Chapter Ten
I am helping Aya cook dinner.
I have been asking to do this lately, so much have I found myself enjoying cooking. Aya is so pleased that I've finally found something "normal and lady-like" that I enjoy, she lets me help whenever I ask.
My day has been very busy. I went to my lessons with Sakura and Ino and Ami and Takara-sensei, then was brought home by Cat and tended to the ivy and flowers on my bedroom trellis, then spent an hour in my room meditating and extending my senses (I have found that doing my sensory training at the same time as my meditation actually improves my concentration), then spent two more hours training in the underground chamber with Ko.
With Shigeru-jii not there, we just race each other through all our usual exercises and taijutsu moves and aiming drills. He promised to start teaching us the basics of chakra training after he got back from his mission. We are both very excited, although Ko is grumpy over the fact that he's not old enough to start actually working with his chakra yet. He has to wait for his chakra coils to develop further.
Now Aya and I are making dinner. Ko is lounging around at the kitchen table, watching us idly from underneath his long, scruffy brown bangs, chattering amicably to fill the quiet. Jiji will be home from work soon, and Sanken will come in for dinner too if lured properly... in other words, by food and company and my brother and I. Shigeru-jii isn't here, but he should be soon. It's been a few days since he left. He'll be tired and weary at first, with dark circles under his eyes, as he always is after the long, high-class missions. But then he'll have a rest and some of Aya's food, and he'll sit with us in the kitchen or in Ko's playroom or in his study, and we'll talk about what's been happening while he was gone. Slowly, he'll start to relax, and the darkness will leave his eyes. That's the way it always works.
For a long time, I smile and talk with Ko, Aya idly throwing in bits here and there. I am comfortable in my world. I am at peace. This is my place. These are my experiences. This is my life.
Then everyone grows quiet as the front door creaks open. Jiji and Sanken always knock and wait to be let in. It can't be them. An intruder...? Jiji and Jii always say no one could ever make it through the Sarutobi Mansion's defenses absolutely undetected, but...
I tense up. I am suddenly very nervous and unsure of my abilities, but I try not to let that show on the outside. Jii always says that in a fight, fear is one thing you never show, even if you feel it. Never let fear dominate, Jiji tells me. So instead, I let myself go numb. Strange. I have never thought of that ability as an asset before.
Ko is frozen in his chair. Aya has gone still and carefully blank-faced. Footsteps fall toward the kitchen door. We stare at the door, waiting...
Suddenly, I realize the footsteps sound a lot like Jiji's. I restrain myself from shouting out at this, straining my ears to make sure...
Yes, soft and steady, just like Jiji's feet. The same rhythm, the same weight hitting the floor...
Then the door swings open and there he is. But he doesn't look anything like Jiji normally does. His shoulders are slumped. His face is lined and tired. His eyes are red and bloodshot.
Jiji is usually so confident and assured, I have never thought of him as old before. The thought stuns me and fills me with a deep sense of foreboding.
He walks slowly over to the kitchen table and lowers himself into it, silent. He makes no apology for startling us. He gives no explanation for his strange behavior. For a long time, he just sits there. We watch him, strangely even more tense than we were when we thought he was an intruder.
What could make a powerful man like Jiji look so... broken?
I don't have to wait long to find out.
"... Hiruzen-sama," Aya finally says, her voice uncommonly soft, "what's wrong?"
Jiji lets out a long, tired sigh, breaking his silence. When he speaks, the words sound forced, pained.
"Shigeru is dead."
For the second time in my life, my world shatters.
The following days are filled with confusion.
Jiji is much quieter than usual, even though he's home more often. He mostly stays shut up in his library, only coming out to direct the workers trooping through the mansion about where to pack and where to clean. Sometimes he comes out to greet visitors, if they're especially important, but mostly he just lets them leave their condolence gifts in the entrance hall and go. The civilian workers who are handling Shigeru-jii's things are the only ones who always command his full attention.
Shigeru's things must all be put away in storage somewhere out of the village. The whole mansion must be cleaned and scrubbed down. Preparations must be made for a funeral. There won't be any body, but a grave will be put up in a private cemetery anyway.
He was on an A-class mission. He took a hit for a comrade. It was a Katon jutsu, a powerful one. There was nothing left afterward.
Jiji explained it to me. "I am sorry you have to experience this, Naruto," he said tiredly. He always sounds tired now. "But glad as well, in a way. This is a part of shinobi life. Every shinobi goes out on every mission knowing it could kill them. You know the risks, and so does the enemy. Shigeru knew the risks, and he took them. And he took them for a friend. I am... prouder of him than I can say."
It is the most I have heard him speak at any one time since the news came.
I consider his words as I watch the men in worn civilian clothes troop up and down the stairs, carrying Jii's things to the wagon that will take them out of Konoha. They seem uncomfortable at my presence, and even moreso at my blank stare. None will meet my eye. Normally, I would have to force myself not to care about this.
Now, I am already numb.
I should be crying all the time, like Aya is. I should be grim and silent, like Sanken is. I should be tired, like Jiji is. I should be angry and defensive, asking everyone what's going on and when Shigeru's coming back, like Ko is.
I should not be numb. I should feel something.
But... it just... doesn't seem real to me. I understand what is going on, unlike Ko, but I am just as confused as he is.
I keep waiting for Shigeru-jii to come back. I keep waiting for him to show me how to throw my senbon and summon my chakra. I keep waiting to show him how hard I've been training while he was gone and how good at cooking I'm becoming. I keep walking into his study and expecting his things to still be there, meticulously neat as always. I keep waiting to hear one of his little sarcastic comments from the kitchen, or a distant shout of complaint as Aya slaps him over the back of the head for cursing in the house again. I walk into my room and I can't help but remember the day he helped me paint it, his warm hands helping my tiny ones hold the brush. I can't help but remember his small, special smile and the strength in his eyes when he talks of shinobi and the way there doesn't always need to be any words between us for there to be understanding.
How can someone like that just be... gone?
For the first time in almost two years, I am that naked little creature sitting in her Room, watching the outside world from a hole in her wall.
I am nothing, waiting for something to come along and change me.
Sakura and Ino come eventually, knocking softly on my bedroom door and walking in and hugging me and crying like I still can't bring myself to.
I couldn't say how long it took them to come. Time seems to matter less around the mansion now. It slips away in the silence.
They tell me how sorry they are and they ask me how I'm doing. I don't know how to answer them. I don't even know what to feel anymore.
I'm still waiting for Shigeru-jii to come home.
When they don't get any response, they eventually leave, glancing back at my blank face in worry the entire way.
Lethargic, I wander down the stairs until I find myself in front of Ko's playroom. He has shut himself in his place now that he's realized that no one can answer his questions, much like Shigeru-jii sometimes does.
Used to do.
I shy away from the thought. Something about it frightens me.
Instead, I walk in to see Ko sitting there in the middle of his carpet, arms curled around his bent knees, glaring at a far wall. Silent, I sit down beside him, and he leans over and buries his face in my arm without a word.
At the warmth, I realize how much I needed his presence. Perhaps I actually meant to come down here after all.
"He's not coming back," Ko whispers into my sleeve, as if for confirmation.
Somehow, I find my lost voice. "No," I answer hoarsely.
Ko starts, as though stunned that someone finally answered his most important question. Then, a few moments later, his shoulders begin to shake and my sleeve becomes wet with silent tears.
I let him cry for both of us.
Aya comes to me in my bedroom one afternoon.
By that time, Shigeru-jii still isn't home.
I am tending to my plants. I have been doing this more often lately. It is soothing, and it's something to focus on that doesn't have anything to do with death. Rather, it is the birth of new life.
Aya stands in the doorway and watches me for a long time. She understand what I'm doing, I think. She has been cleaning harder than ever lately. I think that's how she reminds herself that she's still here. We've all done something like that in the past few days.
Aya cleans. Ko trains like mad in the underground chamber. Jiji reads. Sanken and I garden.
Finally, I turn to her. "Yes?" I say softly. Everyone speaks softly here, even the dignified noble visitors offering their sorrow to the elite Third Hokage for his loss, and the civilian washers and workers who have been trooping in and out constantly. It's as if the quiet is so heavy, no one feels strong enough to break it.
Aya takes a shuddering breath and looks away suddenly. She's been doing that a lot lately too.
"Your ettiquette teacher is holding a special lesson tomorrow in your honor. She will be going over kimono wearing... funeral kimono, in particular, will be covered. Your grandfather would like you to attend."
Funeral. That's all anyone ever says anymore. I'm getting sick of the word.
Burning emotion boils up within me for a moment, and then the numbness, ever-vigilant, squashes it back down.
I look away too. "Okay," I say simply.
There is a long silence, and then I hear Aya's footsteps fading away down the hall.
Cat
She looks just like she did when I first met her, and that can't be a good sign.
It's particularly eerie to see because I forgot what Naruto looks like with no emotion, no strength to her. Normally, Naruto's face is animated and vivid with life. Her eyes dart around, shining, taking in everything at once (they never lost that tendency). Even when she walks, she does it with a sort of repressed energy and enthusiasm, and a bit of a natural grace. To see her blank-faced and hollow-eyed again... it's disturbing.
But not entirely unexpected.
She's holding out better than some. I wasn't close to Sarutobi Shigeru, but I know that everyone in the village has been affected by the death of the Sandaime's son in some way. Especially because it was so... sudden.
Now that they know many of the details about the last year of her life, some in the village are whispering that it's Naruto's fault, for making him go on leave all that time. That's ridiculous, of course. Sarutobi Shigeru went on leave months before Naruto came along, and anyway, any shinobi who lets a small term of leave weaken them that severely is not truly a competent shinobi.
I hold out my back to Naruto in the early morning sunlight as she shuffles out of the mansion. "Ready?" I ask, something I don't normally do. But, well... she doesn't seem ready. Did she really have a choice about going to this lesson this morning?
She just climbs onto my back without a word.
As we take to the trees leading out of the forest, I feel her curl further into herself at my back. Her usual chatter and questions and excitement are not present. For a long time, there's silence. I don't think I've heard her this quiet since the first day we met, either.
"... Cat?" she finally inquires.
"Yes?"
"You're coming to the funeral, right?" The question startles me. Why would she want her bodyguard at her uncle's funeral? Unless...
"You do realize I would only be allowed to come as a person, and not as a masked ANBU," I reply uncertainly. "It's a matter of honor."
Naruto seems to digest this for a moment. "So," she finally presses, "are you coming?"
Unless... she doesn't want her bodyguard to come. She wants me to come.
I probably shouldn't. It's a matter of routine for bodyguard ANBU to never show their faces to their clients, no matter what. That way, if they die protecting their client, the client doesn't take it as badly. A person didn't die to save their life. An ANBU died doing their duty.
I really shouldn't let her get to know me. But... I pause on a branch to look back at her wide blue eyes, which are unusually reserved. Underneath that, however, I can see a glimmer of touching hope. "I'll be there," I find myself promising, against my better judgment.
A flicker of something like happiness passes across her face. "Thanks, Cat," she says sincerely.
I feel good about myself.
I'm getting too damn soft for this girl.
Naruto
The Kabaji Theater is Konoha's only theater. As if to make up for this, its sheer size takes up almost an entire street. The first time I ever walked past it, I stopped and stared in awe because I thought it was a golden palace.
Here, I am going to be learning kimono wearing.
Cat takes me up to the backstage entrance, where a stiff-backed, proper-looking elderly woman with her hair in a sharp black bun is sitting outside the backdoor, probably to keep just anyone from walking in on the lesson. I eye her own perfectly worn blue kimono as Cat puts me down in front of her.
The woman, who I assume must be the Kabaji's owner, looks me in the eye, and not with disgust or judging. I am startled by this for a moment, and then I realize that she is silently nodding us in. Still thrown off balance, I walk obediently inside, Cat right behind me.
Backstage is a wide open space, with whole rooms full of changing areas and hooks for clothing and full-length mirrors leading off of it. The dark curtain is long and intimidating and heavy a ways in front of us, with small spaces to lead onto the stage on either side of it, and above us is a tall ceiling full of levels upon levels of strange wooden rafters and scaffolds and pulleys.
Milling about in the wide open space in the middle of the backstage is my class. We must be trying on the kimono here in the changing rooms.
"Naruto!" I turn to see Sakura and Ino running toward me from the crowd. They stop in front of me, faces anxious.
"We didn't know if you'd make it," Ino explains, looking me up and down scrutinizingly.
The trip outside the mansion and Cat's promise have given me strength I wasn't expecting. I force my face up into a smile. "I came," I say quietly. "There's still the funeral, after all."
Saying the word leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It still just doesn't sound right.
"I guess so," Sakura says hesitantly, eyeing me as well. I turn away from their scrutiny.
"So," I say, still attempting to sound cheerful, "what's been going on while I've been away?"
"Ugh, Ami's been awful all week," Ino replies, rolling her eyes, instantly warming to the subject. But to my surprise, Sakura is nodding along with her fervently, looking unusually fierce... especially when it comes to her fear of Ami's bullying. "Don't get anywhere near her, she..."
But before she can say anymore, Takara-sensei calls out to the group, "Alright, it's time to start! Everyone over here!"
The girls all gravitate around Takara-sensei, some sitting, others bouncing around impatiently. I stand quietly in the background and, after a moment's hesitation, Sakura and Ino come to stand beside me.
"Some dancers of the Kabaji Theater are waiting onstage behind that curtain," Takara-sensei says loudly over all the talk, and everyone quiets down to listen. "They will go through kimono with you, step by step, using themselves as examples. Then we will separate into groups. Each group will go into a changing room, either with one of the dancers or myself as their leader, and will practice putting on and wearing kimono themselves. Is everyone clear?" There are some sparse nods, Sakura among them.
"Let's go." Takara-sensei leads the group through the thick divide in the middle of the curtain and onto the stage itself.
Hundreds of plush seats rise in great tiers in front of us, all the way to a ceiling painted like the night sky. The stage itself is wide and sweeping, with lights at its foot. For a moment, even I can't help but be awed, imagining what it must be like to be performing on this stage when the theater is full. How amazing and frightening it must be.
The dancers are waiting in a small group on the large, smooth wooden stage with a neat pile of fancy clothes beside them. They are all small and slim and muscled and long-legged. Their hair is down, and they are wearing nothing but what seems to be a thin white nightrobe on their bodies. At our approach, they all straighten up and gesture for us to sit down in front of them.
The demonstration is actually fairly quick. Kimono wearing seems simple enough. It's the doing it that will be the hard part.
First, the demonstrators show us that under what I thought was a sleeping robe, they are wearing a silk hip wrap called a koshimaki. Above the hip wrap is a short-sleeved kimono undershirt, tied shut at the waist with string. Finally, on top of that is the white robe, called an underrobe. The performers explain that the "underrobe" actually shows once you're wearing the full kimono regalia, such as when you lift the hem of the outer kimono while stepping out into the street. Its collar also shows slightly above the outer kimono's collar. That is why underrobes are not actually normally white. They are all different colors and patterns to coordinate with the outer kimono, which is mostly seen by the outside. The demonstrators just wore white today to keep things simple for us.
Next come the outer kimono. They demonstrate putting on a few for us. We think their brilliant colors and patterns and shimmering cloth is beautiful, and I can't help but join the others briefly to aww in delight. But the demonstrators laugh a little and explain that these are relatively plain compared to many kimono.
It is required to put the outer kimono over the shoulders very slowly and neatly and precisely so that there aren't any wrinkles and you don't bunch anything up and it all fits to your body perfectly. Then, because kimono are the same size no matter who wears them, the extra fabric that pools around your feet must be bunched up under the sash tied around the middle, which is called the obi. The knot to tie the obi in the back is the most complicated part of the whole thing, and they take several minutes showing us how to do it step by step.
I see many around me who are very confused, but they tell us not to worry too much. We'll all do it for each other at first, and it's easier to do it for someone else than yourself.
After this, Takara-sensei goes up to the front of the seated group to call out names and then name a leader. I am put with Sakura, a very quiet girl I've never spoken to before named Chichi, and a pretty young dark-haired dancer named Ume.
Ume leads us backstage to a dressing room, smiling pleasantly the whole way. She's not looking at me oddly or glaring at me, and I am a little relieved. Normally, I could have lived without mastering this lesson, but I need to learn this... from an unprejudiced person.
Ume is a good teacher. She's very nice to us as we put on our wraps and underrobes (in plain white), and then she sits us down in front of a little mirror above a dressing table and shows a bit about the different make-up brushes on it and what they do and where they're supposed to go. She helps us put some basic make-up on, and she even looks me in the eye and smiles when she comes over to help me hide the thin scars on my face behind a creamy face make-up.
A total stranger has never smiled at me before, just because. For the second time in almost two weeks, I give a genuine, if small, smile back.
Afterward, we all (except Sakura, whose hair is too short, and is therefore kept in the red hair ribbon she always ties on top of her head) put our hair up in simple buns at the backs of our heads, and Ume lets us choose from a little box of hair ornaments she's brought so that we can decorate our buns. We're each allowed to pick one. Chichi uses two long, thin polished wooden sticks decorated with butterflies to twist into her bun. Sakura picks a little hair clip to clip to her ribbon. I pick out a lacquered comb Sakura recommends for me. It has a jeweled flower on it, and she says the color matches my eyes. To our surprise, even silent little Chichi speaks up long enough to tell me it looks good, in a deep, solemn voice.
We put on the outer kimono then. Sakura chooses a dark blue one with pink sakura blossoms decorating it that goes well with her hair and her namesake. Its obi is red to match her ribbon. Chichi takes a simple one in light gold and mint green, with an obi in the same light gold color as the trimming. But instead of letting me choose from the racks of kimono that Sakura and Chichi choose from, Ume leads me to the back, where she takes out a beautifully made, formal black kimono with a deep blue obi. "Your grandfather has bought this for you for the funeral," she says quietly. Her face is serious. "He asked that it be brought here so that you can try it on beforehand, and to pick out a hair ornament to take home with you."
I am startled. Jiji said nothing to me of this. But then, Jiji hasn't said much in the past weeks. The thought brings me back down from wherever I've been in the past hour. "Alright," I say quietly, nodding.
She helps me dress, pointing out small differences between funeral kimono and regular kimono in a calm voice as we go. All I know in the end is that it's very heavy and stiff and I don't think I will ever get used to it. I restrain myself from snapping this at her when she asks me how I like it. "It's fine," I say, giving out a pained smile which I'm certain is more of a grimace.
When she puts me in thick white tabi socks and lacquered sandals, however, and places me in front of a full length mirror, I have to admit to myself... with my lovely kimono and my shiny golden hair done up with the jeweled comb that matches my eyes, I feel pretty for the first time in my life. I don't even recognize myself. But there is something missing. Something about my blank face.
Some small part of me thinks of Shigeru-jii, and what he would think of this if he could see me now. Some small part of me thinks he would disapprove. I don't like that thought. I hate that thought. And I hate the fact that I think he would be right in his disapproval.
The hot emotion boils up inside of me for a moment, and then it bursts into a flurry of movement as I run over to the make-up table and use thick, sharp black mascara to paint over the whisker-shaped scars on my face and make them stand out amidst all the make-up.
I am not ashamed of what I am. I will not hide it.
Ume looks startled. Sakura and Chichi are staring at me. I lift my chin defiantly and carry myself, even through all the heavy fabric, through the door and back to the main backstage area. Cat is standing there, somehow quiet and inconspicuous as ever, even in her ANBU garb. A few other girls are mingling around as well, waiting, and they all pause briefly to rove their eyes to my face as I walk back over to stand beside Cat, suddenly ready for the trip to be over.
Sakura and Ino join me a few minutes later, Ino in a soft silver and blue kimono decorated with waves, like the sea. They say nothing as they stand beside me, watching the backstage area slowly fill with dressed up girls, but I can feel them glancing uneasily at me out of the corners of their eyes. They seem to be doing that a lot lately.
Then, suddenly, an unwelcome voice shouts out across the room, "Well well well, if it isn't Little Miss Whiskers!"
The three of us turn to see Ami and her usual posse coming toward us. Usually, when we are too close to Cat, it keeps them away. But, even though she turns her blank mask to look at them as well, they don't pause. Ami's round, scrunched-up face is too eager for hesitation. She has been waiting for this.
"When I gave you the nickname, I didn't think you'd take it quite so literally," she sneers, eyeing my face. The girls behind her shriek with laughter.
I don't have to hide any embarrassment this time. A strong, burning kind of defiance has arisen within me, and I feel more powerful than I ever have. I glare at them, angry and indignant for the first time, instead of passive and numb and hesitant of insulting the people around me, at their laughing at something I have no control over. Something that has already brought me so much pain.
"Ooh, I'm sorry, have I insulted you, My Lady?" Ami says, dark eyes flashing at mine.
"Lay off, Ami!" Sakura, of all people, shouts suddenly, fiercer than I have ever seen her toward anyone. Perhaps shy little Sakura has a fire hidden somewhere inside her too, I think, as I watch her green eyes widen with a kind of protective anger I've never seen in her before.
"Standing up for Whiskers, Forehead Girl?" Ami's expression becomes even crueler as she turns to the quiet, bookish girl that I know for a fact she used to pick on before Ino stepped in and got right up in her face, fending her off and befriending Sakura in the process. "Why? I'm just being polite. If Her Ladyship is offended, I want to know what I've done to make it so."
"Bullshit," Ino says bluntly, taking a step toward Ami and her friends. A couple of them gasp quietly, and even I'm a bit startled. I've only ever heard that word a few times before: from the matron when she was drunk, and once from Shigeru-jii when he thought I wasn't listening.
The thought of Shigeru-jii, right in the midst of all of this, punches a hole somewhere inside me. I retreat into myself suddenly, and the anger fades a little.
Everyone in the backstage area has stopped to watch by now, even the few people who haven't seemed to have taken one side or the other. The adults are off helping one of the groups, except for Cat, who is watching us all inscrutably. No one is around to stop us.
"Why... I would never say such a horrible word!" Ami says shrilly, wrinkling her nose. "I'm a proper lady!"
"That's because you're your Daddy's Little Girl." Ino's icy blue eyes gleam as her pointed face twists into a smirk. "And I'm mine."
There is a moment of silence in which Ami's eyes widen. Ino is threatening Ami, I realize. With the head of a major founding ninja clan against a mere merchant, however wealthy, there is no contest as to who would win. No matter how much she might say to the contrary, Ami has to know this. She has to have been taught something about her place in the world by her father already.
No matter how mean Ami is to me, I feel uncomfortable at the idea of something so huge happening simply because I was angry at something someone had said. "Ino," I begin tiredly, "just let it go..."
"How kind of you, My Lady," Ami suddenly bites out, cornered and vicious. "But no matter how kind you try to be, my mother says it will never erase the shame the Sandaime's son had to die with for having to look after someone like you!"
Something inside of me that I didn't even know was strained suddenly snaps.
The burning emotion hidden somewhere behind the numbness for all these days boils over and washes over me in a wave, like lava pouring onto my body. Before I can even think about it, I am lunging at her so fast, she doesn't even raise her arms to protect herself. I remember her wide black eyes, shocked and frighened, just before I was on top of her, punching everything under me as hard as I could. The grief and the frustration and the sadness and the desperation and the shame and the anger and the realization of he's gone and he's never coming back all come up at once, and everything blurs together as I scream and I hit everything, everything and there is blood under my fists.
"Naruto!" Cat's voice is harder, sharper than I've ever heard it, so rock-hard that it breaks through everything and stops me right where I am, on top of Ami, fist raised. Her face is covered in blood and she's screaming.
My vision is still blurred and my eyes are burning. I am crying, I realize.
As my insides feel like they are collasping, being torn apart, Cat lifts me up in her arms, slides my sandals back on my feet, and walks out the back door of the theater without even speaking to anyone. I am so caught up in myself that I don't notice anything around me as the door slams shut behind us.
Author's Notes: Damn, I hated writing this chapter. I guess I have only myself to blame for falling in love with a character I knew I was going to kill off from the beginning.
Naruto is going to be going through some stuff in the next couple of chapters and then (finally) we'll get to the Academy. Be warned, however... things will be understandably depressing for a while around here.
As always, any comments/critiques are greatly appreciated.
