For a minute, Nawaki hesitated, wondering if he should just pretend to fall asleep. But Konahamaru was staring at him expectantly, so he walked over and sat down beside him. For a minute, they sat there in silence. Konahamaru stared down at Nawaki knowingly.

After training with Kakashi for a month, Nawaki had noticed many similarities between him and Konahamaru. Both of their names started with K, both of them had hair that defied gravity, and both of them could give you 'The Look' The look was basically a way to say I know more than you think.

Right now, Konahamaru was giving him that look, and it was making Nawaki nervous.

"So," Konahamaru said "What's keeping you up?"

Where to start? Nawaki thought. He couldn't say anything about Sasuke or Sakura, he didn't really want to talk about his made-up past, and he didn't feel like talking about becoming a chunin.

However, there were a ton of other questions that Nawaki wanted answers to. He and Konahamaru had never sat down and talked like this. Konahamaru had saved his life on many a mission, and Nawaki had done the same, although not as often. Nawaki knew he could trust Konahamaru, he just didn't know to what extent.

So he started with an easy subject that had always confused him: Hisa.

"Sensei, why does Hisa always act… strange? I mean, she always acts like she's got something to prove. That she needs to show people how good she is, why is that?"

Konahamaru sighed thoughtfully.

"Nawaki, you've been her teammate for five years, but that doesn't give you the right to know everything about her. She doesn't know everything about you, does she?"

Konahamaru was giving him 'The Look' again, so Nawaki quickly went on.

"I know that, and I'm not asking for a huge childhood flashback. But we're supposed to be teammates. I feel like I could work better with her if I understood where she was coming from."

Nawaki knew he was taking a gamble here. Konahamaru knew that he himself wasn't telling them everything. Sure enough, Konahamaru regarded him with a critical eye.

"Nawaki, I don't think Hisa or Oki know exactly where you're 'coming from'. But they trust you nonetheless. Shouldn't you do the same?"

Nawaki stared up at him pleadingly and he sighed.

"I've been your sensei for five years, but there's a lot about me that you don't know."

Nawaki was curious now. Maybe he could get answers for some of his other questions.

"Like what? I know you're a pervert, and that your dream was to be Hokage. I know that you're Naruto's first and best student, and one of the best jonin around. I mean, even the enemies we fought knew who you were."

Konahamaru smiled, slightly bitter. He raised his hand and showed it to Nawaki.

"They weren't scared of me because I'm Naruto's student. They were scared of me because of this."

Nawaki watched fascinated as chakra surrounded Konahamaru's hand. It wasn't normal chakra, it was purer and there were dark streaks merged in with the blue. Nawaki watched as it covered Konahamaru's hand like a glove, before extending out like sharp claws. Konahamaru shuddered slightly and Nawaki watched as the chakra became a cloak. As it covered Konahamaru, his features changed. Instead of just having chakra claws, his nails sharpened into points. When the chakra reached his face, his jaw got longer and his teeth got sharper. His eyes had a feral look to them. Nawaki scooted back slightly, remembering an old legend about humans turning into wolves. Konahamaru looked more like a cat, but Nawaki wasn't taking any chances.

Then just like that, the chakra disappeared back into Konahamaru's body. His face and hands changed back to normal and his eyes became more aware. He blinked once and shook his head, before turning and looking at Nawaki. The look on Nawaki's face made him burst into laughter.

"What… what was that?" Nawaki whispered.

Konahamaru sobered up, and his face went back to its calm mask.

"That was the chakra of Matatabi, better known as Nekomanta or the Two-tails."

"You're… you're…"

Konahamaru sighed.

"Yes. I'm a jinchuriki. Hopefully not a permanent one, but unless we can recover the other biju, I'm stuck like this."

Nawaki was more confused than ever.

"I thought that all the biju apart from the Eight-tails and the Nine-tails were merged together to create the Ten-tails? Didn't Naruto defeat the Ten-tails?"

Konahamaru looked at him as if he was overlooking something.

"How exactly do you think Naruto defeated the Ten-tails? It's a huge mass of chakra; it doesn't disappear in a poof. Naruto managed to subdue it, but he had no choice but to seal it into a shinobi. He would have sealed it in himself, but with Kurama already there, it was impossible. He sealed the Seven-tails into one shinobi, and the rest into another. It didn't quite work out though; the Ten-tails was too strong. When they got back to Konoha, I offered to become a jinchuriki to help spread the Ten-tails chakra. Naruto was against it, but not a lot of people were offering. In the end, he sealed Matatabi inside me. He'd managed to make peace with the biju, and they understood that this was only temporary. I was careful to be polite to Matatabi, to respect her. Naruto was working on a way to turn all the chakra into natural energy, but complications arose. Basically, I'm stuck as a jinchuriki and I don't know for how long."

Nawaki was stunned. Konahamaru, his sensei, was a jinchuriki. How had he not noticed?

"Who are the other two shinobi with parts of the Ten-tails?" he asked.

Konahamaru's face grew solemn.

"If you don't know, you're better off. Naruto and Sasuke talked and they agreed that the less people that know the better. Trust me, it makes it hard to see people the same way once you know that they're a jinchuriki. It was really strange for me; I used to be singled out because I was the Third Hokage's grandson. People would treat me with awe and respect everywhere I went. But now it's the opposite. Thanks to Naruto, not many people despise jinchuriki, but most shinobi find it hard to forget that the whole war was about the biju."

Nawaki didn't know what to say. He sat there in silence, absorbing the information. How exactly had the war ended? Sakura had always avoided the subject by saying 'Naruto saved us all. As usual.' But now, he was extremely curious.

Konahamaru looked down at him and smiled.

"So, do you still want to know about Hisa or do you think you can live without knowing how she ticks?"

Nawaki knew what Konahamaru wanted him to say, but finding out more about the war had heightened Nawaki's curiosity. What else could he learn tonight?

"I'd like to know your opinion." Nawaki said carefully. "You've been like an uncle to Hisa, so you know more about her than I do."

Konahamaru sighed, but Nawaki knew he would tell him.

"If you really want to know, then fine. I can empathise with Hisa in a few ways. She's the Hokage's daughter, I was the Hokage's grandson. I wanted to be known as more than that, I wanted to make my own identity. It's harder for her though, because Naruto is more than a Hokage. He's basically the key to world peace. That makes it even harder to get out of his shadow. Then you throw in the Rinnegan, which means that now everyone thinks that she's a god. She's either Naruto's daughter or the Sage of Six Paths. We are some of the few people who actually see Hisa as her own person. It's always hard to create your own identity, Naruto had to bring half the village back from the dead before the villagers stopped thinking of him as a demon. Can you understand now, why she tries so hard and trains so much?"

Nawaki thought about it for a minute.

"I can understand a bit, but why does she feel the need to prove to everyone how good she is? They already think of her as a god, why does she need to show them anymore?"

Konahamaru sighed.

"Nawaki, this is the bit that you're not getting. She feels the need to show off because they think of her as a god. She has a huge reputation, and she feels like she needs to show people that their right. The entire village has unknowingly put pressure on her to live up to being a god. She cares an awful lot about how the civilians see her. That's why she never likes to fail a mission, she thinks that if she fails people will start to think of her as a fraud. The sad thing is, she's probably right."

Nawaki thought this over carefully. He could understand where Hisa was coming from now, but he still didn't think that the villagers opinion was so important. However, Nawaki's whole identity was created by lies, so he didn't really understand a lot about what was valued in an identity. His ninja way was pretty simple: protect the people who you care about. It was easy for him to do this, as the people he cared about were able to protect themselves. Other than that, he didn't really think much, he just lived in the moment. He knew that killing people was a bad thing, but sometimes it was necessary. That was as far as his beliefs went.

He smiled at Konahamaru.

"Thanks sensei, goodnight."

"Goodnight Nawaki."

!

Hisa lay awake, her eyes closed and her breathing purposefully heavy. Neither Konahamaru or Nawaki knew this, but she had heard their entire conversation.

Seriously? Nawaki had dead parents, felt unsure about killing people, and had a strange attraction to Oki that Hisa had seen going on for years. So what did he decide to talk about? Her.

She wasn't mad at Konahamaru, he had pretty much said that Nawaki shouldn't pry, and that he didn't know everything about her. She was interested in his whole little speech about her though, he had a few points. She sighed and flipped over quietly. She had a lot to think about.

!

Konahamaru woke them all up at the crack of dawn. After having such a late night, both Nawaki and Hisa were very sleepy. But as they moved out, the adrenaline kicked in and soon they were both wide awake.

They travelled through the trees for a bit, Konahamaru out in front, the other three following behind. Their normal conversations were absent, as each of them were tense and wary, expecting an attack at any minute.

Just like yesterday, Konahamaru came to a stop at a seemingly random point. The other three crowded around him, wondering if the attack was about to start.

"This is where our client said their 'territory' began. Their base is located somewhere in here, but judging from the ambush we found yesterday, their base is a lot bigger than what we thought it would be. We need to split up."

He paused to give Hisa her special kunai.

"I'll take the left side. I'll keep a kunai with me in case you run into too much trouble. Hisa, you're in charge. You three take the right side and scan for their base. Try to remain undetected and avoid as much conflict as possible."

They nodded once, and split up. None of them were particularly nervous about separating from Konahamaru. They had been on plenty of missions without him, but it was still nice to know that Hisa could bring him here if there was an emergency.

They spent an hour combing the area for any signs of the base. Konahamaru had told them that the missing-nin had captured three children, so they searched for any signs that they had been there.

After an hour's search, they stopped beside a small lake to freshen up. Nawaki and Hisa had a small race across the lake, while Oki just looked on in amusement. It soon turned into a full blown water fight.

"If Konahamaru saw us now he'd send us back to the Academy." Hisa said as she splashed Nawaki. "We're not exactly behaving like shinobi on a mission."

"If Konahamaru saw us now he would join in." Oki pointed out as she kicked water at Hisa.

Nawaki almost forgot about the mission, he was having so much fun. Normally they wouldn't be so reckless, but they had spent two days worrying about getting attacked. They needed to blow off some steam.

After another few minutes of fighting, the three of them collapsed on the bank, laughing like sugar-high children. As they lay there, they began to sober up. Nawaki became wary, realising just how much danger their water fight had put them in. They had been so distracted an army of missing-nin could have snuck up on them and they wouldn't have noticed it until it was too late.

Hisa seemed to be thinking the same thing.

"Let's get going." she said, standing up and dusting off.

The three of them set off across the lake, eyes scanning the shore for a hint of danger.

They were almost at the other side when the enemy struck. Nawaki heard a muffled scream come from behind him and turned around. Two missing-nin had grabbed Oki, and one of them had a kunai pointed at her throat. Nawaki and Hisa froze. The missing-nin on the left gave a nasty grin, showing off an impressive display of rotten teeth.

"Listen carefully brats." he spat. "We're taking this one hostage. We've got plenty of bases, so here's the deal. Don't come near the brats you were sent to rescue, and we won't hurt this pretty little thing." He howled as Oki bit the hand that was over her mouth. Nawaki could only watch in horror as he hit her across the face.

"So there's your warning. Don't try and find the kids, and we'll let this one live. We're taking her to a different base, but if we hear that you tried to rescue the kids we'll know."

Nawaki finally managed to speak.

"If we leave," he said quietly "Will you let her go?"

The man's grin got even nastier.

"I'm afraid not. We don't really care what happens to her, but she'll make a good hostage if any other shinobi try and find us. You can leave, but we're keeping her."

The man ran his hand down Oki's cheek, and Nawaki saw red. His hands formed the seals before he was fully aware of what he was doing.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"

He heard Hisa yell at him to stop, but it was too late. A giant fireball rushed across the water towards the missing-nin. It was one of the biggest fireballs Nawaki had ever done. It rushed across the water, before hitting a tree and burning out. When it had vanished, the missing-nin were gone.

And so was Oki.