I awoke early the next day to the sound of that damn fox scratching somewhere around inside the manor. Desperately trying to ignore it, I pulled the blanket over my head, counted backward from forty and tried to return to the sweet land of dreams. Unfortunately when he knocked something over that made a loud crashing noise, it was apparent Reynard was asking for a violent end to his life. I threw the cover down and vaulted to my feet in one swift, graceful movement. All those years of being unexpectantly awakened in the middle of a sleep cycle had paid off to the point where I could simply kick up my legs, arch my lithe body and land on my feet like a cat.
On my way toward the disturbance, I picked up a wooden baseball bat that I'd left leaning against the wall; it was one of those commercially produced types with the words KUNAI & SHURIKEN INC. emblazoned across the surface. It had been abandoned at a local baseball diamond and deciding that it would make a useful weapon, I had taken it without reservation. Now I was holding it for use while creeping through the corridor toward my unwelcome invader's location. I reached the doorway and peeked carefully around the corner.
There he was my favorite little trespasser. He was clawing frantically at the wall, embedding his claws into the worn wooden surface, trying desperately to get at the food stores I'd stowed away behind there. The loud clattering racket I'd heard had been the pair of ornamental katanas that I'd stood up against the wall temporarily until I found a means to display them. Reynard had knocked them over in his zeal to get at the hidden stores.
Grinning triumphantly, I stepped into the room and slid the door shut behind me with a decisive bang. The fox froze and looked up my way. I flipped the bat down and stood it up at arm's length, palm over the top of the end.
"Well, well," I crowed, smirking at my hapless furry friend. "Looks like we meet again, kit. Didn't expect me to make it that easy for you, huh?"
The fox's upper lip rankled and he growled. His long graceful cat-like body slunk low to the ground, his limpid brown eyes narrowing.
I did it right back.
The creature straightened up and sat back on his haunches. Maybe I was wrong but I could swear he now viewed me with something close to inquisitiveness. Laying the bat aside, I crouched down and tilted my head to the side. "What are you?" I mused aloud. "You avoid everything I throw at you, all the traps I set for you. That fact you're even invading my home is strange. You're not a normal fox, are you?"
He licked his chops and tipped his head in a ghost imitation of mine.
Huh. I studied him carefully for some time. "Tell you what," I began at length. "Let's compromise. If I leave some food out for you, will you leave mine alone? That way I stop wanting to kill you and you can keep coming and going as you please. We can make this mutually beneficial. Heh, maybe you can even leave me a few kills."
The fox never stopped watching me, his ears twitching with my every word. Gradually he rose to his feet once more and started to come toward me. I held my breath and stilled. No wild animal approached a human this boldly. He stretched his neck out and nosed at my hand, which I pulled away immediately, fearing I might be bitten. But he simply nuzzled it again and nudged it until I caught the message. Gently at first I petted him in between his ears, flicking the tops of the downy triangles. He was a very clean animal, I noticed while running my hand over his rich red coat. No sign of illness, ticks or fleas either. As before I admired his transient beauty... he had to be the most perfect example of his species. There was something else I sensed about him, not exactly normal either but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. Oh well, I sensed strange things about everything all the time… it was probably just the creature's remarkable tameness.
"You're beautiful," I murmured, grower bolder as he had been, letting my fingers run down the ruff of his neck and along his smooth back. "Reynard. You won't mind if I keep calling you that?" His ears twitched again. I spoke as I kept petting. "Hn, maybe I should call you Zorro instead. Heh, you wouldn't know who he is, now would you?" I snickered. "Zorro is a human literary hero. He fights for justice and stands up for people who can't do it themselves, carving his mark everywhere he goes so his enemies and his friends know where he's been." I sat down fully and got more into it. "He wears a mask so nobody recognizes him and he always vanishes before you can even blink!" Chuckle. "It's always like that with the heroes. The best ones come when you need them and leave before you can thank them."
"But," I sobered, "if you ask me, there's nothing glorious about being a hero. They rise, they fall and in the end… they lie there dead on the ground like anyone else. That's what it's like here in Konoha…you're not a hero until you're dead and then you're just another etch on the Memorial stone for someone to run his fingers over." I stopped petting the animal, who had rolled over in bliss while I was speaking for tummy scratches. I smiled and complied. He really was like a cat!
"No," I began again after a few rubs. "You're Reynard. You're not a hero nor am I, we're just two creatures trying to make sense out of this mess we call life. Agh," I rose to my feet. "Look at me spewing nonsense. Happy now? You won this battle, you stupid kitsune. Be grateful for your renewed lease on life." Opening the door, I shooed the animal out and continued down the hall, bright now with gray early morning light, yawning behind my fingers. A hot cup of green tea would be nice, I decided. I still had some bread leftover from yesterday and a couple of apples. Not the most balanced breakfast but it would give me some energy for the day.
Someone knocked on my front door while I was sipping my tea, sitting in the middle of the nearly empty living room. Sighing, I rose from the old rug and padded to the door, holding the steaming cup. I gave pause for a moment to rake my fingers through my long tresses and tossing them back behind my shoulders. I debated on my nightwear, which were really my father's old castoffs. Well, hell, if someone was coming over so abruptly, they better not expect me to look fresh as a daisy! To hell with looking good.
I opened the door. It was Ichigo. Why was I not surprised? "Oh it's you," I muttered, leaving the door open and returning to my spot, holding the teacup in both hands.
Puzzled, Ichigo hovered on the threshold before taking the unspoken hint and came into the house. His eyes took in all there was to see, which took a relatively short amount of time. "Sorry," he began easing his way toward me before seating himself in front of me at a respectable distance. "I, um, wanted to get here before the temperature went up. Did I wake you?"
"No." I sipped my tea.
"Oh. Good. Uh, when do you… is today good?" Panic mode set in. "I mean, I haven't interrupted anything have I because if I did I'm sorry I'll come back later, if you don't have the time today that's okay, I'll come back tomorrow or whenever, um, you feel like it."
I opened my eyes and regarded him without expression. "You babble a lot."
He blushed and nodded, reaching under his folded knees and rocking back and forth some. "I do," he admitted diffidently. "I don't even know I'm doing it so sometimes people need to tell me to shut up. I don't know why I do it, nervous habit I guess." Shrug.
Nervous habit, huh? I made him nervous. Was it because he liked me or… it was about the training? Maybe both. I wasn't nervous at all though I was feeling some semblance of uncertainty, mostly whether or not if I could seriously be interested in him. I studied him over the rim of my teacup and tried to decide. He wasn't what I normally found attractive in boys that was for sure. He was somewhat shorter than me, his hair was a golden straw color and he had a smattering of freckles across both cheekbones and a faint hint of whisker markings like that of his father, expect the elder Uzumaki's was more prominent. Our eyes met. His large, jade colored orbs that in fuller light had flecks of blue in them bore into me. I felt this electric spark go straight down inside of me. Suddenly I was in a great hurry to find the patterns the tea leaves were leaving on the bottom of my cup. My pulse raced briefly before evening out again.
Oblivious to all of this, Ichigo beamed and bounced up and down. "So can we spar today?"
Finished with the tea, I fought a smile as I got up to dispose of the cup; that eagerness of his was kind of cute. "Of course. It's not very often," I left the room, dressed quickly and returned with my weapons pouch, which I proceeded to strap to my thigh, "I meet someone I feel totally confident I can beat."
The taunt served its purpose, making the recipient leap to his feet angrily. "Hey! No fair in making premature judgments!"
"Premature judgments?" I discreetly tucked a couple of kunai in a few choice places. "Weren't you the same squirrel that spied on me that ran away?" I turned back to him.
"Guh?" He choked and paled. "Wh-What are you talking about?"
"You know very well what I'm talking about, Uzumaki. You recognized me last night even though you didn't say anything and I don't mean when we ran into each other that day either." I eyed him devilishly.
You could have heard a pin drop.
Defeated, his shoulders sagged. "Okay, you got me. I-It's not relevant."
"Could be, if you take threats from unarmed women seriously."
Ichigo glared at me, squaring those same shoulders into resolve. "Whatever. Say what you like. You'll see."
I smirked. "I hope so, tree boy. So…" I went to the still open front door and waited for him outside. "Got a place in mind?" I asked, watching him slide the door shut behind him.
"Hell yeah." The boy grinned, ran forward, grasped my wrist tightly with his hand and dragged me along at a fast clip. "Me 'n' my dad train at this one place all the time. It's right behind his apartment complex."
Okay. Sounded good to me.
Somewhere along the way I regained my wrist and we were running side by side. The whole way there, we hopped across roofs and dodged around obstacles, as much as in fun as it was to show each other's agility. More than once I traded fierce smirks with him, some purely victorious - Ha, I did it and you couldn't! Others I wasn't so sure about. Sometimes I'd pause and slip him the tongue and he would return the favor with an equally childish rebuttal.
Once I watched him try to jump over something - change his mind at the least second - and barely avoided landing on his ass. From a few feet away, I paused and waited for him to look at me.
"Chickenshit," I teased with a perky smile before taking off, knowing that one would make him chase me. And it did.
He caught up and tackled me right in the middle of training area. I half expected someone to yell "SAFE!" I managed to squirm out his grasp and heeled him off in the ribs. He oofed in response, glaring at me before rising to his feet once more and assuming a battle stance.
"Taijutsu?" he offered.
Pinning up my hair, I nodded. I assumed a position and crooked two fingers at him, winking. The fierceness on his face didn't alter, in fact nothing of his countenance did… except for the color in his cheeks. It was amazing, I thought, to have that kind of an effect on a person without even trying.
I'd never sparred with someone my age before. If my opponents did turn out to be my age, they were desperate common little thieves that usually only a show of physical superiority would chase off. Up until today, all my spars had been with my father. In those I was the trainee, which meant not-as-good and far, far behind. Here, it was different. I felt the difference in each block and blow and realized I was better than him.
But not by much.
His moves were cruder and less graceful than mine yet he was quick, learned fast and utilized his movements with a lot more efficiency than I expected from someone at his level. In the beginning I felt him hold back, probably because of some instinctive mandate issued from God above on grounds that I was a woman. Eventually though as we progressed, so did his restrictions when he realized I was as unrelenting as any male opponent; I saw the revelation glow in his eyes and he engaged his moves with more purpose, passion and there was no more holding back. It was the highest motion of respect I had ever received from a man. It came close to throwing me off balance, however, I just focused even more sharply and sidestepped it altogether. Save it for later, Uchiha.
Weapons came into play afterward and there I found reason to smirk. His aim sucked. Really sucked, I mean we are talking borderline laughable. He learned quick about our contrasts in that department and spent most of the time desperately trying to avoid being impaled (often ducking behind training logs) by my flying kunai than trying to return fire. I deliberately adjusted my aim to miss on throws I knew would kill him, although a few narrowly grazed flesh causing him to bleed a bit.
"Okay, time out, stop with the knife throwing!" he shouted from behind his shelter.
I did.
He poked his head out and gasped as a shuriken almost shaved off his spikes. Gasping, Ichigo hid once again. "I thought I said stop!" he called back again.
"You said to stop with the knife throwing. I didn't hear anything about shurikens."
I smiled when I heard him grumble unintelligible curses under his breath. Oh yes I was having the time of my life. "Do you want to stop?" I called, meaning the weapon throwing.
"Yeah." Now he stepped out completely and approached me. "How are you with jutsus? Specialize in anything?"
Casually I stretched an arm behind my head. "I'm decent and I don't exactly specialize in any. Not yet anyway. I just copy what I think will be useful to me."
"Copy?" he was vaguely perplexed. "How do you 'copy' a jutsu?"
"These." I activated the Sharingan and he stared at me in a mixture of fascination and weirded-out horror. "With these eyes I can copy just about any jutsu I see only once. I can see through most genjutsu as well as well as create them. I just awakened the ability a few months ago so I'm still getting the hang of it."
Ichigo kept staring, amazed. "Wow, that is freakin' awesome. So it's one of those Bloodline Limit kind of things?"
"Aa."
Big grin. "Fucking A!" He sobered as it dawned on him. "Aw crap, that means you'll surpass me no matter what I learn. Shit." He rolled his eyes at himself and grabbed a fistful of his wild hair. "Yep, just like me to find the one person I can't beat! Ironic isn't it!"
I pouted. "You're giving me way too much credit."
"I am?"
"Of course!" I spoke through clenched teeth. "Look all it means is I'm a natural born cheater. It's really stupid the amount of fear my clan invokes in people. Sure, we know a lot of jutsus… but did we ever sweat our guts out perfecting them? Has a Uchiha ever done an honest day's ninja work? Probably not!" I laughed and moved around the training area. "I do have a lot of respect for it though," I said softly. "Or will when I can get it back… but I don't want the name Uchiha to be seen for just that. I want everyone to know we're good people, not just geniuses to be feared based on bad karma and genetic destiny. That a Uchiha can be anyone they want to be - and not just a tragic memory." I finally looked at Ichigo who was watching me the whole time.
"But seriously what's in a name?" Ichigo interjected. "What about just you, Katana?"
"Me?" I thought about it. "Well, I'm still trying to figure out who me is, Ichigo. Everything in here," I tapped my head, "is still kind of nutty."
He laughed, completely understanding. "Welcome to the wonderful world of puberty!"
"Amen."
Then we grinned like a couple of idiotic little kids sharing a secret. From there we went on to demonstrate a few jutsus to one another, agreeing without words to not reveal to each other everything we knew. It was inherent for a ninja, potential or official, that one day the other could be an opponent or god forbid an enemy and there's nothing worse than knowing your adversary knows exactly what you can do. Even at that age, young as we were, we both understood that.
We were in the middle of another rousing spar when we started to gain an audience. First it was mild, people in the apartment complex watching out of their windows, sitting outside on chairs, happening by. A few Genin (easy to tell by their forehead protectors) who had come to train remained on the sidelines, watching us, occasionally whispering to each other. There was an audible "Whoo!" from people when upon descending from the air I stopped Ichigo by whipping out a long bladed knife that I kept under my dress. Both of his feet came into contact with the flat of the blade and he lightly launched off of it, flipping to land behind me. I looked back at him with a narrow smirk - didn't expect that now did you?
He replied with an equally vicious smirk while whipping out two kunai, spinning them around his fingers for flair. Geez, he was as much a show off as I was!
Cute, I thought, very cute. I rushed at him.
He did the same.
Somehow we both managed to get past our defenses at the same time. Before I knew it, both of his kunai were pressed against the delicate flesh of my neck while the edge of my knife dug in dangerously close to the jugular on his. Both of us with breathing hard sweat beading and running down our skins, our blood roaring in our ears.
"So," Ichigo panted, "you like movies?"
We leapt away from each other, I traded my knife for a couple of kunai of my own and we ran around in a defensive circle, closing in. Metal clinked against metal.
"Haven't seen too many," I replied, getting my breathing under control. "Don't know what's good." I ran at him again and tried for a high kick.
He blocked, saying before I pushed off again, "All right, forget movies." Ichigo moved seamlessly to punch. "You ever been to Ichiraku's?"
I caught his fist and moved it so it went past my head. "Not too crazy about ramen."
"Damn." The boy wrested free, almost buying it when my fist grazed his chin, bruising it. "What about ice cream?" he began, making another determined go for me. Swiftly I rested my hands on both of his shoulders, pushed down and used him to propel myself over throwing his attack off balance and letting me landed unscathed and on my feet on the other side.
"Sure." I smiled dazzlingly when he spun and gave me a wide-eyed reception. "When do you want to go?"
Ichigo wiped some blood off his lips with the back of his hand, panting. "After this fight…unless you have something better to do?"
"I always do… but I'll make an exception." I smiled and relaxed from my battle stance. "Yes, I will."
Ichigo was the picture of pure delighted astonishment before he punched both fists into the air and whooped. "SHE SAID YES!" he yelled to the sky.
We both reddened when everyone around us burst into applause.
"Did you know they were listening?" I muttered low.
"I honestly wasn't paying attention," he grumbled back, embarrassed too.
We quickly decided enough was enough and got out of there. We first went around to the front of the apartment complex, running up the stairs until we got to the landing.
"Why are we going in here?" I asked.
Ichigo stopped in front of the third door on the second floor and fumbled with a key he pilfered from his pocket, twisting it in the lock. "We need to clean up, man, we look like hell. No way am I walking into the ice cream place looking like I'm three sheets to the wind."
"Hn. You probably look like that on a good day," I teased.
Oh yes I was coming to enjoy his dirty looks.
I noticed he had to use his hip and his shoulder to get the door open and found my eyes giving it a quickie examination. To distract myself because I honestly didn't want to have to think about home improvement now I asked, "Stupid question." I closed the door behind me absently looking at the place around me, noticing it contained the usual expected clutter of the single male. Ichigo had disappeared somewhere inside the recesses of the apartment so I remained in the tiny living room. I wasn't the snooping type.
"Fire away," he called back from somewhere.
"Is this your dad's apartment?"
His head poked out from where I assumed the bathroom was. "Yep! Sorry about the mess, he's not good at the housekeeping thing. Neither am I for that matter, heh." The head disappeared again.
While he cleaned up and I waited my turn, I wandered around the living room. Along the windowsill I noticed a series of photos. The first was a duplicate of the one I'd found at the estate, the second I supposed was Naruto's Genin team since I recognized the three kids with him. The last one was more personal and there I had to smile. It was obviously a picture of his parents and Ichigo when he was probably no more than three or four years old. Ichigo was standing up between the two sitting, smiling adults, a hank of hair from each adult's head in his hands. I blinked and looked at the photo a little closer. They had to have been my father's age too when they had him!
Wow. Really, I had no words for that.
Wait. I frowned and tapped my chin. Something was off about this… "Ichigo?" I asked when he emerged into the room, a towel rubbing at his hair.
"Yeah?" His eyes went to the picture too, seeing that I had been staring at it.
"Your last name is Uzumaki… so why does your mother still go by Haruno?" And why don't they live together?
"Oh." His eyes dulled and he tossed the towel on a chair. "Um, yeah." Touchy subject this, he became instantly subdued. "My parents aren't married."
"Divorced?"
"No. They, uh, they've never been married but they do share custody of me." He shrugged and fidgeted, meeting my eyes uncomfortably. "Promise you won't tell anyone? This is kind of a touchy thing and, well, we don't need people giving us shit about it. Since my dad is up for kind of an important position - at least I hope so - and it's a public thing. I don't want it hurting his chances so please please don't mention it to anyone."
Why did people always worry about such stupid things? I sighed and smacked him on the arm. "Geez, you don't need to beg, I won't tell. Look, if it makes you feel better, I'm a bastard child myself."
He nodded, showing he already had guessed for himself, noticeably relaxing. Grinning sheepishly he joked, "Guess there's one thing we have in common, huh?" Pointed down the hall, "You can use it now. I cleaned up and put out a new towel and soap so there shouldn't be anything that'll gross you out." Wink.
How thoughtful of him, really, I was becoming sort of impressed with his manners. I snickered, thanked him and moved by him. I missed the self-satisfied congratulatory grin he gave himself and his saying to the ceiling, "Okay, whatever I did to please you up there, all's I gotta say is thank you very much!"
It probably was for the best I missed that. I think I would have punched him in the head.
Ichigo, I found out during our visit to the ice cream place, was an interesting guy. He tried every conceivable way to make me laugh, even going so far as sticking straws up his nose. Most of his antics I just stared at him like he was nuts but a few times I found myself unable to muffle the giggles. Each time I did he looked so proud of himself and so happy it might have broken my heart if I'd known exactly why it mattered so much to him. It went beyond mere attraction - more than anything he was just simply enjoying the attention I was giving him. It sort of clued me in that Ichigo seemed to be a very lonely boy… and so he must have been since during the course of our date he mentioned his mother had duties at the hospital and occasional missions and his father was a Jounin with a team. Except for the occasional get togethers with his friends, Ichigo spent most of his days training alone. Even more so now that most of them had graduated to be become Genin and had no time for him.
So he was alone. A lot. It wasn't too different from my situation after all. Solitary creatures we were although I accepted the solitude where areas he loathed it. Perhaps this is what attracted him to me, my simple acceptance of it. To me it was natural and when I told him this he seemed intrigued by it.
"So you didn't spend much time with your dad, huh?" He ordered another banana split and requested two cherries.
"No. I spent lots of time with him."
He arched an eyebrow. "Then how come if you were with him all the time it doesn't bother you now that he's gone?"
I shrugged. "I'm used to it. When I became old enough, he used to leave me in bookstores and libraries when we went into town while he did small jobs here and there. Also," I sucked the rest of the now melted ice cream through the straw, "Papa wasn't someone you could get close to."
"Close to?"
"Emotionally."
"Oh." He looked sad. For me. "Why?"
"His family was murdered when he was a small boy," I explained, staring out the window from the booth we were seated in. "His whole family."
Ichigo blinked, innocent green eyes round. "That's… that sucks. I mean, that's terrible, I mean...shit. Who did it?"
I looked at him somberly. "His brother."
Ichigo looked like he'd bitten off his tongue and swallowed it. It was a long time before he was able to speak again. "…Fuck."
Well, I thought sarcastically, there we are, nice going Katana. He could either decide to pull back and decide I was a product of a severely damaged and emotionally screwed up home or he could… Dammit why did I say anything? Honestly I didn't think it was anyone's business and there I went, blurting it out! God, strike me down, I'm here, you won't get an easier shot.
But I panicked for nothing for he soon enough reached across and squeezed my hand. I viewed him with surprise, reading the message in his face. It's okay, we don't need to talk about it and I'm glad you feel comfortable enough with me to tell me something like that.Time to change to subject. "So besides endeavoring to be the world's best ninja, what else do you like to do?"
"I like to read," he grinned and for all the world looked like a puppy wagging his tail, "and I like to eat a lot of ramen, like my dad. I also like going to the beach and…and I like making people laugh, heh, guess you already know that one. Neh, what do you like?"
"Besides training?" He nodded. "Well, reading too - lots of it - and ah, singing, stuff that's pretty. I like fixing things… although breaking things is fun too."
"Isn't it?"
We shared demonic grins that quickly turned into contained snickers. Ichigo's banana split with the two cherries arrived, along with the bill. He pulled the stem off one of the cherries, tossed it up in the air and caught it in his mouth. The second one he threw at me with the warning to "Think fast!"
I couldn't react quickly enough and the cherry wound up sticking to my forehead. The boy just about died when that happened. Pressing my lips together in a grim line, I stood up, picked the fruit off and flicked it back at him. My serious expression coupled together with the action just made it even worse and I had to admit a grin was fighting to break out on my face.
Things degenerated into throwing whatever we could at one another, straw wrappers, napkins, straws themselves, until we were asked to leave by a waitress. Ichigo tossed the money down on the counter in the quick rush to chase after me. The woman who'd served us just smiled tolerantly and said aloud to herself: "That's so sweet. First time I've seen him come in here with a girl."
When he came home six days later after returning from another class C mission with his Genin team, he was greeted with the sound of teenagers inside his apartment. Overall this was normal since his son had several friends he often brought over at odd hours of the day and today didn't seem to be an exception. Recently though he was finding the boy alone more and more often since his friends had other duties as Genin to attend to and had no time to hang out with him anymore. That and the fact it sounded like his companion was a female.
A girl? Naruto thought, totally shocked. Ichigo hardly even talked about girls, he hadn't even known the boy was even interested in them yet. When had he grown up so fast and how come no one informed him of it? This one was worth investigating.
"You're not doing it right!" said the girl's voice coming from his son's room.
"Then how are you supposed to do it? I always do it like this!" Ichigo replied indignantly.
"You've got to be kidding me. It's wrong!"
"It is not!"
"It is so! Look at it, you seriously expect me to believe that?"
Naruto prayed to the gods above it wasn't what his perverted mind was imagining. They were only twelve for Kami's sake! Damn you Ero-Sennin, he cursed himself, look at what you've done to me! Steeling himself he peeked into the room, the door of which was, thankfully open. He was struck dumb by what he saw.
Ichigo and the Uchiha girl were seated in interfacing positions on the bed scrolls open between them. It was obvious they were practicing hand seals. At first the two didn't notice him and blithely went on arguing.
"Look, here…" Katana grabbed the boy's hands by force and showed him the correct hand seal. "Like that, okay? You keep adding on the last half character like that on the end, nothing will happen. Trust me."
He didn't take his hands away. "But what if I…"
"No."
"Ano sa, let me finish my sentence. If I did it like…"
"No," the girl said fiercely. "You either do it like I showed you or it won't work at all. Any baka can do this so shut up and accept it."
"Can I have my hands back?" he wrested his hands away, turning a very obvious shade of pink. Then he noticed Naruto watching them and turned white with shock. "Hi Dad, uh, we didn't hear you come in."
Katana placed her hands in her lap and smiled at him. "Hello."
Naruto smiled back at her, feeling a sense of déjà vu. Now that he saw what was going on, he remembered his younger self fighting with another certain Uchiha too. From just these few sentences, he could see she had that same abrupt no-bullshit-or-I-kill-you manner as her father. Hers was tempered though and there was no heated resentment in any of their exchanged words.
"When did you get back?" his son asked, breaking the silence.
"Just a few hours ago. I had to turn in the mission report before I could come home. If you aren't doing anything, I'd like to treat you to some ramen."
Ichigo lit up, so happy Naruto felt guilty. The sooner the semester started, the sooner the poor kid could be distracted by school and not have to worry about his busy parents not having time for him. He thought about asking Sakura if they could discuss coordinating their schedules so they could be free at the same time and maybe do something special with the kid. He was alone too much and Naruto would damn his own soul to hell if he was going to let his son grow up thinking his parents were putting their jobs above his needs. It was nowhere near his childhood of demon-caused hell but the loneliness was the same. And look who he turned to, he thought feeling the irony keenly. Right away he decided to keep an eye on this little development since it seemed the two had found each other through their own means (Sakura had never mentioned introducing the two and she would have said something to him right away if she had).
"Can Katana come?" Ichigo piped, paused and then asked her, "Uh, do you want to come?"
Shrug. "Sure."
As they headed out of the room, Naruto noticed as the two got off the bed, Ichigo held his hand out to the girl, she took it without hesitation and hopped down to the floor. It was when they reached the door, Katana said she forgot her purse and ran back down the hall to get it.
Naruto took this chance. "So… where and when did this happen?"
Ichigo flushed and lowered his head. "A few days ago, um, the end of last week. Remember that night Mom was upset?" His father nodded. "Well, she was out on the fishing pier and we got to talking and um, I asked her if she wanted to train together. I asked her out too." Deeper red.
Well. Now that was completely from the pure blue sky! Naruto continued to stare at his son even as the boy kept talking.
"She's really awesome, you should see her fight! For a girl, she's better than most of the guys I've fought!"
"For a girl?" Katana appeared, purse over her shoulder. "Didn't expect to hear something so sexist out of you, Uzumaki." The boy's face darkened. To Naruto she put, "I'm ready."
Letting the kids walk ahead of him, he watched Ichigo silently grumble to himself, mostly berating his own idiocy until Katana poked him in the ribs. He stopped muttering and poked her back. Soon he began running his mouth as he wont to do (like me, Naruto thought, the kid has all my bad habits), while the girl remained silent and replied occasionally to direct questions. You would have thought the two had known each other for a while although Naruto caught the measured looks the girl kept favoring Ichigo with, sizing him up, like she was trying to decide something. Or maybe it was just a variant of that look Sakura had told him girls gave guys to act like they were listening. Damned if he knew.
Ichigo tripped suddenly and in falling grabbed the girl's arm for balance. Startled, Katana staggered before falling down with him.
"You klutz!" she smacked him upside the head as she accepted Naruto's helping hand. "Be mindful of your surroundings!"
"Sorry, sorry," Ichigo muttered, climbing to his own feet unaided.
Katana swiped off her dress and glared at the boy. "And the next time you trip and fall, leave me out of it." She smiled at Naruto. "Thank you." Then she moved on.
He grinned back. "No problem." To Ichigo he gave him a mildly despairing Look. "Just out of morbid curiosity, when you first asked her out, what did she say?"
"If I could prove to her that I was worth her time." Ichigo shrugged and hurried to catch up with his date, breathlessly asking to her wait for him. Naruto shook his head. Sakura-chan and me were like that, he reminisced wistfully, I just hope they have a better ending than we did. He hoped nothing changed after school began because he knew for a fact those 'summer things' especially between kids became 'winter things' thanks to healthy doses of peer pressure where disregarding the differences and reputations would become difficult to ignore.
Neh, they've got the advantage here, he countered swiftly catching up with the two. They were able to make their own first impressions so they have no colored biases toward each other. That's what makes this different.
When they got to the ramen stand, while they waited for their orders, Ichigo was seized by the sudden need to visit the men's room and lit out.
"Does he always run everywhere he goes?" Katana asked, arching a graceful eyebrow. "It's like his tail is on fire all the time."
Naruto merely shrugged, shoving several meters of noodles down his throat. "Pretty much. I think he's afraid he'll miss important stuff so he figures if he runs, he'll miss a lot less."
"That's crazy."
"Heh, sure is, but it's his own way of feeling in control. Can't begrudge him for that."
"In control?" she sounded dubious. "I would think you would mean out of control. If I did that, my father would smack me upside the head and threaten to use trank darts on me - and then do it." She seemed to think this was a touchy subject for she looked at him permissively.
Smiling a little, Naruto waved. It was okay.
Katana spun around on her swivel seat, exactly like a kid, before facing him again. "What was he like? You know, when he was a kid."
"Sasuke?"
Nod.
Anti-social, a bastard, cold, dark, obsessed… his rival, his best friend in the entire universe. There was just so much to say.
"You don't have to… say good things." Katana heard his silence. "I mean, if there aren't any, it's okay."
Naruto exhaled. "No, there were good things. Lots!" He forced himself to think back, forced himself to push aside his own inner avoidance for the girl's sake. She wanted to know so he would tell her… as much as for her as for himself. "He was the number one rookie of our class… pretty much the best at everything. All the girls were in love with him, all the boys admired him, either that or didn't care." He paused and then went on. "After graduation he and I got put on the same Genin team along with Sakura-chan under our sensei Hatake Kakashi." Here he couldn't help smiling; those memories were still good, still untainted by time. "At first we hated each other… he was always showing me up, I was always messing up. I was determined to beat him."
"You were rivals?" she asked.
"Yep… though I didn't understand that's what it was, really. I'd see Sakura-chan and her rival Ino face-off and wonder why they acted like that, not getting it was the same thing between Sasuke and me." Shrug. "I was kind of a dim bulb... but don't tell anyone I said that, m'kay?" Wink.
Katana simply smiled. "'Kay." Then she said, "So you guys were rivals first and then best friends. But then the thing with Orochimaru happened…" Naruto was shocked that she knew about him, "…and things were never the same." She sighed when he acknowledged it with a sad nod. "In the end when he left to seek power from this guy, you tried to stop him and he in turn tried to kill you. Correct?"
Naruto nodded, words failing him.
Katana closed her eyes, her small shoulders seeming to sag. It seemed an eternity before she spoke again. "He gave it up," she whispered.
"What?"
She opened her eyes. "Seeking power from that snake-man. He gave it up a long time ago."
Naruto nodded, vaguely. "I was about sixteen when I heard about it. Sound just went crazy after he disappeared and things got really intense. Almost went on the brink of another war." He stared down at the girl, smiling a little. "For years I wondered about it but now with you here, I guess it'd be kind of stupid not to be able to see the answer."
Katana folded her arms on top of the counter. "He… didn't want to have to do it but… he didn't want Orochimaru to know about me. So he went into hiding to protect me and put his revenge on the backburner. I know it took a lot for him to do that for me… Once," she began, "he found out Itachi was in the same town as we were. I was only four at the time, had a bad cold and was up nights crying." Katana pressed her lips together in consternation. "Needless to say, he spent a whole week with That Man within arm's reach taking care of me. Later I tried to say I was sorry but he just told me he didn't want to hear about it." At that moment, her order arrived she snapped apart her chopsticks and twirled the noodles together.
Naruto stared at the girl sympathetically before returning to his own food. Really, what could he say to that? Who could? Yet there was one thing he wanted to know… "Katana," she looked up, "was he with you when you saw me that first time in the woods?"
The girl dropped her gaze into her bowl. Slowly she nodded. "I asked him who you were and he said that you were his best friend."
No more could said after that for Ichigo returned then, complaining loudly about public restroom facilities, starting in about what he'd found while in there before getting clocked by Katana with a, "We're eating, don't be disgusting!"
Naruto left the kids to their own devices, plunging deep into thought.
Even after this many years…
Author's Note on Character Ages::sighs: I did the math before I did this fic, people,so I shall say it once. It is concieveable that both Katana and Ichigo are the same ages. Sasuke was 16 when he found out he had a daughter because if you remember in the 1st chapter he happened to revisit the inn very shortly after she born (coincidence, YES, would YOU visit the same watering hole that served you when you were underage twice?). Naruto and Sakura had their 'thing' probably somewhere several months before Sasuke revisited that inn. Another coincidence.Also nowhere does it say in the text that no one knows Sakura is a mother... what Ichigo clearly stated is that no one knows is that his parents aren't married.I like to think Konoha is a big enough town that not everyoneknows everything about everyone's lives. I think I explained in the 1st chapter's author's note that this story takes place roughly fifteen to twenty years years later-- I am factoring in the three yeartime gap as well.
