Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto.
Beta: Michelle T, Kevin C
Part II: Uchiha
II. Kiiroi Kami
Chapter 9 – part 1: Unveil The Trap
The Hunter waits deep in the forest. There is nothing to do now but wait. He has been patient. He has studied his prey well. He has laid his trap in the making for the whole of last year. Now there is nothing to do but wait, wait for his prey to come.
And there it comes, the great grey, a proud, powerful creature that is prey to nothing else but him. It suspects, but it doesn't know.
The trap waits for it. There is no way out.
Codex Entry: Fuin Bunshin no Jutsu
A peculiar Bunshin type technique originating from the defunct Uzushiogakure. As its name suggests, it is a clone technique basing off of seals. It is also one of the rare non-combat type clone techniques.
Inspite of its name, non-combat type clones do not lack for combat skill. On the contrary, many of them possess superior durability and battlefield potential than normal combat type clones. They are simply named as such as to single out the fact that combat is not the optimal use for this type of clones... not because they are not optimized for combat, but because to throw them away into combat is considered both a waste and a tactical mistake.
Like other non-combat type clone techniques, the Fuin Bunshin requires careful preparation and time, both of which precludes it from reaction time sensitive combat scenarios. Each seal array takes approximately two hours to prepare and usually only one clone is produced. The Fuin Bunshin clone makes up for its small number and long preparation time with its durability and large range of abilities. While other clones, including the chakra intensive Kage Bunshin, can only utilize taijutsu, the Fuin Bunshin can use ninjutsu, genjutsu, even kinjutsu techniques available to its host... for as long as the chakra reservoir of its root seal holds up. However, the one ability that made its fame is the Fuin Bunshin's almost spotless imitation of its creator. It behaves, lives, breathes, bleeds, and dies exactly as it host does. It dispels under neither grievous injuries nor death. Instead, upon death, it will produce a flesh corpse that will bleed and rot as a real corpse does.
Perfect imitation in all aspects... except for one flaw. The Fuin Bunshin cannot leave the premises of its root seal. It cannot take but one step outside of the array upon which it is birthed.
For this single flaw and its complicated preparation process, the Fuin Bunshin in the past was used for one single purpose only...
… to act as body double of important state leaders...
During the reign of Nidaime Hokage Tobirama Senju, the technique was lost along with the destruction of Uzushiogakure.
During the reign of Rokudaime Hokage Naruto Uzumaki, the Fuin Bunshin was rediscovered from the ruins of Uzushiogakure... and only appropriately so.
He ruined the pancakes.
Six-thirty AM thursday morning, he had two kids running all over the house in which he had just killed two men the night before, and a smoking frying pan in front of him. The smoke was black, and it smelled pretty bad too. The charred mass in the pan might have been the promised pancakes if he had turned the fire down a little bit... or mixed a better batch of pancake batter.
"Naruto, I'm hungry!" He heard Hanzo hollering somewhere from within the house. He hollered right back. "Did you brush your teeth yet?"
"He didn't! He didn't!" That was Mo, ever eager to be Hanzo's tattle-tale.
"Shut up, I did! I did, Naruto!"
"Go brush your teeth." He said as he made the hand seals for a contained Kage Bunshin. Three clones poofed into existence right next to him. The spike created from his chakra use was concealed from sensors by the various seals he'd laid around the house.
"Don't forget to wash your face!" He added in before turning his attention to the awaiting clones. He pointed at clone one. "Go make more pancake batter," then clone two "Go make some orange juices," and then clone three, "Dishwashing duty."
"Dishwashing duty?!" Clone number three shrieked indignantly. "I'm the frigging Rokudaime Hokage! The most powerful seal master in all of ninja history and the Butcher of the East! And you want me to go do the dishes?!"
"Yes, I do." Naruto the original version deadpanned. He turned his head toward the doorway for one second to bellow at the kids. "Kids! Run two laps around the house before you come in for breakfast."
"What?! But why?"
"Do you want to grow up into strong ninjas or not?"
"Aughhh..." The pitter patter of little feet running on wood panel floor headed for the garden, then outside.
Satisfied that his order was obeyed to the letter, Naruto turned back to his flabbergasted clone. "Do the dishes..." He said simply. "... or it's poof-poof for you."
"Poof-poof?!" The clone repeated, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. "Just when the fuck did you add poof-poof to your vocabulary?"
"Since I took on two kids under my wing." Said Naruto, not missing a beat. "Also, you are in the presence of underage children, so mind your tongue or it's gonna be..." He raised his hand, showing a shiny steel kitchen fork in it. Its tines looked terribly sharp, definitely sharp enough to forcibly retire one recalcitrant shadow clone.
"Alright! Alright!" The clone surrendered—"I'll do the dishes. Man..."—before it went slinking off to the filled and filthy kitchen sink, cursing under its breath all the while.
Naruto took a look at the kitchen. Around him was the aftermath of an hour of pancake making trial-and-failure. It wasn't just the sink that was filthy, the whole room itself looked like a small army had just marched through it. There were egg yolk spatters on the wall. Broken egg shells and melted butter lay in heaps on the counters. So did used plates and bowls of all sizes and materials. The industrial sized trash bin was full to indigestion with half the content of three ready-made pancake batter powder. The other half was on the floor. Soppy-wet white flour covering with his footprints going all over them.
"Hey boss!" Said clone number one, holding up a torn ready-mix pancake powder box. "This pancake powder is the shit! I don't think this is going to work. I think this whole thing just went fubar like... half an hour ago when you popped open that months old baking supply."
"What did I tell you about minding your language around children?" Naruto brandished his fork in the clone's face, eyes glinting madly.
"Uh... uh... I mean... this powder mix is sub-par... and over priced! Look at what they are trying to charge us!" It stuck the box in his face, finger pointing at the number printed in bold red ink. 19 Ryu, the number said. "It's outrageous! We should totally infiltrate their headquarter, take out their armed force, snuff out their leader and take over the whole thing coup-de-tat style!" Then the finger went higher, pointing at the brand emblazoned onto the top corner. It read.
Samurai Yoh Pancake Mix. Bring out your inner Samurai every morning!
"And Samurai? Lame! It should totally be Ninja Pancake Mix or something! We could so change the name once we are the boss of that pancake mix company! What do you think? Totally cool right?" The clone blathered on, looking at him expectantly. In reply, Naruto brought up the fork in a slanting angle... straight into the clone's face. It dispelled with a scream of agony and betrayal... and a poof.
He turned on his feet, eyeing the remaining two clones as they tried to appear hard at work. He turned the 'bloodied' fork in his hand. The gears turned in his head.
The mission was simple. Make pancakes for breakfast. Make good pancakes for breakfast. Make them in time.
The house was a lot bigger than it looked from the outside. Assuming he guessed the correct length of the kid's pace, it would take them fifteen minutes to go two rounds, approx. He'd send them off to morning workout once they came in. Another fifteen. Then had them wash their hands and stuffs like that, it would all give just about thirty minutes, half an hour to put breakfast-worthy pancakes on the dish. Thirty minutes. He wasn't a good cook, but he was a damn good shinobi.
He eyed his enemy - the empty dishes on the set breakfast table - then his two clones. The clones swallowed audibly under his stare. Ignoring them, he said. "I refuse to fail something as basic as making pancakes for breakfast." He twisted the fork in his hands, feeling his barely restrained demon-tinged chakra simmer under the surface. "I simply refuse to let that happen. We will put damn good pancakes on these dishes... or else..."
.
.
.
They had breakfast in the garden, with sunshine on their heads and sweet morning breeze tickling their hair. He cut up his pancakes and squirted syrup on top as he watched the twin frogs eyeing their portion with something like dazed incredulousness.
"What's wrong?" It wasn't him who asked that, but Mo. She chewed and poked her raspberry jam drenched pancakes with a spoon, looking quizzically at the frogs. "You don't like pancakes?" In the other chair, Hanzo brightened up at the possibility of uneaten pancakes.
In reply, the frogs looked at her, their mouths flapping open then close, like they didn't know what to say for a second, before finally Aki turned her bulbous eyes to his direction and squawked out.
"You..."
"Yes?"
"... you made these pancakes... with senchakra..." That wasn't a question.
He took a swig from his glass of orange juice, dabbed his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. "What gave me away?"
"I can frigging smell it on the pancakes!" She held up the pancake in question for emphasis. The pancake was bigger than Aki, so it made for a peculiar picture.
"Really? I didn't know you can smell senchakra." Naruto offered conversationally.
"What's senchakra?" Hanzo jumped in, ever curious about all things ninja related.
"The lifeblood of everything that walks, hops, or crawls by on this land. And the ones rooted in it too." Said Zaki. "The greatest, most versatile, and most potent power in the shinobi world, bar none, surpassing even Bijuu chakra. The foundation of the most sacred shinobi training. So difficult that only the best ninja warriors can ever dream of attaining its power. So rare that there are clans out there who think it's a myth. And your mama over here..." Zaki threw him a look. "... used it to cook breakfast!"
"Only the pancakes. I pressed the orange juice by hand."
"Are you serious?!"
He shrugged noncommittally. "The flour was bad. It's already expired, fermented. There was water and dirt inside. I had no time to get off the island to go shopping for groceries. But I saw some of it was still good, so I thought I just needed to separate the good part from the bad part."
"You use Sage cloak technique to sieve the flour! Sage cloak!"
"It worked, didn't I?" Said Naruto. "Isn't that what Sage Cloak technique is best at? Separating the subject from outside contamination in order to freeze and preserve its condition. It's got a lot in common with basic prison barrier seals to be honest."
"And the stove!"
"It was off. There was something wrong with the gas tank, and the burner box had rusted. I couldn't control the fire. I burned the first two batches 'cause the flame kept going on and off on me, plus the whole thing was quite dangerous if you asked me. It could have gone kaboom on us at any moment. So I thought I needed something safer that would burn on just exactly the right heat I needed, and burn all over, not just on one side only."
"You use senchakra to fry pancakes! That's like using an elephant butcher knife to chop up a house fly!"
"Well, to be fair, a Katon would have reduced the whole thing to charred crisps. Senchakra has better control. You don't really want to have charred crisps for breakfast, do you?"
"That's not my point!" Aki opened her mouth, about to deliver another long-winding argument as to how and why it was absurd to use senchakra for home utilities purposes, but before she could get another word in edgewise, Hanzo had already beaten her to it.
"Are you going to eat that?"
"I... what?"
"That." He pointed with his fork. "The pancakes. If you don't want it then hand it over. I don't care if it's made of senchakra or whatever, it's still super good!" Hanzo's fork inched closer. His reversed-color eyes glowed with obvious intention.
Aki's mouth opened even wider, and there was a look on her froggy little face that said she hadn't even started on thinking about that. Next to her, her twin brother wolfed down his portion while eyeing Hanzo warily. It took Hanzo leaning forward and assuming a pose that made him look like he was going to make a lunge for Aki's dish that snapped her out of her daze. Before he could even blink, the red frog shot out her tongue in a classic frog maneuver, wrapped it around the topmost pancake on her dish, and yanked it back. The pancake entered her mouth with a wet, noisy 'slupp' followed by more chewing sounds. Aki spat out as she chewed, positioning herself protectively in front of her dish. The whole thing happened in two seconds flat.
"You have your own pancakes, brat! Leave mine alone!"
And just like that, the whole issue with him using the most sacred ninja art for mundane kitchen utilities ended. He drank his milk from a glass with spider cracks on its mouth, watching the now-and-then banter between the two kids and the frogs. It hit him right then that this was about the most normal thing he had ever done since entering this timeline. His stint at the Senju fortress couldn't be called... normal... in anyway, and from then, it had only gone downhill. Now, him sitting here in the garden with the kids and his retainer frogs, eating breakfast in a clear, perfect morning, it felt almost...
… like they were just ordinary people, like they were just people living their perfectly normal lives, a family enjoying breakfast and a good morning together...
... like he wasn't a ninja lord on a quest for revenge, and they weren't two kids who had just lost their entire life to a freak accident caused by him, and were now forced to tag along with a previously complete stranger, like there weren't demons bubbling beneath the surface...
Naruto had no words for the emotions that overwhelmed him then.
"What's wrong?" Mo looked at him worriedly, Hanzo right beside her. "Why are you crying?"
"Am I?" He said, wiping at his eyes. How embarrassing. His old ANBU bodyguards were right. Sometimes, he didn't feel like he was fit to be a Ninja lord. He had too much emotion. "Must have been something in my eyes. Sorry."
Well, that must have been pathetic, because both the kids looked like he didn't fool them in the least. Thankfully though, they decided not to press, a decision made under the table by Mo he was sure. That little farmer's girl was getting the hang of this a lot quicker than he though, almost scarily so.
"So... what's going to happen to us now?" She asked instead, an intent look on her face. Of course, just yesterday Mo was still banking on the hope of reconnecting with the last of her family's friend, the last link she had to her past. That link was gone now, reduced to a puddle that had since long evaporated into the air of that basement room three floors down under their feet.
He looked at their faces, both of them, and knew right away what they were looking for from him.
Closure.
In the same way that Naruto understood perfectly what many of his friends who started out their life as war orphans with nothing to their names had to go through from their childhood to adulthood, he understood the two last survivors of Woodsmen Ville without them needing to say another word.
Closure. Close this door that led to the tragedy and horror of their past so they could both go on to the one that led to the future. The missing Totoro was that last link, one that needed to be laid to rest before they could go on with their lives. And so Naruto would do exactly that.
He reached out across the table, took them both by the hands. Even in his deceptively slender woman hands, he dwarfed them. He held them, feeling the pulse of their hearts from their tiny kid wrists, the warm, sweaty flesh of their hands.
"Now... now we are a family." He said, looking them in the eye, letting them see his honesty. They said young children could detect when grownups tried to lie to them. They may not say it, but deep down, in that primordial sense that separated them from their adult counterparts, they knew. Naruto was inclined to agree with that. "We stay together. We take care of each other. Leave your past behind in that forest. Do not let it burden your thoughts. You cannot bring it with you. Think only of the future. Make your new life here, with me."
He looked at Hanzo "You are Hanzo, and you are my family." then at Mo "You are Hinamori, and you are my family." He brought both their hands together so that they all held on to each other. Then he said. "I am Naruto, and I am your family."
And just like that, he sealed their promise. He watched their faces in the silence that followed thereafter. Rarely did he see expressions of sadness and joy both displayed so openly on human faces. Mo looked down, then up, then down. Hanzo pressed his lips together, looking like he was trying to hold something in.
"So... so... how do we start a new life?" Hanzo asked at last.
"Now? Well, I guess we can start with making this place into a proper home." He gestured at the whole house, drawing a circle in the air with one hand. "It's ours now. Here's going to be where we start our new life. If you ask me, I think it's pretty beaten up, doesn't look fit for kids, so I say we fix it up and make it into what we want it to be." He added in a push, teasing their child nature to the surface. "Ever play draw your dream house before?"
He loved the look of pure wonder and unbridled happiness that washed over their faces. After all of last night, he found he needed these moments more than he thought.
"Well, it's time to get started then, since you won't be drawing your dream house out on paper, but making it with your own two hands."
Renovating a house, of course, was work that required more than two kids, two frogs the size of a large thumb, and one lone ninja. So that one ninja did a trick with his hands and called forth ten more of his copies to do the heavy lifting while he took the kids out to go shopping for supplies.
As he passed by the door, he reached up, unhooked the banner that said 'Tonari no Ryokan' in rusted embossed prints and threw it over the fence. It landed in the garden with a thud.
"Closed for business." Then he looked around the street. He had on his head one of them veiled hats he'd once seen women of old times traveling in, with fine white gauze drooping from the woven wide rim. He had found this particular one in the store room down the hallway, squashed beneath a stack of old one-size-fits-all yukata and slightly dusty but otherwise fit for duty. It sure was a lot better than what he had been covering himself with, wads of rags and a lot of dirt on his face. With a few glances, he took in the street before number 22 Yogekisha. It looked a world of difference under the light of day. The street less dark, the houses less shabby. The scrapyard at the end of the road had yet to wake up and resumed vomiting its daily quota of metal dust into public space, so the air was still thankfully fresh and clean.
He led the children by their hands, walking down the road. Him in the middle, Mo and Hanzo on each side, and the frogs sitting on the children's shoulder, they looked the picture of a happy family going out for the day. However, he wasn't a fool... or deep enough in nostalgia... to actually buy into his own make-believe though. As he listened absentminded to the children's excited discussion on just what they were going to do to their parts of the house, he studied the houses and the occasional people going about with great care.
He was of two minds on what to do with the inhabitants of Yogekisha, Red Bridge District. The fact that they are so close by - with nothing separating them and his children except for a few layers of wall and the seals he'd carved into the floor of Tonari Ryokan - put him on edge. The ninja and life-long fugitive in him squirmed at the thought of being so visible, so readily available a target, but he reminded himself.
This was a different time from the era he came from. The ten years war had cut habits into him that weren't necessarily appropriate for this exact period. He couldn't exactly make the denizens of Yogekisha disappear quietly after all. That would only bring undue attention to him and his children.
Just this once, a different approach was needed. He decided then that he'd have to hide them in plain sight. He made a mental note to buy back the entirety of the island through Nezumi fonts, several charity groups based in the upper districts, conducted a sound business plan to act as disguise, then flooded the current population with newcomers who hadn't the slightest idea what might have once been behind the walls of Tonari Ryokan.
They boarded the ferry and crossed the river into mainland city. As they were about to climb down to the other side, he handed the children each a wooden card the size of his palm.
"Your ID." He said in whispers, his voice masked by abundant background noises. "You are brother and sister, and the children of a minor nobleman on the Eastern side of Hi no Kuni. Your mother is the favored mistress. You are here on vacation so that your mother can get away from the first wife's wrath. Stick to it."
They took the cards from him, turning them in their hands. Each card was fastened to a leather string. He told them to wear the cards on their necks, as young noble and half-noble children were wont to do.
They were called Kuei-Chang cards, and in his opinion a little piece of old time brilliance. Before the advance of the hard plastic ID cards and information database, the Kuei Chang cards and their archives were the only method of keeping tabs and identification over the population. The ones he handed to the children, the Kuei parts, were only one half of a whole. The other halves, the Chang parts in a Kuei-Chang, were stored in an archive room on the Eastern side of Hi no Kuni, with matching wood grain patterns with the ones in their hands. Both were made from the same piece of wood, and was the only identity control method of the time. It was efficient and brilliant in its own right, but not foolproof. The Kuei pair he gave to Mo and Hanzo were testament of this. While they were legitimate Kuei cards, their Chang counterparts in the archive were registered to ghost identities set up by Nezumi as fonts for their operatives.
All it took was a little bribing, a little money under the table for the archive keepers. Nezumi had maintained this system for a long time due to the sheer scope of their operation, and now that he was at its head, he had taken advantage of it right away, confiscating several matching pairs with the right profiles to weave his protection around the children. He would prefer a less... elevated... background for Mo and Hanzo, them being simple peasant children would help them blend in far better than being children of noble parents however minor, but those cards were of the lowest social rank he could find. Needless to say, majority of children did not get such cards to their names, only ones coming from families of wealth and status.
He thought it strange to see such outdated system still in use in a city that people could buy electricity so long as they had the money for it. But then again, perhaps the central government, being typically conservative in technological progress, had lagged behind in this one instance. He guessed this was to be the few last years before the new hard plastic card system was implemented. But either way, none of that matter. What mattered was that they kept to their new identities and blended in as best they could.
"We look nothing like noble children." Said Mo, gesturing at the cheap hotel yutaka they wore.
"Minor noble. Very minor." He said.
"We look nothing like noble children." She repeated, putting more emphasis in her words while looking intently at him. She meant him he knew. He too looked nothing like the favored mistress of a minor noble, and while the children of said non-existent noble husband had an excuse to dress like peasant children, them being far too young to be bound by high society rules of etiquette, the mistress mother, on the other hand, did not. His assumed identity wouldn't be caught dead on the street of the most glamorous city this side of the country in a cheap one-size-fits-all yukata, worn shoes, and a ratty veiled hat. To keep with the pretense, he would have to act the part... and wear the part.
He groaned a little bit inside, sharing a look with a frowning Hanzo. "Alright, we'll go shopping," he concurred to a beaming Mo.
.
.
.
The city plan of Kokkyo itself was considered an architectural marvel of its time, and rightly so. Starting from a diminutive border town some hundreds years past, brilliant and far-seeing city planning had seen it to its current height.
The city straddled the nexus point of three great rivers, and was shaped like a crescent moon with its curved back facing the mainland, and the sickle-shape turn of Huang river as its inner belly. Kokkians fancied the myriad islands of various sizes dotting the rivers as the stars orbiting their crescent moon city. The outer districts that made up the rim of the moon were largely populated by poor to middle income families, as were far-flung islands like Red Bridge district where they now called home.
The inner districts, the center of the crescent moon housed the upper class Kokkians—the rich, the influential, the powerful, and the lordly. Though there were no clear lines of distinction on the map, a Kokkian rule of thumb was that the closer one got to the heart of the city—Chubu island at the center of the moon—the richer and more powerful one had to be. It went without saying that the heart of Chubu was also the seat of power of the entire city state.
Naruto eyed Chubu island thoughtfully as he walked the invisible edge separating the outer districts and the inner ones. From where he stood, it loomed like a mountain rising from the river bed.
"This is as far as we go I think." He said to a grinning Mo, gesturing at the bustling shopping street in front of them. "Any further in and we'd stick out like sore thumbs" She brushed past him as she headed for the clothing shops, brimming with barely restrained eagerness. Hanzo tailed her, looking distinctly uncomfortable. The boy hadn't seen this much riches in his entire life, including the last few weeks they spent loitering around in the brim of the outer districts.
Naruto was about to follow them too when he felt a tiny prick in the inner of his forearm. He stopped by the door going in, raising his arm to study it. On his skin were scribbled a line in red seal ink.
Come. It said. You will want to see this.
The clan symbol of the Uchiha ended the sentence.
The first thought in his head was... that quick?... The second thought was less a thought but more a sensation, a burn like a wild fire in his blood spreading from his chest to his arms and legs, to his head, and threatened to consume him right there. He regained himself in seconds. The youki containing seal carved into him by the frog sages strained to hold in his boiling chakra.
No, he must not lose control here, or he would have half the sensors of this city on his tail. He let his hand fall, let it drop to his side and away from his eyes. He walked into the shop with slow, long steps, timing his breath on the same pace. He did the shopping without saying much, allowing his mind to concentrate on the children's chatter. Only when he felt the tide of his repressed chakra grew calm did he allow himself to go back to the message on his arm.
By now, it had already faded away. But he summoned it from his memory with no problem at all. The seal on his arm was a discreet two-ways communicator. On one side was him. On the other was the Fuin clone he had left in charge of Nezumi headquarter. That Uchiha clan seal... looked like a fresh print. The Fuin clone didn't just draw it onto the seal array to be transferred to the same seal on his arm. Something in Nezumi headquarter bore the seal of the Uchiha. The Fuin clone used it to print the image onto the seal array.
… something in Nezumi headquarter bore the seal of the Uchiha...
"What's wrong?" Mo's voice snapped him out of it. The girl looked up at him worriedly. Her hands fisted on the sleeve of the expensive tsubo-sozoku dress he was wearing.
"You don't like it?" She pushed.
"I think... I think you look nice." Said Hanzo, blushing a bit under the helm of his hood. "... very nice."
"Oh... uh..." Right. He was going shopping.
"Madame..." The shopkeeper cut in, a hint of irritation in her voice. "This style is the current fad, but I can't see you properly at all. If you'd just take off your hat and veil, we may actually get to selecting you the best looking and most appropriate wardrobe." Her hand went up as she said this, as if she was about to reach up and pull down his hat herself. He reacted instinctively.
"Lay off the hat. I like it." The shopkeeper looked taken aback. The sliver of irritation on her face changed to disapproval. That was conduct inappropriate for a woman supposedly of noble line. She stepped back, giving him plenty of space. "I understand a woman of your position must dislike the constant travelling, all these people. We do have veiled igasa hats in stock. They all have very wide rims, and the veil is made of fine silk." She added diplomatically. "That will keep the dust and insects away."
Nice try, but he wasn't afraid of a little dirt and bugs. What he didn't want was to show his face to the world. He disliked leaving this face bare to wondering eyes. It was... too distinct, too memorable. It attracted attention and attention was the last thing he needed right now. To be honest, he wanted nothing more than to walk out of this shop and make a beeline for Nezumi headquarter. The clone was right. He did want to see it, whatever it was that bore the seal of Uchiha.
He wanted nothing more than to go right now... but today was supposed to be for the children. They needed it. He knew they needed it. Besides, he knew for a fact that the samurai had intricate rules of attire. What one wore reflected one's station and status. A woman's dress in this period, and in this samurai-ruled city, reflected in hundred details her marriage status, her background, and the financial strength of her family.
He couldn't hope to even begin grasping these thousands of unvoiced rules. His assumed identity however was supposed to be an adept at it. Conclusion: he needed this shopkeeper's help in order not to completely trash his disguise by putting on something like a wrong obi color.
"My apologies." He softened his voice, bowing his head and assumed a docile posture, then proceeded to throw a made-up story of how his fake identity and children had narrowly escaped bandits on the way here and had to seek refuge in the house of a close friend. Then, and only after a few minutes of deliberation, he took down his hat. The moment the light shone on his face, the shopkeeper's mouth dropped open and her eyes widened to saucer size. A blush formed on her cheeks, spreading to her ears and down her neck with the speed of a wildfire in the peak of summer. Ignoring her, he went on.
"See what they have done to me? I am hideous." He gestured at his hair. After a month on the road, it was longer than he usually wore it, and slightly shaggy. As long as it didn't get too ridiculous, or get into his eyes during combat, it was fine with him, but to this period standard, this head of hair on a noble woman was a travesty. He assumed the classic mourning noble lady pose, with his sleeve hiding half his face and wet eyes, and effected a tearful wail. "How can I show this ugly face to anyone? My husband maybe only a minor noble, but I would rather die than bring dishonor upon his household."
The shopkeeper fell hook, line, and sinker for it, rushing to assure him that he looked beautiful nonetheless and vowing to use every last bit of her expertise to restore him to his past 'splendor'. Then she slunk off right after into the depth of her warehouse, promising to bring back the most suitable merchandise 'just for him'.
"Nice acting." Mo complemented, grinning from ear to ear. Hanzo spotted a mildly traumatized look on his face. Naruto was too distracted to notice that though. He was watching himself in the mirror. Now that the shopkeeper had vacated the prime position directly in front of him, his view of the wall-hang ornate mirror was clear. The face that looked back at him from the mirror...
He turned away. He disliked what he saw.
Thoughts of the Uchiha signet filled the void left behind in his mind, but he pushed them away. Now was not the time. Today was for the children, wholly and completely. He wasn't about to repeat his parenting errors with his first son on these two children. He had chased after Madara Uchiha for years. He had killed himself and gone back in time and endured hardships unheard of just for the chance to wreak vengeance upon the one who destroyed his family.
He could wait one more day. The Uchiha could wait one more day. What was the hurry? He knew from the start that it was not a matter of can or cannot but a matter of when and how. After all, if even death and demonic possession couldn't stop him from going after Madara Uchiha, what could? As he came to this conclusion, he felt the tide of his emotions calm. The urge to rush out subsided. Unbidden, his hands sought the children.
Sorry, clone. He thought to himself. You will just have to wait.
The clothing took a full hour, during which he put on... and endured... his noble woman performance. When they walked out of that shop, they looked the part of a noble family, contented mother and her gilded children. He led the children past the invisible separation between the outer districts and the inner ones, looking perfectly at home with the passing richly dressed people.
Now that they weren't wearing beggar's rags any more and had some power to their names, there was a lot to enjoy about Kokkyo. In the sunlight and away from the poverty and the criminal activities, it truly was a beautiful city, a rich and happy place filled with wonders. He supposed all all ugly things had its beautiful sides and vice-versa. And now that he was the one in charge, so to speak, of its darker aspects, nothing said that he and the kids can't enjoy its warm and fuzzy razzle-dazzle side. For the next half a day, that was exactly what they did.
The first two weeks in he'd maintained that they needed to lie low. He had his reasons. He was new to the territory and to the rules of the game. But now was no longer that time. Now he was the new kingpin of at least half the underground world that made up the base of this city. He knew for a fact that he had at least a third of the local police department in his pocket via Nezumi's strongarm, and for that he was moderately satisfied with the safety of his wards. Besides, he thought they had earned it after the month long trek from Woodsmen Ville to this city.
So he let them loose and three hours later, carried their stuffs back home with both arms. They had sandwiches for lunch in the garden as they watched his clone took small pieces out of the house, reorganized and put them back together like lego blocks. One half of the place was a dilapidated mess in need of some serious renovation, or so his clone said.
"It will take at least a few days." Said the clone, wiping the sweat off its brow.
"It's okay. Take as long as you need." He said, watching another clone take the children to the good half of the house. Mo was adamant on painting her chosen room a glorious purple. Hanzo, on the other hand, stuck with blue and a lot of glow-in-the-dark star stickers. "I can call in supply shipments tomorrow if you need more." He looked at the bad half of the house. Only the bare skeleton was showing. Most of the wood panels and some beams had rotted away due to neglect.
"Are you sure that's safe? Strangers coming into our house."
"It will be, because I will make it so." He said simply, gulping down his glass of warm lemonade. For the life of him he couldn't remember what time it was of the year, but on his way back, across the river, he had felt that first chill that signified the coming of winter. Silently, he made a note to get extra wool sweaters and winter clothing for the kids, and cough medicine... can't forget the cough medicine.
"Whatever ya say boss." The clone cut in as he pondered whether to get grape or strawberry flavored medicine. "By the way, how come you got so many soap bars? Twenty? Isn't that a bit much?"
He looked at the clone like it'd just sprouted a second head without him noticing. "I used it all... this morning."
Immediately it clicked in the clone's head and he made an 'oh' sound. "Right, of course. I forgot." Well, to be fair, it wasn't something he liked remembering either. His clone simply reflected this subconscious desire to forget. He was completely honest with Big Rat, the ex-leader of Nezumi, last night. He disliked senseless killing. When he finally got back home just before the crack of dawn today, he'd used up all the soap in the shower scrubbing himself until his skin was pink and raw. He didn't want a speck of blood left in the presence of Mo and Hanzo. He suspected that in the near future, he would need a steady supply of quality soap on hand.
.
.
.
In the night, long after dinner, he put the children to sleep. He lay on the best bed in the house with them, singing bits and pieces of songs he half remembered from a long time ago. Despite having to do this for more than a month already, he had not improved by much. They fell asleep in his arms, holding each other. He can hear their soft, quiet breaths, felt their little huff-puffs fill the emptiness inside him until he was full to the brim with them, felt the sound take hold of him, ground him, felt it wash away the cold part of his soul.
No words can describe this feeling. One had to experience being a parent, being responsible for these tiny, frail creatures to be able to understand. Children had a... cleanliness... a purity of essence... to them that adults lacked. And as he laid there with the children slowly falling asleep on his chest, he fed on this purity. As he thought back on the day, it occurred to him that today was as much for him as it was for them.
.
.
.
Five minutes past twelve, he crept quietly out of the bed. The blanket slipped off him to cover the little boy and girl on it. He stood there, watching their interlinked hands. Despite the fact that he gave them both separate rooms, they had somehow still gravitated back to him and to each other. A coping mechanism born out of their time together in Woodsmen Ville forest. For now, he thought, that was fine. They needed time to deal with the trauma of their past and sometimes, it was better to do this with others than to do it alone.
He got out and closed the door. The twin frogs waited for him on the other side.
"It's time?"
"It is. You know what to do Zaki." The yellow frog nodded before leaping past him, ready to maintain his vigil over the sleeping children.
"Let's go Aki." As if she was just waiting for that, the red frog jumped like a loaded spring onto his shoulder.
"Right! And here I thought we would keep playing house for the night too! Now let's go kick some butts." She crowed excitedly as he opened the second-floor window, jumped out and headed for Nezumi.
End chapter 9 – part 1
1. Originally I planned to update this chapter in one go, but I changed the plan at the last minute and decided to add in one extra part. That extra part brings the chapter length to 2000-3000 words longer than planned and add 2-3 more days to my writing schedule. It's just a bad time that I'm getting more and more requests from print magazines and online guides to pen topical magazine articles for them. Plus, I've accepted a contract to edit the written content of an online site…. So my work schedule is getting even more erratic as of late.
This chapter was originally intended to be finished 2 weeks ago, but a mountain of article commissions as well as editing contracts prevented me from that.
So…. since I didn't want to let this chapter sit on the stove for too long, I decided to cut in in half and update this one right away. The second half should take no more than a week for me to put up here (so stay tuned).
This first part is the fluff and release-the-tension part as well as character development. The second part will be more hard-hitting and set the tone and premise for the meat of arc-2 Kiiroi Kami (in which a war and lots of politics stuffs happen… and Naruto singlehandedly creates the first ever anti-nin Ghost brigade and becomes a legend under a pseudonym).
2. I once doubted whether it was a good decision to bring these 2 kids into the main storyline, but the further I go, the more I become convinced that Hanzo and Mo are absolutely necessary to the development of Naruto's character. Their influence gives him his humanity, a humanity that is not always visible when he is seen in action (like the last chapter)
3. The clothes Naruto bought from the shop is from Japanese Momoyama period couture. I thought it fitting since Momoyama couture was known for its decadent beauty. It's a good fit for Kokkyo I think.
4. In term of that "one particular question" I asked all of you last time… well… let's just say that I found many answers to be plainly awesome! But the truth is a lot simpler than that. Without revealing too much, I can say that I'm in a very happy place right now. I'm no longer struggling in a corporate suit and trying to fit in as thousands of other corporate zombies (bless their souls. But they are cool too, in their own right. They just aren't my thing is all). Tis Femina… as amazing as it is… put me on the map and paved the road for me to enter mainstream commercial writing and publishing business (whereas earlier my publications have all been art-house limited-distribution only… and in other languages, not English). I am working on my novels and am well commissioned by many magazines and online guides… but I still want to have fun… and that's why I'm still here, writing fanfics like mad! And yes, I just crank out another Naruto fic… a semi-crossover with Starcraft to boot. What I can say? I nerdgasmed too hard when Sarah Kerrigan ascended in Heart of the Swarm!
I am… very happy right now. And I want to thank all of you, those who read this story, and made it happen for me.
5. On a completely unrelated note, I watched and read Shingeki no Kyojin / Attack on Titan… and OMG, I want to write SNK fanfics! Yes, I do! An epic action, adventure, fantasy fic that explores the depth of SNK characters! But no! I must be patient! Or I will spoil it for my readers. October, yes. That will be time! For now I have to wait!