Chapter 33

Red is Back

It was nearly dinner time when Mangetsu returned to the house. Yamato conveyed Kushina's desire to discuss the upcoming full moon to him before departing. Mangetsu sighed and secured the house before skulking off to see what Naruto was up to.

The boy was asleep on the couch. There was a subtle pinched look to his face, like he was upset. He probably was unhappy that his mother had left him behind. After such a long separation it would be hard for him to be satisfied with such a short visit.

He raised an eyebrow behind his mask at some of the things left on the couch near Naruto. There were a couple of his old kunai lying on the couch arm, stripped of their seal papers and a tad rusty. And draped over the back of the seat was his old flame coat—a gift from the toad demons after completing Fukasaku's training.

Kushina must've brought them over.

The ANBU removed his mask, hooked it to his belt, and picked up the coat and sniffed it. Kushina's scent clung to the fabric and he thought she'd probably worn it sometimes, maybe even slept in it. His lips twitched towards a faint smile as he ran his gloved hand over the coat.

It figures that she would've run off with this; she loved this damn thing.

Sighing, he used the coat as a blanket and covered the napping boy up. The lingering scent of his mother on it eased his unconscious mind and the faint tension in his sleeping face eased into slack peacefulness. Mangetsu indulged in a few caresses of his son's hair before walking back to the kitchen to decide what he should cook for dinner.

…I don't know what I'm going to do.

He had planned on being alone with Naruto on the full moon, revealing his werewolf abilities and perhaps training him a bit if the boy was up to it. He hadn't entirely decided on how he would manage the night and introduce Naruto to his werewolf side. But now Kushina was in the village and wanted in on the night.

With her there, Naruto would most likely focus on her and just want to play. And there was the question of how she would react to a full-blooded fully-transformed werewolf. Would she be able to trust him with Naruto? Would she be suspicious of him? Would she get in a fight with him and upset Naruto?

Perhaps…he could ignore her request to talk and avoid her. There were less than three days until the night of the full moon. All he had to do was duck out when she stopped by to visit and then sneak the boy out of the village on the third day before the sun went down. With his hiraishin it would be so easy…

But that would piss her off, he knew. She'd throw a fit and stir up trouble trying to find him. And if…when she finds out about me, it'll only get worse.

He stood in front of the pantry, crippled with indecision that had nothing to do with meal choices. He'd made plenty of hard decisions before. Why couldn't he make up his mind now?

…I've gone Omega, he thought with a flinch.

In his self-imposed exile he'd been an outsider wherever he'd gone. He had no back-up to call upon, no home to go to, nothing at all. Instead of taking charge of situations and fighting to defend himself, he ran when conflict reared its head. His mentality had shifted from that of an Alpha, a dominant wolf, to that of an Omega, the wolf at the very bottom of the hierarchy.

So, now that he was faced with a cluster of tricky problems, his impulse was to avoid decisions and run instead of selecting a solution.

"Shit."

Inoichi had no real desire to pay the Hokage a visit first thing in the morning, but after listening to his daughter's friend's story he felt that he didn't have any choice. When he had been admitted to the village leader's office he had cringed at the sight of the Hokage. The old man looked like he had aged a good decade since the Trials had started, and with whispers of Orochimaru, sabotage, and the Uchiha's misbehavior Inoichi could understand the strain that he man was under. He felt bad for adding to it.

"Yes," the old Sarutobi sighed deeply. "I am aware of that particular incident. However, I don't have any information to share with you as Fugaku decided to stab the poor boy before he could be properly debriefed."

The Yamanaka tensed. It hadn't been officially released yet as to why Fugaku and a few of his clansmen were in ANBU's secure jail. There had been plenty of wild rumors making the rounds in the village, but to hear that there was any sort of truth to some of them…

"Why did Fugaku feel the need to stab this boy?" Inoichi asked.

"He had acquired some information that seemed to hint that the boy was a werewolf, and instead of going through the proper channels—namely, openly discussing the issue with me—he decided to take matters into his own hands."

The blond man grimaced in distaste. Whenever 'Uchiha' and 'werewolf' were mentioned in the same breath there was a headache close behind. Members of the Sharingan-wielding clan were zealots on the subject of werewolves and killing them, and it got on everyone's nerves.

Werewolves were dangerous, true, and given a slightly higher rating that they normally would have due to their contagious bite. No one wanted them around and whenever one was reported it was dealt with swiftly. But that just wasn't enough for the Uchiha.

They wanted to go on crusades into other countries and hunt werewolves down until the curse was dead. Unfortunately, Konoha didn't have the authority to barge into other nations on werewolf hunts. That sort of behavior sparked border disputes with larger nations that had their own ninja forces, and if border disputes weren't worked out they could swell into genuine wars. And that was very, very bad.

Of course, the Uchiha weren't concerned with that. All that mattered to them was expunging the stain of some disowned ancestor bringing the curse from far off foreign lands from their family. It didn't matter that few people these days were even aware that it was some Uchiha's fault. They insisted on making a huge deal about it and driving everyone crazy in the process.

"Are they mistaking this kid's possession episode for proof of lycanthropy?" Inoichi snorted. I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

The Hokage didn't immediately reply. He took a long moment to stuff his pipe with tobacco and light it. After several long puffs and several minutes he seemed to come to some decision.

"No, I don't believe Fugaku had enough time to hear about it before he acted," the old man said. "He gathered some information on the boy's heritage that he believed indicated lycanthropy."

"The boy's heritage?" Inoichi almost choked. "What would that have to do with it?"

"Don't tell me that you never wondered about whether or not Minato's unborn child would somehow inherit the curse, Inoichi," the Hokage replied mildly.

"Well, yeah, who didn't?" the Yamanaka responded. "Everyone knew that he had to be a werewolf before he impregnated her, he had to have been one for years, and after so long it had to seep into his seed…" Inoichi frowned. "What does that have to do with some foster kid?"

"Every child has to come from somewhere," the old man smiled faintly. "They don't just spring up from thin air."

Inoichi frowned. He was getting the distinct impression that the Hokage was toying with him—having a bit of fun at his expense. If Shikaku was present he would probably have figured out what was going on by now, but Inoichi wasn't a freaking genius like his old Nara buddy was.

"So Fugaku found out who the boy's parents are and one or both of them turned out to be werewolves so he thought that the kid was a werewolf too?" he guessed.

"Basically, yes," the Hokage nodded.

"Huh." The Yamanaka sat back in the chair set before the Hokage's large desk. "Well, the boy isn't a werewolf, right?"

"Naruto does possess some lycanthropic traits, but also several traits that are clearly not lycanthropic," the old Sarutobi replied, puffing on his pipe. "I've had him carefully watched ever since this came to my attention. While I haven't yet received a full report on his performance in the Trials so far due to Fugaku's interference, I have yet to see solid proof that he is dangerous or disloyal to the village. When he recovers from Fugaku's assault I may call on you to examine his mind if he truly doesn't remember this possession episode that his teammate reported."

"…Okay."

Trusting in the Hokage's judgment was usually the way to go. The ninja leader's only major blunder had been with Orochimaru, and considering how long the snake had fooled most of the village, and the student-teacher relationship between the two men, the mistake was understandable. And Inoichi had a good chance of examining this boy personally, so that he could make up his own mind, if he was patient.

"Is there any estimate if when the boy would be ready for a mind scan?"

"Probably not for the next five days at least," the Hokage replied. "And as his mother has recently arrived it will be necessary to get her permission."

"His mother?" The Yamanaka man frowned. "Isn't he some fostered orphan?"

"Not all children put into foster care are orphans," the old man pointed out. "His mother was forced to relinquish custody due to family pressures. She arrived in Konoha two days ago and she is not pleased with recent events."

"I can imagine," Inoichi muttered. If Fugaku ever went after Ino for any reason, I'd get inside his head and make him wish that he'd never been born!

"I'm sure that you'll run into her soon enough," the Hokage smiled. "You were acquainted with Uzumaki Kushina in the past, weren't you?"

"Yeah, I remember her." Who could forget her? "It's a shame that she felt she had to leave."

"Yes, it was," the old Hokage agreed and gave him a wave of dismissal. "Don't be surprised if you see her on the street."

Having nothing else to discuss with the village leader, Inoichi bowed and left the office. As he worked his way down several different flights of stairs to street level, he mulled over the Hokage's parting remark and the odd comments buried in their conversation. When he reached the Tower's exit, a startling possibility hit him like a door to the face.

Kushina's back…and that boy…her son? Minato's spawn? Holy—

Barely dodging an actual door to the face as some chuunin rushed inside, Inoichi slipped out into the sunshine and shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

If Fugaku manages to walk away from this alive…it will be with pink hair.

Kasshoku was rather disappointed that the Uchiha hadn't exploded quite as spectacularly as he'd hoped that they would. Fugaku's heir, Itachi, had managed to leash his clan rather effectively so far. Not even the boon of having little Sasuke branded with a curse mark and cast out for his taint had helped the Biyokuchi further his plans.

The Uchiha District is like a pressure cooker, he thought to himself as he slipped out of the small café where he'd had his lunch. The longer young Itachi tries to sit on them with his father locked up in jail, the more pressure that will build. The trick will be applying the right sort of trigger at the right moment to get the real bang that I need…

The Uzu-nin forced back a scowl as he glimpsed a flicker of what might've been an ANBU tailing him up on the rooftops. It seemed that ever since the day that Fugaku had attempted to assassinate the Uzumaki abomination he always had a shadow that he needed to lose. He supposed that it was possible that he'd been tailed even earlier in his stay in this village, but the fact that nothing had been done about him indicated that they hadn't seen him doing anything, or that the Hokage was senile and stupid.

If the Hokage even suspects what I'm up to, he's an absolute fool leaving me in place, the hidden fox smirked to himself as he set about shaking his stalker by heading for the busiest crowds he could find. A farmer isn't much of a farmer if he knows a fox is raiding his henhouse at will and does nothing to stop it. No Kitsune would be foolish enough to let a foe wreak havoc in his own territory. Really, how is this village still standin—

"Hello there," a woman's voice greeted. "You must be that Biyokuchi that I heard was here."

Kasshoku snapped his head around so fast that he almost gave himself whiplash. The owner of the voice was a woman with dark blue-gray eyes and very long, very straight, very red hair. Her plain dark clothing was unremarkable, but the swirl of Uzushio on her hitai-ate immediately caught his attention.

"…I was not informed that anyone else was coming," he said slowly.

"How funny," she chuckled. "My clan had no idea that anyone from Uzu was here at all until it drifted to our ears second-hand. Why is that, hm?"

"What clan are you from?" Kasshoku asked warily.

Her clothes lacked any obvious clan symbol and red hair wasn't terribly uncommon in Uzushio. The fact that she didn't know that he had come both puzzled and worried him. She clearly wasn't Biyokuchi as he didn't recognize her at all and she wasn't a Kurohi…

"Uzumaki!" she sing-songed, flashing him a toothy smile. "And guess what, I'm stealing your job!"

"You're what?" Kasshoku asked sharply, his mind racing.

The Uzumaki was a powerless clan now. They didn't have the pull to send anyone to Konoha and they were too honorable to go behind the other clans' backs. So had the Uzumaki broken into factions with one of them allied with the Kurohi?

And what did she mean that she was stealing his job? Was this hypothetical faction of Uzumaki trying to prove itself to the Kurohi by outdoing him in destabilizing Konoha? Or had the Uzumaki actually sent an ambassador without village approval and she thought she was stealing the diplomatic job that was just his cover from him?

"I'm stealing your job because it was my job first," she told him smugly. "And since I have all the solid connections that you don't, I'll win. Konoha only needs one Uzu ambassador so you should just leave now and save yourself the embarrassment."

So, she's actually taking the duty seriously. He narrowed his pale blue eyes at the strange woman. And she claims to have had this job before…

There was only one female in her age range from Clan Uzumaki who had been selected to be the liaison to the Leaf…that disgusting werewolf lover.

"Ah…the infamous Uzumaki Kushina, how unpleasant to make your acquaintance," he sneered and folded his arms over his chest. "They let you off your chain?"

Her smiling expression faltered, but only for a second.

"So you're sticking around, then?" She raised an eyebrow. "What a shame. I've known Hokage-sama and most of the current major clan heads for years and years. They'll trust me over you any day. You'll never have anything important to do here."

Kasshoku snorted and started walking again. The woman was an airhead; a joke. She would be nothing more than an added annoyance. It almost wouldn't be worth the effort of adding her presence into his next coded status report.

A pair of hands grabbed his shoulders and the disgraced Kushina whispered into his ear from behind.

"Before you go on your merry way—a warning. If I find out that you encouraged Fugaku to stab my baby, I'll out you."

"What are you t—"

"I'm sure that Fugaku would love to have a brand new Kitsune skin to hang from his wall," she purred darkly.

The blood in his veins froze.

"You-you wouldn't!" he hissed.

"I would," she chirped and patted his shoulder before almost skipping away. "Have a nice day!"

She's insane! Kasshoku thought as he watched her leave over his shoulder. She's absolutely insane!

What the hell does Yuudai see in her?

Sasuke stood stock still, senses on full alert, waiting. Without so much as a sound, a flurry of kunai exploded from one of the trees that surrounded him. Snapping on his Sharingan he did his best to avoid the blades while moving as little as possible. When the barrage ended, Sasuke had a shallow slice on one arm and his left cheek in addition to the handful that he already possessed.

Kakashi dropped from the tree, eyed him for a moment, and nodded.

"Take a ten minute break."

The boy relaxed and dragged himself back to the entrance of the training ground where he'd left his extra supplies and his water. After taking a few good sips of water, he used some of it to clean his cuts. He started to stretch out when a shadow fell over him.

He glanced up, expecting to see his teacher.

Instead, it was Itachi was a large duffel bag.

"Good morning little brother," Itachi nodded. "Training is going well, I hope."

"…You shouldn't be talking to me," Sasuke mumbled, dropping his gaze to the grass.

"I don't care what the rest of the clan thinks," Itachi said. "You're my brother and I have every right to talk to you." He dropped the bag near Sasuke's water and training supplies. "I've brought you some things from mother."

Sasuke hesitated before unzipping the bag to see what it contained.

He found clothes—all the clothes that he'd left behind when the clan elders had commanded him to leave. They were all washed and neatly folded. And every red and white uchiwa fan that had once been sown onto them had been removed.

"So…I guess I'll have to fix the rest of my clothes myself," he muttered, tugging at the still uchiwa-adorned shirt that he was wearing.

"Mother would help if you asked her," his older brother replied.

"She'd break the taboo and talk to me, too?" Sasuke asked, trying not to get his hopes up.

"If you catch her outside of the Uchiha District of course she'll talk to you," Itachi said. "It would make her very happy to spend time with you."

Sasuke swallowed hard and scrubbed his face with a towel. With every passing day—every hour—he realized more and more how much he'd taken things for granted. Every morning his mother had been there with breakfast, washed and folded his clothes, and tended to all the little injuries he'd accumulate from training. Every day he'd see his brother and usually his father. He'd always had his own room and always lived in a real house in a neighborhood where almost everyone knew who he was.

Now he camped out on Kakashi's couch in the jounin's cramped apartment. He had to take care of everything himself. And he would be lucky if he saw any member of his family, not that they would ever acknowledge him now.

"Foolish little brother." Sasuke looked up in time to feel his older brother's two fingers poking him in the forehead. "Don't be so sad."

"Why not?" Sasuke demanded sullenly. "What is there to be happy about?"

"You're still alive and still have a good shot at being promoted to chuunin," Itachi calmly pointed out. "I actually envy you a little bit, Sasuke."

"What's there to envy?"

"There are days that I wish I could move out of the Uchiha District and live on my own, out from under the eyes of the entire clan," his older brother said. "Without the Uchiha name, I would be free of a lot of expectations and people would see me for myself and not as another Uchiha."

Sasuke stared at his brother, trying to see what he was getting at.

"You have the chance to really make a name for yourself," Itachi continued. "You can prove that not all wielders of the Sharingan are alike."

"What do you mean?" the boy wondered with a frown.

"Those outside the clan do not have a very favorable opinion of the Uchiha," his brother explained. "They respect our power, yes, but little else. We are seen as arrogant, in-bred snobs without any sense of humor or the ability to smile. If the village didn't need the abilities of the Sharingan, they probably wouldn't have agreed to allow our clan to be part of its initial formation centuries ago."

"People really think that?" Sasuke sputtered, outraged.

"They do," Kakashi agreed, leaning up against a tree several yards away. "And foreigners have even worse opinions. Foreign ninjas have a hard time believing that Konoha puts up with the Uchiha."

"Why?" the boy asked, looking back and forth between his teacher and his brother.

"They live apart in their own exclusive neighborhood and rarely invite anyone in," Kakashi said. "And if they ever compliment a non-Uchiha it's so backhanded most people take them to be thinly veiled insults. Those two facts alone allow the Hyuuga clan to rank above the Uchiha in the minds of most of the ninja population."

"Exactly," Itachi nodded. "The Uchiha don't respect non-Uchiha and so the rest of the village's ninja resent the clan."

Sasuke plucked at some blades of grass in agitation before glancing over at his jounin sensei.

"Is the break over, yet?"

"Hmm…" Kakashi pulled a watch out of his pocket and consulted for a moment before nodding. "Sure."

"Okay," Sasuke muttered and stood up, bowing briefly to his brother. "Thank you for bringing me my clothes, Itachi."

The Uchiha nodded in return and walked away.

Sasuke watched him go before turning back to his teacher and his training so that he didn't have to think about his old clan, how he missed it, and how less and less perfect it seemed the longer that he was away.

Naruto fidgeted restlessly at the kitchen table as he waited for his mother to hopefully appear. He'd already bolted down his lunch of stuffed rice balls and had probably driven Mangetsu mad asking if the ANBU knew if his mother was coming yet every five minutes. The boy traced random patterns on the tabletop and glanced furtively at the back door where Mangetsu was loitering.

"…Do you know if she's coming yet?"

"No, Naruto, I don't—" The ANBU stopped and tilted his masked head, as if listening to something. "Oh, here she comes."

Mangetsu pressed his hand against the door, apparently to disengage some security measure—

Naruto blinked and he was gone. No hand seals, no burst of smoke—he just vanished in an instant with barely a sound. He was still staring at the empty spot in shock when his mother opened the door and strode inside.

"Hey! …What are you staring at?"

"Nothing," Naruto answered truthfully and hopped off his chair to limp over to her as quickly as he could to hug her. "Hi mom!"

"How are you," she smiled, hugging him back. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah, lots," Naruto grinned. "I might not even need as many bandages by tomorrow!"

"Very good, and have you eaten lunch yet?" When he nodded, she whipped out a bag of chocolate candies. "Good, I was hoping to split these." Herding him towards the living room couch, she glanced around. "Where's this Mangetsu guy who's supposed to be here?"

"He left," Naruto said and flopped onto the couch.

"Did he say where he was going?" his mother asked as she sat beside him and tore open the candy bag.

"Nope," the boy shrugged and snagged a handful of candy-coated chocolates from the bag. "He just unlocked the door for you and left."

"Hmm, that's twice now that he vanishes when I show up," she frowned and tossed a few candies in her mouth, crunching on them hard. "It's almost like he's avoiding me… I don't like that."

"I'll let him know," Naruto offered cheerfully.

"You do that," she muttered, almost pouting. "Well, I've got a couple of hours so let's look at some pictures and then you can tell me stories about your team. How does that sound?"

Naruto flashed her a thumb's up while shoving more chocolate into his mouth.

"Don't put so much in your mouth at one time," she warned him and took an envelope out of one of her pockets. "Now it's story time!"

She pulled the photos out of the envelope and haphazardly spread them out on top of an emptied cardboard box. Some pictures were older than others and they had a bunch of different people in them. But all the photos had one thing in common: the same guy was in all of them somewhere.

Naruto picked up what seemed to be the oldest of the pictures. The guy looked to be about Naruto's age and there was an eerie resemblance between them. The mystery blond genin had been captured flashing the photographer a really cheesy smile that made him look incredibly dorky.

Wait a minute, isn't this…?

He thought back to months earlier, before the Trials, when the Hokage had confronted him about being a werewolf and the old man had shown him two pictures. One had been his mother. And the other had been his father.

All of the pictures his mother had brought for him were of his father.

He scowled—

"Ow—hey!" Naruto whined as his mother tweaked his ear.

"Don't make faces like that," she scolded and then gestured to the picture in his hand. "Now, this was taken of your father about the same time that I first met him."

This sucks, Naruto huffed, glowering at the stupid picture of his very young sire. First his stuff, and now pictures and stories of him! And since its mom, I can't tell her that I don't wanna hear about it…

"Back then I didn't know about his furry little problem," she continued, oblivious to his whiny thoughts. "All I thought about him was that he was a flake with a dumb smile, and due to a little misunderstanding when we were first introduced I ended up punching him in the face."

…Okay, maybe this won't be so bad.