DISCLAIMER: My apologies again everyone for the long wait, but school's out and I've finally got time.

Naruto is the work of Masashi Kishimoto - Once I had a Sister, on the other hand, belongs to moi.

Long lines mean a change of scene.

And do I really have to beg? Please read and drop a review at the bottom, thanks!


Once I had a Sister

Chapter 8

An interesting proposition


For sake-keeping reasons most of the ANBU nin didn't keep their gear in their dorms or anywhere else. Aside from the bare essentials and the occasional secret magazine or cigarette stash, everything else that mattered stayed safe within the four-by-one foot locker space each agent was assigned. It was like school really, except the classes were missions and ones locker was distinguished by the mark on their masks and kept closed with personalised ninja seals.

The locker room was empty when Haruna stole in. Now if Itachi was beside her she would have made up a spooky story of the resident ghost there like she used to but since he wasn't there and the tune was just getting to the her favourite part, she didn't. The inky mark on the corner of her locker –she'd painted it on herself – was untouched, and when she opened the door she was also assured that her meticulously organised gear was still intact: kunai dozens, spare clothes, trip wire, tags. In the next locker that used to belong to Itachi, his mark had been removed without a trace.

Focus, the kunoichi told herself. The place never stayed empty for long.

Her knapsack would do to hold everything she held in her locker, which is why she'd taken it with her. Step One, clear stuff out of locker and vacate the premises beforehand as a precaution. The kunoichi was stuffing a shuriken holster into a side pocket when a tell-tale whisper of light footsteps caught her ears.

Damn. Damndamndamndamndamndamn…. Thinking quickly before whoever was coming showed up, Haruna grabbed her wolf mask and yanked it over her head just in time.

"Yo," she greeted when she sensed the presence of others at her back. Turning at the three other ANBU nin standing at the doorway, she immediately grinned behind the mask. Two were guys, the one in the middle was a girl and all of them knew each other to be called friends, had the ANBU system allowed. "Long time no see."

"Indeed, Wolf," the female in the middle spoke first. Lifting a honeyed-tan hand gracefully the kunoichi unmasked herself to reveal deep green irises and the familiar stately expression that seemed to have been stuck there since birth. One of her kind, Tora was the only mystic Konoha had in their ranks as well as the swiftest. Two years her senior, Tora was beautiful in a cold way and blessed with the ability to ooze grace and poise regardless of the occasion. With her brunette and hazel combo, Haruna had always been her converse and it was entirely natural for the two of them to greet each other with just the slightest hint of aversion. Before joining the ANBU, Haruna had been told that she was the apprentice to a priestess somewhere in the mountains and was knowledgeable in tarot card reading, spirit possession and other otherworldly, voodoo-y things. She was also an ice queen who never failed to remind those who crossed her that she could out-run them any day. In the nicest way possible of course.

Tora swept a majestic gaze down the slightly askew wolf mask and sleep-crumpled clothing underneath it before nodding perceptively. "Same blunderbuss as always, I see?"

"Yes to the adjective, no to the noun." Haruna replied just as coolly. Then she teased "…I know you missed me Tora-Kuudere, you don't need to lie."

Tora deadpanned. "Why I would miss a little immaturity I have yet to find out..."

"…Aaaannnd any moment now the room will erupt in flames." A new voice cut in smoothly while both girls pouted and threw each other death glares by way of greeting. "Not that it wasn't bound to happen." The ANBU in the rabbit mask unmasked himself too, revealing another face of the cream of the ANBU crop they belonged to. He was the tallest of the group, wiry and wore glasses. His name in the ranks, to no-one's surprise whatsoever, was Usagi.

"Well if it isn't Usagi!" Haruna tilted her head in acknowledgement. "Have you asked this Kuudere out yet?"

"Kuudere? Hehe… If you ask me I'd always said Tora's more of a yandere… OW!" Usagi yelled as Tora lifted her foot and let it down hard. True to her reputation though, no one saw the action and the tall intellect of the trio apologised quickly enough.

"Right, you two sort yourselves out," Haruna popped up, earning two shocked expressions (really, even the commander knew about it) at the same time, she greeted the last of the three with a playful punch on the shoulder. "Hey, Nezumi."

Akin to his namesake, Nezumi was a mousey haired, freckled guy with a knack for obtaining information. Observant, skilled with his fingers and blunt to a fault, when it came to catching wind of new information Nezumi was unparalleled. He was well-versed in numerous social circles and the scope of his underground networks was still unknown, which was often relied on to get access into organizations, parties and gatherings of interest. Usagi was often burdened with the task of apologising to the people Nezumi's blunt comments and unfazed expression accompanying it complained of. This also meant that 'Little-bitty-Nezu-chan' and 'No-guy-wants-to-date-you Wolf' never got through anything together without grabbing at each other's throats at least once. This time however Nezumi only shook Haruna's hand and, peering at her wrist, remarked, "You've gone thin Wolf. Are you alright?"

Haruna eased her hand from his grip and shook her head. "Since when have I not been?" she asked airily as she too unmasked herself, trying and failing to get her ponytail to flick the way Tora's curls had to the side. With her mask off, the triad saw the same hazel eyes and trouble-making grin. "Well! The 'NUT Trio', all in the flesh! Where on earth have you guys been for the last, oh, six months?"

"Tsuchi no Kuni." Tora, ever the leader as always. "We've just come back."

"Not that it was any trouble or anything." Nezumi added. "And I would have thought you'd grown out of that nickname..."

"I'll choose to ignore that, Nezumi – since I'm confused as to why you're at Tsuchi no Kuni. Why? Nothing ever happens there in the Land of Earth."

"Missing children."

"…what?"

"Missing children," Usagi repeated. The other two nodded seriously. "Kids are disappearing for no reason and from nearly every country. We're checking on it since a few of these kids are the last remaining of different kekkei genkai clans."

"They aren't in any orphanages either. It's like they just disappeared without a trace."

There was a silence. "So…" Haruna summarised bluntly, "you failed your mission?"

"No," Usagi answered. "We came back to tell Hokage-sama we found that all these disappearances are linked and are not just any odd kidnapping case."

"They're connected, and we're sure of it." Nezumi added as well.

"Because these kids aren't dead," Tora finished. She had taken her hands off her hips and stood beside her teammates seriously. "They aren't dead and I know it. I felt chakra signatures in Kirigakure after Nezumi got a hold of one of the kids necklaces and saw the stone was chakra resonant."

Haruna whistled. "Smart."

When it came to the Uchiha and Wolf tag-team one would always be interrupting the other - or more correctly, Haruna made it inexplicably clear that she preferred to be the one to recount the mission. It was cohesion (of a sort) but the between the "NUT trio" it announced itself for all to see, one aspect being their habit to finish each other's sentences for one another.

ANBU Wolf went back to emptying her locker. The kunai set, extra sets of clothes, her coupon booklet all went into the knapsack. Tripwire and fake glasses fell to the ground with a clatter before they were picked up and shoved them into the bag as well.

"You know, we heard about Uchiha too," Usagi said after a lull in the conversation. "That was… unexpected… The mention of Itachi caused an abrupt halt and Wolf'hazel eyes darkened ever so slightly. "How are you coping?"

Uchiha's tag-team partner shrugged. Though the shinobi in the room were dysfunctional with one another as companions, there was still the unspoken camaraderie and understanding because they all had their fair share of personal grievances, which showed through as they left the matter at that. After clearing his throat, Nezumi steered the conversation onto the food they'd tried and the bars he went to during their mission and the meeting took a more light-hearted tone.

The Tiger-Rabbit-Rat trio – it was Wolf who just liked to call it NUT - had always somehow been stuck together since birth or something. Even at the orphanage to the time they'd made their ways up the ANBU ladder, Tora, Usagi and Nezumi were inseparable. They'd even picked their names together, taken straight from their Zodiac years and announced proudly as they were given their ANBU tattoos. The mission life hadn't altered them as far as she could tell, although Haruna was more than suspicious over Nezumi's reasons in frequenting the bars and night clubs. "Just for the information" her ass.

"You must excuse us," Tora announced as she made note of the time. The locker was finally bereft of her personal belongings and Haruna's knapsack just beginning to feel heavy. "The Hokage is expecting us."

Oh sure, go ahead. I'm just… spring cleaning, anyway." To her relief, no one pointed out that it wasn't spring. No need to explain that she was moving out and had set her mind on this since she'd gone to bed at 3am that morning (about four hours ago). What she had decided was going to be finalised as soon as she was finished here. "I think I'll be at base for a while." She added, showing them to the doorway. "Things. Business matters. Stuff."

Usagi nodded and took Tora's elbow chivalrously – oh she totally caught that smile – "We'll be here for a few days, so we may yet meet again. Nezumi?"

"Well, thanks for the catch up," Nezumi told her graciously as he went to join his team. He slipped a bolt into her hands as he walked past. "Oh and… you might want to fix your door. Don't want it to fall off, you know."

Haruna heard the door fall, landing with just a thud on her knapsack below it. Just as well, she thought. It's not like I'm using it after this. And then she took her knapsack and walked out the door.

.


Poor Iruka felt the headache that had been creeping up on him all afternoon crest and burst like an ocean wave hitting a sea cliff. The class had been irritable in perfect synchrony that day, the deadline for the papers he was marking shortened to the point of impossibility, Naruto being Naruto, parents complaining to him because of Naruto and now, as he closed the door of his teacher's office – the one sole place of refuge he had in the trying life of a sensei – and sighed into it, the Hokage hadn't been very helpful either.

"Just try to understand him," the grandfather figure had advised him after he'd seen the despondent chuunin sitting with his head in his hands at the back of the school. Naruto was only trying to get the attention he was being deprived from and as his teacher, Iruka-kun was supposed to keep trying.

Except Iruka wasn't in the most enthusiastic of moods, especially since nearly getting his head chewed off by a jounin that Naruto had thrown ramen – a whole, steaming cup of garlic and soy instant ramen that took gargantuan amounts of toothpaste to get the smell off after eating – at when he'd walked by with his family. His explanation: he was only warning his daughter to stay away from the kid. Iruka had been called from his first real bento box in two weeks to the Department where he apologised in his student's stead. It was a shame worth spending his free hour sitting dejectedly at the back of the school. He had saved up for that bento box for weeks.

Aside from laying on the sucks-to-be-you far too thickly for his liking, Naruto's latest scene had also turned up the volume in the conversations on how the Hokage needed to rid the school of his presence. Iruka didn't know what to feel anymore. It was true Naruto vexed him to no end but neither did he want to agree with what his colleagues all believed. The loud whispers, the little side-comments and meaningful looks each academy instructor would use to remind everyone else that they thought exactly the same way everyone else did about Uzumaki made Iruka less inclined to do the same. Iruka didn't hate Naruto, okay? He didn't really hate anything except badly written novels and if he had to be honest, he saw too much of himself in the little idiot to write him off completely. It was just… hard to have enough patience to put up with his obnoxious attitude.

Why, Iruka contemplated as he sat with his back to the wall and stared at the crowded interior of the little room, did he have to feel guilty every time Naruto mentioned anything about having no one to go home to? That one time when he hadn't sent him out of class, Naruto had been so obviously confused, as if he wasn't used to any teacher cutting him some slack. The sight had made such an impact that he vowed not to send Naruto out of class again. Why was it that he had to feel hurt when someone lashed out at Naruto when the kid just laughed raucously and said something rude back at them?

Mizuki had always said the problem with him was that he was too kind. Or was it just that everyone else had forgotten how to be…

His brown eyes scanned the walls, falling on the stack of reports on the middle shelf, ready to hand out at the end of the week. Reports he'd made for every student in his class – reports that their parents would see and congratulate their children on except for Naruto's. Reports that, like every other one he and the teachers before him had written, would end up thrown away at the end of the year because he had no parents or caregivers to show them to. Just the way it had been with him…

Iruka pressed a hand to his head in calming circles. He had seen an improvement; he had seen it with his own eyes after pinching himself to make sure he wasn't suffering from caffeine-induced euphoria. Naruto had actually shut up and listened to Hinata's timid voice try to explain the lesson during the lunchtime tutorials he had started- and that was all Iruka had needed to know that there was still hope.

But what could one Umino Iruka, do? He had neither social standing nor any skill that demanded respect, no great achievement to be remembered by. All he had was the duty of being Sensei to Konoha's jinchuuriki and what good had he done since? Hinata had already been ordered to have her desk shifted to the front of the class away from Naruto's, and Iruka had the uncanny suspicion that Hyuuga Hiashi wasn't the only one who would.

"Sensei? Iruka-sensei!"

He opened the door to see four pairs of eyes staring up at him. "Sensei!" One kid announced seriously, the dark-haired one he was sure would be a good Class Rep one day. "Naruto made a huge dust cloud with the blackboard eraser-"

"And now there's a big cloud in the class…"

"AN' IT'S AWESOME, NE, SENSEI?" Naruto yelled, pushing his way in front of the students as if his latest damage-to-school-property was an amazing feat, a smug expression on his impish face. "WE CAN PRACTICE HIDING IN SMOKE PELLETS NOW! NO WAY WE NEED TO WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR UH-HUH!"

Iruka waited until the class clown, the bane of his teaching existence, had stopped chortling before moving. To the wonderment of his students and the surprise of Naruto, he didn't touch the result of Naruto's work that floated strangely in the middle of the classroom. He didn't even scold him. Instead, he picked up the blackboard erasers, placed them neatly where they were supposed to be before turning to his wide-eyed students.

"Mei-chan, can you open the windows for me please?" A double ponytailed girl nodded and did as he suggested. Making eye contact with every student in the room until they rested on Naruto, whose grin was rapidly evaporating into one of caution, he put on a bright voice and said,

"I was needing those erasers cleaned – thank you very much Naruto-kun. And, while the wind cleans the room up for us, we'll use the playground until home time, alright?"

This suggestion was met with much approval and no further complaint was heard from the rest of the class.

Naruto lingered uncertainly behind the students, unsure at this unexpected 'punishment'.

Iruka only smiled and then carried on as if nothing happened.

.


The day was one out of a story book. Perfect sun, perfect sky and the perfect wind - soft but with purpose. The kind that life-changing decisions were made in, cathartic moments cued, when a path suddenly appeared in an unclear future. Hiruzen Sarutobi realised the beautiful weather really was meaningful that day when a knock sounded at the door.

"Hokage-sama." ANBU Wolf stood at the doorway respectfully. The first thing the Hokage noticed was how serious she looked. "If I may, I've made a decision."

"Oh?" he asked candidly, "Surprisingly polite today I see, Wolf? I suppose I must be flattered." With a robed arm gestured her forward. "I am listening."

ANBU Wolf bowed, and met his eye. "It's been nearly eight years, Hokage-sama. I would like to thank you for everything you've done since I came to the village. And… with all due respect ," she took a breath while Hiruzen forgot he was holding his, "I, ANBU Wolf, request permission to leave the ANBU, Hokage-sama."

A puff of smoke drifted silently into the air following her request. Levelly, the old man commented there was no need for her to visit him in his office; she only needed the permission of her commanding superior. "Is that all you have come to tell me? I have work to do."

Just as he had surmised, Wolf shook her head. "Hokage-sama, I have a proposition." Haruna replied quickly. The Hokage didn't reply but he placed his pipe down on the table inviting her to continue. She did. "I'd like to be an agent under your orders alone. Your orders. I would like to be just a normal, ordinary jounin shinobi –" a mischievous look surfaced in her eyes and Hiruzen saw it, " but, since I love adventure so much, I'm sure you would assign missions of ANBU calibre to me even so."

One greying eyebrow inched higher in the lined forehead. "You do not like your superiors in the ANBU?"

Haruna thought of Danzou and almost frowned in the Hokage's presence. "Not exactly, Hokage-sama. I…"

"Yes?"

"I just… I would be able to do much more in the position I propose. Much more good around the village and those who need protection in it."

A pause. The Hokage remembered a time, not too long ago when his students, young Tsunade and then Jiraiya, had come to his office like this and like a familiar haunt the same request had been asked of him. The Hokage sighed inwardly at the nostalgic feeling and wondered if Haruna's hazel eyes had always been so determined.

"I also requested this in order to be able to better oversee Naruto," Haruna spoke up again, as if reading the man's mind. "I was made aware that missions that involve guarding him are often turned down. For the safety of our jinchuuriki, especially since this hate is born out of fear of the Kyuubi, I would be glad to commit myself to this task."

Hiruzen smiled, crinkling the corners of his eyes. "You mean, watching over your little brother, Wolf-san?"

"Naturally."

"…I still wonder about your involvement with our jinchuuriki, Wolf, but I daresay that I am still glad of it." There were dark shadows under Haruna's eyes and he added, kindly, "You've done a good job with the night patrols."

Though she appreciated the Hokage telling her so, Haruna bowed but didn't reply.

"Taking that into consideration, perhaps you would be better suited for a position that gives leeway to personal preference." concurred the Hokage, in the midst of preparing his pipe for a headache-reducing smoke. "You've thought this through I hope, Wolf?" Deep down though, he knew that for once the light-headed girl actually had. "The life isn't consistent like it is under the shinobi ranks."

"Hokage-sama," she reiterated politely but firmly, "the only thing I need is your permission."

"Taking you off the ANBU means that I will have to work to come up with a passable reason for it. Our ANBU Wolf, say, leaving the ANBU because the stress involved proved to be too much for her would seem rather… anticlimactic," he reasoned. "Or entirely unbelievable."

"Mmmm… Point taken. I'd much rather be taken sent off in disgrace. Then no one would want to talk to me, and that's what I'd need."

The Hokage gave her a strange look but yielded. Sometimes it made matters much simpler when one refused to care about reputation. His eyes drifted to the paperwork on the table, and rested on a newly opened scroll. The symbols on the edges of the paper informed that it was from the Ninja Academy – and informed him that Uchiha Sasuke had been absent from class for more than a month. While he was an Uchiha (the younger brother of Uchiha Itachi no less) a break of this length of time and the reasons involved also left the undeniable possibility that the boy would struggle even in getting back into the routine of school. Slowly but surely, a path was clearing in the Hokage's mind and ANBU Wolf, who stood in front of him, was looking at him expectantly.

"Haruna," he said, his voice sounding oddly as if he was excited. "I believe we can both come to a compromise."

"Then by all means, fire away Sir."

A patch of sunlight casted golden ribbons on the floor; time had passed without her realising it. Down below the large windows of the office, village life still went on in its suburban routine. Families walking together, the buzz of the market, young love and old. Life had resumed as it was bound to and it was time, he supposed, for the shattered to move on. The Hokage smoked his pipe, the wisps encircling his head and scenting the air as his hands wrote, stroke by stroke, the kanji characters that would seal what would happen next. At length he finally looked up to her and she straightened expectantly.

"How do you feel about tutoring one Uchiha Sasuke?"

.


AUTHORS NOTE:

Explaining the characters I've added here, because most of the ANBU masks are animalistic, I've created a trio taken straight out of the Chinese Zodiac. Their personalities are also meant to go with the animal they are under – however NOTE that I have not stated that these are the character's Zodiac years at all. It's just the names, and I went with the Japanese translations for them.

Tora = Tiger. As Naruto is meant to be based on traditional Japanese Mythology, I wanted to create someone unique to the story but not to Japanese folklore. As a mystic, Tora would be closest to a "Miko" or Japanese priestess who usually works alone and, according to their level, is able to work with the supernatural world. I suppose as ninjas one would get their fair share of ghosts, right? (Any ideas you readers would have on her character would be appreciated.)

Usagi = Rabbit. They are said to be quiet and intellectual.

Nezumi = Rat. Said to be quick-witted and versatile.

That's all the information I can disclose on them so far, but don't forget them!

Glossary:

KUUDERE: A ridiculously generic term for a person cold on the outside, but inwardly sweet and loving.

YANDERE: Another generic classification of a character who is either psychotic or violent (or both) at times concerning people of significance to them. Yandere characters usually have a lot of mood swings quickly changing from the nice side to the evil at unexpected times.