Chapter 5 - An Uzumaki Thing
The agricultural caravan, a slow moving snake of cattle and produce laden wagons, rolled forward with only the occasional bellowing of a cow to mark its passage. Early in the trip Naruto had summoned a half dozen of the smaller toads to help keep track of stray calves and Shino had even tagged the repeat offenders with tracker beetles. The mission that had seemed sort of exciting three days ago, now seemed far more tedious than the average D-Rank. At least D-Ranks ended. This mission would take more than a week, an eternity.
Kakashi appeared soundlessly at Naruto's side and tapped his shoulder. "Water ahead. We're driving these guys due east and taking a break."
"Sure sensei," Naruto sighed. He created a pair of bunshin to inform his toads of the direction change and started the gradual process of turning a few hundred cattle.
At the watering hole, the ninja helped their clients set up camp for the evening, pitching tents, building fires and even fishing for a bit of fresh meat for dinner.
Kakashi watched his students with no small amount of pride. They had worked without complaint mastering the repetitive boring task their mission entailed. Perhaps a reward was in order. Now that they had the mission under control, he could teach them something useful to work on as they walked. He collected a handful of leaves and strolled over to his charges. "Who wants to learn their elemental affinity?" Kakashi asked casually. Sakura perked up though Naruto and Shino just exchanged a quick look. With ninja families, their affinity had likely been determined years earlier. He half expected Naruto to exclaim his affinity and ask for a better challenge. "Naruto, Shino, have you been tested?"
"Yeah, I'm a wind-type like my parents," Naruto volunteered.
"Earth," Shino deadpanned.
Kakashi nodded, unsurprised by either revelation. He knew Naruto's parents' affinities and the Aburame's were all either water or earth-types. The wrong elemental affinity could be devastating in that clan. Fire-types or lightning-types were incompatible with the bug colonies. He had even heard of Aburame that had been cast out of the clan for being born with a dangerous, incompatible elemental affinity.
"How will we find my affinity?" Sakura asked. Trying not to show her disappointment that yet again she was behind her teammates, she kept her smile bright. Kakashi handed over a small strip of paper and after a few moments the soggy strip had declared her a water-type.
"So what's our lesson?" Naruto asked, hoping for a new jutsu.
"We're going to practice chakra control for the rest of the mission." He handed out leaves to everyone. "If you can channel a fine stream of chakra into the leaf you will get the same response as you would from the testing paper. Naruto, yours will tear, Shino's crumble to dust, and Sakura yours will get soggy."
"Control lessons?" Naruto whined. "Can't you teach us a jutsu?"
"You have to master the three major chakra control exercises before I teach you any new jutsus. What you learned in the academy will suffice until then."
Shino accepted his leaf without further comment and resumed his meal, while Sakura and Naruto both began meditating on their leaves. Kakashi had just settled in to read his bright orange bound novel when a figure emerged from the deepening twilight. An old, stooped man made his way toward their camp with the aid of a gnarled walking stick. While he sensed nothing dangerous or awry, Kakashi drew a kunai imperceptibly from his sleeve and timed his students' reactions. Shino spotted their interloper first, then Naruto. Sakura only started as he stepped into the glow of their small bonfire.
"Pardon me," the man croaked. "I saw your camp and hope you won't mind another traveler wandering with your caravan for a while." He rolled up a sleeve, revealing an intricate white seal tracing under his lined and sagging skin. "If you don't abide Sealed Healers I can move on."
The three students looked to Kakashi for guidance. He eye-smiled at the old man, though inside he cringed. He was not superstitious. He knew sealed healers were not inherently bad luck, but their seals drew them toward disasters, death, and accidents. The arrival of a sealed healer might save your life, but almost definitely meant you were going toward danger. "I don't know how our employers feel about your kind, but you can stay the night here anyway. If they ask you to move on tomorrow, we will have to ask you to leave."
"Good enough, name's Jacque." After a round of quick introductions, the man settled next to the fire with a groan. Without asking, Kakashi dished the man a serving of their dinner, fish and berries and a single dry protein bar.
While their guest dug into the meal with gusto, Kakashi turned to his students. "I suppose this is a good time to discuss your individual feelings about seals and healing. Shino, you have your kikaichū. If you're ever incapacitated and your teammates could save you with the aid of a sealed healer, would you want that assistance?" Kakashi asked.
The young man adjusted his shades thoughtfully and nodded. "We're allowed to accept a seal if the alternative is death or permanent impairment. Our clan is very civilized about it. We just have to give up our colonies on return to the village."
Kakashi hadn't been certain of the Aburame policy and after Obito's struggles it was a relief to find out that they were so progressive on the topic. Without clan pressures, Sakura and Naruto shouldn't have issues with accepting a seal if the need ever arose, so Kakashi threw his next query at them both almost casually. "I assume that means everyone here would accept a seal over death or permanent physical impairment?"
Sakura nodded agreement but Naruto looked uncomfortable before shaking his head. "I'm not allowed to take a seal under any circumstances. I promised my mother. So if it ever comes up and I can't say no for myself, don't let anyone put a seal on me."
"That's crazy," Sakura hissed. "We're ninja. You can't just hamstring yourself like that. I couldn't just let you die if we had a chance to save you. Right Shino? Right sensei?"
Inscrutable behind his shades, Shino didn't chime in with Sakura. Kakashi on the other hand expressed his shock with a raised eyebrow. Kushina made her son promise to accept death before the seal of a healer? "Does your father know you're officially turning down sealed healing in the face of death? I can't see him approving that policy."
Naruto shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "It's an Uzumaki thing."
Only the mission parameter baring the discussion of Naruto's surname, kept Kakashi from verbally berating his genin about being a Namikaze. Backwater, Uzumaki nonsense shouldn't apply to him. "Well, we had best be careful with you then," Kakashi replied tightly. His eyes promised a more thorough discussion when they were safely home.
"Uzumaki," the old man, Jacque, said. "You're an Uzumaki?" The man stared across the fire at Naruto then chuckled dryly. "Aren't so many of you left; perhaps it's the stubbornness about never accepting help from Sealed Healers, eh?"
"Are you disrespecting the Uzumaki clan?" Naruto leaned forward, practically growling.
"I'm sure our guest meant no disrespect," Kakashi said with false cheer. "I do think it's time for bed team six. You can work on those leaves tomorrow."
Though he glared a few final seconds at Jacque, Naruto let his teammates pull him away from the confrontation.
The old man finished his meal, licked his fingers clean, and nodded to Kakashi. "Thanks for the meal. Felt your seal; it's an eye, yes? Not a fatal wound."
Kakashi nodded; his sealed left eye wasn't exactly a village secret. "Not fatal but pretty debilitating, especially for a ninja. Is your seal pulling you somewhere?"
"It's always pulling, but the tug is gentle tonight. I may be nearing my destination. Finding ninjas usually precedes an injury or two at least." The old man rubbed his shoulder where his own seal resided. "Though this isn't exactly a battlefield."
"Let's hope it doesn't turn into one," Kakashi replied. His tone rang cool with the certainty that any mission, anywhere, anytime could turn into a battle or even death.
"Bedtime," Jacque rumbled. He arranged his coat into a makeshift pallet and soon the night was filled with his snores. But Kakashi couldn't find it in him to sleep. He watched over his students through the night, curiosity and concern running races in his brain.
The next morning the caravan moved on its slow plodding pace and the sealed healer, Jacque, left at the first crossroads, his seal pulling him away to some unknown imminent tragedy.
Kakashi was glad to see him go.
Sweaty and nursing a busted lip, Sasuke slipped into his bedroom to strip away his grimy training clothes. His sensei had become nothing short of maniacal since team six left on the first C-rank of their graduating class. Any moron could see the red-haired demon was worried about Naruto, but Sasuke was tired of being one third of her relief valve. It was a stupid C-rank babysitting livestock. Even Naruto, who had always been ridiculously accident prone, wasn't going to get trampled by cows.
A testament to how tired he was, Sasuke completely missed his brother's trap. The almost invisible wire across the threshold to the bathroom, triggered a deluge of icy water. "Itachi!" Sasuke shouted. "I don't need this right now."
"You can't let your guard down so easily." Itachi appeared, crouching on the window sill. "Perhaps your Jounin sensei is not drilling you with enough diligence? I'll have to have a talk with her."
A puff of smoke remained where the three shuriken Sasuke launched at Itachi flew. The brothers skirmished with taijutsu until Sasuke launched a fireball that very nearly ignited the drapes. "Little brother, no fireballs in the house." Itachi's speed became impossible for the younger Uchiha to follow and he ended the fight in two strikes. "You have improved after all. We who don't join the police force can't afford to be less than the best. We're the Uchiha the other nations will fight and judge the clan by. Don't let me catch you unawares again, or father will hear about it. He can still slot you into the police if you stop improving."
"I hate you." Sasuke held a hand to the broken nose his brother had added to his injuries.
"You love me," Itachi replied with a careless wave. "Your little friend is back from his C-Rank by the way. Thought you'd like to know."
Minato accepted the signed mission scroll from Kakashi, careful to contain his fatherly smile and keep his Hokage mask in place. The kids were filthy and sun-kissed and brimming over with enthusiasm. "Don't forget to collect your pay," Minato said. He expected Kakashi to leave with his team, but he dismissed them and lingered behind.
"Normally these filings go through the mission desk, not over the desk of the Hokage. But one of my students issued a no-seal request while we were out of village and I thought you might want to file it personally."
Minato frowned, already suspecting what he would see on the slip of paper. He had seen this form before with Kushina's name at the top. How could she have talked Naruto into this kind of decision without even discussing it? In most things Minato was a reasonable man, but not when it came to his family, not when it came to their lives. He barely heard Kakashi's angry complaint.
"Naruto is a Namikaze. Why the Hell is he spouting the old bigoted Uzumaki healing-seal-idiocy?" Kakashi hissed.
"I will handle it." Minato crumpled the form and incinerated it with a burst of pure chakra.
Using the hiraishin, Minato appeared in his home. He should really have run or even walked, it would have given him a chance to calm down and think. Instead he followed the quiet clinking of his wife in the kitchen, his outrage fresh and raw. "We need to talk."
Kushina looked up from the cutting board and arched an eyebrow at her husband's chilly tone. "The Uchiha asked for his butt kicking. It wasn't any worse than usual and if his father is complaining again, he needs to grow a pair."
"I accepted your feelings about Sealed Healers, accepted that I might have to watch you die and refuse a Sealed Healer's care. It is your choice. But Naruto is our son, a Namikaze by name. How dare you tell him he isn't allowed?"
"No." Kushina stumbled back, a horrified expression on her face. "He got hurt on the mission? Is he okay? Is he at the hospital. He didn't die?"
It was a testament to his anger, that Minato didn't even feel bad that she had jumped to that conclusion. Maybe the pain of it would make his argument for him. "He's fine, and if he ever needs a sealed healer, he will use one. You're going to tell him so tonight."
A long slow breathe escaped her, and Kushina visibly sagged with relief. "You can hate me for it and I'll understand, but he can't take a seal, ever. He looks so much like you it's ridiculous, but that's Uzumaki chakra he moulds. I feel it and so do you. Uzumaki do not take seals. Bad things happen when we do."
"Bad things? You always say that but never elaborate. What's worse than dying?" Minato barked.
"Clan secret." Kushina hated the note of pleading in her voice, but she knew what was coming. He had never pushed it before. He let her have her way, but he wouldn't now, not when it was regarding Naruto's safety. "I swore to keep my clan's secrets before I swore allegiance to this village. That vow cannot be superseded."
"How can I accept an argument you refuse to make properly?" Minato snapped. "I'm not asking as the Hokage. I'm asking as your husband, and the father of your son. Why is this so important to you?"
"I've been a ninja for over twenty years and never needed a sealed healer. You've never needed one. Most ninja never need a sealed healer. This isn't worth arguing over." Kushina returned to her cutting board and resumed dicing vegetables.
"Most ninja never need a sealed healer, but my student, Obito, wouldn't have survived without one. The Uchiha clan almost killed him for taking a seal. That was stupidity and so is this." Minato snatched the knife out of her hand and swept the cutting board onto the floor raining vegetables across the grey tiles.
"Dad, Mom, what's up?" Naruto frowned at the strange tableau. His mother never took things lying down. She was never passive, but she seemed wilted under his father's imposing figure. And while he didn't think his father was intentionally menacing her with a carving knife, he found himself fingering a Kunai nervously. His dad dropped the knife onto the counter and spared him a tight smile.
"Your mother has something to say to you."
Standing straighter, Kushina shrugged. "Sure I do. Kid, you remember when we visited Whirlpool and your grandpa tested your chakra. You remember what he told you? I want you to explain it to your father."
"But I promised to keep it secret," Naruto hedged uncomfortably.
"You're a Namikaze first, and you can tell your father if he promises you he'll keep it to himself. All right? I'll leave you boys alone for a bit. Since dinner is on the kitchen floor, I'll get some take out while you talk." Kushina strode forward and knelt in front of her boy. "It's really okay. He has to understand or he won't accept it. And I can't tell him because I'm an Uzumaki first. Your grandpa would kill me. Literally."
"Okay. Grandpa won't kill me, will he?" Naruto asked nervously.
"Of course not. Besides, we're not going to tell him." Kushina kissed him on the forehead and left her men alone.
Naruto met his dad's worried eyes and grinned. "Don't look so grim. Grandpa told me that as long as I never take a seal, nothing bad will happen."
Minato pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and gestured Naruto over. "If you were hurt badly enough to need a seal, dying would be pretty bad. Explain what would be worse. I can't think of anything worse."
"Worse would be hurting everyone." Naruto frowned, trying to eloquently enunciate something he had been told when he was six without a proper refresher since. "You know the Uzumaki clan are sealing specialists, and the sealed healers have a special relationship with them, with us. We're like cousins or something. The first Sealed Healers were all Uzumaki. Nowadays a sealed healer that's an Uzumaki is special. They can do things that others can't, and sometimes they do things they shouldn't, and they unseal doors that shouldn't be opened, and sometimes monsters can get out, and sometimes people die. So Uzumaki don't take seals from sealed healers and all the dangerous doors stay closed and everyone stays safe. Or that's the gist of it."
"That's ridiculous." Minato barely refrained from rolling his eyes. "It sounds like superstitious nonsense to me."
"Was the burning of the Land of Waves a myth or a historical fact, because grandpa seemed pretty sure that that was my great-great aunt who took a seal, was called to wander, and let something dark out, something that liked to kill and burn."
Minato wanted to dismiss Naruto's recitation as complete hokum, but the Land of Waves had burned over a century ago, under bizarre circumstances. No witnesses survived to describe the disaster, but the earth was scorched to charcoal and it was more than a decade before anything grew in that wasteland again. "Even if somehow that isolated disaster could be linked to your great-great aunt, I don't think its grounds to blame sealed healers and any Uzumaki who become them."
"I'll just be careful, okay. We're the Land of Fire, but I don't want to be responsible for burning it. I don't want a seal. Ever."
For a child who was supposed to look exactly like his father, Minato could see nothing but his mother's stubbornness in Naruto's expression. "I'm not going to win this argument, am I?" Minato asked. "You're supposed to listen to your father occasionally."
"I always listen." Jumping down, Naruto began rounding up the scattered vegetables. "You need to teach me a new jutsu so I'll be more able to defend myself from the dangerous world. Badass ninja don't get hurt bad enough to need healing seals."
"Don't say that around your sensei. He might take offense." Minato couldn't bring himself to smile at his son's antics, pleading for a new jutsu. Kushina had always handled Naruto's education aside from the academy basics. She had more time. And she had taught him things Minato would never have approved if he'd been consulted. "If you want to train with your dad, it won't be just for a jutsu."
Naruto dropped the vegetables he'd collected. "You mean like really train with you?"
"Every day, before you meet up with your team if you want. What do you say?" Minato could barely understand Naruto's excited affirmation as his son launched himself at his midsection. "Tomorrow then."
Standing together at the sink, Kushina and Minato worked in silence washing and drying the dishes. When the sink was empty and the dishes had settled back into the cabinet homes, Minato broke the silence. "You really thought I'd buy that fairy tale and drop it?"
"It's how the clan elders explain things to the kids once they confirm that the child is an Uzumaki. When they're old enough to know the whole story, they have to take the secrecy oaths to get it." Kushina crossed her arms over her chest. "You knew what you were marrying into when you made your vows. My father threatened you, warned you, did everything but forbid our union. My father warned me too, warned me that it would be complicated especially with our children."
Minato felt it, the tension that could become a break, a parting of the ways. They had always bent before when their point of view clashed, bent and blurred and compromised. Kushina had allowed Naruto to tell his father what he knew, and now it was Minato's turn to bend. "Consider this my warning to you, we will discuss the decisions about our child's future together. This isn't Whirlpool and no one here has bought into your family's twisted mythology except for you. I'm going to be training with Naruto in the mornings for the foreseeable future. It's my turn to have my say in his education."
Author's Note:
The problem with writing serial style is that you end up sometimes losing perspective on the narrative. I almost feel like I'm over-explaining sometimes. Darn you pacing! There will be another time skip soon. And I don't think I want to write a Chunin exam.