A/N: I seem to be drifting from the post-its to the dead people thing. I just couldn't let this part go though, so hopefully next chapter will have more post-its. After all, it's academy time, isn't it :D
-A special mention for Romantiscue and LadyWinterFic! Thank you, and I love you people!
Chapter Summary: It's the end of Naruto's training and one singular event is his graduation exam.
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Naruto woke up with someone poking his shoulder. He whacked the hand away, but sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Nii-chan?"
"Ibiki-san has a job for you, Senkensha." Kakashi held out his hand with a small white and orange mask.
Naruto took the newly made mask with its barely dry paint on it and bit his lip as he sighed, "I thought I had another month before I was introduced to the rest of the department."
"Something has come up."
Naruto quickly shimmied out of bed and dressed in his dark blue and black clothing, wrapping his grey cloak around his shoulders and a black bandana around his brilliant hair. He settled the new mask over his face and regular half mask and held his hand out to Kakashi to take.
Kakashi wrapped his fingers around the seven-year-old's tiny hand and shunshined away from the boy's apartment, pulling Naruto with him.
Ibiki was waiting for them outside of a set of large gates. The gates weren't as large as the Konoha main gates, but they weren't small ones either. Naruto cocked his head to the side and Ibiki stared down at him.
"Senkensha."
"Ibiki-san." He wasn't 'Naruto' anymore, not while he wore his mask, so he couldn't call Ibiki 'ji-san'. The other masked men and women watched in fascination as the child patted Ibiki's knee without any visible fear. "I can already hear them screaming."
"Yes. I had something else planned for your graduation exam, but this will prove to be much harder."
Whatever 'graduation exam' Morino Ibiki was giving the child, no one else in ANBU wanted anything to do with it. Having to walk through the streets and see the bodies was enough for them to blanch and want to leave; having a child do the same was just sadistic.
"I'm ready, Ibiki-san."
And then the boy adjusted his mask, which was different from ANBU masks only because the markings were in a burnt orange color instead of red, as well as not depicting an animal. His mask induced much curiosity in the gathered black ops operatives; Naruto didn't seem to notice the lightening fast signing that indicated typical ANBU twittering as he headed to the doors. He waited for Sharingan no Kakashi to open the gates and then stepped through.
Naruto stared at the dead. The men stared back. The women and children were too busy screaming and crying to notice that he'd seen them, that his shadowed eyes tracked their movements.
One of the dead men floated towards him. Naruto stood his ground. He had nothing to fear from these people, they couldn't hurt him. He'd learned that lesson well from Ibiki.
"You can see us." The man stated and Naruto nodded.
"Ibiki-san would like to know who did this." Naruto blinked and then said, "I'd like to know how to help you."
"You can't help us. We're dead." The man scowled, "I am Uchiha Fugaku."
"Senkensha," Naruto told Fugaku his code name. His code name had been chosen by the dead, for the dead, and the living used it only when he was using his ability. He looked over his shoulder and gestured for Ibiki and Kakashi to come closer to him. "Uchiha Fugaku, Ibiki-san," He nodded to the ghost and Ibiki didn't even try to pretend that he could see the man.
"Uchiha-san," Ibiki made sure to breathe calmly, hiding his pride in Naruto for managing to find the dead Clan leader in a matter of moments. He'd seen Naruto use his ability several times and each time he used Naruto as a medium, helping him overcome his fear of the dead, he addressed Naruto as though he were the dead person he was talking to. Naruto had never told him if his actions angered the dead or not, so he had continued to address Naruto whenever speaking through him to the ghosts, "Who did this?"
"Morino Ibiki," Fugaku whispered with a sneer. Naruto copied his tone of voice exactly, "My son, Sasuke. Is he alive?"
"Yes, Uchiha-san, he is alive. Sasuke-kun was taken to the hospital. He is in a catatonic state."
Fugaku's whole body seemed to sag in relief, "Thank the gods." The Uchiha turned his eyes from Ibiki to Naruto, "I wasn't aware that Konoha had someone who could do what you do."
"I'm special," Naruto smiled under his mask. It was getting easier to ignore the screaming in the background, "Ibiki-san still wishes to know who killed you."
"Uchiha--" Fugaku stopped. His head bowed and he his shoulders lifted as though he'd taken a deep breath of air he didn't need, "Uchiha Itachi."
Ibiki's eyes narrowed and his lips twisted. "Uchiha Itachi," he murmured to himself. "He is thirteen."
"He had help. He first killed Uchiha Shisui to gain the Mangekyō Sharingan, and then he came last night with a man in an orange swirled mask and they killed us all."
Naruto tore his eyes from Fugaku and saw a small child, smaller than himself, standing in a corner, crying silently. He looked to Ibiki and Ibiki waved him off. He had the information that he needed from the Uchiha patriarch.
Besides, the ghosts weren't going anywhere. If he wanted to ask more questions it would be easy enough to bring Naruto back to the compound.
One grey eye watched Naruto closely as the boy wandered to a corner and crouched down, seemingly whispering to nothing. From the apparent size of the ghost Naruto was talking to, it was a young child. Naruto's hand reached out and ruffled nothing and then he smiled and watched nothing run off.
Kakashi was more than a little wary of Naruto conversing so blatantly with the dead. He knew that it looked like Naruto was crazy.
A hand came down on his shoulder and he looked over to see the white and red mask of Ookami beside him.
"What is the child-- Senkensha-san, doing?" The woman murmured her question, using Naruto's code name that she must have overheard Ibiki address Naruto as.
"Comforting the dead," Kakashi murmured back.
Ookami's hand on his shoulder tightened in shock and she stared at the boy who was moving around the first few buildings in the compound, talking and whispering. She'd never seen a person who could hear the dead. It was a gift that must have been given by the Gods.
She wondered what about Senkensha was special enough that the Gods themselves had gifted him with the ability, and what was so special about Konoha that they had been given Senkensha.
"Kakashi-san?" Anko appeared beside Sharingan no Kakashi and Ookami, "Senkensha-sama is talking with the dead?"
"I think he's starting with the children," Kakashi murmured over his shoulder to her. Ookami eyed Anko with something akin to shock in her shadowed eyes.
Anko was not a respectful person so hearing her referring to someone as 'sama' was surprising.
Then again, considering who she was talking about, Ookami figured that it wouldn't hurt to be respectful of a person that could talk to the dead.
Naruto made his rounds of the Uchiha complex, talking to several of the Uchiha's, comforting them and letting Hari help him release them. It was a new talent that he'd gained from his friend, being able to release the dead.
He liked to see the relief on their faces before they faded from his view.
Heading back to Kakashi, Naruto steadied himself and gently touched Kakashi's sleeve.
"Kakashi-san?"
"Hai, Senkensha-sama?" Naruto frowned under his masks at the title that Kakashi had given him. He didn't like it when Kakashi called him 'sama'. Brothers weren't supposed to do that.
"Uchiha-san's son, Sasuke," Naruto paused, "He's at the hospital, yeah?"
"Yes, he is."
"Can I visit him?" Naruto bit his lip and Hari gave him a tight mental hug. Hari liked it when he was nice. Hari like it when he was polite too, but Naruto was used to the gentle cuffs to the side of the mind when he wasn't polite.
Naruto absently wondered if having Hari was like having a parent.
"Of course," Kakashi crouched down and Naruto clambered up into his arms, "Are you ready to go?"
"Yep. I released the ones that wanted to leave immediately and talked to the others. Fugaku-san wants to hang around for a while, so he's following Ibiki-san around." Naruto cocked his head to the side, "Do you think I should tell him that I'm going to visit his son?"
"Ibiki-san will be talking to Sasuke later when he wakes up and Fugaku-san can see him then," Kakashi told him lightly, praying that Naruto didn't invite the ghost along with him. He really didn't feel like being haunted by Uchiha Fugaku for even a short period of time.
Naruto didn't remove either of his masks when they appeared at the hospital, knowing that his job as Senkensha wasn't complete yet.
He hated the hospital but Kakashi knew that so the twenty year old had expected the tightening of Naruto's arms around his neck.
"There's a girl," Naruto told him, looking at the girl - woman, really - and the Uchiha child lying in the bed who stared blankly at the ceiling.
"Are you going to talk to her?" Kakashi was proud that Naruto had gotten more confident about his abilities even if he cursed Ibiki every day for what he'd put the kid through.
"She's real sad," Naruto shook his head, "She keeps saying that Kaa-san won't leave him."
Kakashi nodded in understanding. He wasn't really surprised to find out that it was Uchiha Mikoto who had followed her son to the hospital. Mothers were notoriously protective, Uchiha mothers even more so than regular ones for reasons unknown outside of the clan. Not even Kakashi knew and he was the closest to being an Uchiha while still not being Uchiha due to his-- due to Obito's eye.
Naruto shifted in Kakashi's arms and the silver haired man let the boy down, watching as he cautiously made his way to the bed that Uchiha Sasuke lay on. He watched with some sadness in his eyes - both of them - as Naruto took Sasuke's hand and petted it. Naruto whispered something to the boy, petted his hand again and then backed away.
Several days later, Hari woke Naruto up, gently calling his name. Naruto sat up and blinked sleepily. Ibiki had repeatedly called for Naruto to talk with the remaining ghosts in the Uchiha district since the massacre of the clan. Kakashi was usually his guide and ferrier, but several times one of the other ANBU would take up the task of shunshining Naruto wherever it was that Ibiki wanted him.
Naruto asked why Hari had woke him up and Hari directed his gaze to the window. A masked ANBU was crouched in on the window sill.
"Tori-san?"
Anko pulled her rooster mask to the side, "Senkensha-sama, Uchiha Sasuke has regained consciousness. Ibiki-sama thought you would like to know."
It had been only two months ago that Anko had learned of Senkensha's real name and, surprisingly, it hadn't shocked her that the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi could see the dead. After all, who knew what being jinchuuriki did to someone's perception of reality.
"Thank you Tori-san," Naruto scrambled out of bed and threw on his dark clothing, tying his mask around his face and hair before grabbing his faux-ANBU mask and lifting his hands up to Anko, "Shunshin?" He smiled up at her and it took most of her self control to not laugh at him.
Oh, the boy was well known - in his small circle of adult friends - for having a serious obsession with three things: the color orange (among other blinding hues of the rainbow), post-its, and the shunshin.
So instead of turning her nose up at the hopeful little boy she reached down and picked him up. She couldn't really refuse him anything anyway, not if she wanted to have a peaceful after-life experience.
Naruto suppressed a giggle at the feeling of the shunshin. It always made him giggly, but Hari had warned him again and again that ANBU didn't giggle. And since Naruto was now actually ANBU - which was completely awesome - he couldn't giggle either. At least, not while he wore his white and orange mask.
Anko let him drop carefully to land on his feet and slid into the shadows. Probably hanging around to report anything of interest to Ibiki, Naruto figured. He turned to Sasuke's bed and pushed all thoughts of Anko out of his mind. He had other things to think about right now.
Like the fact that he was a classmate of Sasuke's. Well, granted, he was actually only in two of the classes offered at the Academy since he wasn't in the romaji, the ninjutsu or the chakra classes with the boy, only the history and weapons classes. Sasuke was better at weapons than most so they both had the advanced class while Naruto was average in the history department so they saw each other there as well. Naruto was in the advanced romaji, ninjutsu, and chakra classes while Sasuke was in the beginner's romaji class and the regular ninjutsu and chakra classes.
But they were still classmates and fellow shinobi.
"Sasuke-san," Naruto stepped up to the bed, not really ignoring the woman who was still with him, or Uchiha-san, who had joined her, "I'm Senkensha."
Sasuke didn't say anything. He did look up from his hands, which he had been staring at, and blinked at Naruto. Naruto knew that he was too sad about his family to wonder about a child wearing an ANBU mask. Naruto figured Sasuke had seen a lot of ANBU masks since he'd woken up.
"Senkensha," Uchiha-san spoke up, "Thank you for coming."
Naruto glanced at Sasuke's dad. He wasn't sure if he should answer or not, what with Sasuke there too. Hari told him that Sasuke would want to know that his parents were watching over him though, so Naruto finally bowed his head a bit at the dead man and decided to speak, "You're welcome, Uchiha-san."
Sasuke's face changed; his brow furrowing. He didn't want to be distracted from his grief, but the boy in front of him was talking to something - maybe someone - that wasn't there. He wondered if the boy was crazy then dismissed the thought. The boy was ANBU, like his brother, and ANBU weren't crazy.
But maybe they were because his brother had-- His brother had killed his entire family.
Then made him watch.
"Mikoto, this is the boy I was telling you about." Uchiha said to the woman and the woman looked at him with an expression of hope on her face.
"Can you tell Sasuke-kun that we're watching over him? That we won't leave him alone?"
Naruto nodded. He looked at his classmate, "I can see people who are dead," He told the older boy gently, heeding Hari's advice to go slowing into the conversation, "There are two people here who would like me to tell you some things."
"W-who?" Sasuke croaked out. He hadn't spoken since he'd screamed himself into unconsciousness when his brother had tortured his mind and he found that it hurt to speak, his throat felt like it was on fire. It hurt worse now to speak than after completing the beginner's Katon jutsu that his family was famed for.
"Uchiha Fugaku and Uchiha Mikoto," Naruto whispered and Sasuke blanched impressively fast, the blood leaving his face and his hands shaking. "They want me to tell you that they're watching over you; that they won't leave you."
"Kaa-san? Tou-san?" Sasuke's eyes were big and dark and shining with unshed tears. Naruto wanted to look away to give the eight year old some privacy so he shifted his gaze back to Sasuke's parents. "Senkensha-sama?" Sasuke stuttered out, "Are-- are they here? Now?"
"Yes," Naruto said, "Mikoto-san wants you to know that she loves you. She won't ever leave you. Fugaku-san is proud of you. He always has been. He heard what Itachi told you and he wants you to forget it. He wants you to live and be happy. He doesn't want to see the last of his family, his precious son, die for a cause no one but the dead will care about."
"But!" Sasuke lunged to the end of the bed, getting closer to where he thought Naruto was looking, where he thought his dead parents were standing. He couldn't help but believe Naruto was actually talking to his parents because he'd told no one that Itachi had spoken to him before trapping him with his strange sharingan, "I care! I can't let him get away with killing you! Tou-san!"
"No," Naruto repeated Fugaku's words exactly, like he did for Ibiki, "I won't have the last of my family, my only son dying for revenge." Sasuke looked over to him and Naruto raised a hand, indicating that Fugaku wasn't finished speaking yet, "Sasuke-kun, I love you. I always have and I'm sorry for seemingly putting Itachi first. What Itachi did was reprehensible. But he must have loved you the most. He left you alive."
Sasuke stared at Naruto in horror. "Tou-san?"
Naruto gave the boy a hurt smile even though he couldn't see it, "I'm sorry for your loss, Sasuke-san. If you ever want to speak with your parents, while they are still hovering in this plane of existence, ask for me and I will try to come as soon as possible." Naruto shook his head, "Not many people know of me outside of ANBU and those who do, don't particularly like to talk with their dead so my talents are rarely requested."
As he turned to leave, Sasuke reached out and grasped him by the sleeve of his shirt, "Senkensha-sama?" Naruto looked over his shoulder at the boy and Sasuke pursed his lips before exhaling sharply, "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Naruto told him in a soft voice and went to the shadows where Anko was. She picked him up and shunshined away leaving with only the tiniest whiff of chakra in the air to speak of her passing.
Naruto didn't even have the presence of mind to remove his porcelain mask before falling into bed, asleep before his head hit the pillow. Anko smiled under her own mask and efficiently stripped the boy down to his boxers before tucking him in and before she left his tiny, clean apartment, she set a blood red, heart-shaped stack of post-its on his bedside table.
**To be Continued**