A DIFFERENT GENEALOGY
ACT IV
~ THE HALLUCINATION OF KAKASHI HATAKE ~
"Father! You're bac-" the black haired woman stopped as she took in the sight in front of her.
Her father was carrying a small blonde girl, trying not to aggravate some half-healed wounds on her back and a newer looking gash on her arm. She also had a nasty bruise on the side of her head, just creeping past the hairline of her right temple onto her forehead. An unconscious grey-haired man was being supported between another blonde girl, and a boy with black hair.
The boy seemed fine, but the girl had a slight limp and a bleeding bruise on her cheek.
"Sweet heaven! Father what on earth happened to them?!" she asked in a shocked tone, immediately taking the smaller of the two girls from him. She could tell the older man wasn't as severely injured, and besides, children came first. She summarised these kids were the ninja her father had requested for the journey back, but they couldn't possibly older than twelve or thirteen!
"Um, excuse us, but is there somewhere we can put the old scarecrow till he wakes up? He has chakra exhaustion and it'll take a while for him to wake up…" the second blonde asked carefully.
"Of course dear! Father, show them where the spare room is while I take a look at her!" Tazuna's daughter requested, hurrying towards one of the cupboards for the first aid kit.
"Sure Tsunami, this way…" he replied, before leading the two ninja down one of the hallways towards the spare room.
After a few moments the sound of thunderous footsteps echoed through the hall and the two ninja appeared back at the door to the living room, the boy in particular looked exceedingly breathless from the effort. He all but scrambled over to the couch where tsunami was applying an antiseptic to the girls arm, closely followed by his team-mate.
"Is Naruto okay, I mean, well, besides the giant gashes and everything?" the second blonde girl asked. Kneeling down next to tsunami and fishing a roll of bandages out of the first aid pack that lay between them.
"I think so, it looks worse than it is. Are you two all right?" Tsunami asked the blonde girl. She had a nasty looking bruise on the side of her face that looked like it hand not long since stopped bleeding. The boy was quiet, and stood staring at the girl on the sofa, so it was impossible to tell.
"I have a few bruises, and I've pulled a fair number of muscles in my leg, but I can heal those up myself with some of the medic seals in the Scarecrow's kunai pouch. Sasuke has a broken arm though, and his ribs aren't being very nice to him either…" the girl trailed off.
Sasuke's eyes snapped towards Ino when he realised what she had just said. He hadn't spoken a word, intending to take care of it himself, so how had she figured it out?!
"Sasuke, I've known you since I was six years old. I may not know you as well as Naruto does, but I'm not blind; you favour your left side too much, and your arm has bruising all over it; and besides, I'm a Yamanaka. I can tell from your brainwaves. Unlike those creeps from yesterday, I know your consciousness very well" she stated. Had Sasuke not know of her clan's techniques, he would have asked if she was a mind reader.
"A broken arm?!" tsunami shrieked in horror.
"It's only a small break" Sasuke argued. "It didn't even break the ski-" he was cut off as the woman all but manhandled him onto the sofa.
"A broken arm is nothing to be pushed to the side! And don't think I've forgotten about your ribs either!"
Sasuke glared at Ino, who snickered at him in an its-your-own-fault-for-being-an-idiot manner.
"Look out for the sword Ino!" Naruto squeaked in a panicked voice, rising from her futon to a sitting position. It took several moments for the pain in her arm and her forehead to reach her, and when it did she groaned form the sudden movement.
She felt dizzy from the yelling now…
"Naruto? You're awake?"
Naruto flipped her head towards the futon next to her own to find Sasuke sitting up. He had bandages around his waist and his left arm was in a sling. Apparently she wasn't the only one who had been through the wars. What had happened while she was unconscious?
"If you want to call it that, everything looks blurry for some reason…" she stated.
It was so strange, everything had been so clear during the fight with Zabuza! Then Ino got hit and something weird happened to her vision. Everything had turned blobby, and she'd been so caught of guard that Zabuza had managed to creep up behind her and send her into obliviousness. Now everything looked like it normally did, but it felt weird.
Like she needed glasses but wasn't wearing any, despite the fact she could see perfectly.
"It's probably because of that hit on the head from Zabuza" Sasuke rationalized.
Naruto thanked the god's he hadn't asked why she'd frozen up like that. Honestly how would she sound?
'I-got-freaked-out-because-everything-turned-into-blobs' hardly sounded something a sane person would say did it?
"The bandages on you're back need changing..." Sasuke stated warily, glancing at the patch of blood that had soaked through the strips of cloth to some extent. They had nearly healed, but the fight with Zabuza had re-opened them again. He knew the gash on her arm would be gone by tomorrow too.
Naruto gave him a suspicious look, and Sasuke felt his cheeks redden.
He was thankful for the darkness; if Naruto had seen that she would have made his life miserable.
"S-So they don't get infected before they heal..." he hurriedly added, somehow managing to hide his stutter.
Naruto softened the look of scepticism, but her next words were enough to send non-pleasurable shivers down his spine.
"Fine, but try anything else and I'll tell Mr. F, Ino and Lazy butt…"
Sasuke tried and failed to suppress a shiver. Forget his father and Ino; Shikamaru would definitely murder his ass. Ever since the Sex-Ed lesson he'd been somewhat more tolerant of Naruto, not that he hadn't before, he just tended to actually stay awake more when she was around. He passed it off as truing to prevent her from doing anything too 'troublesome' but Sasuke knew better.
Shikamaru had only putt effort into one match in the academy, one with him. It had been after a very nasty argument with Naruto (though for all it's severity, he couldn't remember for the life of him what it was about), one that had almost brought her to her second teary outbreak. Shikamaru had completely pummelled his ass into the dirt, going so far as to unveil a premature shadow possession technique.
Sasuke had realised the boy was clearly a dark horse among the school rankings, and decided to tread with caution around him where Naruto was concerned. Shikamaru had never been a particularly good friend of his (that was Naruto's forte), and Sasuke didn't want to risk his wrath. Lazy he may be but Shikamaru had inherited his mothers temper, even if he wasn't as easy to piss of as Yoshino Nara.
"Y-You can do the front, I'm just going to put the antiseptic on!" he hastily reassured her.
Sasuke briefly though that was most likely going to be easier said than done. Even though it was dark, he could clearly make out the shape of her back as she grudgingly removed the current set of bandages. Her skin looked as pale as his own in the darkness, eerily so. He hadn't noticed so clearly before…
Sasuke blamed his hormones, ignoring the niggling voice that told him Naruto was almost too similar to him in instances for it to be coincidence.
He gulped as she handed him a strip of new bandage that she had already held over her front.
This really wasn't going to be as easy as he had made it out to be was it?
Tch.
Stupid hormones.
Naruto stared at the blood belonging to the Hermaphrodite-ish boy that glued itself to her hands like a second skin. She could feel it beginning to harden on her face. She could feel the stunned gazes of Sasuke and Ino on her back. She couldn't look at them, not after giving into that monster. She had acted like some sort of rabid animal, like a mindless carnivore…
Even worse, she had enjoyed the rush of inhuman instinct and power, even if she didn't like it, and Sasuke had seen her acting like that…
There was no way they wouldn't find out about the Kyuubi now, not after what she had just done.
Naruto wasn't sure whether it was the blood or the thought of her friends' possible reactions that made her throw up.
She didn't really know hat had happened either.
One minuet she had been back to back with Sasuke, both of them getting the flow of the battle back to their side after finally seeing through the storm of needles. The next minuet, ice had been forming over both of them from the ground up. The Kyuubi seemed to have reacted instantly, blasting its sickly chakra trough her already battered skin and dissolving the ice as quickly as it came.
It didn't work for Sasuke though, and the expression of terror she had seen on his face through the water freezing over his face had chilled her to the bone. She had never seen Sasuke truly terrified before, even against Zabuza he had been unnaturally calm. She knew that the expression had been generated from an inescapable death at the hands of the boy of questionable gender.
She didn't remember anything after that but the smells, slimy, biting and tingling sensations that the Kyuubi chakra brought. The smell of fear and blood, the slime of Haku's organs against her fingers, and the gnaw of the Kyuubi chakra on her skin as it burned and healed her wounds.
She was only vaguely aware of herself, and everything had passed in an amazingly clear yet instantaneous haze. Then she was away from the dome of ice, meters from Ino and Tazuna, the hands that held Haku's visible eaten into heart covered in blood and a warm taste in her mouth. The ice had instantly receded, and Sasuke had collapsed to the ground gasping for air.
And then the hermaphrodite really had turned into a victim.
What had she done?
Someone's hand rubbed circled at her now healed back, and she felt the bile rise in her throat again. She didn't bother to try holding back and emptied her stomach onto the concrete. Specks of red flesh mocked her from the smelly mixture.
"Feel any better?" Kakashi asked, moving to look her in the eye.
"I-I didn't mean to Kakashi-Sensei! I swear I didn't! It just crept up on me when Sasuke got covered in that ice and everything was so hazy and then… and then… I swear, I didn't mean to!" she all but yelled, panic terror and self-disgust flooding her voice.
"I know Naruto, but you have to calm down, you're still channelling it…" he placed his hands on her shoulders reassuringly.
She stared at his mismatched eyes in confusion.
"But I'm not using it… It's completely gone…"
Kakashi frowned and took a closer look at her eyes. They were red, but lacked the aura of maliciousness they had possessed not ten minuets ago. He squinted at them with his Sharingan for a few moments before his blood chilled.
A dual set of familiar triple swirls stared back at him. They lacked the aura that had earned their reputation from the recent events, but there was no mistaking those eyes.
The Sharingan.
Why did Naruto have the Sharingan? Naruto want supposed to have the Sharingan.
Sasuke was supposed to have the Sharingan, as he now did.
When Kakashi woke up that morning he hadn't really expected Sasuke to awaken his Sharingan, let alone Naruto! It was simply illogical! There was no way Naruto could be related to the Uchiha Clan…
Even as the denials entered his mind, Kakashi couldn't help but think of those rumours about his old teacher's supposed lover. Rumours about a woman with hair as striking but completely opposite to that of his red-headed wife. He had never believed them, believing them to be nothing more than the usual unfounded village gossip and that he knew his teacher better than anyone.
He now felt himself wondering how well he had really known the man.
He could see how no-one would have noticed (if this whole fiasco had any credibility) a rampant Sharingan in the girl. She looked nothing like an Uchiha; she was the spitting image of Minato even if the village pointedly ignored that fact. Her face shape was obviously that of a girl's, but Kushina had possessed a similar structure
Similar, but oddly not that similar. It should have been obvious when her memory started improving that she had a different genealogy than what they had expected. If he really concentrated, he noticed she looked nothing like her mother at all.
Kushina had raised the girl for several years before her death, further cementing Naruto's image as her daughter. Since this was the case, she had obviously known Minato had had an affair so why had she never said anything? Maybe he should talk to the girl's sponsor-
Wait a minuet here, wasn't her sponsor Fugaku Uchiha?!
"Kakashi-Sensei? Is it gone?"
He was jerked out of his musings by the sound of her voice. She appeared to be frowning in concentration, worry evident on her face as she did so. He summarised she was trying to suppress the now dormant Kyuubi chakra. He was almost vaguely aware of Sasuke and Ino dashing towards them after watching their exchange.
"Try cutting off all your chakra, you don't want the others to see your eyes right?" he hated lying, but until he got some answers himself he couldn't risk Sasuke or Ino finding out. This was complicated, and amongst other things Ino vehemently hated anything complicated. She would be more than a simple headache.
He didn't even want to start with what could happen if Sasuke found out. More to the point, even if her mother had been a Sharingan possessing Uchiha, she still shouldn't have the Sharingan! He was sure it was a predominantly patriarchal trait. In short, there was no logical reason for Naruto to have the Sharingan, never mind a fully advanced one! It was biologically impossible!
He watched as Naruto's face paled and she instantly focused her concentration with all her effort on completely suppressing her chakra. The black swirls faded from her eyes and the red melted into blue. Her eyes were a bit different now, her pupils weren't nearly as prominent, and seemed to fade into her blue irises much like the pupil-less Hyuuga and Uchiha eyes did.
Ino and Sasuke were beside them only seconds after the black swirls completely disappeared.
He knew Naruto was hiding something, if Kakashi's unusually jumpy demeanour around her and Ino's increased clinginess was anything to go by. He was aware of her attempts to broach the subject, but she never managed. That frustrated him; if she could trust Ino and Kakashi, couldn't she do the same with him? He knew her far better than the other two did, he should have been the first to know whatever it was she was hiding!
Thunder crashed outside, and the accompaniment of lightning brightened the room. Sasuke was surprised to find Naruto was not in her futon as she should have been. The wind whipped through one of the open windows, the frame snapping against the wall loudly on its hinges.
"Not again!' Sasuke thought to himself as he mad his way around Ino's sleeping form towards the open window. Looking outside he could see a climbing plant of some sort leading up to the roof. Grimacing as the cold rain splattered against his body, he clambered out of the window, and up the climbing plant towards the roof.
Naruto was seated on the roof, her soaked hair plastered against her face and whipped by the wind instead of in her usual pigtails. She seemed to be unaware of the fact that she was soaked to the bone, instead staring at the lightning in the distance crashing to the earth in fascination.
"Why is it that every time there's a thunderstorm, you disappear?" he asked in an exasperated tone as he seated himself beside her.
The tiles were digging into his skin through his soaked pyjamas bottoms. It was freezing! He wondered how Naruto could stand the temperature in her thin vest and under-shorts. He had forgotten his shirt, the house itself being too warm for it, and he suspected the vest wasn't all that substantial.
"I don't know. They just fascinate me. Ever since that first time on the bridge…" she trailed off, presumably lost in the memory of her first thunderstorm; the worst one to hit Konoha in eleven years at the time. The previous one had been during the Kyuubi attack, and it had been much worse due to the beast's presence.
The storm was some distance away from the yet, so Sasuke decided to let her watch the storm for a while before dragging her back inside. He was interested in it himself; Konoha hadn't had such a large thunderstorm since the one when he had found her on the bridge, and the shapes the light made were truly fascinating providing you weren't on the receiving end of one.
He remembered Naruto had been stewing over her adapting memory that time, and it occurred to him she was once again worrying over something. He knees were pulled up to her chest, only her eyes peeing out from over them, and her bare feet were scrunched up, almost clawing into the tiles they were seated on.
"What's wrong this time?" he asked bluntly; there was no beating around the bush with Naruto.
"Nothing's wrong Sasuke. I just felt like watchi-"
"Liar. Since when do you use my name?" he countered easily.
She stared at him and he was sure he heard her grumbling curses against her self when she broke his gaze.
"Is this about that red chakra on the bridge?" he asked, deciding she was unlikely to give him any answers unless he pushed for them.
Her head whipped round instantly, eyes widening in alarm.
"H-How do you know about that?! You were frozen!" she demanded over a crack of thunder.
"I couldn't move but I could see enough" he stated in a reassuring voice.
She seemed to have tensed up even more from his question, and he was left in no doubt that the source of her anxiety was the strange red chakra that had enveloped her during the fight with Haku (as he now appeared to be known as).
"It's nothing. Just leave it alone okay?" she grumbled irritably.
Sasuke was taken aback by her sharp abruptness. She usually saved that sort of tone for the villagers when the glared at her more than was necessary. She had never even used it with Ino, and she avoided using it as much as she could when he was around. Whatever her problem was, it seemed to have her well and truly distraught if she was actually using it on him.
"You suck at lying ad you know it. You're acting like I'm one of those villagers, and you're shaking. You do not shake; tell me what the hell that red stuff was and why it has you so freaked out" he ordered in a voice much louder than his normal one, but still considerably low-key.
She hesitated for a few moments, taken aback by his unusual composed ferocity, before launching into speech. She started off with the familiar opening to the story of the Kyuubi attack, and he was somewhat confused till she informed him the Kyuubi was very much alive and kicking. Then he began to piece things together even as she informed him of the true sequence of events, deliberately avoiding his gaze.
He could easily guess what she was so upset about as she described the true reason for Mizuki's sudden retirement. He felt his anger boil as the nearby storm crashed and flashed in time with his anger.
How could a girl with grades and intelligence equal to his own (almost) be such an idiot?!
He was knelt over her before she had known what hit her, and had her pinned to the tiles. He assumed his Sharingan had activated by the tingling sensation in his eyes and by her stunned expression. He noticed her eyes looked a bit different, but not enough to give it much thought.
"Are you such an idiot that your going to start believing those close minded bigots?" he hissed at her, gaining a bewildered expression from the girl, before it turned to the determination he was so used to seeing, though it was traced with gratefulness.
"Of course not, I just felt bad about Haku" she snorted defiantly, voice softening with the Ice boy's name.
The softness did not last long and was soon replaced by a familiar grin.
"Are you going to let me up now or are you trying to say something?" she asked.
It was only then that he realised their close proximity, and he found himself unable to move. Whether this was because of the embarrassment or the fact he didn't actually want to move was not something he could readily define, and he was at a loss for what to do. He found himself staring at her eyes again, and noted the black of her pupils bleeding into her irises.
Her irises were still bright blue, and were easily distinguishable; it was only upon a close inspection the change would be noticeable. He traced past one of her eyes with one had, fingertips barley brushing her skin. The sensation was enough to make his breath hitch in the back of his throat for a few moments before he lost all sense of reasoning and slammed his mouth onto hers.
Something told him this was a bad idea but Sasuke had never been good at listening to advice, even when it was his own.
He was surprised to find her kissing back, sitting up for better reach and fisting her hands into his hair. His hands found her waist awkwardly as her ran his tongue over her bottom lip with some trepidation. He had always found Kiba's jabber on how to kiss a girl properly to be of little interest back in in the academy, but he was wishing he had paid attention.
All he had to go on now was a couple of pages of Icha Icha he and Naruto had managed to read over Kakashi's shoulder before he caught on and snapped the book shut.
Some closet pervert he was…
In any case, the squeaks emitting from the girl beneath him told him he wasn't doing too badly for his first voluntary attempt at kissing. He was so wrapped up in his concerns of doing things properly he failed to notice the manic gleam poking out of one of Naruto's half parted eyes. She pushed herself up, pushing her tongue into his mouth without hesitation as she forced him into a sitting position.
When he finally got back to the matter at hand she had straddled him, and his hands were running over the skin of her lower back and stomach beneath that flimsy vest. He was itching to move the hand running over her stomach a tad higher, but the rational part of his mind had regained control, and was demanding he stop before he ruined a good thing (he has terrified he would bite her tongue or something equally disastrous).
They parted breathlessly, each staring at the other in stunned amazement, releasing their hands from hair and clothing.
"I have no idea what that was, but that was more fun than watching Ino drive Itachi up the wall!" Naruto exclaimed less loudly than normal, presumably due to the slight lack of air moments before.
Sasuke grunted in acknowledgement as he secretly patted himself on the back.
"Hey Sasuke, what was that giant shuriken I turned into with the other one underneath it when we first fought Zabuza called?" Naruto asked, scratching the non-inky end of the calligraphy brush. Sasuke and Ino both dropped their chopsticks in shock.
They were a few hours from the village, and had stopped to have something to eat. Naruto had take up the job of writing up the main mission report (along with her personal one) as usual, but this was a definite first. Naruto had not forgotten a word of the most meaningless conversations in years, never mind ninja techniques. It was why they gave her the main report so often.
"You can't remember? That's impossible! You remember everything!" Ino objected loudly around a mouth full of rice.
Sasuke dodged a few stray grains with a look of revulsion.
"Say it, don't spray it" he reprimanded.
Ino ignored him and continued to harass her friend.
"How can you forget? You haven't forgotten anything since your memory levelled-up!" she protested.
Naruto looked just as confused."Its like I'm not using it right; I can envision it, but I can't for the life of me remember what it's called! It's like there's something blocking me from remembering it fully" she complained loudly; despite her initial worries she had come to rely on her improved memory more than she had originally thought.
Sasuke was giving a curious gaze, and Kakashi knew he would have to say something to keep him from connecting too many dots; not that he knew what those dots were, but there was no harm in being cautious. Especially when it came to Naruto.
"It's probably an after effect of using the Kyuubi's chakra, using that much probably messed up your senses somewhat. I doubt it's anything to worry about, but I'll ask the Hokage for his opinion when I hand in the report" he explained quickly, but not too quickly to be noticeable.
It wasn't even a lie; Naruto had been having some trouble with her aim and hearing since the incident on the bridge. For all he knew, it may have had an effect t on her supposed Sharingan as well.
"Yeah whatever, can someone answer the question for me?!" Naruto yelled, loosing her patience. Sasuke took pity on her and seated himself next to her, peering at what she had already written. After a few glances he snorted with laughter - gaining a glance from one of Ino's ever watchful eyes.
"Before you worry about the names of techniques try getting the clients name right; it's Tazuna, not Tarawa, and those two Chunin didn't use poison gas: they used poison claws. You forgot getting your back getting clawed up" he stated.
Naruto gave him a bug eyed look before turning back to the scroll with a frantic expression. Her eyes scanned her untidy scrawl and she let out a cry of horror at the obvious mistakes she had unwittingly made.
"Holy crap, you're right! I guess scarecrow was right on the mark!" she exclaimed, tearing the end of parchment off of the scroll.
She'd have to start all over again!Getting to that stage had taken almost an hour with all the details she'd had to put in, even if a lot of them were incorrect!
"You can look over my version, it might jog your memory" Sasuke stated, fishing through his backpack for his own scroll.
Ino's jaw dropped at the rare example of… niceness.
Since when did Sasuke help anyone out voluntarily? Even with Naruto, he'd never offered his aid with such ease. It was usually someone else's suggestion; with Naruto he'd never done otherwise, but he'd always seem slightly disgruntled (you had to really force him to help anyone else, especially if they didn't speak on a regular basis). He wasn't making a single complaint though!
Ino's match-making senses were tingling, and they had never failed her yet. Without being noticed, she pushed out her chakra from her mind towards her two team-mates, their heads bent close together as they went over the reports.
Naruto's chakra was twitching wildly, as it did whenever she was particularly satisfied about something, but there was something else… damn, she hated trying to read Naruto's chakra consciousness. It was always so difficult to read. She tried reading her friend expression at the same time, despite her inproficiencey in the art; she was blushing, but she had been doing that for a while now.
Then she saw it; Naruto was holding her left had up to her neck, bent at the elbow that rested on her knee. Her thumbnail was scraping the one on her pinkie! She was embarrassed, nervous about being so close to Sasuke. She didn't have to look at Sasuke to know that something had happened again, but when?
Damn it, why was she never present for all these developments?! What was the point of setting them up if she didn't get to see the results? Itachi would be so disappointed at her inability to get decent blackmail on Sasuke! She had to find out what had happened!
"Sasuke, are you going to finish that?" she asked, motioning towards his abandoned lunch with her chopsticks.
"No… No! It was a white rabbit, not a stoat!"
"I swear, as soon as I find out how I'm going to murder that stinking deranged ball of fuzz myself… teach him to mess with my brain…" Naruto grumbled, crossing out yet another sentence.
"So you don't mind if I eat it?" Ino asked innocently, still probing his chakra with her own. She sensed irritation, and what she could only describe as a male ego trying to prove something. So he didn't like her interrupting him and Naruto…
But why?!
"Go ahead…"
Kakashi and Ino both dropped their chopsticks. Sasuke never shared his food with anyone, not eve Naruto had gained that right! Ino held a silent victory dance in her private consciousness. That and the sudden helpful phase was more than enough evidence to name and same him, coupled with her chakra readings of course.
Itachi was going to lap this up!
"Sasuke, was that hunter ninja a boy or a girl?" Naruto of them had a definite answer for that question, much to the blonde girl's annoyance. Ino was so busy musing over the hunter ninja's gender, she almost didn't notice Naruto's use of Sasuke name instead of the usual 'Duck-Butt-Head'
"Alright, what was with the nail scratching earlier?" Ino asked bluntly as she followed Naruto into her apartment.
Sasuke had gone on ahead to his own house, and Ino had decided to take the opportunity to bully Naruto into spilling the beans. Naruto froze mid step and swore.
"Crap, you saw that?!"
Her friend smirked at her, and Naruto grumbled some more curse words to herself. She knew about her nervous habits thanks to Ino, but controlling them was another thing entirely. She masked her chakra from Ino well enough, but her physical quirks still needed work before they could be considered Yamanaka proof.
"So? What happened to make you so twitchy?" Ino asked, flicking the switch on the kettle.
Naruto rummaged through her wardrobe on the other side of the room for some clean clothes. The raggedy black shirt and orange shorts made an appearance (Ino suppressed the urge to object to this choice of clothing), and Naruto began to mumble something as she pulled her jacket over her head and kicked of her trousers.
"I flold… kruuugi…mrafe kout…"
"What? I can't hear you" Ino frowned, pouring some of the boiling water into waiting containers of dehydrated noodles.
Naruto lost her patience with the jacket, and decided to unzip it like normal people. She pulled on the black shorts over her bandages and pulled a belt through her shorts before she moved to snatch the ramen from the countertop. Ino snatched it out of her way before she could lay her hands on it.
"No way, not till you tell me what you just said" she smirked.
"I hate you"
"Uh huh, sure you do, so do you want the ramen or not?"
Naruto grumbled a few well chosen swears and insults before quietly going into her little adventure on the roof with Sasuke (keeping the description fairly muted), refusing to meet her friends gaze. Ino squealed and jumped up and down and made a whole number of girlish noises Naruto wouldn't have made over her cold, dead body.
"I knew it! I knew it!" she yelled joyfully, all but jumping on the second blonde who was attempting to eat her lukewarm noodle dish.
"If you mention one word of this to Itachi, I'll tell him it was you who stole his favourite t-shirt so you could try casting Iwan voodoo on it to make him chase you" she stated nonchalantly, trying to angle the noodles towards her mouth despite her friend's interference.
Ino stared at her in horror.
"But that was your idea!" she objected, releasing her friend.
"I know, but you didn't have to listen to me did you?" she grinned, finally munching on the now-cold noodles.
"I hate you"
"Love you too Ino"
Itachi knew something had happened on his brother's first C-Rank the minuet he walked through the door. He had a demeanour that could not be associated with the mission's disastrous success - as he was later to be told of. No, something more personal had occurred, and Itachi was itching to find out what it was.
He had a few ideas, and assumed Sasuke's purple-obsessed team-mate would have some form of information for him. At least, she would if Naruto didn't blackmail her first (going by their absence, he though it safe to assume she had done just that).
His father's wary gaze upon his youngest sibling during dinner told him he was not the only one who had noticed. Alarm bells blared through his mind when Sasuke relented the last of the rice balls to him instead of causing an argument equivalent to the third ninja war.
"I'm assuming you know about it then?" he asked cryptically, picking the bones out of his fish.
They desperately needed to look into getting a housekeeper - this inability to cook something edible was going from sublime to ridiculous.
"It? Do you mean the…" Sasuke paused, frowning in concentration. Itachi mentally congratulated Sasuke on his caution concerning Naruto's fuzzy tenant.
It wouldn't do for him to be revealing the subject openly.
"Are you talking about the stinking deranged ball of fuzz?" Sasuke asked.
Even their father managed to look alarmed by the description of the Kyuubi. Sasuke sensed their surprise and quickly ascertained his wording.
"Her words, not mine!"
"And? How did you take this news?" their father asked seriously. "I hope you didn't do anything ras-"
"No! It was fine! I mean, its still Naruto, and Ino would have killed me so…" he trailed off in embarrassment.
It was the rambling that caught the attention of his two relatives, it was the bright red that stained his face before he launched into his drabble that alerted them. Itachi didn't know whether he should be happy his brother was finally making a move, or be worried about his father's unusually pale face.
Sasuke din not seem to notice this and continued to give an edited account of the mission (he could only give a brief account due to the client confidentiality clause that encompassed all mission orders). Fugaku had been alarmed by the description of the wounds his ward had received on her back, but Sasuke had quickly reassured him they were nothing more than an irritating scratch now.
"Oh, and Naruto completely messed up the mission report" he added nonchalantly.
He was warily poking his chopsticks against gelatinous substance that was supposed to be a type of chilled soup. It wobbled, and it looked like Sasuke was seriously doubting the thing was fit for human consumption. Itachi swore to himself he would look into a house keeper before the week had ended (it was a Sunday).
"I fail to see how" their father replied, stating his confusion.
"She forgot the names of the techniques, or mixed stuff up. She even got the name of the client wrong. It was so weird. She normally remembers everything as well as Itachi…" he trailed off, clearly pondering the strange new turn of events.
"Did she have any idea as to why?" their father asked far too alarmingly cautiously for Itachi's comfort.
Sasuke shook his head.
"She just said it was like something was blocking her from remembering completely, even though she had a vague idea of how things went. Kakashi said it was probably from using the Kyuubi's chakra so much…" he trailed off once again.
Itachi felt more alarm bells ringing; the memory situation was hauntingly reminiscent of the time Shisui had activated his Sharingan, and Sasuke was probably noting the same thing to a lesser extent; he had been young when it had happened, but he had been old enough for the situation to strike him as familiar. Itachi glanced a look at their father and felt his suspicions rising at the sight of his paling face, furrowed brow, and shock-parted lips.
A loud knock at the door distracted them.
"Sasuke, would you mind getting that?" Fugaku asked in his usual clam manner.
Sasuke eagerly left the table, desperate to avoid the so called 'meal' as much as possible. Before his elder brother could confront their father about the sudden revelation, Sasuke returned with a familiar grey-haired man.
"Kakashi-Senpai" Itachi greeted.
"Yo, man-lady!" the man greeted cheerfully in reply.
Itachi twitched at the mention of the stupid nick-name Naruto used (which she thankfully appeared to be growing out of). Kakashi chuckled at his expression.
"Get on with it scarecrow" Sasuke and Kakashi found their positions to be reversed.
"Don't be so rude Sasuke, hello Kakashi"
"what? Naruto and Ino get away with it…"
A glare from Fugaku silenced the younger of his two sons.
"Not that this banter isn't amusing, but I came to speak with you about your blonde ward Mr. Uchiha" kasha stated, directing his attention to Fugaku.
"I assume this is about the incident with the Kyuubi during the recent mission?" he asked suspiciously.
"That and another matter I believe needs to be brought to your attention" he stated.
He seemed to communicate something to the eldest of the Uchihas through his gaze, but despite rapidly developing theories, Itachi had no clue as to what he could possibly be trying to say. Sasuke seemed utterly lost, to say the least.
"I see, then let us continue this discussion in my office." he said after a long pause.
"Itachi, I'll leave Sasuke's Sharingan training up to you for the time being" he instructed, getting up from his seat.
Itachi noted this as one of the few moments he had desperately wanted to strangle his father, but he could hardly say no. Especially not when Sasuke looked so enthralled with the prospect (they had even less time to train together now that he too had graduated). He silently vowed to bully the information out of his father as he watched the man retreating to his study with his old ANBU senior.
Kakashi and Fugaku did not emerge from the former's office until long after Naruto and Ino arrived. Itachi was being driven up the wall by his father's secrecy so much that he missed one of his targets - earning a wide eyed look form the group of Genin.
The training eventually digressed into a game of Oniigoko, which Ino prevailed at rather irritatingly. Even Itachi had a certain degree of trouble keeping way from the girl. Itachi made a mental not to thank the girl for the impromptu suggestion after one opportunity raised itself however.
He had hidden himself directly across from Naruto. The girl had spotted this and waved cheerfully. He had no idea what prompted him to do so, but he placed an illusion over his eyes as he activated his Sharingan and focused on the girl hiding in the tree branches on the other side of the clearing.
The concentrated globs of chakra building up behind her eyes spoke volumes; not only did Naruto have the Sharingan, but she had a fully evolved one. Several question clicked into place regarding the girls memory, but the new information raise a great many more as to why she had the bloodline in the first place.
I just bought a book of Shakespeare's sonnets, and I swear to god some of them are SasuNaru/NaruSasu tributes.
Like 120, i know it's a freindship one not love, but it fits them soo well.
116 is just sweet, and fits with anyone, but 118-119 fit them too.
117 is like a sick twisted kind of love from sasukes point of view.
...I think I'll have to control my Shakespeare obsession somewhat from now on. It's inspiring fanfic ideas, and I have too many that I don't update as it is.
Plus they always seem to make me cry for some reason...
Though maybe I could scrawl out a oneshot or two...
No! Bad thoughts!
Hoped you liked the chapter Duckies.
Nat.
xxx