika was hailed a prodigy for mastering the clan's secret technique at such a young age). "Better?"

I blew hair out of my eyes. "It's not nice to deceive children."

Shikaku cocked his head—a blatant mockery of my earlier action—and brought his hands together. There was a puff of smoke, and it cleared to reveal the beloved prodigy of the village, Uchiha Itachi. (I was not. Impressed.) "You seem to have called my bluff," he said in mild amusement.

The weight of it all—Itachi's signature summon, a twelve-foot hulking monster whose head was right behind mine; Itachi, probably an ANBU who could kill me by doing nothing; and I, who could only do the Substitution Technique—made its way into an interesting heated feeling on my face. I sort of ran. Under the bird.

Back to my nice, safe house.

I am always hungry—bounce.

I must always be fed—bounce.

The finger I touch—bounce.

Will soon turn red—miss.

I blew the hair out of my eyes and crawled over to the wayward ball. Kato was asleep in his bed. I could hear Daddy sharpening his weapons in the next room. I wished he'd go to sleep.

I'm a little sun drop—bounce.

In the dark of night—bounce.

But when caught by morning—miss.

I lose all my light—sigh. It was hard to even think in English, these days. The only reasons I bothered were the rhymes and complicated words. The feel of the language was no longer important to me. I was beginning to think nothing was important to me. Or perhaps I just don't know what it is yet. Sitting here in the dark wouldn't help me. I huffed.

"Whoever is awake should go back to sleep," Daddy called softly. "We have a long day tomorrow."

I got to my feet, tripping over the ball, and ghosted into his room. "I can't," I said.

He raised a brow in the lamplight. "Come again?"

"Can't," I repeated, this time in Japanese. I skirted the neat piles of weaponry and sat on his lap, yawning to cover the slip-up. "What is happening tomorrow?"

"I'm giving a presentation at the Academy." He flicked a broken shuriken at the back of the door and picked up another methodically. "As if I'm not going stir-crazy already, he takes me off active duty and makes me play teacher to a bunch of whiny brats."

One of the kunai was in my hands, glinting as I tested its edge with small fingers. "No more missions?"

He took the dull blade and ran it over the whetstone, ruffling my hair with his chin. "Don't sound so happy, kiddo. I still have missions, but they're not . . . what I was used to." He changed the topic, giving one of his deceptive smiles to the dim room. "Your Nara friend attends the Academy now, you know. You and Kato-kun can sit with him while we're there."

I stole another kunai, this one honed to a razor edge. It was eerily natural to my chubby grasp, testament to baby toys and a lot of prior slicing and carving.

Daddy paused. "You're going to be a terrifying weapons mistress one day." I opened my mouth, but he chuckled. "Ninjas have to understand their weapons before they can speak that language. They usually learn through practice and lots of injuries. I know you're jealous of your brother, but one day all that talent is going to come back and cut him, just like it did to me. Some people are born with talent, and some are born with instincts."

Most fathers wouldn't tell their daughter how natural she looked with knives, but I suppose most fathers wouldn't complain about their revoked ANBU status, either. What to expect from a man who let his children teeth on kunai?

"It's about time you learned how to sharpen these." I suppose I should have expected that.

Kato woke me at an insanely early hour to inform me that Daddy had left us to our own devices for the day, without a chaperone. "Go away," I mumbled. "Pakkun-san is snoring under the kitchen sink."

"I checked," Kato said uncertainly, but he ran off and opened the cabinet doors. He was back a minute later, using his new "sneaky walk." He'd slipped on his shoes. "Let's go find Daddy!"

"Let's not," I countered, instantly awake and eager to henge.

"I'm going," he said stubbornly, and I climbed out of bed to get dressed. Whatever else Kato thought, I was his big sister. He wasn't allowed to do stupid stuff without me.

"Kato-kun!" I hissed into the darkened street. "I told you not to play with my scarf. Now Pakkun-san is sleeping on it!"

My twin was long gone, surprisingly out of my range of hearing. How annoying. I closed the front door behind me and walked down the familiar pavement. Daddy was most likely at the Memorial Stone, telling his friends just how lucky they had been to not have children. They'd probably already discovered that, since genin babysitters are quickly exposed to . . . the darker side of human nature.

I had long since "figured out" that Daddy talked to his friends via the stone, so occasionally I pitched in, regaling them with chilling tales of our darling protective ANBU. We didn't get them quite so often now, a fact I both loved and loathed. Once they had outgrown their initial loathing, most of them turned outright conversational. Deer and Sparrow, especially, I would be sad to say goodbye to. They both seemed to liken me to therapy.

Deer was one of the first ANBU we ever met, appearing about a month after we had been brought to Konoha. He changed a squalling Kato's diaper and perched above my crib, dark hair ruffling in the breeze from the open window. He wasn't anything special—just a standard uniform and animal mask. I stared at him until I fell asleep.

He was back a week later, this time in the middle of the night. I would have done my trick with the Killer Intent, but I was still spiting Kakashi. Besides, this man with antlers was too gentle to incur my wrath. He didn't follow through with mollifying chatter, to my chagrin. So I bit his wrist.

We had a brief moment of panic where he choked down his battle reflexes, but then the moment passed and he was laughing, leaning against the dusty counter. "Thank you, little one," he said. "You remind me of my son, before he grew up." I committed the foreign words to my memory and yawned cutely.

I saw Deer every few weeks after that, which made me wonder if he ever went on long missions. As my understanding increased, however, I learned that that was not quite the case. "Insufferable!" he crooned, playing peek-a-boo with Kato (that child would grow up mentally disturbed with all these masks). "They set me to paperwork, and now the others insist I retire. I'm not useless, little one." I stared back, wishing I could see the eyes behind the facade. "I wish they could see I love them all, but not the same way they do. Learn to love everyone, little one. You can kill those whom you love, but those whom you hate become darkness and haunt you." Sometimes he told me stories of past missions, and sometimes Daddy wondered why I would cling to him, angry or not, after absences we children weren't really supposed to notice. In fact, Kato hadn't. Eventually I realized that our babysitter ANBU had disguised themselves with minor genjutsus and henges, and I really, truly was unobservant.

Until Sparrow. Dear, homicidal Sparrow.

Let's not dwell.

Two weeks ago, she had recited every detail of her lovely detour into an insurrectionist's dinner party. She had described the meal's courses and aromas and hands buried into vital organs with the same eagerness she now applied to all of her visits. She told me this over lunch, of course, when Kato was gone at Kōta's house. "You'll make a great ANBU someday," she said cheerily, patting me on the head with disturbing affection. "Have a strawberry pocky. They're not as bright as blood, but still exciting." I obeyed. Fervently.

Come to think of it, Sparrow and Deer were just the ones who visited regularly. Most of their colleagues offered personal information and nightmare fuel (I mean, admissions of guilt) to me or my brother. Kato would just recite one of Daddy's ingrained ninja rules. Don't tell anyone, but sometimes I gave hugs.

Daddy was at the Memorial Stone, stretching, and Kato was hanging off him like a remora. "Pakkun-san snores," I complained. "Not even Bull-san does that."

"Pakkun's sick, sick, sick," giggled Kato, "and now your scarf is, too."

"Poor scarf," I said sincerely. "I hope it doesn't get longer."

Daddy smiled, although I don't think he caught the joke. "Don't tease your brother, Kana-chan."

When the sun was free of the ground, we went home and ate breakfast. However, life did not drift into the usual pattern of reading lessons and sibling target practice. Kakashi hauled us into the bustling world of civilization and to the hulking menace that was the Ninja Academy. "Fire," I read. "Yay."

"I'll drop you two off in Shikamaru-kun's classroom," said Daddy. "I have to go to the office. I think I'm giving a demonstration for each year, so you'll see me in a few minutes or at the end of the day. Be good, kiddos."

He left us in front of a wooden door with the number 112 printed on a sign. "We're going to ninja school?" Kato asked me skeptically. "I thought we had to be five."

"We're just visiting," I explained. "Daddy's doing a presentation." At the blank stare, I sorted through my predictions. "Daddy was given a mission to show off to all the ninja students. We get to spend a day in class with them. We can even make some useful friends."

His nose wrinkled. "Friends are supposed to be cool."

"Sure," I agreed, pushing the door open and discovering that my flyaway hair had not yet been wrestled into a ponytail. I eyed the half-empty classroom.

Kato held no such inhibitions. "Hey, Maru-kun, Chōji-kun!" He ran up the steps and jumped down between them. "Daddy's doing something cool today, so we're gonna learn to be ninjas with you." Shika was asleep. Chōji nodded.

I glanced around the room. It was floored with the same huge wooden boards as the hallways. The seating was long desks and benches that were much higher in the back. A pink-haired girl was sitting at one of the front tables. Kiba was staring out the window. I followed Kato up the steps and sat beside Shikamaru. "For a lazy person, you sure did get here early."

He moaned. "You know my mother." Kato flinched. I watched the rest of the class trickle in, poking my friend when the teacher showed up.

"Good morning, class! We have a lot to cover today." He beamed; many of the students groaned. "But first things first. I believe we have two guests this morning. Would someone like to introduce them?"

Shika groaned. Chōji, sweet but shy, choked on a chip. I sighed and stood up. "I'm Hatake Wakana and this is my twin, Wakato." My charming smile was lost on several morning faces.

"Welcome to our class," said the teacher-with-a-familiar-face. "I'm Iruka-sensei. I trust—"

A blond kid leapt to his feet, whirling to face us. "And I'm Uzumaki Naruto, the future Hokage, dattebayo!"

"Um—"

"Don't be so rude, Naruto-kun!" snapped the pink-haired girl—Sakura—and then she turned bright red and died. Socially speaking.

"I hope you have a pleasant experience," Iruka continued with noticeably less enthusiasm.

"Thank you."

Daddy, unfortunately, did not come to rescue us at lunchtime. One of the teachers brought us two bento boxes. We sat under a tree and ate our meal in relative peace.

"So you're Hatakes?"

Kato burped. I kicked him surreptitiously. "That's us!"

"Are you like the Copy Ninja's kids?"

"Yeah!"

"Wow, that's awesome." More kids flocked over. "He was the youngest ever graduate of the Academy! You must like know a thousand jutsus. Did you already graduate?"

"We haven't started yet," I explained, "um—"

"Tenshi." She flicked her ashen hair over her shoulders. "Can you show us any jutsu?"

"Whoa, he looks just like the Copy Ninja!"

"Do you learn important secrets?"

"Are you single?"

"Are you starting next year?"

When Daddy finally appeared, he was kind of attacked by his children. Happily, the other kids settled down and we could retreat back to Shika.

For the first jutsus we "ever saw," the exhibition was impressively impressive.

"At least we didn't have to spar," mused Shika. "Maa. Remind me to never upset your father."

I smirked, far too intent on looking for hand seals.

~Sorry, it was short. I'm back to prepping for next semester, and typing and editing and sleeping have traveled down my list of priorities.

Dattebayo . . . doesn't literally mean "believe it," but from what I've heard, it technically doesn't have a translation. And you knew what it meant anyway.

The riddles are open for solving. The first riddle can sadly be found online. The second riddle was created by yours truly and is not an obvious answer—you might trying changing the order, but not switching the words. I might do some sort of prize for anyone who solves the second one (with the answer I gave it, even if other answers might fit). Current thought is a name and a basic personality. Edit: the answer is in the next chapter, so too late! I might do more contests in the future. I'd suggest shameless begging. Cough.

Many random comments, details, and people in this story are quite deliberate. Several will come back later, perhaps even as key factors of the plot. So now that I've painted myself as a semi-careful person, here is a concept sentence I had the honor of typing: "ANBU Deer was a tall, muscular woman with black hair that was usually harried into a bin." So yeah, I make mistakes, too—more often than I like to admit—and am a real person who writes short chapters and fears going back to school. Two weeks left! Feel free to lighten my fear . . . there are two pretty riddles, and I know you're intelligent!

And seriously, one hundred alerts for just three chapters? And lovely, thoughtful reviews? Don't make me cry!