Clandestine by The Loser Lord
Secret 3: The First Secret
Got a secret, can you keep it?
Swear this one you'll save,
Better lock it in your pocket,
Taking this one to the grave;
If I show you,
Then I know you won't tell what I said;
Because two can keep a secret,
if one of them is dead
The summer Karin disappeared was a rather memorable one, but not for the reason everyone would think. At least, not to Karin's four best friends. No, something worse happened right before Karin's sudden absence.
"Are you sure no one saw you get this?" Karin asked Hinata in a low voice. The girls sat huddled together in Ino's backyard gazebo. The late morning air was summery and comforting against their bare skin. A forgotten pitcher of lemonade sat in the center of the table, condensation already dripping onto the wooden surface.
Hinata sipped her half-full glass and nodded, "Yeah, my dad took Hanabi and Neji to the moon festival in Kirigakure, and no one in the compound is ever awake before dawn."
"Except Neji," Tenten muttered.
"Except Neji," Hinata said, "…who is not here. So it's okay."
"How did you get your dad to let you stay here anyway?" Sakura inquired, her viridian eyes focused on her chipped sea foam green nail polish. Hinata shrugged carelessly, "Summer assignments. History, in particular. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to dig up information on ninjutsu?"
"Ninjutsu?" Ino questioned, "Like all that shinobi stuff old man Sarutobi goes on about? I thought that was all made up."
"Old man Sarutobi is Sandaime," Sakura corrected, "And no, Ino. It's all real. Or at least, it was back in the day. Konoha and the other four great nations were known as the four shinobi nations. Each village had their own army of elite ninja and these ninja would get paid to do the dirty work for local officials."
"Like the Hokage?" Tenten mused.
The current Hokage, Karin's father Minato Namikaze, was a kind man with a gentle nature. The girls tried to envision Yondaime as a cold-hearted politician hiring ninja, shrouded in black, to eliminate an unwanted obstacle; the absurdity of the notion left them baffled.
"The Hokage was actually the best ninja in the village," Karin revealed, "My dad said so himself. I think Sandaime was the last shinobi Hokage."
"Okay, do you three want to write my paper for me since you, Sakura and Ino, have the same assignment, mind you?" Hinata quipped, "Anyway, my dad let me use the Hyuuga archives back in the main branch compound and apparently, the Hyuuga clan was keepers of a dojutsu called the Byakugan! It's genetic; that's why my eyes are this color!"
She pointed to her monochromatic irises for emphasis.
"Does that mean you can use this dojutsu? Whatever that is…" Ino questioned, thoughtfully stirring her lemonade. Hinata paused for a few moments, watching the ice cubes swirl in Ino's class. They clanked against each other noisily, the only noise elicited from the quiet gazebo.
"Maybe…" she guessed, "…although that would require me to learn the art of molding chakra, which is pretty much nonexistent."
The girls stared at each other gravely.
Ninjutsu? Byakugan? Molding chakra?
'There's no way a normal person would have let those abilities be lost,' Sakura thought.
And, as if she had been reading the girls' mind for that brief moment of silence, Karin spoke up. Slyly, the Hokage's daughter confessed, "Molding chakra isn't as rare a practice as our teachers let on."
"What do you mean?" said Tenten.
Karin smiled sweetly, pushing her round-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose before continuing.
"It's a secret, but if you help me out tonight, and I'll tell you all you need to know," Karin stood from the table and turned to Hinata, "Thanks for the…stuff, Hinata. I'll get it back to you tomorrow morning; you don't have to come along tonight. I know you're busy watching the compound for your dad."
Hinata beamed fondly at the girl, "Thanks, Karin. Anyway, I should get going, tell me how it goes, whatever you're doing!"
The remaining four waved at Hinata's retreating figure until she was no longer seen from the gazebo. Karin immediately whirled on Sakura, Ino, and Tenten.
"Alright, girls, we have some hunting to do," she announced menacingly.
"What are we looking for and why are we looking for it?" Sakura contested, clearly uninterested in Karin's selected game of the day. Ino and Tenten eyed their cynical leader warily. Karin laughed haughtily, ruffling Sakura's hair into a tangled mess.
"Just meet me at Hokage's Tower at sundown, and make sure no one sees you."
Sakura rolled her eyes, standing to leave the gazebo, "Whatever. You are so sketchy, Karin!"
"I mean it, Sakura!" Karin answered, challenging Sakura's unsurprising defiance, "Be there or else–"
"Or I'll be sorry," Sakura finished, clearly unthreatened by Karin's ominous promise, "Yeah, yeah, I got it. I'll see you guys later."
Sakura left Karin, Ino, and Tenten to the rest of the lemonade, quickly stepping out of Ino's house and onto the village's main road. The rosette checked her watch. 11:45am, meaning she had about eight hours to horse around before she had to help Karin with whatever she needed help with. Sakura huffed, blowing a thin strand of hair from her forehead.
'What is she up to?' Sakura asked herself.
She figured that it wasn't something she should worry herself with at the moment since she too had summer assignments that had to be completed as well. Sakura walked to the library like any other day spent alone during summer vacation.
"Sakura."
She turned, completely unsurprised when Sasuke Uchiha appeared behind her. Since he was now Karin's boyfriend (which honestly still left a bad taste in Sakura's mouth), Sakura had conditioned herself to behaving nonchalantly around the academy's "It" boy. Even if his mere presence sent her heart working twice as hard.
"H…Hey, Sasuke," Sakura greeted cordially, "You on your way to the library too?"
"Aa. You wouldn't happen to know Kakashi's assignment, would you? Naruto spilled water all over my prompt and he lost his the first day of vacation," Sasuke said, muttering an 'idiot' at the mention of Karin's brother.
"Oh, yeah," Sakura replied, "I think I have a copy in my bag, c'mon…"
The pair entered the library, greeted only by the regular working librarian and her assistant, a bushy-browed boy from school named Lee.
"Good morning Sakura! Sasuke!" Lee hollered from his place behind the historical fiction shelf; the librarian in the front hastily shushed the ecstatic boy prompting a giggle to erupt from Sakura's lips. Sasuke's lips quirked upwards in amusement and he turned to Sakura, who stood an entire head below him.
"Hi Lee!" Sakura whispered, "Do you know where we can find the historical encyclopedias?"
"The shelves closest to the staircase," Lee helpfully answered. Sakura bowed her head in thanks and, with a nod to Sasuke, led them both do their destination.
"What are we looking for?" Sasuke inquired, watching curiously as Sakura combed through the library selection. Sakura's answer came absent-mindedly, "Shinobi and ninjutsu. That was what Kakashi's assignment was about. Hinata just reminded me about it today."
"Shinobi?" Sasuke repeated slowly. Sakura nodded, "Yeah, we're supposed to be going over the Five Great Shinobi Nations and the first three Great Shinobi Wars when the fall semester begins."
"Hn."
Sakura found no discomfort at Sasuke's lack of an answer. After all, she knew that he wasn't much of a talker. Quietly, quickly, Sakura bustled up and down the aisles, cracking open a few hopeful textbooks and snapping them shut impatiently. Once or twice, Sakura could have sworn she caught Sasuke staring at her longer than necessary.
She didn't allow herself to become hopeful of this and continued her work.
"Oh, I forgot," Sakura added sheepishly nearly twenty-minutes later; the pink-haired girl dug in her bag momentarily before producing her extra copy of Kakashi's assignment.
"Thanks."
"No prob, we should probably take a look at it though, so we'll know exactly what we're looking for, huh?" Sakura proposed, craning her neck upwards to properly look at Sasuke. He shrugged. Sakura took a seat on the library carpet and when Sasuke didn't join her, she quickly grabbed his wrist and gently yanked him down to her level. Sasuke snorted in amusement, but said nothing else.
'Only Sakura can really string me along like this,' he thought, almost jovially as his childhood friend pulled out her own copy.
This much was true, as Sakura and Sasuke had both grown up around each other. Konoha wasn't a very large village and everyone knew everyone else, not to mention the fact that Sasuke's father was childhood friends with Sakura's father. Fugaku Uchiha, as head of police, would often find himself talking to doctors in the local hospital, where Kizashi Haruno worked as a surgeon. The pair would spend all day together as small children, and so it was only natural that Sakura would know how to persuade Sasuke to go along with her crazy ideas now as adolescents.
Though Sasuke wouldn't admit this out loud, he was happy he had someone like Sakura who understood his stiff, and sometimes awkward, means of communication.
"Are you going to stare at me all day or are you gonna read this?" Sakura teased (while fighting the heated blush creeping onto her neck.)
Sasuke rolled his eyes and held his copy up for him to read.
KONOHAGAKURE HISTORY, CLASS 1-F
KAKASHI HATAKE
WELCOME TO KONOHA HISTORY. I AM KAKASHI HATAKE, YOUR HISTORY TEACHER IF IT ISN'T INDICATED BY THE HEADER ABOVE.
"Is he serious?" Sakura asked incredulously.
"Kakashi doesn't really have a sense of humor, Sakura."
"Oh. Right."
YOUR FIRST ASSIGNMENT WILL BE DUE IMMEIDIATELY WHEN YOUR RESPECTIVE HISTORY CLASS BEGINS.
"So, we have an extra half hour after our history class starts to get this done, right?"
"Sakura…"
"Sorry, sorry! Couldn't resist."
PLEASE COMPOSE A FIVE-PAGE ESSAY REGARDING ONE OF THE FOLLOWING TOPICS:
Shodaime's legacy
The village shinobi system
Ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu: Chakra molding
Kekkei genkai
The bijuu and the jinchuuriki
I AM EXPECTING FIVE FULL PAGES, ALONG WITH A COVER PAGE AND A WORKS CITED PAGE IN MLA FORMAT. DO NOT PROCRAST…
Sakura stopped reading Kakashi's empty threats and faced Sasuke.
"Which one do you think you're gonna do?"
Sasuke thoughtfully glanced over the options Kakashi had given his class, "Kekkei genkai."
"Really? That's cool," Sakura said, "I'd like to do the folklore about bijuu and their jinchuuriki."
"Jinchuuriki?" Sasuke raised one delicate brow at his floor mate. Sakura gaped.
"You don't know what those are? C'mon Sasuke, that's a classic folktale. The nine tailed beasts held in each hidden village and the villager chosen to be the jinchuuriki, or the host, of that bijuu? You really don't know?"
"No, and that's why I didn't pick that topic," he replied stiffly.
Sakura scoffed, "Well, you're no fun."
"You should be used to it," Sasuke mumbled incoherently. Sakura chuckled quietly before standing to her feet. With Sakura's help, Sasuke rose to his feet as well.
"Let's get started."
Together, Sakura and Sasuke scoured the history section for their respective topics, pausing curiously when they found one misplaced copy of Jiraiya's Icha Icha Tactics between Basic Ninjutsu and The Bingo Book: Konoha's Notorious.
"I'm not even going to ask," Sakura said, passing the questionable material, Sasuke following closely behind her, his cheeks suddenly burning up in embarrassment.
"Did you see Karin today?" Sasuke asked suddenly, prompting Sakura to pivot around quickly, her arms full of books. A few tumbled out of her grasp due to the abruptness of Sasuke's query.
"Ah, um…uh…" she stammered, watching helplessly as Sasuke bent down to pick up her dropped books. "R…Right before…I came here," Sakura mumbled.
He had been dating Karin for about two months, and though she wasn't that mad at her best friend anymore, the subject of Sasuke and Karin's relationship was still taboo to the rosette. Ino, Hinata, and Tenten knew that much and while all three of them were (and still are) disgusted with Karin's snap decision to pursue the Uchiha, there wasn't much they could do about it.
"If Sakura had wanted to date Sasuke, then she would have chased him a long time ago," Karin said matter-of-factly, "You don't mind this, do you Sakura?"
'Yes!' Sakura screamed in her head, 'Yes, I do mind! I've been in love with him since we were kids and…and…'
Karin was absolutely right.
'I should have said something sooner,' she concluded, 'it would be wrong of me to penalize them for my own shortcomings.'
Especially when Sasuke looks so happy.
"No, I don't," was Sakura's firm reply.
'It wouldn't matter anyway. She does whatever she wants.'
"See, guys? It's okay!" Karin hopped off her chair, yanking Sakura's small body against her in a tight hug, "I knew you'd see things my way," Karin whispered in Sakura's ear.
'I wish you would go away,' Sakura bitterly thought.
"She's been avoiding me," Sasuke pushed, "you wouldn't happen to know why?"
"Not really," Sakura said, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. "Do you want me to ask her or something?"
A smile wider than any other Sakura had ever witnessed appeared on Sasuke's face, and he uncharacteristically said, "That'd really help! Thanks Sakura!"
To make matters worse, Sasuke placed their collected books on a nearby table to give Sakura an appreciative embrace. She awkwardly patted his back, and stepped away.
"Um…yeah, I should probably go," Sakura lied, "I'm supposed to meet Hinata really soon. Um, I'll see you soon, yeah?"
"Aa. Later, Sakura."
"Yeah."
As promised, Sakura met Karin, Ino, and Tenten outside Hokage's Tower, stealthily moving in the shadows of the building.
"You made it!" Karin rejoiced, pulling Sakura to her side. "Now, let's go you guys."
The girls slyly maneuvered through Hokage Tower's grand hallways, unperturbed by the confusing, winding stairwells and hallways. Luckily, no one had seen the quartet moving deftly in the shadows and Karin new the place well enough to know where security cameras would be. Karin led the girls down a narrow staircase to a dark tunnel. They groped for each others' hands in the darkness. After a grueling 10 minutes, the girls arrived at their place of destination: the Hokage's Secret Catacombs.
Or at least what looked like it.
The entrance was a large, worn-looking pair of doors; they were a brilliant red that dulled in the flickering torchlight the underground tunnel provided.
"I thought this place was only a myth…" Ino remarked, looking the entrance over with wide-eyed wonder. Karin scoffed, "In Konoha, if it's a myth, then it's real."
"What makes you say that?" Tenten asked.
"Things are only said to be myths because people want to keep them secret. Like this ancient library; it's called the Secret Catacombs."
"Oh."
"Now, wait here and keep guard of the place," Karin said, preparing to move inside, "if you see anyone coming, throw this–" Karin handed Tenten what looked like a dagger, "–at the target just opposite the entrance inside. I'll hear it. Or see it. Either way, I'll know."
Tenten eyed the metal projectile with uncertainty, "Karin, what is this? A throwing knife?"
"It's a kunai," Karin corrected, "but you only have to use it if someone's coming, now I gotta go!"
She disappeared behind the large doors, leaving them open in case Tenten needed to use the shuriken. The inside of the crypt looked just like a mausoleum, filled to the brim with offerings. It smelled of dust and old incense. Above all, it was dark; the girls could only really see the crudely-drawn target painted in red on the tomb's stone ground mere feet from the remaining three.
"I've read about kunai," Tenten mumbled to Sakura and Ino, "but I've never seen one that looks like this."
This particular kunai had three-blades, a bit excessive for just chucking at a target. An inscription was written along the handle. Tenten narrowed her eyes at the mysterious writing, "Hey Sakura, can you read this? I can't really read the characters."
Sakura looked at the kunai with a close eye, after which she answered, a bit miffed at her discovery.
"…I can't read it either. What about you Ino?" Sakura asked.
"Aw, you guys already know I'm lousy at kanji!" Ino whined, "I'm not even gonna try. But I'm gonna go ahead and assume that if Sakura can't read it, then it's probably not even our language to begin with."*
"I don't think it is kanji," Sakura added.
"That's because it isn't."
The girls squeaked in surprised, leaping away from Karin.
"Karin!" Tenten greeted sheepishly, "That…that was quick!"
"Yeah!" Ino and Sakura added dumbly.
"Did you get what you were looking for?" Ino asked. Karin smirked, holding up a small, tightly-bound scroll. The girls peered down at it, knowing better than to question Karin why it was so important. It's not like she would have told them in the first place.
"Let's go."
The girls separated outside Hokage's Tower, agreeing not to discuss what had happened ever again. When they asked Karin what she was planning on doing with the scroll if someone found out it was taken, she answered with an ominous, "I've taken care of it. Don't worry about it."
The following morning, news arrived that Naruto Uzumaki had been taken into custody by Konoha's police; apparently, he was found with a questionable artifact. The girls, with horror, realized that the scroll had been found. They waited, with heavy hearts, for Sasuke's father to show up to their respective houses with a pair of handcuffs and a myriad of questions.
No one came for weeks.
And when the Hokage's eldest child refused to disclose where he had gotten, the Hokage's council finally decided it best to send Naruto to the Sunagakure Penitentiary, known famously for its mental asylum, where he spent out the rest of the school year.
To make matters worse, Karin had disappeared from Konoha the evening following Naruto's departure.
According to police reports, the scroll was nowhere to be found.
Notes: Kanji is one of the three Japanese writing systems. Thanks for the reads, reviews, favs, and follows (as always.)
I wasn't planning on releasing this till Sunday or Monday. Oh well.
In case you were confused, this is a flashback chapter. (Hopefully it didn't feel as long as the flashback segments in the Naruto manga *shudders*)
I'll keep this note short, but if you want an explanation for this chapter, feel free to go to my blog: .com. When you get there, hover your mouse over the "Naruto Multichapters" tag, then hover over the "Clandestine" tab, and take your pick (: