Very, very emotional. Readers will most probably cry. I cried...
Beta by: Cyrro. Thank you so much dear.
11. I want you to smile...always
Itachi watched Naruto and Kabuto quit the preliminaries and went outside. As far as he knew, Naruto was never among the people who would back down from their duties, so the situation was beyond suspicious.
Earlier, after Naruto recovered her consciousness, she declared she was all right, and left the infirmary with a worried glace towards Sai and a nod towards Kakashi and Itachi. Soon the preliminary round before the final was declared and Naruto quit it, which was very, very unlike of her.
His eyes then fell on Gaara, the Sand jinchuuriki, who didn't even bat an eye lash when Naruto went out. He acted like he wasn't carrying Naruto bridal style just a few minutes ago.
Itachi frowned inwardly, he didn't like where things were going. He refused to listen to the small voice in his head which said he was jealous of the red headed genin for gaining Naruto's trust so quickly.
Before his thoughts could go any more wild, the preliminaries began. He watched his little brother wipe the floor with one of Kabuto's team mates proudly. Then the shuffling for next match started. But before the second match could began, he felt a specific chakra signal coming from where Kakashi was supposed to be. This signal was specifically for ANBU captains, and it was used only in emergency situations.
Kakashi would never use such a thing if the situation wasn't of high importance. A sudden bad feeling settled in Itachi's gut as he hurried to where Kakashi was.
Line Break…
Kakashi was in the top floor of the tower sealing Sai's curse mark. As soon as the sealing was done the poor child lost consciousness. Kakashi lifted him up with up with the utmost care and proceed to leave. But he found his path blocked by one of the legendary Sanin, Orochimaru. Kakashi might not admit this, but he too had come to care deeply for his genins and he refused to let anyone harm them. He knew he most probably would lose a fight against this opponent, but Kakashi was also a living legend and knew how to handle pressure. Kakashi sent a quick signal to Itachi and readied himself for a nasty battle.
But to his surprise the snake sanin just laughed loudly at him and said, "So it was a mistake after all. This child isn't the Uchiha one. But no matter: I will get my hands on one of the last two Uchihas the village has left. Feel free to seal his curse mark. But I should warn you, only one in ten survives this mark – sealed or not. Only 10% survive the complete one but almost everyone dies from an incomplete curse heaven seal."
After saying his farewell, the Sanin disappeared in a puff of smoke. Kakashi felt cold sweat form on his forehead as the parting words from the snake sanin echoed inside his head. The seal Sai had on was incomplete. Only the yang portion of the seal was present in the mark. If people couldn't survive a full seal, how on earth this child was going to survive a faulty one?
Moreover, the snake sanin warned Kakashi about his other student, and said students big brother. He could feel dread settling in his gut.
Itachi found Kakashi in the same state Orochimaru left him. He was looking down at the unconscious child with an unreadable expression.
"Kakashi?" He called out keeping a safe distance from the Jonin-sensei and his student. He wasn't going to go any closer in case that put him in danger of getting attacked.
"Itachi. Have you seen Naruto?" Kakashi asked in a low voice, he sounded tired and defeated, a tone not usual to the Copy nin.
"Yes. She forfeited," Itachi answered.
"Oh, I see," Kakashi muttered. A heavy silence fell on the two Shinobi present there.
"Itachi," Kakashi whispered. " Am I failing another team?" He asked after a small pause.
Itachi frowned inwardly, what could have happened to make the Copy nin doubt himself? In his whole time in ANBU, Itachi never saw Kakashi feeling less than self-confident. Itachi avoided the question asked to him and put forward his own question. "What happened Kakashi?"
"Orochimaru is here and, according to him, Sai has a survival chance of 10%. I sealed his mark, but have no idea how to remove it," Kakashi muttered in a strained voice.
Itachi knitted his brows and opened his mouth to say something but , before he could, he was alerted to another presence coming their way. He waited for the presence to catch up to them and half turned to look at her. Naruto's face was blank as she came to view.
'Is the sealing done?' She signed looking at Kakashi, who without doubt, had noticed her presence earlier.
" It is, but we need a seal master to take a look at it soon," Itachi answered in place of the copy nin. "Isn't that right Kakashi?"
"Yes," Kakashi said in a low voice.
'Well, let's take him to hospital first,' She signed. 'Then we can talk to the Hokage about it.'
"Yes. Let's go Kakashi," Itachi said and they took off in direction of the hospital.
Line Break...
"It's troubling," The Hokage said wearily.
The preliminaries were done and the candidates who were to fight in the finals were selected. Sasuke was the only one in his team to go to the finals. He was matched up against Lee.
Needless to say, Sasuke wasn't happy. He got to fight the broody guy who beat up Gaara like a head case. Everyone knew Lee couldn't use his chakra, but still the serious, shady-looking guy was someone to be afraid of. The other match ups were Tamari VS Shikamaru, Shino VS Kankuro, Neji VS Kiba.
But these weren't as troubling as the appearance of Orochimaru. Hiruzen knew that it would be difficult for him to kill his beloved student, whom he once wanted to entrust the village with.
He looked back up and saw three of his most trusted Shinobi, and let out a sigh. "Naruto, Itachi and Kakashi. I want all of you back to ANBU as captains during the exam. Kakashi back to team Ro. Itachi you know your team and Naruto from now on you shall lead team Sora, remember your team mates are divided between fire and wind nature types. So, go to them and get acquainted with them and their fighting styles.
Kakashi, figure out what you want to do with your student in the finals and Itachi, send out your crow in search of Jiraiya."
Each Shinobi bowed to his command and teleported away.
They had a village to protect.
Line break...
"Are you done meeting your new team?" Itachi asked walking down the main street with Naruto. After he had checked with his brother and team, he ran into Naruto, and they decided to spar like the old times. Itachi also wanted to know more about that red headed Sand nin.
Naruto nodded to his question absently. She was deep in thought about Gaara, and she couldn't just decide what to think of him. He appeared in front of them like he knew this was going to happen. She was so deep in her thoughts she almost missed what Itachi said.
'I am sorry, but could you repeat what you just said?' She signed looking up at him.
Itachi frowned in some direction and pointed in the direction he was frowning. "Can you see that white-haired guy peeping in women's bath?"
Naruto followed his finger and, true to Itachi's word, a person with long spiky white hair was indeed peeping and giggling.
Naruto grabbed Itachi's hand to stop him from confronting the white-haired guy, and signed to Itachi to wait and let her handle this. She might be socially stunted, but she hated pervs with passion. Itachi looked down at the girl he loved and felt a shiver run down his spine. At that time he didn't know it, but once Naruto's mother had the same expression when dealing with that same pervert. He also didn't know that in future Itachi was going to see that expression many times and, like everything about her, will also come to love that expression too.
"I will be at training ground 3. You do what you want with him and meet me there. I have some things to discuss with you," he said and teleported away.
Naruto narrowed her eyes and slowly approached the giggling old person. When she was about ten feet away from him, she made a small water dragon and, with as much force as she could use without killing the person, threw it towards him. To her utter surprise, the white-haired guy actually dodged it and turned towards her. It took her less than two second to know who that perverted person was. He was Jiraiya, one of the Legendary Sanin.
"Hey kid what do you think you are doing?" He asked in a dismissive tone.
Naruto just narrowed her eyes at him and started making new hand signs. He may be one of the most powerful ninja alive on earth, but that didn't give him the right to peep on innocent women.
She made another water dragon, this time she didn't hold back. She knew this would just barely be able to touch the guy standing in front of her, and besides, she needed to take him to Sai anyway.
"Ow ow owww! Calm down kid," Jiraiya said, jumping away from her water dragon. But the Sanin wasn't fully successful and was soaked to bones. Naruto gritted her teeth when her attack wasn't fully successful. No matter: she will use her primary chakra nature this time. Naruto started making hand seals in a lightning speed.
Jiraiya's face paled when he saw what Jutsu she was going to use. He quickly moved away from the wall he was peeking through and started to run. "Look kid I was not peeping. I was just researching, this is for a novel. So please calm down."
But all his yelling was in vain when Naruto launched the attack. Tornado style: giant hurricane. It was fortunate that they were in outskirts of the village or else Naruto would have caught innocent people in her attack. Jiraiya wasn't very successful this time, and was blown into oblivion.
'Minato your daughter is a monster just like her mother,' he thought, before losing consciousness.
Line break...
When he woke up, Jiraiya found himself in a hospital, face-to-face with his sensei and God of shinobi, Hiruzen Sarutobi, or the third Hokage. The Hokage was seated in a chair beside him, puffing out some smoke and giving him a very, very unimpressed look.
"Do I want to know why Naruto used Tornado style on you?" Hiruzen asked in a dry tone.
Jiraiya ignored his question completely, rather he asked, "Why the heck does she, who should be a genin, know both water style and the freaking Tornado style, an advanced form of wind manipulation? Has our standard raised that much old man?"
Jiraiya was no fool, he just liked to act like one. After losing his own children like Minato and Kushina, it was deep blow for him. He had to distract himself from the pain he felt whenever he thought of those two, who should be alive with their beautiful child. He blamed himself for not being present there to keep those two...no those three safe. Minato was his son in every sense but blood, so he instantly took his child as his own grandchild.
13 years ago, a few days after the fox attack, when he rushed into the village to see the spitting image of Minato in the Hokage's arms, he felt his world shift from under his feet. He had held the small child and cried his heart out that night.
The next day he wanted to take the child and leave the cursed village for ever. Tsunade was right: this village took too much from him as well. But the Hokage made him see sense, he had no idea how to raise a child and now, in a weakened condition, the village needed him more. He had argued that Naruto, his Granddaughter, needed him more. But to the Hokage the village always comes first, and Minato would have wanted this too. It was heart breaking, but it was the truth.
Minato proved how much he cared about the village when he sacrificed his own life and the life of his child. So, Jiraiya had left, only allowed to go back when Root was disbanded.
During that time he was never told the details about what was going on with Naruto, neither was he given permission to see the child. Needless to say, it was done by the council. Now he understood why they would do such a thing. They wanted no emotional interference when it came to Jiraiya's work, and Jiraiya was sure he would have taken the girl away with him if he had known earlier. But soon, worrying facts about an organization called Akatsuki came to l ight, and he had to come back to the village again, not for the village, but for the child's sake. He intended to make her strong, just like her patents were. But he never imagined seeing her with strength like that. It was equally a troubling thing and a good thing.
The Hokage put out his pipe and let out a tired sigh. "Jiraiya many things have happened since you were gone. I am sorry. I wasn't able to protect her."
Over two hours, the Hokage told his student everything concerning the blond Child of Heroes. By the end of the tale, Jiraiya had his face buried in his hands, and tears falling from his eyes.
"Sensei, you failed," was only thing Jiraiya could utter before going out of the hospital room, leaving a defeated and regretful old man to mourn, yet again, for the death of certain blond haired man and his red headed wife.
Line break...
Shin was sitting beside his unconscious little brother when Jiraiya came in.
"I would like to see his curse mark," Jiraiya said, once he saw Shin. Shin nodded his head and went out, not before Jiraiya noticed his blood-shot eyes. He checked the seal in Sai's arm and released the surprising seal placed by Kakashi.
"Shin can you please bring Kakashi here?" Jiraiya asked as he drew more seals around the child's body. Shin poked his head in and nodded silently.
When Kakashi came in, he found Jiraiya sitting in a lotus position with his sage mode on and two frogs on his shoulder.
Jiraiya didn't open his eyes. "Kakashi this seal is incomplete and is clashing with the seal already in his body. There is no way to destroy and if it is not removed from his body soon, the child will die."
Jiraiya's words are like a hammer to the copy nin. The death of his father, Obito, Rin and his Sensei flashed though his mind and he felt his nerves give way. "Is there no way left Jiraiya-Sensei?" Kakashi whispered like a child. A child who had seen way too many deaths. He felt utterly broken and helpless. At moments like this, one could really tell how young and helpless Kakashi was.
Jiraiya opened his eyes and looked directly at him. "There is one way, and that is why I called you. Both of his cursed seals have one thing in common, mind control. This type of seal is very complex and strong, and can't be destroyed. They can be transferred from one person to another, but..."
"But what sensei: just say it!" Kakashi asked desperately. Jiraiya sighed. "But to do that we need a human being who will most probably die as soon as we do transfer the seal."
"I will do it."
Both Kakashi and Jiraiya turned to the pale looking child standing in front of the door with a determined expression on his face.
He came in and said, "Let me do it Lord Jiraiya, please. My brother's life is very important to me, and he has to live. I am dying anyway, so please let me die in his place."
Jiraiya looked at Kakashi, who was looking as broken as he did when Minato had died. "Shin, 'you are dying' is no excuse for me to literally take your life an-"
"Please Lord Jiraiya. I have just a few weeks left anyway. My last wish is to see my brother smile. I will never be able to forgive myself if I let anything to happen to him. Sai has a good life ahead of him with his team mates and friends. Tell me, if you were in my place what you have done?"
Jiraiya frowned. Time was running out for the child, and he knew village wouldn't do anything for an ex-root agent. He looked at the desperate brother in front of him. Anyone with eyes could tell Shin wasn't doing well and would die soon.
"Alright Shin you can do it. But would Sai would want this?"
Jiraiya asked in a very serious tone. Beside him he could feel Kakashi tensing up. Jiraiya knew Rin had asked the same question before she died. In the Shinobi world death was very common but it didn't mean the people who died were not missed by anyone. Shinobi were told to be tools, but could humans be really tools?
"Would Obito want this? The destruction of our village?"
Jiraiya knew it was sore memory for Kakashi, but right now it wasn't the time or place to think about all that was in past.
He looked back at Shin for an answer and found him smiling looking at Sai's face. Shin turned to look in Jiraiya's eyes and said, "Lord Jiraiya, Sai is my little brother. I know exactly what he wants, he wants to live with me, he wants his team to be safe, but above all he wants to serve this village to repay the second chance we were given. So please let me provide my last duty towards the village by saving a future Shinobi who, without a doubt, will be a very loyal ninja of the Hidden Leaf. "
At the end of the lecture Jiraiya was convinced about what he needed to do. He let out a small sigh and gestured for Shin to say his farewells.
Shin gave a bright smile and kneeled beside his unconscious little brother.
"Sai, seems like this is good bye. I wanted to see you smile more, but our time has run out little brother. Now take care of yourself. I won't be around anymore, so you have to eat properly too. I know you have your team to watch your back, so I won't worry about that. I just want you me. smile...always." With his parting words Shin stood up,"I am ready lord Jiraya."
That day might never be remembered as a glorified day in history, people may not even remember who the unrecognized ex-root agent was. But it was the day one of the biggest sacrifices in history was made. A sacrifice of life from an older brother to his little sibling. The only people who came to know about this sacrifice were the Third Hokage, one of the legendary Sanin Jiraiya, Copy-nin Kakashi Hatake, Itachi Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha and the very unfortunate brother, Sai.
A/N. I am crying. No words. Please don't hate me.
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