Chapter 36: Bow to the Queen's Blade
Naruto went from blackness to greenery and warm blankets and warmth on his feet. His eyes stung with tears he refused to shed when he realized he was in his room and Neechan was passed out at the end of his futon, clutching at his hand. She was smiling contentedly in her sleep. He almost hated her for that.
Failed.
He gritted his teeth and screwed up his eyes. He must have made a noise despite his best efforts because his door opened. An old woman stepped in as though she had done so a million times before. She had a spine of steel and hair to match. Best of all, she had curry.
"Naruto-kun, it is good to meet you. Are you feeling better? You heal very quickly."
"I feel awful," he muttered, dipping his gaze towards the floor as her lilac slippers invaded his view.
"Takara," she said.
"Pardon?"
"You may call me Takara. I suppose I'm a little old to be 'okaasan' as I am to Raimei-chan, but perhaps 'grandmother,' if that's not too presumptuous?"
"Oh," he said, at a loss for a moment before remembering that Hotaka-ojisan had called his sister that weird name, "oh, you're Neechan's mom."
"Yes. Nice to meet you properly. It was a little disconcerting meeting you last night covered in blood, unconscious in some Umino-san's arms. Why she wouldn't let you go to the hospital, I don't know. Umino-san obviously understood why, since he claimed to have scooped you away from the medic ninja before they could install you in a ward. Raimei-chan was insistent that you stay here despite my protests over how injured you looked. She's been chewing her nails over you for the past three days though, so I suppose her idiosyncrasies are permissible."
Naruto didn't know what to say in reply.
"You said you felt awful. You look remarkably well though. Inside feelings then?"
He blinked at her. She was pushy for an old lady. "Yeah."
"Hmm." Something about the way she said told him she had something else she wanted to say, but she knew Tact too well. "Eat."
He accepted the hot ceramic bowl from her and clumsily handled the spoon.
"I didn't think that you would be up for more usual utensils, but I see that I am wrong. It's a waste to get chopsticks now that the spoon is dirty."
He managed to get a few mouthfuls down as she unabashedly studied him. He felt as though he were being graded far more thoroughly than Sensei or Iruka-sensei would ever dare. "Takara-obaasan, when did you get here?"
"On the first day of your exam, apparently. We made it through just before they shut the village gates, so it was quite late in the evening, I suppose. Raimei was so very excited; I thought she would break something in her enthusiasm." She glanced around his room. "You should sweep. Your air is stale. I'll open the window."
Naruto wanted to growl, to tell her that this was his room and it would smell however he wanted it to, but Takara-obaasan moved like a general—everything was expected to bow to her and anything that protested was regarded with disdainful surprise. The fresh air did smell nice though. Neechan's fingers twitched around his captive arm. Setting the spoon in the bowl beside his futon, he reached over to shake her shoulder. Maybe she would save him from Takara-obaasan. "Neechan."
"Guh?"
"Come on, Riko-nee. Up and at 'em!"
"Let her sleep," Neechan's mother said, but it was too late. "She hasn't been sleeping well since we got here. We've heard her across the hall."
"Mother, thank you for reserving those words for when I was awake to hear them."
Naruto blinked at her odd sarcasm. Neechan didn't do sarcasm much.
"I felt you should know about your night terrors. Such result from stress. Perhaps you would tell us?" Takara-obaasan needled with the delicacy of a rapier.
"Not now." Riko-nee turned to Naruto. "Iruka told me Team 10 and your teammates were installed in the hospital the moment the exam ended. They're being taken care of. Team 8 is involved in the preliminaries right now, if they're not over already. You should go visit them when you finish eating. We'll talk all about this when you get back, 'kay?"
And suddenly he was capable of smiling a little again and food tasted better than balls of dread. "'Kay."
When Izumo woke, it was with a splitting headache and a sting at the back of his neck. He would have groaned, but something about the room suggested he wasn't alone. Where was he again? Oh, watching over the film room of the tower to make sure all the cameras were located and collected by the volunteers. More importantly, why was he on the floor, and who was here? He nearly panicked at the thought of it being Orochimaru, so he snapped his eyes open and leaped into a defensive crouch despite his dizziness.
"Ah, so you are more resistant. Poisons are always so tricky. Everyone reacts to them differently. Too much of that one and I would have stopped your heart. That would have been annoying." The gravelly whisper nearly did the job despite her caution. The snake mask was illuminated by the glow of the monitors, which weren't showing current exterior shots. Instead, they were playing over recorded scenes.
"What are you doing?" Izumo asked. "As an ANBU agent, you only needed to ask."
Cracked laughter. "And let you see what was so interesting to me?" The monitors snapped back to the real-time signal.
"All the participants are all out of the training ground, if that's what you were sent to check. The dead were located and taken to the morgue this morning, or what was left of them."
Izumo was puzzled when she laughed again as she stood and made her way to the door. "No one ever gets out."
Uneasy and suspicious, he pulled up the hidden bus surveillance program to see which files she had been studying so carefully and flipped through them. Seeing how Uchiha Sasuke was in almost every shot, this could be legit, but he decided to run it by the Hokage just to be safe. The sound of someone swearing in the background over the line and ranting about how Snake-28 hadn't even been debriefed after her last mission made Izumo sure he had done the right thing. He hoped Snake never found out.
Sasuke awoke to the smell of stringent cleaners and a nagging ache in his arm and head. He didn't open his eyes, trusting his other senses instead. This felt like a hospital bed and the smell definitely backed that up. So, they had failed the second exam. He slowly let his wrath out in a long exhalation through his nose.
"There's always the exam in five months," his mother's voice told him.
He relaxed immediately and opened his eyes. His sister was curled upon on his mother's lap as she sat in a chair by his bedside. Two ANBU agents stood in the room. He tensed again. "What's with the guard?" This was far too much like how it had been after that man had done the deed.
"Orochimaru escaped ANBU's attempts to pin him down during your exam. Cameras caught him biting clones of you. We were terrified he would manage to get you. He's still likely to be after you or any Uchiha since you've come under guard. The Hokage felt it was best not to take any risks and asked that we tolerate the security."
"Me too?"
"Kakashi should be enough when he gets here. He's checking on Sakura and some other things right now. Team 10 is here too. They'll pull through alright." Her voice was a little tight. He could tell she didn't like the ANBU any better than he did. "So, what did you do wrong?"
"Many things," he admitted after a long, angry pause.
"It's good that you know that. How about we go over everything?" His mother stood up and deposited Ryuuka by his side, careful not to bump the cast on his arm. "And when you're done, we'll figure out the best way to deal with Orochimaru, hmm?" She waved the ANBU off, and they slipped out of the room so their surveillance wasn't quite so obvious.
Mikoto sat on the back porch and watched Ryuuka play while the masked ones pretended not to watch everything within fifty metres. Ryuuka was happily oblivious, content to mash the mud into strange shapes, getting her dark clothes dirty. A bubble of isolation surrounded them, but Mikoto had yet to break it.
The village that destroyed my clan… do I let them live?
A sharp knock at the gate roused her from her stupor. "Ohayo, Koto," Riko said cheerfully as she nodded to the ANBU that evaluated her silently. "I figured that you could use some intelligent conversation since I know how quiet ANBU are when they're on duty."
"Hey, Bachan! Naruto-niichan coming? Awake?"
"Yes, he's awake. He's visiting your brother. He'll see you later." Riko crouched down to greet the toddler's charge and let the girl give her a high-five despite the muck, which Riko casually wiped off on her similarly coloured pants. Maybe there was a method to Riko's lack of fashion sense.
"Candy?"
"Did I bring candy? What kind of question is that?" She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a familiar box. "Don't tell Sasuke, okay? He doesn't like sweet things like Pocky, but growing kids need them. You'll show me that mud bowl when you're done, right?"
Ryuuka accepted the offering as though it was her due and nodded with a grin only a child could manage under these circumstances. Riko stood and rubbed at her ribs ruefully as the architect returned to her disaster zone.
"You get caught again today?" Mikoto asked as Riko sat down on the edge of the porch and pulled off her bag. "Or did you fall out a tree during your lunch break? People are going to start hating you for that next."
"I wasn't paying enough attention when I was figuring out what to bring her. It's my own fault." Riko shrugged and smiled over her shoulder before her face settled into a more serious expression. "Have you heard anything since? Are Kiba and Shino okay? Naruto hasn't told me anything yet. He needed to see the others."
"All Sasuke knew was that Naruto ordered Team 8 to go on without the rest of them when it became obvious that getting all of them to the tower in time was impossible. He told me about the kind of opposition they faced, and I'm not surprised at how it turned out. They were lucky to survive as long as they did. As far as I've heard, Team 8 got through to the prelims. Whether they got through the prelims is another matter."
"I've been hearing other things on the streets. There were whispers about genin from Grass with their faces ripped off in the cemetery of that Buddhist temple I visit sometimes. I'm so glad that I went to the shrine this month instead. Those poor children…"
"They weren't children. They were older genin. Someone is using their faces." Mikoto remained blank in the face of Riko's horror. "Henge can be risky because it's not real. A face is real and if preserved and attached correctly, would serve better, and it would satisfy the twisted sense of humour of the user. To use such a tactic is barbaric and forbidden in almost all nations hosting hidden villages. It stinks of nukenin."
"Fugitive ninja? How would they get in?"
"Very easily. Scaling the wall is not hard. There are protections against such intrusions, but monitoring them requires immense concentration. Heck, they could even get through the gate with all the traffic it has seen. One slip is all that is required and the wall is breeched. Perhaps there is even an insider giving him an in."
As Riko mulled over that, Mikoto weighed her options again. So much hatred could be washed away, undoing everything she was slowly working towards. Pride demanded that she spurn the offer. Common sense screamed that it was a lie. Yet, some emotional part of her couldn't give up the dream of having her husband back along with all of the family she struggled her way through honouring every fall.
Fugaku, what would you have me do?
Naruto had had to escape the house after visiting his team and Team 10. It had been hard to be there with Yasu-ojiisan and Takara-obaasan. They weren't put out by his failure, but he was put out feeling like a failure in front of them. Neechan would have been home soon and he would have had to face her relief. He didn't know if he would have been able to stave off anger with everything so fresh in his mind. Instead, he had run, run to this training ground that Mikoto-obachan had made them practice Henge no Jutsu in so long ago.
He only detected Snake's presence when she sniggered as he puked. He had been feeling fine at lunch, so where this sudden illness had come from was a mystery unless Takara-obaasan had unintentionally given him food poisoning.
"So even that friend of yours takes a while to kick in," she said when his stomach settled. "Interesting. He did manage to delay the effects too."
"Are you saying you poisoned me or something?"
"That would be unprofessional." He hated her mask because he couldn't tell if she was smirking behind it as her tone indicated. Creepy old bitch. He wouldn't be surprised at all if she was behind those out of season bouts of flu. "Testing of poisons, especially lethal ones, is only to be done on animals with similar biology to humans, pigs for example. Testing on human populations is forbidden by Act 46.2, Section xii."
"That doesn't stop you."
"No laws stopped Orochimaru from human experimentation. He was allowed to escape by an old man's foolish pride."
"What?"
"For someone that claims to want to rule Konoha, you sure don't know a lot about its dirtier laundry. Lies within lies, all covered up by that Will of Fire crap. Ninja burning with village pride don't ask questions as they throw their lives away. You almost became one of those idiots. I saw how you failed the second exam."
The reminder of how humiliating his failure had been burned. He would have gone back to sulking, but there were questions that needed answering. "How? You were out on a mission by then."
"Clever boy, to listen so carefully with your clones. Pity you missed other things. Even that Uchiha brat didn't notice all the cameras."
"Cameras?" Naruto was flabbergasted.
"Examiners have to have some way of keeping an eye on the exam without interfering with the results. Also, Intelligence claims the recordings for future reference."
Dammit all! His humiliation was recorded for the world to uncover forever?
"Your failure was inevitable though, you know. You have only been a genin for a few months. You haven't a teaspoon of the experience the others have. You don't have the edge. You failed for one reason only: you idiotically failed to kill the Oto team when you had the chance."
"What!" Naruto said. "You expect me to kill other genin? Just because they're from Oto?"
"No, I expect you to eliminate complications. What is dead cannot come back twelve hours later to attack you again and cause your defeat. ANBU doesn't leave loose threads. Hokage can't either. The game is only ever over when one side's heart stops beating."
"We thought the snake would—"
"Invalid and foolish assumption. The snake was under orders not to attack allies."
Naruto stared. Blinked. Stared some more.
"I take it that summoning is a concept you're not very familiar with. Kakashi must be as sadistic as I am; he can't have possibly thought you actually had a chance at passing."
He ignored her snide comments and cut to the core of his beef with her. "You walked out on that mission to down that tongue guy—!"
"Orochimaru. The Snake Sannin. Once in line to be the Fourth Hokage."
"What!" The tongue dude had competed with his dad over the Hokage title? What the hell was he doing chasing genin during an exam then? Wait… hadn't she said Orochimaru had done human experimentation and had gotten away with it? He shook his head to get his thoughts back on track. "Never mind that! You walked away from a mission! What kind of crap is that? You're an ANBU agent. You're supposed to deal with those freaks."
"Why should I?"
Naruto sputtered with fury. "Because it's your duty!"
"Duty has never brought me any good. I prefer Apathy as my god. It keeps me from worrying about the multiple monsters running around Konoha at the moment."
"You mean there are more monsters like Orochimaru here right now?" What was the world coming to when beasts could get through the gates without comment?
"Of course. Orochimaru is simply much more worrying to Konoha than Gaara. A rather interesting executive decision considering how the Ichibi container killed six people in the course of the exam despite their promises to hand over their scrolls and disappear. His example is golden."
"Ichibi container…? You mean someone like—"
"Don't say it, moron! Walls have ears, as do open spaces like these. The Chuunin Exam is only a farce for spying on the host nation. Since the entire event is really a pseudo-war with genin as the pawns, espionage is expected. The only reason you aren't being hunted internationally is because it's been kept quiet. Don't ruin that."
"But Gaara, how do you know about Gaara?"
"He isn't smart enough to keep the fact quiet. Though, he is deranged, so I suppose he figures that with the fact out there along with his love of bloodshed, anyone smart will stay well clear of him. He made it to the Final Exam without difficulty after all. Nearly killed his opponent in the prelims just this afternoon."
Fear for Team 8 made him ask who that opponent was.
"Your Inuzuka. His sensei interfered when it was clear Gaara had no intention of mercy. He's in the ICU at the hospital right now."
Naruto's mouth went dry. Kiba and Akamaru… What had everyone in Team 10 and Team 7 suffered for if those two had been knocked out of the running the prelims and had joined everyone else in the hospital?
"Life's just not fair is it? All those honourable, dutiful sacrifices ended up meaning nothing. All that pain, all for nothing." He roared insults at her, but she just laughed hysterically until he ran out of breath. She came down to his level and ruffled his hair as he slammed his fist into the ground and cursed. Where was Neechan's justice in this? "Every ninja learns that fair has nothing to do with the world. There's no balance, no justice, no gods. It's all just people crawling over each other to get on top of the pile. Some don't care who they step on. Some do, but they're rare. Gaara's not one of them."
"I am!"
"And that's why it will take you forever to get anywhere because you will have to find people you're willing to step on before you fall to the bottom of the pile. Unless you find people who are willing to bear you up as far as they can, but those people are even rarer still. I'm not one of them. I will step on you to get where I need to go, but before I do, I'm going to give you advice so you're a sturdier stepping stone."
Naruto snarled at her, but she continued, undaunted.
"Don't join ANBU. Ever. It will destroy your identity. You will be pressured to by some people. Don't do it. ANBU are tools, nothing more. A Hokage isn't ANBU; ANBU is the Hokage's hand."
"You know, I don't think I've ever heard of you talking this much." Naruto didn't like the sound of what she had said. What had ANBU done to Mikoto and Kaka-sensei if it was as bad as she had said?
"Ask your dog sensei. He knows that there are times I cannot be stopped despite his wishes to the contrary. Besides, if I don't take advantage of your sulking, there is no chance that I would get a word in edgewise. There's also no guarantee that I will survive my next mission or that I will be allowed to avoid capital punishment until that mission."
Naruto laughed, surprised that Snake had it in her to joke. She didn't join in, and he slowly realized that she wasn't kidding.
"It's rather obvious that at your current level of skill you'll never advance to chuunin this year."
"This is the last exam of the year. The next one isn't for another five months, so of course I'm not going to advance this year, stupid snake."
She shook her head. "The Chuunin Exam is a relatively new way of promoting genin. It started up after the war with Kumo ceased. Before then, chuunin were promoted based upon battlefield performance. If you work hard until the Final Exam, you might have a shot at getting an old-style promotion."
"Huh?"
Instead of answering, she leaped back and chucked a kunai at his head.
Sarutobi frowned as he watched Naruto barely manage to duck the projectile and scramble backwards, howling curses, as Snake continued to put him through "trial by fire," her favoured style of training in his crystal ball as he sat in his office. Snake wasn't gracious enough to go easy on someone with a small fraction of her skill. Naruto wasn't going to appreciate her intention to crush his ego and person.
It was worrying. Snake training with Mikoto was one thing, but Snake training Naruto without Kakashi's knowledge was quite another. She hated children, despised the Yondaime, and held Naruto's worldview in equivalence with excrement. If she was trying to destroy the positive worldview Sarutobi had carefully fostered in Naruto through the Matsuku mindset, she would have to be stopped. Naruto with Snake's "principles" was too frightening a prospect, especially if she managed to foster her hatred of Konoha in him. He regretted that her capability had made him put her on guard duty when Naruto was younger. If the bond had never been formed, Snake would have had a much harder time getting Naruto to listen to her.
Who could he supplant Snake with in teaching Naruto? Mikoto was equally suspect now. Kakashi was needed to monitor Sasuke. Ram? No, too inexperienced and there wasn't enough of a connection between her and Naruto. Jaguar was away monitoring the northern border with her squad. Tiger-19 was in Grass for a time. Regular jounin would be viewed as lesser replacements by Naruto. Tsunade was likely to kill him after prolonged exposure.
Sarutobi summoned his secretary. "Send a hawk after Jiraiya. Call him back to Konoha. Get Dragon-1 to find another mission for Snake-28. I want her out of the village as much as possible for the next three weeks. Make sure she is back at least five days before the Final Exam. I'm afraid we may need to use her then."
Hinata was numb.
The green chakra coating her right arm was so warm, but she couldn't feel it, not really. She could only stare into the middle distance, her breathing bordering on hyperventilation.
She could only twitch five fingers as the image of the club-like sword descending flashed in her mind again. The soft thud of flesh hitting the ground rang in her hears. Kami-sama. Kami-sama. Kami-sama. Kami-sama…
"Hinata-chan, it's going to be alright," the doctor, Shizune-san, said, but Hinata couldn't hear her. "Your hand though… We're going to try very hard to reattach it."
Kami-sama. Kami-sama! Kami-sama…!
Thank you for not letting Naruto-kun see this.
Nariko poured her mother more tea, who smiled at her stern approval for the technique she had finally mastered. She took a sip of her own tea, feeling at peace with the world.
"It's nice that you'd make an acceptable wife now. You should work on finding some man to take you in."
Only her father's whacks to her back kept her to suffocating on her tea. Yasu laughed to cover her humiliation. "Takara, dear, do try not to kill our poor child out of shock. Some warning for this poor girl would have been wise."
Her mother sniffed and took a sip of tea to hide a smile Nariko resented. Damn them for finding her reaction amusing. "I have the right to worry when even Shiro, who we never thought would settle upon someone for more than a week, is preparing to enter his engagement."
"If Junko-san accepts him."
"Hah, she has him eating out of her palm. Why would she not? No, she is wiser than that. Once a woman can bend a man around her finger, there is no point in wasting all that effort by casting him aside."
Nariko and her father stared at Takara and then exchanged worried glances. "I… Tousan, I almost don't know if that was supposed to mean you too."
"Ah, well, I try not to think about it too much, my dear. See, your mother makes very good stir fry."
"Ah, so it is a love of the stomach." Nariko nodded wisely, attempting to ignore the way her mother was exuding a dangerous aura. "The best kind of love—the kind that cannot be broken by changes to foundations so long as the food stays good."
"Just so." Her father smiled happily, and she couldn't help but smile back as her mother seethed in the background.
"Yasu-fukurou…"
"Hmm, Takara-usagi?"
Owl? Rabbit? Nariko had to stifle a giggle. Whenever her parents argued, they would bring out these childish names.
"'A love of the stomach'?" her mother growled.
"Well, what can I say, dear? Would it be more proper to say we ended up marrying because you told me were going to? How would it sound better to say that you bullied me into it?"
"Eh? Takara-obaasan is a bully?"
Naruto had horrible timing, as usual. "Ah, Naruto, you stink! Go have a show—" When she caught sight of him, she couldn't finish her sentence. The table clattered and the china rattled as she lurched to her feet, old terror making her scramble towards him, her hands reaching for his face.
Every bit of him was covered in grit, bruises, or blood when he had recovered from those wounds from the exam just this morning.
"Wh-Who did this to you?"
He laughed, reaching to rub the back of his head before he aborted it with a grimace, nausea flitting across his features. She grabbed the hand before it fell back to his side. A few of his knuckles were swollen in her grip: they must have been jammed or worse. His laughter died in his throat as she examined the deep gash in his palm. "Neechan…"
"Who."
He sighed and looked away. "It wasn't what you think. There's no way the villagers could get me now."
"Who."
Naruto glanced guiltily past her at her parents, who were watching, more horrified than she was. "It was training…" She reeled back, feeling as though he had slapped her. He was lying to her. She could see it in his eyes. She couldn't believe it. "I mean, after how bad we did in the Chuunin Exam…"
"Hatake-san did this to you?" She was going to kill that dog man. She was going to rip out his guts and—
"Nah, not Kaka-sensei. One of the ANBU thought she'd help me out."
"Help you out!"
"She was just too good. I couldn't get a hit on her. It was kind of frustrating." He grinned, but it was so phoney that she couldn't stomach it.
"Naruto." She couldn't look at him. "If you're going to lie, please just don't say anything at all. Please don't bring that kind of dishonesty into this house."
He flinched under her hands and looked away, blushing under the blood and bruises. "I'm not really lying," he whispered. "She's not good at training people the way Kaka-sensei or Iruka-sensei are. She doesn't know how to do it so the person she's training doesn't end up in the hospital. She doesn't believe in going easy on people."
"You won't train with her again?"
"I didn't really want to train with her in the first place. She sort of doesn't take no for an answer. But I definitely don't want to train under her again." He wasn't lying, but there was a worrying gleam in his eyes. This ANBU, she had threatened him. She had made Naruto aware of just how much better she was. Naruto wouldn't be able to take that sort of flagrant challenge and leave it at this. This ANBU had given him a target to beat out the grief of his failure against.
But Nariko kept this to herself. "Please go take a shower. I'll get the bandages."
Naruto pulled the senbon out of his arm and cringed. And he had thought the exam was bad. He had maybe five minutes before he started retching. If he were lucky, he wouldn't pass out before he found a hiding spot. Snake would stick him again if she caught him. She didn't stop hitting people when they went down.
He still wasn't sure why he had come back today despite his bruises, gashes, and feelings of general ill health from yesterday and the day before. Snake had promised to spend her time between missions improving his skills while his team recovered in the hospital and Kaka-sensei watched out for Sasuke. He hadn't learned anything the second day except that Snake knew how to make him suffer despite Kyuubi's help. He had been so injured that he had actually dragged himself to the hospital to get patched up before heading home so Neechan wouldn't panic again.
Snake wasn't so kind to him. Her training involved pushing him over the edge of wretchedness and panic until he was beyond rational thinking, beyond what she called "fucking foolish heroics." She hunted him through Training Ground 48 without mercy, and he fled when resistance proved futile. The only certainty had been that she wasn't going to kill him, but that was quickly fading. Only luck had kept her from breaking his leg an hour ago with crushing boulders.
His "break" was cut short when the muddy bank he was crouched on wrapped a tendril around his neck and began to pull him under the stream. Naruto fought desperately, slashing at the muck that reformed around his slices and straining with all his might, but the bank dislodged his arms, and he was held under as he thrashed.
She was going to kill him. She really was! His lungs were screaming. Something roared in him and blasted the water away from him for long enough that Naruto managed to draw breath before the water engulfed him again. Worse, Naruto could feel the effects of the poison creeping up on him. Heaves shook him, and he sucked in water by accident as his vision went black.
"You are dead," whispered a cold voice in his ear.
Every breath was painful and raw. His eyes ached and stung fiercely. His head was full of fog.
"Repeat after me: I am dead."
"I am dead," he wheezed.
"Dead because I am no better than a frightened animal. Dead because I cannot put the fear away and win. I am not competing. I am not in the game. I am a bit of background scenery because I cannot make the first move. I am dead because I cannot kill. I am dead because I am less than useless."
He didn't want to say it. It hurt too much.
She slugged him, hard. "Say it." She punched his kidney, and to his humiliation, he screamed. "Say it!"
He whimpered it to the best of his ability.
"Now you are ready to learn the rules of the game. You knew nothing. You never did. You now know there is a game. There has always been one. You were just too blind to see it before. This game is played with three currencies: pain, power, and life. Everything else is window dressing. The only goal is to avoid the first or deal it out, to collect the second, and to hoard the last by taking it from everyone else before they take it from you.
"Your first mistake is believing I won't kill you. If I need to, I will. However, right now, it would be too much trouble for me to. Too many people with holds on me would cause me harm if I killed you. That is one strategy for worms: make yourself indispensable to the powerful. Another strategy: inspire loyalty and suicidal devotion in followers and have them die in your place. That is the one you'll have to follow to rise to power. The last is mine: apathy so all the world's a target. No vanities, no bonds, no possessions. That is supposed to be the ninja road. It is the road described in the rulebook. Most who claim to adhere to it are hypocrites.
"You can choose later. Rule one: anyone may find a reason to kill you. Anyone." Naruto wanted to protest, but she dug a kunai into the small of his back. "It doesn't happen often, in the civilian world. In the ninja world, it is a rule without exception.
"Rule two: anyone can turn on you for personal gain. True in every world, no matter what the code of ethics is.
"Rule three: defence and offence are not interchangeable strategies. All-out defence is simply keeping others from killing you if you're lucky. You are not winning anything because your opponent is not going to conveniently die while you keep him from killing you.
"Rule four: there is always someone stronger. Train for it. I am that someone. You will never be safe from me: at home, with Kakashi, with the Sandaime, all those places are easy targets for me. I'll hit you when you think you're safe. The poison that I stick you with so easily could be lethal next time." She must have poisoned him again because he began trembling uncontrollably. "Unless," she whispered, "you get me first."
When his shaking stopped, she was gone.
The game was on again.
"Kakashi, I wish there were two of you," the Sandaime lamented.
"So that I could be late double the amount?" the jounin quipped back, trying to lighten the heavy mood that prevailed as they watched the midday bustle of the village from the roof of Admin while Sasuke signed some forms in the offices below.
"So there would be one of you to spare on Naruto. Jiraiya still has a day or two before he arrives. That Snake would worry me less if she wasn't so bitter. It's not near enough to November for her to be like this."
Kakashi kept his mouth shut. His lovely senpai beating up his loudest student wasn't something he was too keen on either, but they couldn't take any chances with Sasuke. Given how bitter the brat was about his failure, it was likely he would do something stupid. The kid needed the focus training would give him. Oddly enough, he trusted Uchiha-san and Matsuku-san to manage Naruto. "I could drop hints to Uchiha-san that Naruto might be suffering. She tends to be almost as protective of him as her own children."
"I would say yes, but she and Snake are old friends from ANBU. Mikoto latched onto her when she told her that she had orders to kill her if Mikoto showed any signs of Uchiha treachery, oddly enough."
Kakashi wasn't sure there was a reply to that. Sarutobi-sama had begun more and more to bring up old stories without any sort of discretion in the past few years. Perhaps the old man enjoyed watching people be uncomfortable too. "I'll tell Uchiha-san and Sakura to check in with him. Why not send Snake-28 out though?"
"She's resisting, but I should have her gone in a couple days."
Kakashi, who knew Snake well enough to know that a couple days was enough time for her to slaughter an entire drug ring in Grass Country, made sure to tell Sakura to keep an eye on Naruto.
When Naruto and Snake spoke next, she was in full ANBU uniform, hunkered down on the chain-link fence of Training Ground 48.
"You are grim. Your sister noticed. She worries at this change." That was her way of telling him that she had been in a position to kill him during breakfast this morning.
She had put him a hairsbreadth from death thirty-seven times after that time she had drowned him over the past two days. Earth and water control made her very nasty to face. He would never look at the soil in his planters or the water in the shower the same way—both had very nearly suffocated him. Her tendency to use knives in close combat had given Kyuubi plenty of work. Only his insistence that this was all a training game was keeping Neechan and her parents from panicking. He hated lying to them.
"It's your fault, you old bitch," he grumbled, roughened from lack of sleep. "You had a meeting with the Hokage this morning."
"Incorrect. I had a meeting at Admin though, so you get half a point. You're a sloppy tail, losing me two blocks from the entrance."
"You're too fast, and you poisoned me again."
"Your own fault. ANBU has found a way to get me away from you. I have a mission, but don't sleep too easily. They know I work quickly, but I've been lazy enough to fool them. I may be back before they find another mission that I can't refuse."
"You refused one to train me, didn't you?"
"I did. I claimed holidays that I hadn't taken for ten years. Sandaime isn't letting this slide anymore though. He finally believes I might kill you instead of just prejudicing you against this fucking village."
Naruto allowed himself a moment of sweet relief before the obvious hit him. "Who's gonna train me then?"
He swore she hissed with distaste. "Jiraiya." He sensed history there. Maybe she was still sore about Ero-Sennin's peeping and subsequent disgusted reaction. So much for no vanity… Well, at least Ero-Sennin would probably help him improve upon Rasengan and wouldn't kill him.
"Can we spar before you go?"
"No. We're going to hunt someone down within the hour. Then I will leave."
"Who?"
"Sabaku no Gaara."
"Why him?"
"Because his country created him to kill people like you. The jinchuuriki fight one another for their countries, for supremacy. He is your enemy and your responsibility in the event of war. You should take his measure."
"So where is he?" He rolled his eyes when she shrugged. "Hunting assignment, I see."
"Assassins don't always know where their targets are. Sometimes I am only given a name and a brief description with the order to kill. You do it your way. I'll do it mine. Whoever finds him first—?"
"Is the winner, I get it." She was gone the moment he finished speaking. Naruto rolled his eyes and trotted back to town, assuming a henge as he did. Getting people to answer his questions required a more feminine face.
"I win, cross dresser," Snake whispered in his ear after he discovered Gaara on the hospital grounds almost an hour later.
"Shut it," he hissed back, dropped the henge. Without it, he never would have gotten that proctor to tell him that Gaara was a redhead. Damn Snake hadn't even given him the most basic description. He batted away a senbon just in time when she made to punish him for his rudeness. He was so damn tired of being a pincushion. "Now what?"
"Tail him."
"What?"
"Before you lose him in the hospital, preferably. He's not injured. None of the Suna delegation is injured. Therefore, he has no reason to be here at all."
No reason to be here? Snake admired Gaara. If he were half as callous as her, then… "Kiba!"
"Oh, so you are learning. He is part of your little clique isn't he? Well, then this should be interesting. Two options: tail Gaara the usual way and get stuck outside Kiba's room to stay out of sight if he is going there, or place yourself there in advance, gambling on your prediction. You will lose precious time trying to find Gaara again if you are wrong—that is if you know where Kiba's room is."
Naruto cringed with shame. He hadn't seen Kiba since that visit in the ICU just after he had been injured. Snake hadn't given him time. Kiba had been moved to a different ward by now. Naruto sent a clone to the front desk under a henge of Mikoto-obachan while he circled the building. The clone dispersed itself, and Naruto found the right third floor window. Thank goodness, it was a half-empty double ward. Naruto quickly closed the curtains around the empty bed as though the occupant were sleeping as Kiba and Akamaru snoozed, oblivious, still very much worse for wear.
Fifteen minutes later, the ward door opened. Naruto, crouching under the empty bed, peered under the curtains to get a glimpse of feet. There were none. Instead, a strange shushing noise filled the room.
What the hell?
Naruto wished he had had time to go ask Shino or Hinata about what had happened at the prelims. Knowing just what sort of fighter Gaara was would have made this so much easier! Snake had kept him on the run though, never giving him a moment's peace, almost as though she was trying to distance him from everyone. He wouldn't put it past her. Time to jump in blind. He hoped Mikoto-obachan never found out.
Sand was coming in through the open door as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Floating sand.
Creepy, though nowhere near as creepy as the malicious glee painted on the redhead's face. Naruto felt no hesitation in labelling Gaara a psychotic bastard on Snake's level of creepy, right up there with Orochimaru. Poor Kiba.
Gaara's empty eyes fastened on him. Poor him.
No help coming from Snake. She had said she was leaving.
"Kiba, you dumb mutt, you owe me big!" Naruto howled as he drew a pair of kunai.
Akamaru must have been woken because he started yipping and snarling.
Once, Old Man had told Naruto that there were other people like him. Gaara had been the example. Naruto had vaguely thought that maybe someday he could meet this guy and experience the belonging people felt with their families. He had thought that Gaara would see the same in him. Looking into this guy's empty eyes now though, Naruto could see that a wall separated them as effectively as putting them on different planets, a wall of cruelty and apathy.
It was like looking in Snake's eyes, but worse, much worse. Snake hid behind her mask, perhaps ashamed on some level. Gaara shoved every bit of malice out there for everyone to see, as though he was perversely proud of how gaunt and haunted he was. He sucked all the light out of the room.
"You're Gaara," Naruto said quietly, trying to stall so he could figure out how to fight sand.
Gaara just stared at him, blank. Naruto felt like a bug. Then the sand rushed him.
"Kiba, you dumb mutt, you owe me big!"
Snake pursed her lips at the idiocy she was witnessing. So much for the advantage of surprise. Why had she bothered with this brat? He would never be intelligent enough to be useful.
"You're Gaara." Just how much awe, longing, and disappointment present in that statement made her sure that this was not going to go well. Naruto had forgotten the game and all the rules.
She leaned against the wall just beyond the window, listened to the rush of sand and Naruto's panicked shouts, and wondered whether letting the brat die was in her best interest after her investment and the loss of her holiday. Naruto gave a pained grunt, and she heard a rib crack.
"Sabaku—"
Seconds now. Decision time if she was going to save this child. Child. Hah, let him die.
Another rib cracked. She was just about to walk away when the flood of pressure made the scars on her scalp tingle. She had felt this pressure once before, years ago.
Fire.
Shivering at "forgotten" memories, Snake fled to the sound of shattering glass.
Naruto wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he did know that those burns from the drooping, ropy liquid glass stung like hell. Energy such as he had never known made him want to twitch and run along the ceiling. He was panting with the effort of not zipping away. Smell and sound flooded him and made him want to run away and cower in a corner at the same time as he struggled not to attack the strange sources, like the buzzing fluorescent bulbs that he normally didn't notice.
At first, he thought that Gaara was the one growling, but it was his own throat producing the strange noise.
Gaara was just staring at him, his shadowed eyes wide.
Something in Naruto flared with hatred and malicious glee towards the boy.
And that was when Naruto realized what the hell was going on. Unfortunately, Kyuubi had too good a hold on him to throw off. It wasn't that Naruto was angry; it was that Kyuubi was. Rage seemed to give Kyuubi enough of a boost to usurp some control.
How dare this insignificant tanuki threaten me? Naruto was certain that wasn't his thought. Gaara in no way resembled a tanuki, unless you counted those shadowed eyes. For one, his sac was nowhere near prominent enough.
Naruto was forced back into the real world by the realization that Gaara's throat was in his clawed hand and that he had the redhead up against a wall. Worse still, his mouth was spewing out words.
"Long time no see, you drunken ball sac. Feeling reckless now that you're not trapped in a kettle?"
The blankness of Gaara's eyes flickered towards fear and wrath. Inside him, Naruto could feel Kyuubi smirk even as his own face reflected the expression for Gaara's benefit. Naruto could tell this was going to end messily and there was nothing he could do but—!
"N-Naruto?"
Kyuubi's hold flickered just enough at Kiba's exclamation that Naruto managed to wrestle control from him. With arms that weren't trembling from poisons for once, Naruto hauled Gaara past Kiba, who was gaping rudely, to the window. "You owe me one, Mutt Boy," Naruto informed Kiba shakily as he clambered out the window with Gaara, who was just beginning to resist.
Now on the grass, Naruto was at a loss. He had just gotten into a fight he was sure he wouldn't be able to win without Kyuubi, and he couldn't call upon that fox-bastard. Snake was nowhere in sight, not that she would have been any help. He had realized over the past few days that Snake only appeared as strong as she did because of her judicious use of poison to undermine her opponents. Her needles weren't likely to get through that shield of sand he had felt between his hand and Gaara's throat. Besides, she had told him Gaara was his problem.
When in doubt, bluff. "Geez, you're so insecure you need to go kill your wounded, beaten former opponents? Kurenai-sensei kept you from killing him in the prelims. That's gotta tell you something."
"He is valued."
Naruto hadn't expected that response or the horrible tone it was grated out in. Was that… envy? He had succeeded in making Gaara angrier though. When bluffing fails to cow the opponent, run. It went against the grain, but Mikoto-obachan had insisted that he wasn't fleeing, that instead he was making the opponent move to a location that worked against him. The problem was Naruto wasn't quite sure where that location was. The old adage of childhood hit him: when in doubt, hide in Admin. As he fled, he could only pray that this old logic would not fail this time.
"Only psychos aren't," Naruto taunted with a wide grin to keep Gaara on his tail as a spear of sand rocketed towards him. "And slowpokes," he threw over his shoulder as he found his way to the rooftop of a nearby shop.
Gaara was not speedy, but Naruto didn't dare outrun him so he could go back and finish Kiba. The sand was much faster than the user, so Naruto began putting some distance between them.
Where to go? Who to go to? Where to go…?
What if Gaara blasted Admin? The thought brought him to an abrupt halt, but he shook his head and winced as a sandy claw raked a gash in the roof he had been perched on. That only made him more certain that taking this bastard to Admin wasn't a plan. Where to go?
Obachan? He skidded to a halt just before careening into her. She was dressed for shopping, and two ANBU flanked her. "Naruto, what are you—?"
Gaara appeared, or rather his attack struck and then he appeared on the far end of the roof. One of the ANBU blasted the sandy tendril away with a spray of water. "Um, he was going after Kiba and…"
"I see. I had heard that my old captain was giving you grief, but now I see the proof, old fool that she is." Mikoto-obachan sighed and pushed Naruto behind her. "You, Suna-nin."
Gaara glared.
Naruto, leaning forward and craning his neck, watched Mikoto-obachan do the same. Her red eyes always made that expression so much more menacing.
"You are an Uchiha." Gaara's voice grated on Naruto's ears just as it had the first time.
"And you are a container with tainted chakra. A poor container, since it seems you have no control over your beast." Obachan said that so nonchalantly that Naruto had to twitch. "You are in Konoha, Suna-nin. Keep out of trouble, or I will see that you are expelled from the village before the Final Exam rolls around. I'm sure you have training to do elsewhere. The Hyuuga you'll face in the first round is no pushover."
Gaara's eyes narrowed, but he took in the ANBU and disappeared in a spray of sand.
"Inform the Hokage of the incident and see that watchers are posted in the hospital. Make sure Inuzuka Tsume is aware of the danger as well as Yuuhi-san. Naruto, what possessed you?"
"Snake said—"
"And you believed her." Mikoto-obachan sighed. "Come with me. Your sister has been out of her mind with worry, and now I understand why. I thought Kakashi-san was kidding."
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't think you were foolish enough to actually train with her when they told me she had offered. Naruto, she enjoys killing people. I thought you knew that. I'm surprised you're still alive. She despised your father. Your mother, well, I guess it was fortunate they never met."
Naruto blinked. Mikoto-obachan had never mentioned his parents before. He sputtered as much, but Obachan ignored him and took hold of his wrist.
"Here I was thinking that you would snap back from your failure better than Sasuke because you're more optimistic. So much for that. Come, you can help me shop, and then we're going to sit down and talk about this since Kakashi-san doesn't seem to want to."
When they arrived at the door, Naruto finally thought to wonder where Ryuuka was since Sasuke probably wasn't home. Obachan wouldn't have left the girl alone.
"Naruto-niichan?" called a high-pitched voice from the kitchen. "Niichan's here?" The three-year-old girl's much lighter tread echoed through the hall as she ran for the door. Naruto winced as she skidded on the hardwood floor and almost face-planted because she was wearing socks on the slippery surface. Jaguar appeared and righted the girl. Naruto crouched down and let her smack his head. "Bad Naruto-niichan!" she scolded, her dark brown eyes flashing with childish rage and her father's brown hair swaying as she shook her head at him. "You didn't come and see me like you said you would!"
"Aw, come on, dragon girl! I had the exam and—"
"No! I won't forgive you!" She crossed her arms and copied her brother's favourite sulking stance, causing Mikoto's and Naruto's lips to twitch.
"Even if I give you a piggyback ride?"
"No!"
"How about I snitch one of Riko's figurines for you? You like the rabbit one—"
"No! Riko-bachan would get mad! You have to take me to the park later and push me on the swing. If you do that, maybe I'll forgive you." She smiled and clapped her hands, satisfied with her idea of punishment.
Naruto groaned. "But, dragon girl, you're so heavy! How am I going to push a dragon as big as you on the tiny swings?"
"Oniitama can!" she protested. "He must be stronger than you then!"
"Definitely." Ryuuka grinned up at Jaguar, who earned a glare from Naruto. "Naruto's just being silly."
"Niichan!" she whined, planting her tiny fists on her hips. "I'm a small dragon with a loud roar! Kaasan says so! Push me on the swings!"
Naruto grinned and messed up her hair and laughed as she indignantly tried to slap it flat again. "All right, dragon girl, we'll go to the park later. Then will I be forgiven?"
"Maybe!" She skittered back into the kitchen with Jaguar close on her heels, making sure she wouldn't careen into any walls again. Mikoto smirked at him and let him in so he could put the rice in the kitchen.
Much later, after he had chopped vegetables for their lunch, Mikoto gestured that he sit down at the table as she called a reminder down the hall not to shriek in the house to Ryuuka, who hadn't been willing to stop pestering Naruto until Sasuke had come back from training with Kakashi. His sensei was actually sitting there now, having been essentially ordered to stay for lunch by Obachan.
"So, you slipped from Snake's coils," his sensei said as he flipped to the next page of porn.
Naruto shrugged. "Maybe. She said that she would probably be back early enough to get me again."
"You tell me if she does. She's not supposed to." Kaka-sensei looked a little pleased at the prospect of having dirt on Snake. "What was she teaching you?"
Naruto grimaced. "She basically taught me how to be beat up and suffocated a lot."
"Snake-28 believes that knowing yourself when under the influence of fear is important," Mikoto said as she stirred the soup. "She was pushing you into fear and trying to make you realize how to handle yourself effectively. Or at least that's the excuse I've come up with."
"She sadistic," Kaka-sensei said.
"That too, but she has a point. Too many shinobi in these times only know how to operate under controlled circumstances. When pushed, many flounder. Our generations—Kakashi-san's, mine, and Snake's—were forged by war. We grew up fighting while terrified. Your generation looks soft to us because you did not participate in the last war. I prefer to think that this is a good thing, but I am not certain considering the unrest I've been hearing whispers about. Either way, we are going to discuss how you handled the second exam after we eat." She pulled some bowls out of the cupboard. "Sasuke, Ryuuka! Lunch!"
After Ryuuka disappeared petulantly into the depths of the house to watch a movie, Naruto blabbed out his version of events, with Sasuke occasionally reminding him of details he would have rather forgotten and then moved on to give a more detailed account of what he and Snake-28 had done. "She said I should have killed the Oto team…"
"She's right."
Naruto stared at Obachan.
"I told you that being a ninja was a dirty business. I had already made more than one kill by the time I was your age. If you had killed the Sound team, they wouldn't have been able to double-team you with that Mist group. You would have had a better chance of nabbing a scroll and passing. In future, what will you do instead?"
Naruto glared at her. Snake's "game rules" came back to him, but he pushed them away. "I don't want to kill them."
"Then you will not live very long," Obachan hissed at him. "You will not become Hokage. You will have wasted my time."
Sasuke glanced between them while Kaka-sensei kept his eye on his book. "Loser, maybe—"
"Bastard, I'm not going to kill people just because they get in my way. I'm not going to kill people if I can help it. I became a ninja to protect people, not to spill their guts all over the place when they make things difficult." Neechan would hate me.
"Then problems are always going to be coming back to bite you," Obachan said. "Always. What is dead is food for worms, not food for worried thought. The dead cannot come back—" And here she wore a strange look: longing, confusion, and dread. "Usually."
Naruto noticed Kaka-sensei's eye flick to take in that expression before going back to his book.