Disclaimer: Naruto would belong to me when the stars shine green in a yellow sky. (aka: I wish.)
Sections bolded happened in the present, even if they are first person, thoughts, etc.
Chapter 3 - Amethyst: Revelations
As I walked on the ghost-white road, memories from long ago begin to come back and haunt me...
A lone girl ran across an empty land, alone. There was nothing but vast emptiness. She had no idea where she was going, only the urgent need to get somewhere, anywhere.
As she kept on running, the landscape became more familiar. Before she knew it, the recognizable houses of Uchiha came into few. However, something was wrong, horribly wrong.
The normally busy streets were dark and empty. In the middle of the group of houses was a square, in which a funeral pyre was piled. No one else was around, but for a silver-haired woman tied onto the stake that was sticking out of piles of sticks.
"Mo...ther?" the girl inquired.
The woman looked up.
The girl's heart lurched. This was the same face in the picture frame by her bedside, the face that comforted her in her sleep: her dead mother's face.
Yet as the girl studied the woman before her, she could hardly believe that these hate-filled eyes belonged to her mother.
"I curse this wretched clan," the woman said spitefully as her beautiful face twisted into an ugly scowl.
The girl took a step back.
"Damn them! I see that their arrogance shall be their undoing, and that they shall be wiped out by one of their own kind."
The girl was so shocked by her mother's attitude towards her that she did not sense the people behind her.
"Enough, Kumiko-san," the clan leader said coldly. "We shall remove you and your wicked predictions from existence. Now."
The girl waited for the leader to turn his anger on her for being at a clan execution. Instead, he looked past her as if she did not exist. He waved his hand, and several of the men that had come with him ignited the sticks. The fire sizzled, greedily eating away at the person on the stake.
"No!" the girl launched herself at the fire, but was pulled back by some invisible force, back to that barren emptiness. "Okaa-san!"
Before the girl had completely lost the sight of her mother, the woman looked up.
And smiled.
It was not the heart-warming smile that a mother gives to her daughter. It was bitter, filled with pain and hatred.
Fire consumed the woman, turning her ivory skin to black and her silver hair to ashes. Not once did she cry out. Not once.
Searing pain ripped across the girl's body, the sensation of being reduced to ashes. She stared in horror at her hand as she saw her bones being exposed by ripped flesh, blackened by soot…
Mikazuki sat up on her bed, gasping.
What was that? she wondered.
That was when my fear of fire began.
Minato looked around the Academy and at the children beginning to gather there.
Well, might as well get it over with, he decided.
He thought back to his conversation with that strange girl. Don't die, she had said. He looked around at the harmless-looking children. Over-exaggeration, he decided. Taking a deep breath, he walked up to the front door.
Mikazuki walked slowly to school, clutching an orange headband. Her brother's teammate, Hatake Sakumo, had dropped it off at her house over the weekend.
"I am sorry," was all he had said.
So her brother was really gone. Never would they laugh together again, or play tricks on Mikoto, or a million other things…
Mikazuki shook her head. The most pressing problem right now is to figure out why she had that strange dream. According to Mikoto, her mother died of an illness, so why did her dream involve a clan execution? Her thoughts were interrupted by a group of students crowding around the same tree that she had knocked Minato out of.
Okay, bad memories.
"What do you think you, a civilian, are doing here?" A boy with very long, blonde hair sneered.
So, a civilian managed to wander into shinobi territory? Mikazuki mused. This should be interesting…wait, civilian?! Don't tell me…THAT IDOIT ALREADY GOT HIMSELF INTO TROUBLE?!
She pushed her way through the crowd, ignoring the cries of "hey!"
Sure enough, Namikaze Minato stood at the center, looking unfazed with his hands stuck in his pockets. His blue eyes flickered calmly to her face and then back to Inoichi.
"My name is Namikaze Minato," he said in a steady voice. Inwardly, however, he was panicking. This. Really. Sucks.
"I am starting the Academy today."
A murmur ran through the crowd.
"Ha," scoffed another boy, an Inuzuka. "Stop joking around. No one starts training this late. No one. Go home, civilian, and stay out of shinobi business."
Voices of agreement rose from the crowd.
"Sorry to disappoint you," Minato said, blue eyes hard. "Your teacher is already expecting me."
Mikazuki had to admit, Minato was handling the situation better than she had thought. Mentally, she made a note. First day of school and he is already getting himself killed….must work on his common sense.
A girl spoke up. "Which clan is the Namikaze? I have never heard of them." She was wearing sunglasses despite the cool weather.
"It is not a clan," replied Minato softly, "the only ones left are my grandfather and I."
Most of the children scoffed.
Inoichi snickered at him. "Oh? Your grandfather must also be a freakin' shinobi wannabe like you, then."
In a flash, Minato was in front of him, grabbing his collar so they were face to face. Mikazuki raised her eyebrows at his speed.
Minato looked at his captive, blue eyes ice-cold.
"I don't care if you insult me," he hissed. "But don't you dare dishonour my grandfather." Blue ice turned to blue daggers. "If I ever catch you doing that again, I don't care if you are stronger than me or that I am a civilian, I will beat you to a pulp and break every bone in your body."
Mikazuki had to give him credit. One civilian against twenty trainee shinobi and he had knocked a sense of fear into almost all of them.
I guess this is where I interfere before he really gets himself killed. Mikazuki sighed. No matter how talented Minato may be, seeing him being beaten up would leave a bad aftertaste. Her hopes for an uneventful week were shattered.
She went over, pulled the two apart and dragged Minato away by the front of his shirt.
She meant to exit in a dramatic manner, but luck just wasn't on her side.
She tripped.
For some reason, her right foot just suddenly gave out on her. Gasping as pain shot from her ankle, she dropped all her books. She took off her sandal and examined said ankle. No swelling, no redness, yet for some reason she has been falling a lot more frequently, and painfully.
Minato tried to help her, yet she brushed him off, picked up her books, and stomped through the entrance.
She is mad. Minato thought. Well, duh. First day of school and I already attracted so much antagonism...super.
As soon as they arrived inside, she whirled to face him. "What do you think you were doing out there? I thought I told you not to get yourself killed by attracting too much attention."
Minato crossed his arms. "I never asked you to help me. It is none of your business," he replied defensively. Bastard, not like you are my mom, so bossy. he thought.
"Well, fine! I don't care what happens to you anyways," she retorted angrily. Ungrateful little-
"Fine!" he replied.
They stalked off in opposite directions, until Mikazuki stopped and said huffily, "the classroom is this way. Minato-kun."
Mikazuki watched Minato after school as he struggled with target practice. They haven't spoken to each other for a month now. She had been watched his progress closely for the past few weeks.
Kishiro-sensei took the news of having a last-minute student soberly. When it became clear that Minato was not associated with any of the noble clans of Konoha, the teacher immediately dismissed his interest in Minato's progress.
The boy, she decided reluctantly, was talented. He grasped the concepts of chakra and strategy quite quickly and there was his uncanny speed to aid him in hand-to-hand combat. To tell the truth, she was jealous. Often, she laughed at herself whenever she had that thought. Her, the daughter of the most elite clan in Konoha, was jealous of a boy that was dead-last and from an ordinary family?!
Something is wrong with me, she thought.
If he had started the Academy sooner, he would have been near the top of class by now. The problem was the shortage of time. Yes, the memorization part of the Academy curriculum could be done quickly, yet other things, such as taijutsu, accuracy, and chakra control take much time and patience.
Minato, with sweat dotting his forehead, flung another shuriken at the target. It shot wide of range.
Damn, he cursed.
He sat down in defeat. He had wanted to graduate at the same age as everyone else, yet that seemed like a hopeless dream right now.
"Giving up already?" said a voice behind him. "I thought that you had a promise to keep?"
Minato looked up, his hair hang matted around his face. He watched impassively as Mikazuki pulled the shuriken out of the tree stumps.
"Easy for you to say," he growled. You are not the last in class in almost everything.
She collected the stray shuriken and sat down beside him.
An awkward silence ensued.
"Look," she said finally, "I am sorry for what I said that day. I just felt guilty about the tree incident, so I wanted to make it up to you somehow, by preventing you from getting hurt in school." She looked up at the sky.
"And I threw away your help." He mumbled, dragging a kunai through the dirt. "I am sorry too, for being an idiot."
Mikazuki gave him a you-just-realized?-look.
She reached over and took one of his shuriken.
"I have been watching you," she said, holding the shuriken at an angle to her wrist. "The angle from which you throw this is wrong."
She extended her arm.
"You also don't need to fling your arm so hard. Most of the power comes from the wrist. The arm is just to aid in the smoothness of its motion through air." She threw the shuriken at the stump.
Bull's-eye.
She held a shuriken to him. "Hold it," she commanded.
Minato obeyed silently.
She adjusted the position of his fingers and tilted his arm. "Now throw it, but keep the movement of the arm small."
The shuriken landed close to the center.
"Nice," she commented, and picked up another. "Now do it again, but flick your wrist more. No, don't stand like a stone; bend your knees a little."
One hour later, Minato was able to hit the bull's-eye eight times out of ten.
"Thanks," Minato said at the end of their session.
Mikazuki shrugged.
They watched the sky turn lavender purple.
Throughout the next two years, they were able to mutually help each other. One person's strength compensated for the weakness of the other.
Whereas Mikazuki helped Minato with accuracy and chakra control, he helped her with taijutsu and speed. They make an odd pair, one serious and the other charismatic. However, they were both comfortable in each other's company.
Mikazuki watched, pleased, as Minato advanced from last in class to average.
One day, after sparring, they sat down to watch the sunset. It had become a routine.
"Do you have a goal, Zuki?" Minato asked suddenly.
Mikazuki looked at him. She was just getting used to being called that by Minato.
She shrugged.
"Maybe…" she started. "Perhaps to reform my clan from what it is right now."
"Why?"
Mikazuki placed her hands behind her head and lied back on the grass. "They are all so remote…and aloof, as if there is nothing else in life besides the power offered by the Sharingan."
"Sharin..gan?"
"It is a bloodline limit." She grinned. "I'll show you what it looks like once I activate it."
Minato pouted. "I am jealous, Zuki-chan," his eyes looked at the ground. "It must be nice to belong to a clan, and have so many relatives, along with a unique heritage."
"Jealous?" Mikazuki laughed weakly. "I should be the one jealous. You don't know how constricted clan life is, Minato. I really envy your freedom. Sometimes I wonder what my purpose in life is, and whether I will ever find a place to truly belong,"
"But you have a sister, a father, and many cousins," Minato objected. "Don't you want to become strong so that you can protect them?"
Mikazuki flicked her bangs out of her eyes. "Honestly speaking, I don't really care about any of them, except for perhaps my sister. You should have seen their reactions to my brother's death. They didn't care about anything besides his Sharingan."
"Maybe you should look at it from a different perspective." Minato said quietly.
Mikazuki looked at him, puzzled.
"At least you will have many people worrying about you when you die, even if it is just your eyes. All I have left in the world is my grandfather, and he is going to leave me soon." He paused, looking down sadly. "You are like a sister to me, Zuki. Promise me that you won't leave me as well."
Awkwardly, Mikazuki gave him an one-armed hug.
"I promise you, Minato, if I ever die, it will be after you."
And I kept that promise.
"But Sarutobi-sensei, whyyyy??" A certain white-haired shinobi whined.
The third Hokage sighed. He spoke very slowly, as if talking to a child.
"Because, Jiraiya, our relationships with other countries are strained now. We desperately need new recruitments for our army in case war breaks out. Therefore, any capable jounin must take on a genin team."
He walked over to the stack of papers. "From what I have seen, the graduating class this year will be quite promising."
"But they are still brats! Why can' you get Tsunade or Orochimaru to do it, why me? Besides, I have already taught three students in Amegakure."
The Sandaime took his pipe out of his mouth. "Tsunade is needed at the hospital. Orochimaru…well…I am considering sending him to S-rank missions to see if he is capable of being the next Hokage."
Jiraiya blinked.
"Orochimaru…as the Yondaime?"
A/N: I hope that was ok. I don't swear in real life, so I have trouble writing insulting phrases in the story...(Sigh) exams exams exams. Please cheer me up by reviewing. I am seriously having a mental breakdown over all the Chemistry stuff we have to memorize…..
We are now starting to go into the action part of the story. XD Genin teams and Chunin exams!!
Oh, and I have written an accompanying one-shot for this story, from Kakashi's point of view. It contains some spoilers for this one though. The title is Silver Feather.
Next time – (……haven't thought of title yet…..something to do with being split into teams…and….oh! The bell test. It is not just a replica of the anime, I promise.)
