You know who I am, you know what this is, so I'll be brief.
What I wanted to do: Make a chapter that was a minimum of 10k words long, 15k maximum, with at least half of it being Exam Arc content. A more streamlined experience with less emphasis put on detail and world-building, and more on plot progression and current events. After all, that was kinda the point of all the detail and world-building so far. Like the other MCU movies that get all the lore and development out of the way so it doesn't bog down the Avengers films; you know these characters, you know the setting, let's get going. And yes, I'm well aware this story is as old as the MCU itself.
What actually happened: I got so carried away in the excitement of FINALLY starting the Exam Arc, that I forgot there was still shit to be done before the actual event. Important shit that made up the various subplots involved with the Exams and couldn't be put on the back burner. I struggled with figuring out how to cram all of it in without delivering a 40k-word behemoth. The answer is obvious in hindsight, but in the moment I was both too stubborn and too close to the issue. What is that answer? Flashbacks. It was impossible to do everything I wanted in this one chapter, so I'll just sprinkle it in as it becomes relevant throughout the story arc.
So in this chapter you're going to get time skips and references to things that happened during those skips, which you won't see until later. It's not too bad, unless that sort of thing bothers you, just a few extra mysteries to add to the pile. But I was able to exceed one of my goals for this chapter; instead of half of it being Exam Arc content, I'd say it's eighty percent or more. Though the event itself hasn't kicked off just yet, almost ALL of this is part of the story arc. So hooray for that.
All that said, I had a great time writing this one. Y'know, when I wasn't tearing my hair out, bashing my head into tables and deleting weeks-worth of work because I suddenly hated it…
Have fun!
PS: I know it's confusing, but this chapter picks up right after "Strength", just FYI.
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(Konoha - Naruto's Apartment, 6:00pm)
Naruto all but bashed open the door to his workshop, nearly breaking the lock and almost triggering one of his own traps in the process. But he had far too much on his mind to notice and began pacing around the room, grumbling under his breath.
"...not my fault…held up my end...can't blame me..." he continued to pace, avoiding walking into things from muscle memory alone.
It really wasn't his fault. How could it have been? He upheld his part of the bargain to the letter; it was totally out of his hands after that! What could he have even done?
"I wasn't his goddamn keeper! I wasn't even his friend! He didn't like me, I couldn't give a fuck less about him; that was it!" Naruto fumed.
There was nothing he could've done, absolutely nothing. In fact, him taking any personal interest in the situation would've been that much more suspicious!
"I did my job, I paid my debt!"
Okay, so maybe they hadn't asked for it, but they damn sure didn't decline the offer! They knew the risks going in; he TOLD them the risks going in. They'd hashed it out together, gone through dozens of possible scenarios, to the point where it was just as much their plan as it was his. Just as much their responsibility as it was his. No, even moreso; his obligation ended the moment he hand-delivered Akamaru!
"...So why did she look at me like that?" Naruto murmured, finally coming to a stop.
Of course it was all still fresh in his mind; it had happened just an hour ago. It would probably still be fresh for years to come.
The crying and screaming from all sides. The sensation of flying through the air and the pain of slamming into a wall after being shoved aside by a desperate mother. The look of horror, disbelief, confusion and overwhelming sadness on Hinata's face as her eyes darted around to everyone, silently pleading for answers.
He had turned away from that look, only to be caught by another. A glare that he was all too familiar with. A glare that spoke of pain and rage. Accusation and blame. A glare he never thought he'd see from Tsume Inuzuka.
"You wanna blame me? Well fuck you, too!" Naruto snarled at no one. "I should've known you were just like all the others!" a collection of thankfully empty test tubes and beakers shattered against a wall. "Always looking for a scapegoat!" a table was flipped up to the ceiling, where all four legs pierced through the half-inch steel shielding and stuck. "Never able to admit that YOU fucked up!" the entire workbench was ripped out of the floor and thrown to the opposite side of the room. "Smiling in my face so you can use me, then fuck me over in the end!" the nearest wall received several deep, fist-shaped dents. "I'll fucking kill y-…"
No, he wouldn't do that. He couldn't do that. Tsume had been more than good to him, as had Hana, and had earned the benefit of the doubt. She was confused and distraught, that was all. Who could expect a grieving mother to be rational? She just needed to cool down. Everyone needed to cool down.
"I need to cool down..." Naruto breathed, sitting his favorite working chair back on its wheels and plopping himself down in it. Feeling distinctly unwelcome, Naruto had quickly made his way out of the Inuzuka compound and spent the next hour wandering the village aimlessly, stewing over what had gone down. "I need to stop this, flying off the handle all the time."
"I'll say." Nightmare snorted.
"Shut. Up." Naruto growled before taking off his mask, for once feeling stuffy and constrained with it on, and sat it down on the table next to him; the only intact one left in the workshop. Leaning back in the chair, he let his mind wander, wondering if there was anything at all he could do to help the situation. And wondering if he even should do anything.
Even twenty minutes later he was still so lost in thought that he didn't notice the person entering his workshop through the still-open door. Nor did he notice the footsteps approaching him from behind.
"Naruto-sama..."
The boy jumped and whirled around in his chair. He shouldn't have been surprised; he knew she'd come sooner or later. But that didn't change the fact that he had no idea what to tell her.
"How about the truth?" Kyuubi said, her tone implying that it was more than a suggestion.
'But-'
"No. Look at her, Naruto. This is not the same Hinata we've known. Somehow, someway, she'd changed. Grown. She's just suffered a terrible blow, but she's here. She's not crying in a corner, she's not weeping on your couch; she's here, looking for answers. So give them to her."
Taking his mate's words to heart, Naruto looked at Hinata. Kyuubi was right. Though the girl had clearly been crying, she stood before him not as a broken shell seeking comfort and safety, but as a person doing her best to cope with tragedy.
"...I'm sorry, Hinata." Naruto whispered.
"What happened? ...What did you do?" there was no accusation in her tone, just a simple plea. "Tsume-san and Hana...they wouldn't tell me anything...and I couldn't bring myself to ask."
"It wasn't supposed to be like this..."
"I...I'm not here to scream and cry, or lay blame or burden you with my problems. I just want to know." Hinata's voice caught as she visibly struggled to force the lump in her throat down. "I've...started to put some things together myself, but...I need to know. No matter how much you think it'll hurt me...no matter how much it will hurt me, I need to know. Please, Naruto-sama...Please.
"...Alright." and so Naruto laid it all out, sparing none of the details as he knew them. Akamaru's death, Shino's deception, Akamaru's resurrection, Naruto and Tsume's plans; all of it. Including the efforts they all took to make sure Hinata, above anyone else but Kiba himself, never found out.
"So you all had to work around my weakness..." Hinata said, her head bowed and eyes hidden by her hair.
"We made assumptions." Naruto replied with a grimace. "We never thought of telling you the truth. Maybe you could've helped. Maybe you could've watched over Kiba. Hell, maybe we could've told him the truth if you were there to ease him into it. But we just assumed you couldn't handle it, so we never tried."
"I…I think you did the right thing."
"What?" Naruto blinked.
"You were right; I wouldn't have been able to handle it. I wasn't strong enough to carry that kind of weight." the heiress admitted. "I would have made things worse somehow."
"Hinata, that's not-"
"It is, and we all know it." Hinata interrupted quietly. "I have a hard time even taking care of myself…What business would I have had trying to take on someone else's issues? I couldn't…I can't do it. I'm not strong enough, not yet."
"You can't blame yourself for that."
"I can, but that's the only thing I'm taking the blame for. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. I know my role in all this, and I take responsibility for the things I did. Everyone else? Shino, Yūhi, Kiba...I won't put that on my shoulders. Not this time." Hinata paused to wipe her eyes. "It's strange...I'm so sad, but I can't help but feel...angry. Furious, even. All the...the fucked up things I've seen, and all that's happened to me; I got through it on my own. Maybe I didn't cope in all the right ways, but dammit I got through! My family turned their backs on me, and I was too shy and 'weird' to make friends, but I still made it!" she was almost yelling by this point. "But then Kiba, surrounded by family and friends, people who gave a damn about him...people who would have tripped over themselves to help him if he'd only asked...Did he have any idea what others would give to have that kind of support ready and waiting? What I would have given to have what he wasted?! That selfish goddamned WEAKLING!" Hinata's eyes visibly darkened with her outburst, but lightened again as she reined herself in.
Naruto blinked, expecting her to apologize at least for speaking ill of the dead, but it never came. This was indeed a new Hinata, one who wasn't going to apologize for how she felt.
"…Some people just aren't strong enough to handle things that hit so close to home." Naruto said with a shrug. "The downside of being sheltered and coddled, I guess."
Then Hinata did something that rendered even Naruto's inner demons speechless. She walked right up to him and plopped herself down in his lap, curling up sideways and tucking her head under his chin. He wrapped his arms around her on reflex to keep her from falling, to which she responded by nuzzling him and producing a low rumble in her chest that was astonishingly similar to purring.
The two youths sat like that for several minutes before Hinata finally spoke again, her voice betraying no embarrassment or shyness.
"Naruto-sama?"
"Yes?" Naruto answered, just barely keeping from stammering.
"Have you ever…lost someone? Like a friend?"
Naruto unconsciously swiveled the chair until he was facing the table and his eyes immediately settled on his mask. "…I have."
Hinata's eyes widened when she, too, spied the mask and realized for the first time Naruto wasn't wearing it. Before she could stop herself, her left arm reached out to grab it off the table. She froze for a moment with it in her hand, but when Naruto made no effort to take it from her, she took that as permission to inspect it.
It was heavier than she expected. Flipping it over to see the inside, she blinked when she saw something inscribed onto the forehead above the right eye-slit.
"'Remember me/When you're finally free/With places to be/And a world to see." Hinata read the words aloud without realizing it.
"Yuki…" Naruto whispered. It had been a long time since he'd actually read her little poem.
"Who…Who was she?" Hinata asked, rubbing a thumb over the inscription.
"The light in my world of darkness." Naruto answered, remembering the words immaculately carved into his gift for her. The gift that had been taken as a trophy by her killers…"She was always there for me…and that was her mistake; being friends with the demon child. She paid for that mistake with her life."
"…Your sixth birthday?" Hinata asked, remembering the chaos of that night, followed by Naruto's disappearance and his subsequent radical change in...everything.
"That was the night I learned that just associating with me could get someone killed, and so I took steps to spare you and anyone else I counted as a friend the same fate."
"…How did you deal with it? Losing her like that?"
"Spent the next six years stalking, torturing and killing those involved in her murder whenever I got the chance."
"Not exactly an option for me." Hinata mumbled.
"Different strokes." Naruto replied, getting a snort from the girl.
Hinata stared at the mask for a while longer, trying to decide whether or not what she wanted to do next was a step too far. Sure Naruto was letting her handle the mask, but it was an object of immeasurable sentimental value, not some toy for her amusement.
"You need to pump chakra into it for it to activate and stick to your face." Naruto said suddenly. "From there it'll continue to siphon off energy to power itself until you cut off the flow."
Hinata almost reverently brought the mask to her face, idly noting it didn't smell anywhere near as…sweaty as she'd expected, and followed Naruto's instructions. The mask sucked itself to her skin with a barely audible hiss and she could feel it drawing on her chakra. Nothing significant, but she was sensitive to that kind of thing anyway.
Then, just as Hinata started to wonder how the hell Naruto could see anything out of it, the inside of the mask disappeared before her eyes, fading like a mirage to allow an unobstructed view of her surroundings.
"Oooh, this is so cool!" the girl said in awe, gently tapping the mask just to make sure it was still there.
Naruto couldn't help but chuckle as he watched her look around as if seeing the room for the first time.
"Is my head really that big, or is yours just that small?" he snickered when Hinata turned to him, showing just how oversized the mask was on her.
"Hush, you." she pouted. "I think I'm gonna look into one of these."
"And hide that pretty face?" the words slipped out before Naruto could even think to stop them.
Though she blushed profusely and her heart skipped several beats, the heiress didn't miss a beat.
"You're one to talk." she retorted, taking in the combination of sharp lines and sweeping, almost delicate curves that made up Naruto's face.
While not exactly girly, he certainly fell more on the beautiful side of handsome, if she did say so herself. He fit right in with the likes of Neji and Sasuke; boys who could easily pass for models if they didn't spend most of their time with scowls, glares or snarls on their faces.
And speaking of scowls, the blonde boy didn't seem at all amused by Hinata's observation.
"Yeah, yeah, just make sure you don't do any talking. I've got enough problems with random people coming up to me in the streets; I don't need fangirls as well." Naruto muttered.
"It can't be that bad, right?"
"Three different people asked for my autograph today." Naruto deadpanned.
"…Did you do it?" Hinata asked, cocking her head to the side.
"…" the hanyō looked away with the slightest dusting of pink on his cheeks.
Hinata couldn't hold back a snicker, which turned into a full blown laugh when Naruto poked the Konoha spiral leaf in the middle of his mask with a chakra-laden finger, causing it to fall from her face. He quickly snatched it up and slapped it on his own in a futile effort to hide his embarrassment.
"Aww, don't be like that, Naruto-kun!" the girl giggled.
Naruto just grunted, causing Hinata to giggle again before snuggling into him.
Neither really knew or cared how much time passed in the comfortable silence. This was an exceedingly rare moment for Naruto, and a first for Hinata, so both were more than content to just let it happen. Plus, they knew this was the kind of thing there likely wouldn't be much time for in the very near future.
But eventually one of them decided there was still something left to be said.
"Hinata…"
"Hm?" the girl responded almost sleepily.
"…Don't blame him."
"…How can I not?"
"By being stronger than him. Let it go and move on."
"You mean like you did?" Hinata snorted, immediately flinching when she realized she'd said it aloud.
"No, not like me, and that's exactly the point." Naruto said, taking hold of her shoulder and pushing her back just enough to be able to look her in the eyes. "We come from different worlds, Hinata, and regardless of how much crossover there is now, we still live in different worlds. No, I didn't let go and move on. I can't let go. Not yet; not until it's over."
"Until they're all dead…"
"Yes. Every last one of them. Then maybe I can free Yuki from the prison I made for her. My crusade has had an unintended side-effect. Her memory has been tainted, tied inexorably to the people who killed her. It's a good day when I can think of her without thinking of the ones who are still alive, but even then I find that some of my memories of her are…spotty and unclear. I can remember things that she said, but not where and when she said them. There are entire events that I have no context for because I forgot how we got to where we were, or why we were there at all." Naruto had to swallow a lump in his throat to continue. "I can tell you how many eyebrow hairs Utatane Hiroyuka chooses to pluck on an average morning…but I can't tell you what Yuki's favorite food was anymore…"
"Utatane…Councilman Utatane?" Hinata questioned with wide eyes. She'd had dinner at the man's house before with her father and had found herself not wanting to leave! He was a kind, funny man with a sterling reputation and one of the few members of the Civilian Council shinobi openly respected and got along with.
"Maybe you remember having fun with his youngest daughter at a dinner party," Naruto growled, "but I remember him laughing when his oldest son stuck a pitchfork through my leg and paraded me through the streets like a fucking trophy. You see? THAT is the kind of shit I remember when I try to think of Yuki. Is that what you want?"
"No…" Hinata's reply came as a whisper. It was already eating at her to think of Kiba like she was; like he had personally wronged her. The last thing she wanted was for it to get worse.
"Then do what I can't and let it go. Mourn, vent, do what you have to do, and let that be the end of it."
"Easier said than done." Hinata mumbled.
"It always is."
(Four Days Later – Konoha, Training Ground Eight, 5:15am)
Just a few months ago, if you had told Zabuza Momochi that he would one day be a Konoha Jōnin, he would've laughed in your face. And if you had told him that one day he'd be rising before the sun to stand in the middle of a training ground and wait for his students, he'd have asked you where you got whatever it was you were smoking, because clearly it was some good shit.
'Yet here I am, wide awake at this ungodly hour and waiting for my students.' Zabuza thought. 'God, that still sounds weird. "My students"…'
"Would you settle down already? I can smell your anxiety from here." the tall man looked up to see Haku sitting on a tree branch above him, giving him an exasperated look.
It had taken quite a few "pep talks" and other forms of coaxing, but the combined efforts of Zabuza and the Orasu sisters eventually managed to get Haku back out of her shell to join the rest of the world in moving on. Fortunately it appeared that the girl stuck to her guns, refusing to let the world change who she was, no matter what it threw at her.
That said, there had been some changes. Changes that perhaps only Zabuza himself had picked up on, because like any good dad, he knew his daughter better than anyone. For one, it seemed like the years of his and Kitoro's pestering had finally gotten through to the girl and she had discovered the wonders of meat. In a surprisingly well thought-out effort to lighten the mood of the last few days, Naruto, kitchen dynamo that he was, decided to get the whole crew together for dinner. While he was taking individual orders like a waiter, and promising to do terrible things to the food of whoever made the comparison, Haku put in a request for a medium-rare ribeye steak. Naruto didn't think twice about it, but Zabuza and the Sisters looked at the girl like she'd just revealed she was actually a boy. And the looks returned when the ribeye came out, expertly seasoned and cooked to perfection, and Haku absolutely destroyed it.
The second change was something that Haku had just displayed; a sudden affinity for scents. Yes, Haku had always been more sensitive to smells than most people Zabuza had met, to the point where she added things to her diet or cut things out of it depending on how they made her smell. But never before had she been so overt about her well-above-average sense of smell, somehow managing to weave it into damn near every conversation.
But as odd as it was, Zabuza saw no cause for alarm. From what Naruto said his clone had to do in order to free Haku from that demonic illusion, the ex-Mist ninja supposed he should be thankful those were the only side-effects, if that was indeed what they were.
"I think a little anxiety is justified when you're under a microscope like we are right now, missy." Zabuza snorted. "I'm not just some random Kiri rogue looking for a new home; I'm a big fucking deal, for all the wrong reasons. And now I'm being handed the heirs to two of the most powerful clans in Konoha. This is a make-or-break scenario if there ever was one. For both of us, Haku."
"I know that. I'd still be on probation if not for…what happened, and I've been told that even though I've been 'officially' instated as a Genin, my clearance level is still 'Civilian'."
"So I shouldn't be the only one who's a little antsy about us suddenly being given this level of responsibility." Zabuza said gruffly. "They wouldn't trust us with a history book at the library, but they'll trust us with a couple of kids who are practically royalty around here? Having trouble wrapping my head around that one."
"Well when you say it like that, it does sound…strange." Haku admitted.
"There's another way to say it?"
"You make it sound like it's some kind of conspiracy; like we've been given a task we're expected to fail so they can have an excuse to execute us."
"Hey, I didn't go that far…"
"You're ignoring the fact that we were both personally recommended by Konoha's top Jōnin and interviewed by the Hokage himself before he signed off on it. I know you're used to expecting the worst from Kages, but I think you're looking for something that doesn't exist. Keep going and-"
"I'll psych myself out." Zabuza finished with a groan. "Yeah, I remember what I taught you, smartass." he smiled beneath his bandages and leaned back against the trunk of the tree Haku was sitting in. "Tch, I'm supposed to be the teacher, but I've still gotta learn how to trust a Kage."
"Well, you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks." Haku said, absolutely preening from her seat on the branch. Witticisms weren't really her thing, so when she managed to "get" someone, especially a pro like Zabuza, it was an accomplishment in her book.
"…I'm about this close to forbidding you from hanging out with Naruto anymore." Zabuza deadpanned, holding his fingers about half a centimeter apart.
"But can you stop him from hanging out with me?" Haku asked cheekily.
"I dunno; think any of the stories I've got could do the trick?" Zabuza fired back.
"…"
"Heh, better an old dog than a puppy." the swordsman chuckled, his smug grin obvious even through his wrappings.
"One of these days, I'm going to trip YOU up, then we'll see…" Haku trailed off as her nostrils flared and her head snapped over to the tree line. "Someone's coming."
"Not the kids?" Zabuza asked, pushing off the tree and placing a hand on the hilt of his giant blade.
"Not with that shampoo." the girl replied.
"Civilian?"
"Far too quiet for how close they are."
"Huh…" Zabuza narrowed his eyes at the tree line, then let go of his sword and slouched back against the tree. "I've got this one, you watch out for others."
"You think someone's going to attack us?"
"I think I've done a lot of things to a lot of people, which makes for a lot of grudges."
Haku nodded and jumped up to the higher branches, disappearing amongst the leaves. It may have been before her time, but Zabuza had fought a war against these people not too long ago.
They only had to wait another minute or so before a vaguely familiar face entered the clearing.
Zabuza's eyes narrowed in thought; he definitely recognized her, but from where? She would've been hot if she put some effort into her appearance, but right now the slouched posture, baggy t-shirt and sweatpants, dry, frizzy hair and deep bags under her eyes did her no favors at all.
The woman looked around the field for a moment before gaze settled on the swordsman, and when their eyes locked it suddenly clicked for him. Though she wasn't exactly a head-turner in her current state, those eyes were unmistakable. Sharp, focused and colored in a shade of red that could pass for an active Sharingan at first glance.
"Can I help you, Yūhi-san?" she may have been persona non grata in the Namikaze household, and with good reason if even half of the things he'd heard about her were true, but she'd never done anything to him and his personally so he would treat her with the same respect and courtesy of any other coworker. For now at least.
Kurenai blinked, surprised that the man knew her name; she had never even spoken to him, let alone introduced herself.
'Then again, he's part of Namikaze's group, so he probably knows me the same way I know him…by reputation.' she thought with a grimace. She didn't know why she hadn't remembered that fact before, but she was here now; retreat wasn't an option. "I hope so, Momochi-san."
"I'm listening."
"It's about my…your team."
"I figured." Zabuza said with a sigh, knowing exactly where this was going. "It's only natural for a sensei to check in on former students, especially when they end up assigned to someone like me. I get it, I do. But the keyword there is 'former'; you gave them up, Yūhi-san."
"I made a mistake!" Kurenai snapped defensively, but quickly reined herself in. "I made a lot of mistakes, most of which I can't do anything about now. But this? Them? I just want the chance to do something right."
"Okay, but you're doing it wrong." Zabuza remarked.
"Excuse me?"
"Why are you here?" the man asked instead of elaborating.
"I…I'm here to get my team back." Kurenai replied flatly.
"They aren't your team anymore." there was no bite or condescension behind Zabuza's words, just a simple statement of fact. "Nevermind the request you put it, nevermind the paperwork you filled out; when you turned your back on them, they turned their backs on you. You may have had a change of heart, but they haven't, and from what I've heard you've been doing everything you can to make sure they never do."
Kurenai's hands clenched into fists by her sides. "…I told you I've made mistakes-"
"And you haven't learned from a single fucking one of them." Zabuza interrupted, eyes narrowing. "I've met some selfish people in my life, and I've been a pretty damn selfish son of a bitch myself, but you're up there Yūhi."
"I'm just trying to-"
"To soothe your own conscience. What, you think you're the first ninja to look in the mirror one day and realize the person looking back is a shitty human being? But that self-awareness isn't the problem. No, the problem is that you don't seem to be aware of anything BUT yourself."
"I'm trying to help-"
"Who? Those kids? By constantly meddling in their lives? By keeping all those wounds open and pouring salt on them every chance you get? You came here to convince me to relinquish my rights as their sensei and sign them back over to you. You think they'd appreciate you going behind their backs to essentially force them back under your wing against their will?"
"…"
"Uh-huh. Well let's put all that aside for the moment. You made it to Jōnin, so I would think you've been in the game long enough to know there are no free lunches. What have you done to EARN the second chance you want so damn bad?"
"That's what I'm trying to do, you-" Kurenai hissed, only to be cut off once again.
"And we've already established that you're doing it wrong. You want a second chance, but you want it on YOUR terms, and that's not how it works."
"Then how does it work, Mr. Expert?!" the kunoichi all but screamed. "How do you undo what's been done?! How do you un-burn the bridge?! Tell me, Demon of the Bloody Mist! Tell me how it works!"
In that moment Zabuza saw the true depths of desperation in the woman's eyes and couldn't help but pity her. He knew her pain. Knew exactly what it was like to wish with all your heart and soul to be able to take something back.
'Sweet mother of fuck am I going soft.' the former rogue thought. "For starters, you can stop trying to put it out. You torched the fucker, now all you can do is leave it alone and let it burn out. Give them time to sort themselves out and…" he trailed off as he finally registered the two familiar chakra signatures that had snuck up on him while he was preoccupied. "Ah shit."
"It's you." Hinata growled through clenched teeth as she stormed into the clearing, Shino trailing a few paces behind. "Of course it's you; it's ALWAYS you!" maybe it was a trick of the pre-dawn darkness, but both Jōnin would've sworn they saw the girl's eyes shift to pitch black for just a moment.
(Naruto's Apartment, 5:45am)
Naruto was exhausted. While not quite as bad as summoning two-thousand clones at once, it was getting there. Between meeting with hundreds of different ninjas to coordinate plans for the Exams, personally mapping out prime ambush spots and tracking the migration patterns and territorial boundaries of the Forest of Death's nastier residents, making sure his team would be up to snuff for the trials ahead, keeping up with his own training and checking in on Anko, among other things, it had been four straight days of constant activity with almost no rest. Even with hordes of clones to delegate the tasks to he still felt most of them deserved his personal attention and often ended up tagging along with the clones anyway.
Perhaps he was overcompensating, but considering how many catastrophes he'd faced in the last two months alone, most of them of his own doing, could anyone blame him? Nothing could be overlooked. Everything and everyone had to be accounted for. People needed to know their roles, where to be and when to be there. Fortunately talking to people wasn't nearly as maddening as he'd expected, even if the sheer number of conversations was getting to him. They actually seemed to appreciate the fact that he was taking his own role so seriously and cooperated without hassle most of the time.
But saying the whole process had been smoother than expected so far was like saying the boulder you had to push uphill only weighed ten tons instead of the fifteen you thought.
"You need to take a break." Kyuubi said, her tone not letting on how concerned she really was. Naruto was a workaholic even at the best of times.
"I am." Naruto replied blandly.
"Are you forgetting I can see what you see?" the Demon Queen scoffed, referring to the maps, lists and diagrams piled up and spread out over the coffee table in front of her lover.
"Just verifying some things." Naruto said, clearly distracted as his eyes darted all around the table.
"Are you forgetting I'm IN your mind?" now Kyuubi was starting to get annoyed.
"No, I just…" Naruto let out a sound between a hiss and a sigh and slouched back on the sofa, squeezing his aching eyes shut. "We've already seen where trusting people to do their jobs has gotten me."
"Be that as it may, I'd like to think that a situation this fucked up would be the exception to the rule."
"I'd LIKE to think that, too, but you might as well be asking me to believe in the Tooth Fairy."
"Well-"
"And I don't mean those demons that feed on calcium." Naruto said quickly, knowing from her tone there was a smart-ass remark on the way.(1)
"Actually I was thinking more along the lines of Kojima Rana." Kyuubi said smugly, referring to the psychotic kunoichi from Kusagakure who'd earned the nickname "Tooth Fairy" for her habit of wearing trinkets made from the teeth of fallen opponents.
"Tch, with my luck she'll probably be here for the Exams, too." the hanyō snorted and leaned forward to leaf through a stack of foreign ninja profiles.
'Me and my big mouth.' Kyuubi groaned mentally as yet another attempt to distract him unraveled immediately. She had one method to fall back on, which would likely be the easiest and most fun method, but using sex to get what she wanted felt…cheap somehow. But her mate's stubbornness had left her no other recourse. "So, how long has it been since we-"
Then, as if Murphy himself had a grudge against her, Naruto's apartment door was all but kicked down as an irate heiress barged in practically breathing fire.
"That bitch! That miserable, conniving, spineless…BITCH!" Hinata screamed, fingers curling and clenching like she wanted to rip something apart. "I can't believe her! Can you believe her?! I can't believe her!"
"What?" Naruto blinked behind his mask, not quite comprehending what he was seeing and hearing just yet.
"Why am I even surprised?" Hinata laughed bitterly. "If anything I should be astounded it took her this long to try it!"
"Um…"
"We finally get a sensei who's worth a damn and she tries to screw us over again!" the girl seethed, her voice starting to take on a more menacing quality. "Gutless whore probably tried to bribe him with her body. Yeah, I bet Asuma-sensei would love to know about that…"
Naruto's eyes narrowed as he finally made sense of his friend's ramblings. "So, even after all the warnings, she insists on tempting fate." he muttered to himself.
"Zabuza-sensei wants me to 'cool off'? I'll cool off when she FUCKS off! If all she's gonna do is ruin other people's lives, she can fucking die and go straight to hell!" Hinata panted in her fury. She came here to blow off some steam, but had only succeeded in working herself up even more. "…I need to hit something."
"I'm sure the clones are bored downstairs." Naruto said, nodding towards the door to his workshop when Hinata finally looked at him.
"…Thanks." she replied before marching over to it, cracking her neck and rolling her shoulders in a very familiar way.
Naruto watched her until she was out of sight, all thoughts of his other responsibilities gone and replaced with much darker ones.
"I've been nicer than she deserves." he said as he stood up from the sofa.
"You have." Kyuubi agreed. A distraction was a distraction, and she didn't particularly care if it came at the expense of some idiotic woman's life. "I, for one, thought you made quite the impression last time. Guess she doesn't understand that you don't do idle threats."
"This ends today." Naruto walked over to the door to the adjacent apartment he used for storage. It was time to finally make use of what the Hokage had allowed him to take from Yakumo's safe house.
(Kurenai's Condo, 8:00am)
Asuma quietly opened the door and poked his head inside to look around the darkened space. There was nothing obviously amiss, so he nodded to himself and fully entered the condo, letting the door close and relock itself behind him.
It was a first for Asuma, being in his…girlfriend's home by himself. It felt wrong to be there without her permission or knowledge. Invasive, even though he had no intention of touching or otherwise disturbing anything. He knew she'd be pissed at him for the intrusion, but as long as she was alive to be pissed, he'd take whatever punishment she decided on with a smile.
He'd found Kurenai "Drunks Are Pathetic" Yūhi staggering out of a bar at 6:30 in the morning and had immediately go into panic mode. Only one thing could possibly cause her drown herself in alcohol like that, and Asuma was already dreading the consequences even before he got the story out of her.
She had done something stupid. Incredibly stupid. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she'd let herself get caught doing it. There was no way he wouldn't hear about it, so Asuma knew he had to act fast before Kurenai "vanished" like a lot of other people who'd crossed Konoha's resident Jinchūriki.
He'd be the first to admit his plan wasn't that great. Barely a plan at all, really. But he felt it had a greater chance of success than the next best option: a straight up duel with Kurenai's life as the prize.
"She's not coming, Naruto." Asuma said out loud as he sat down on the sofa in Kurenai's living room and took out a cigarette, but didn't light it. To an observer it would appear he was talking to himself in an empty room, but he knew different. He could feel different.
"So I see." Naruto remarked, materializing out of the dark hall that led to the master bedroom. "I take it you're here on her behalf."
"Just like you're here on Hinata's."
"…Fair enough." Naruto conceded and walked around to sit on the opposite end of the sofa.
"What was the plan if she had walked through the door?" Asuma asked, cancer-stick hanging from the corner of his mouth.
"Where are you hiding her?"
"…"
"So, the woman my clones have been tailing…?"
"A clone herself." Asuma answered with a tiny smirk.
"Hm, color me impressed."
"I am a Jōnin, Naruto."
"A Jōnin who's hiding another Jōnin from a Genin." Naruto countered coolly.
"If it were any other 'Genin' but you, this wouldn't be an issue."
"Are you sure about that?" Naruto inquired, giving the man a dry look behind his mask. "Because from what I know and what I've seen, she's barely even adequate outside of Genjutsu. Kind of makes you wonder just how she made it to full Jōnin when other, far more deserving people are still stuck at Tokubetsu..."
"If you're implying that-" Asuma started with a scowl.
"I'm not 'implying' anything; the FACT of the matter is that Yūhi didn't achieve her rank through her own merits."
"And how would you know that?"
"I may not have any respect for her or most of her abilities, but do you think I'd go after a Jōnin without knowing what to expect? I've done my homework, Asuma-sensei, and everything points to her gaming the system by taking credit for other peoples' work and charming some specific people into putting in recommendations for her."
"…I know." Asuma sighed.
"You do?"
"Do you think I'd go after a woman with so many rumors and stories floating around her without knowing what to expect? I did my homework, Naruto, and I'm willing to bet we've read all the same files and talked to at least most of the same people."
"Then you have to know she's using you just like she did all the others."
Naruto expected the man to scoff or perhaps even acknowledge that he was right. What he didn't expect was a long, loud, genuine belly-laugh that shook Asuma's entire six-foot-five frame.
"Using ME?! Oh, that's a good one!" the man said when he finally calmed down. "She'd probably be a better girlfriend if she was trying to use me. But jokes aside, she couldn't even if she wanted to."
"Son of the Hokage, future Head of the Sarutobi clan, former member of the Twelve Guardian Ninjas, not to mention your own personal accomplishments." Naruto said. "You've got more pull around here than most, and that's exactly the kind of thing she values."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Asuma chuckled humorlessly. "But my 'personal accomplishments' are why I don't have that kind of pull, and why I never will." he leaned back on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling for a moment before standing up. "You mind if we take this outside? I need a smoke."
"Mm." Naruto gave a mildly annoyed grunt, but got up nonetheless and followed his former sensei onto the walkway outside.
"Got a light?" Asuma asked with a teasing smirk.
"Heh." Naruto chuckled despite himself and held up his left hand to produce a small flame at the tip of his middle finger.
"Just like old times, eh?" Asuma snickered as he leaned down to light the cigarette in his lips.
"Not quite; you still have eyebrows." Naruto snarked, referring to the occasional flare-ups he would have back in the day when Asuma tried to use him as a lighter. All accidental, of course…
The two shared a light laugh and Asuma leaned over the railing to look down at the people passing by below. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Naruto leaning against the wall next to Kurenai's door, where he couldn't be seen from ground-level.
"I may be the son of the Hokage, but you'd be hard-pressed to make him admit it in public." the Jōnin said after taking a long drag. "I won't even be the de facto Clan Head when the time comes; that honor goes to Jūrōta until Konohamaru is old enough. And the only reason anyone thinks my time with the Guardians is anything to brag about is because the only person left alive to tell the truth is a monk who's taken a vow of silence."
"That…doesn't sound right." Naruto said slowly.
"Oh, I assure you it is. If your team and mine are ever in the Hokage's office at the same time again, pay attention and I'm sure you'll see how he never looks at me or directly addresses me unless he absolutely has to. Beyond that, haven't you noticed certain things already? Like how I don't live in the clan compound, or how I don't have a seat on the Council, or the fact that I'm not exactly popular with many of my peers?" Asuma listed off the clues to his disgraced status with a kind of forced neutrality. "In fact, think back to when you were looking for someone to help you with the Wind element. Did you ever think it was odd how the Hokage never once pointed you to his own son: the strongest of the small handful of people with Wind affinities in the whole village? I volunteered to train you, and to this day I think he's astonished that I didn't fuck it up."
Now that he mentioned it, Naruto remembered thinking it was strange how the Hokage told him that options for Wind element training were very limited in Konoha, only for the man's own son to turn up and offer his services. And then there was the list of potential tutors the old man had given him just days later, which hadn't included Asuma at all…
"I wasn't a good person, Naruto." the large man continued. "Every bit of shit that I've gotten and continue to get to this day, I've more than earned. I…" he leaned forward and rubbed his face, steeling himself to tell a story he'd never personally told to anyone. Kurenai's life was worth whatever discomfort and shame was to come. "Are you familiar with something called 'Evo'?"
"I've heard of it, yes." Naruto replied, eyes slightly narrowing behind his mask.
"Evo", so called because of its slogan/sales pitch of "evolution in a bottle", was the street name of an incredibly powerful steroid/narcotic that was once hailed as the perfect drug. Where other chemicals enhanced either the body or mind at the expense of the other, Evo had no such trade-offs. And where other chemicals provided only temporary results, Evo had the capability of literally changing a person's biochemistry down to a genetic level, altering their bodies and minds to permanently operate at nearly superhuman levels.
That is, provided you kept taking the drug, constantly, for the rest of your life. Because once your body had been changed, even a single day without Evo could result in things like organ failure or full-body paralysis. As with most performance enhancers and the like, Evo wasn't a banned or even regulated substance, despite the extreme withdrawal effects. It was up to the individual to acknowledge and accept the consequences of whatever they put in their bodies. That said, those who took Evo, no matter how much their mission success rates improved, were generally seen as liabilities by their fellow ninjas. No matter how you looked at it, chemical dependency was a weakness.
"I was seventeen when I first heard about it." Asuma said, staring out at the village but not really seeing it. "And like a lot of seventeen-year-olds, I had a chip on my shoulder the size of the Hokage Monument. I was the son of the Third Hokage, by all rights destined for greatness…but all I ever achieved was mediocrity. Take a look at my records and you'll see nothing special from the Academy, all the way up through my Chūnin years, but it wasn't for lack of trying. I was a disappointment to everyone, or so I believed. My peers, my friends, my family; they expected more from me. I expected more from me. Took every opportunity to try and prove myself, but it never worked out. Even disobeyed direct orders when the Kyuubi attacked and snuck off to try and help fight it. That just got me yelled at by a bunch of ANBU and Jōnin. My father yelled at me, too, and for the first time I yelled back. Three months later I handed in my forehead protector and left the village. As you can imagine, the Hokage's son abandoning the village while it was still reeling from a demon attack wasn't exactly a good look. I've got former friends who haven't spoken to me since just because of that."
"Where did you go?" Naruto asked.
"Everywhere and nowhere." Asuma replied with a sardonic chuckle. "Spent two years wandering the Land of Fire, looking for my place in the world. Saw a lot of things, met a lot of people, and turned most of them away with my attitude. But then one day of the Fire Daimyō's convoy came through a small town called Nikasen. I was on my way back to the apartment I was renting after a night working security at a lumber yard when the convoy was ambushed. I helped fight the would-be assassins off alongside four members of the Twelve Guardian Ninjas. Almost got myself killed in the fight and again after, when they turned out to be Konoha shinobi and the Daimyō himself recognized me as the Hokage's son. Only reason I'm still here is because of Momiji Kazuha, one of the founding members of the group. He calmed them down and pulled me aside, asked me what I was doing out there when my village needed all hands on deck. I told him I couldn't even think of showing my face back home until I had made something of myself.
He asked me if I just wanted to be perceived as important, or actually BE important. I told him the truth, as I saw it then; I was already seen as important, and I just wanted to live up to the expectations. We spoke a while longer and then…" Asuma paused, his eyes drifting to the sash around his waist, specifically the fire kanji embroidered into it. "He gave me this sash and told me the Guardians were in need of a new twelfth member. I took it without even thinking, then he keeled over right then and there. He'd taken an attack meant for the Daimyō and the weapon had been poisoned. He must have felt his body shutting down the whole time, but chose to spend his final moments talking to me instead of trying to get help."
"I see. You felt obligated to take the position after that."
"Mm-hm." Asuma nodded. "Of course it didn't take long for me to realize what I had gotten myself into. Though the Twelve had all renounced any ties to specific villages, none of them were anything short of Jōnin, and at least three of them were former ANBU Captains. And then there was me, the runaway kid who'd peaked at Chūnin and hadn't gotten much better since. Just surviving that melee with the assassins was a fluke, but somehow my blind luck looked like skill to them, and they accepted me into their ranks."
"No evaluations?" Naruto inquired incredulously.
"None." Asuma confirmed. "I think Momiji's word held that much sway to them. But I knew different, and I was willing to do anything to keep them from finding out."
"…Evo."
"Evo. I had actually heard about it just days before at the lumber yard. One of the guys had scored some and started sharing it around, encouraged by the foreman when he saw that it allowed one man to do the work of five with no apparent drawbacks. I couldn't help but think: if it could do THAT for civilians, what could it do for a ninja? So, I found the supply and stole it before leaving with the Daimyō's convoy. I didn't find out until years later that fourteen workers at the lumber yard died in the span of two days after I took the Evo. Anyway, I started taking the stuff in small doses and it worked wonders. From the very first sip, I was faster, stronger and more focused than ever before. I was able to keep up with these elite shinobi, and even surpass most of them since the Evo let me train harder and longer."
"And they never figured it out?"
"Of course they did, it just took them a while. Some were quicker to catch on than others, but I got away with it for a good three years before I was caught the first time. It helped that I was only seventeen, so me growing three inches and putting on some sixty pounds of muscle wasn't too unbelievable. I think it also 'helped' that I was such an insufferable bastard that no one wanted even be around me, let alone look into my personal business. You think Kurenai is selfish? You think she's pigheaded, self-righteous and toxic? She's delightful compared to who I was."
"I find that hard to believe." Naruto snorted.
"Only because you weren't there. Ask Kakashi what I was like, he'll tell you, and that's not even the worst of it. I wish I could say it was the Evo, but it wasn't. Evo works just as advertised; it doesn't come with the typical side-effects like hyper-aggression and paranoia. That was all me. I was hot shit and I knew it, and made sure everyone around me knew it, too. Everywhere I went, I did nothing but make enemies. Even…No, especially when I was in Konoha. All I did was brag about how I was practically royalty. How being the Hokage's son paled in comparison to how important I was as a Guardian. I challenged friends to spars 'for old time's sake' and humiliated them just because I could. I rubbed my success in their faces every chance I got, and showed no mercy to anyone who tried to make me back off."
"…How am I just now hearing about this?" Naruto asked, shaking his head. "People talk, especially about other people's business, so why isn't everyone and their grandmother calling you an asshole if you were so bad?"
"They don't have to say it; actions speak louder than words. It's a lot like how my father treats me. They don't look at me, they don't talk to me and they don't talk about me. They've totally cast me out of their lives and are content to either pretend I don't exist at all, or act like I'm a piece of dog shit on the street; something unpleasant they encounter every now and then…" Asuma paused, then turned to Naruto. "How about I just show you?"
Naruto raised an eyebrow behind his mask when Asuma hopped over the railing and down to the street below, then shrugged and followed after him.
"Where are we going?"
"Don't worry about it. Just watch." Asuma answered, blowing out a plume of smoke.
So they walked along silently for several blocks and Naruto watched, and he saw. Civilians treated them both with the standard respect due to them as ninjas, though it was tinged with apprehension from many and even outright fear. No doubt it was always in the back of their minds what could happen if the ninjas ever turned on them, but now that they had experienced that horror it was impossible not to think about it.
But it was a whole different story when they encountered their fellow shinobi. They waved at, nodded to and fully acknowledged Naruto, and ONLY him. Most didn't even look at Asuma, and those who did, did so with hard, narrowed eyes.
When he waved at them, they didn't respond.
When he nodded to them, they looked off to the other side.
When he greeted then, they replied with "Good morning, Namikaze-san".
Only the Genin showed him any respect, kindness or even common courtesy. And he took it all with the poise and dignity of a man used to such treatment.
"It's weird seeing this from the outside, isn't it?" Asuma asked, speaking to Naruto directly for the first time in twenty minutes.
"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't." Naruto replied as yet another ninja gave him a short salute.
"But unlike you, I deserve every bit of this." the huge man said solemnly. "And if this isn't proof enough for you, again just ask Kakashi. I still remember the day I made him turn his back on me. I was in a bar being my normal prick self, making fun of a newly-promoted Jōnin for coughing all the time and looking like he hadn't slept in a month."
"Hayate." Naruto said, knowing only one man who fit that description.
"You know him?"
"He was one of my kenjutsu tutors."
"Guess that's why you're so good with a blade; guy's amazing for how young he is."
"Pfft!"
'Hey, Hayate taught me a couple things at least.'
"But I didn't know anything about him back then. I just saw someone small and meek and went after them just because I could. Kakashi stepped up and took the heat for him. Things were said, mostly by me. Unforgivable things. About people who weren't there to defend themselves and never would be. People who had been my friends, too, not so long ago..." Asuma's fists clenched in his pockets. "All for the sake of pushing his buttons. I wanted him to take a swing, start a fight so I could finish it. Of all my former friends, Kakashi was the only one, even in all my arrogance, I didn't 'know' I could beat. When I'd left, we were ALL in his shadow, but I was the one who took it personally. So I went after his father, Rin, Obito, the Yondaime; everything and everyone I could think of to get a reaction."
"Well you're still alive, so I assume he didn't take the bait."
"He just walked away. I tried to go after him, but then he looked at me…and I understood that he was leaving for MY sake. He could've ended me right there and no one would've stopped him; if anything he would've gotten a round of applause and an unlimited tab. But he spared me, and everyone knew it. You'd think that would've been a turning point for me, but it wasn't. Pretty sure I actually got worse after that. My turning point didn't come until it was far too late. That's a story for another time, but it all ended with me back in Konoha, looking to make amends. I knew I had a long road ahead of me, but I thought I could do it because I meant it. I was willing to jump through any hoops, do whatever it took to patch things up with the people I'd wronged. I thought they would see that and give me a chance. But to be forgiven, people have to WANT to forgive you."
Asuma took a moment to calm himself, as he was starting to get a bit too animated for his own tastes. Naruto patiently waited for him to continue.
"My father pretended I didn't exist. My clan made it clear I was an unwelcome disgrace. My former friends refused to do missions with me, on the grounds that I couldn't be trusted. Anyone who knew me, or even knew OF me, wanted nothing to do with me. I couldn't tell them I had changed, because they wouldn't listen. I couldn't show them I had changed, because they weren't looking." Asuma paused again, this time to swallow the lump forming in his throat. "I don't know if you know about construction site accident that took my brother's life, but I was there. I had come by to try and talk to him on his lunch break, since the clan compound was hostile territory for me…He practically died in my arms, and you know what his last words to me were?" a single tear slid down Asuma's cheek, which he made no effort to wipe away. "He said 'You stay away from my son. You piece of shit, you stay away from Konohamaru!'." he turned to Naruto, eyes shining with yet more tears. "My brother died hating me…and I deserved it."
"…" Naruto had no idea what to say to that. Plenty of people had died hating him, most of them by his own hand, but never anyone he had cared about.
He suddenly imagined Anko, alone and bleeding out in the dark forest, cursing him with what she thought was her dying breath, and it physically hurt.
"In a way, I envy you, Naruto." Asuma said as he snuffed out the remnants of his cigarette and put the butt in one of his vest pockets. "You were the wronged party from day one; you never had to seek forgiveness from anyone. In fact, you've got hundreds, even thousands of people in my shoes now, trying to say and show that they're sorry to someone who doesn't give a damn anymore. But that's why you don't understand Kurenai. Why you can't understand her. But I do. I understand her better than she does herself, because where she's at right now? I've been there for some seven years, and I'm still trying to climb out. I know her pain, I know her struggle, and I know what it's like to try to do it all alone."
"So even if she's a lost cause…?" Naruto let the question hang.
Asuma stopped and turned to him, looked the boy dead in the eyes and answered with total conviction.
"Then I'll be lost right alongside her. Naruto, I see where you're coming from, and how Kurenai constantly undermining the strides you've made with Hinata can be…frustrating. She's a problem for you, and I know how you deal with problems. But I need you to understand that I won't stop. I will do whatever I need to in order to protect her from you. If that means fighting you in the streets, so be it."
Naruto had to bite back a derisive reply. "Am I to take this as you claiming responsibility for Yūhi?"
"From this point forward, yes." Asuma nodded firmly.
"Then keep your bitch on a tight leash." the demon vessel warned. "I consider you a friend, Asuma-sensei, but if it ever comes down to Hinata's emotional and mental wellbeing, or your physical wellbeing, I shouldn't have to tell you which one I'll pick. Clear?" he finished, offering his right hand to the older shinobi.
"…Crystal." Asuma affirmed, accepting the shake and idly noting how strong the boy's grip was.
With their agreement forged, they both felt lighter, only now realizing just how tense they'd been the whole time.
"So, does Yūhi know about anything you just told me?" Naruto asked. "Because I feel like she's the type to go ballistic if she found out her boyfriend was a drug addict."
"Tch, 'was'?" Asuma snorted, pulling out another cigarette and waggling it for effect. "You don't get away from Evo. At best you only take just enough to keep you where you are. Fortunately she's so disgusted by the fact that I smoke at all, she doesn't even think about what else might be in these things. Besides that, she knows a few things, but not everything. No one talks about me, so I can tell her at my own pace without worrying about her overhearing anything incriminating. Thank Kami for small blessings, right?"
"At least until one of her enemies tries to get to her by talking shit about her choice in lovers." Naruto pointed out.
"…Well, there is that…" Asuma frowned. He actually hadn't thought of that before.
"Hey, if she really is on a redemption kick right now, the last thing she should be is judgmental." Naruto remarked with a shrug as he headed off down the street. "Good day, Asuma-sensei. See you at the security overview meeting later."
"Yeah, have a good one." Asuma returned with a small wave, nearly collapsed once the Jinchūriki disappeared around a corner. It had been a couple years since he'd really talked to the boy for any significant length of time, and while he knew better than to expect the murderous devil people whispered about, he honestly hadn't known what to expect at all.
But it worked out in the end! Maybe it was because Naruto's conscience was still alive in there, or maybe the universe just decided to throw two luckless Jōnin a bone. Whatever the case, Asuma wasn't about to question it.
Job done, Asuma went off to go and tell Kurenai the good news. Provided she was awake, anyway. The hiding spot wasn't very far away, but Asuma decided on a very convoluted, roundabout route in hopes of confusing any of Naruto's clones that were most likely still watching. There was no doubt the Genin would keep his word and leave Kurenai alone, at least until she gave him another excuse, but there was also no doubt he'd want to know where she'd been stashed if/when he had to hunt her down again.
Only when he was confident he'd eluded any tails did Asuma finally make his way to the apartment complex where he owned two units, each under a different alias. He entered the building and, one quick Body Flicker later, was standing at the door to apartment sixteen on the third floor.
"Kurenai, you up?" Asuma called out after entering the apartment and closing the door behind him. The whole place was soundproofed, so he wasn't worried about prying ears.
He got no answer and figured the woman was still sleeping it off, so he made his way to the bedroom to check on her. What he saw upon opening the door chilled him to the bone.
The walls, plain eggshell white when he'd left, were now plastered with paintings of Kurenai. Horrific depictions of her death, each more gruesome than the last. Whoever the artist was, they had talent and a grudge in equal measure, and held nothing back. And when Asuma's eyes trailed up, he saw that the ceiling had been covered as well. But while these paintings were clearly done by the same person, Kurenai wasn't the subject. Instead, it was a young girl, no older than fifteen, with pale skin and brown hair with a slight reddish tinge. And in every single one, she was taking her own life.
Hanging from a noose tethered to wooden rafters.
Sitting in a corner, her skin even paler, with her lower half stained completely red from her slashed wrists.
Plunging a blade into her own heart with a smile.
If the Kurenai paintings came from a place of anger and resentment, these came from somewhere much darker and he could feel it. This was a tormented soul that had given up all hope of rescue and saw only one way out.
Movement from his left drew his attention and he looked to find Kurenai, curled into a ball and cowering in the corner next to the closet. She was trembling violently, tears streaming down her cheeks and mucus running from her nose. But she wasn't looking at the paintings, or even at him; her eyes were locked on something in the opposite corner on the far side of the room.
Asuma followed her gaze and the color drained from his face.
From his seat on a black chair the seemed to be made of solid shadow, Naruto locked eyes with him. He then stood up and, without a word or any other sound, walked by Asuma and out of the room. The sound of the front door opening and closing followed a few seconds later, and then silence, broken only by the occasional whimper from Kurenai.
Asuma released a breath he didn't know he was holding and rocked back on suddenly weak legs. Message received and understood. Shaking hands reached for his cigarette pocket on reflex, but he stopped himself. He couldn't remember the last time he'd needed a smoke so badly, but there was something he needed to do first.
"Kurenai…Kurenai!" he boomed as he kneeled before her, finally getting her attention. "I need you to listen to me…"
(Outside)
Naruto walked through the streets with no real destination in mind, ruminating on what he'd learned.
'Seems I keep finding myself in weird positions lately.' he thought. As if on cue he noticed a young woman waving at him as she walked by. He waved back awkwardly.
"Don't think of it as giving her another chance, then." Kyuubi said. "Hers are all used up; this is Asuma's chance now, and he only gets one."
"I dunno, I feel like the friend rate should be better than the 'bitch-I-wanna-kill' rate. Just sayin'." Nightmare chimed in.
"And what should the 'mouthy-demon-overdue-for-an-ass-kicking' rate be?"
"Infinite, because I'm awesome like that."
"Naruto-kun!" a frantic shout interrupted the morning's entertainment.
Naruto looked up and to his right to see Hinata standing on the edge of a rooftop.
"Hello." he greeted as she jumped from the three-story structure and landed next to him.
"Naruto-kun, I know what I said and I know what it sounded like, but I was so mad…I wasn't thinking straight, I was just blowing off steam and…Please don't tell me you took it seriously?" Hinata had been searching for Naruto for over an hour, ever since she had finally worked out her frustrations and remembered exactly what she'd said in her angry ramblings. And, most importantly, who she'd said it to.
At the time, she'd meant every word, and still did to an extent. But not in the way she suspected Naruto would interpret it.
"I did." Naruto replied matter-of-factly.
"Oh…" Hinata didn't quite know how to feel about that. On one hand, the world would be a better place without people like Kurenai Yūhi around to make people more miserable than they already were. On the other hand, the knowledge that she had effectively given the execution order without meaning to didn't sit well with the heiress.
"She's still alive." Naruto assured her. "I won't say she's alright, but she's alive and with Asuma-sensei right now."
"Oh! Well, that's a load off my mind at least." Hinata said, finally relaxing. "For future reference, next time I say something like…that, don't take it so literally? I mean, don't get me wrong, I appreciate that you'd do it for me if I asked," she actually had a disturbing amount of "appreciation" for it, "just…make sure I mean it next time. Please?" she finished with a sheepish smile.
"She's adorable when she's awkward." Nightmare snickered.
"So, all the time?"
"Pretty much, yeah. Seriously, dude, she's a keeper."
'What happened to you getting your ass kicked?' Naruto thought back.
"Well, I thought about it, and I guess he is pretty cool." Kyuubi replied with a light chortle. "Easily the second coolest demon in here."
"Why thank you, Kyuubi, that means a lo-oh, I see what you did there."
Naruto chuckled and shook his head, leaving Hinata to think he was laughing at her as they started walking. "Don't worry about it, Hinata. That was a special circumstance. I went off half-cocked anyway, so it was probably for the best that I didn't do it."
"Not that she wouldn't have deserved it if you did…" Hinata grumbled, hands flying up to her mouth when she realized she'd spoken her thoughts.
"No arguments there…That said, maybe you should talk to her some time." Naruto said casually and continued walking, seemingly oblivious to how Hinata had stopped dead in her tracks.
"…Wait, what?"
(Seventeen Days Later, 8:30am)
"I can't believe we overslept!" Ino hissed as she and her team bounded from branch to branch through the forest canopy.
"Well, we did do a LOT of training yesterday." Chōji pointed out, his own training starting to show results in how easily he kept up with his teammates' hurried pace.
"But we knew the meeting was on Thursday!" Ino countered. "We should've known to turn in early so this wouldn't happen!"
"…" Shikamaru was conspicuously silent on the matter, mostly due to the fact that he blamed himself for it.
The meeting had been in the back of his mind throughout the entire day yesterday, and he'd wanted to say something when the last rays of sunlight disappeared from the sky and they were still plugging away in the training ground. But he recognized how far they all had come in just a couple weeks with the advanced training regimen their sensei had put together for them. They needed every hour, every minute, every second they could possibly spare. So he kept quiet, reminding himself every so often to speak up when they finally called it a day.
But he hadn't, and now they were half an hour late, and counting.
"I mean, you DO remember who's in charge of this thing, right?" Ino asked, mostly talking to herself.
"Yes, and I doubt he cares if we're there or not." Shikamaru said. They'd be met with some condescending quip when they finally showed up, and the meeting would continue with them left to get what they missed from someone who'd been on time.
"He cared enough to beat the crap out of us and show us how much we sucked." Chōji muttered, subconsciously rubbing his belly.
Two weeks ago they had been left to train with Asuma's Shadow Clone watching over them. They weren't making much headway, having all reached plateaus of one kind or another, and then Naruto showed up. No one had any idea where he came from or why he was there, but they didn't have to wonder for long. All but ignoring the clone, which made no move to stop him, he challenged the new age Ino-Shika-Chō Trio to one-on-one fights. Gave them Soldier Pills and told them to come at him with everything they had.
They'd refused, of course, knowing full well what would happen if they took him on. They should've known he wasn't asking.
What followed really drove home just how fucked they would be during the Exams. If any village sent anyone even close to Naruto's level, just surviving a fight with them would take a miracle, forget about winning. But they couldn't back out, they had to push on, they had to be better.
Fortunately that was the point of the beat-down. Once it was over, and Chōji finally stopped vomiting, the masked monster listed off their flaws and, to their astonishment, told them how to improve. Asuma's new training program was based on those comments, as well as his own observations.
The team later found out they weren't the only ones to get a surprise visit from the black-clad prodigy. All of their former classmates had stories and the bruises to back them up. Only Team Gai seemed to be the outliers; he spoke to them, but that was it. Many suspected it was because they had a sensei who could easily take him.
Shuddering at their own memories, Team Ten sped up once more.
It was just over a minute later they arrived at the designated area, an island in the middle of a small lake to the east of the Genin team training grounds.
"You know, you could've at least brought snacks if you were going to be so late." Naruto remarked as soon as they set foot on the island shore.
"We're, uh…sorry?" Shikamaru ventured.
"You are. But now you're here, so we can get started."
"Wait, you haven't started yet?"
"Oh no, I wanted everyone else to be just as annoyed with you as I am." Naruto replied testily.
Looking around, Team Ten noticed that the other teams were indeed looking at them with varying degrees of irritation.
"We're really sorry, guys." Ino apologized with a sheepish smile.
"We've established that." Sasuke grunted. "Can we get on with it now?"
Ino winced at that and moved with her team to find a place to sit, pointedly ignoring the smirks on several familiar female faces.
"Mm. As odd as it may sound, the higher-ranking ninjas of the village have better things to do than scope out the competition." Naruto began. "Patrols have been increased in every sector, and guard posts have been at least doubled in just about every place that has them. ANBU are all but tapped out, and any spare Chūnin and Jōnin are generally milling around up north to discourage snooping. That leaves us to gather intel about who's who and what's what. So we'll all be doing our own patrols in designated areas."
As Naruto began to rattle off assignments, Ino found her attention wandering. It wasn't that she didn't want to listen, but certain things were calling out to her and she could no longer ignore them.
For one, Sakura had cut her hair front and back. Gone was the fairly impressive pink mane and the bun that kept it contained. Now not a single strand hung lower than her chin, and Ino was reminded of the way Sakura used to wear it when they were kids.
Ino averted her eyes before tainted memories began to surface and her gaze landed on someone who'd gone through an even more drastic change. She hadn't given it much thought before, since she never really interacted with the Hyūga girl, but Hinata had apparently stopped cutting her hair some time ago. No more awkward bob cut; the girl was now rocking a medium pixie that went down to her chin and, to Ino's eye, was just the right about of messy.
But it wasn't just the hair; Hinata had given herself a total makeover!
'Glad she stopped wearing that eyesore of a coat.' Ino thought.
Hinata had ditched the coat some two months ago, and came up wearing something different just about every time Ino saw her in that time. The outfits were…hit and miss, if she was polite about it, but the girl never seemed to land on something that was "her". But now? The dark indigo overbust corset vest she had on over a long-sleeve, lavender-colored shirt looked like a custom piece, with pockets lining the abdomen and an integrated metal shoulder guards with a glossy black finish that really made them pop. The form-fitting design and flared bottom, made a few other things "pop" as well…
'Of course, the weirdo who walked around in a winter coat in eighty-degree heat has the best figure out of us all.' Ino frowned, noting how the skirt-like extension of the corset vest hugged the other girl's hips.
Keeping with the transition to tighter clothing, Hinata had also gone with pants, the same color as her cor-vest, that fit like jeans, but were made of thicker, likely reinforced material, with more of that shiny metal covering the outsides of her thighs. Further down, those pants were tucked into black knee-high ninja sandals with metal shin guards.
'…Did she paint her toenails? She painted her toenails!' Ino's eyes widened after she squinted to see if she was really seeing what she thought she was seeing. 'I mean I guess the indigo matches her hair, but still…'
Looking back up, Ino noticed that Hinata had gone for a bit of an asymmetrical look, with her right sleeve rolled up to just below her elbow, and a fingerless glove adorning her right hand only.
'…I don't get it.' Ino thought, a bit of fashion OCD bubbling up from the lopsided look.
As she gave Hinata one last once-over, she noticed something she hadn't before due to looking away quickly because it was in a place she did NOT want to be caught staring. There, just above the breasts that Ino told herself she totally wasn't jealous of, some kind of fang or claw about the size of a finger dangled from a necklace.
'I guess that's one way to keep his memory alive.' Ino had never been friends with any of Team Eight's members. In fact, she'd considered them all freaks the entire time she'd known them, and that opinion hadn't changed much. But she respected their abilities, especially after their role in thwarting the traitorous Kurama clan's plans, and she couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose one of her own teammates.
Speaking of teammates, Ino's eyes landed on the newest member of their group and Kiba's apparent replacement. The dark-haired girl was clearly a few years older than the so-called "Rookie Twelve" and had an air of maturity and confidence about her that the other girls could only aspire to for now. She was also stunning in a way not often seen outside of magazines and movies.
Ino had no shortage of ego and always thought of herself as pretty, beautiful even. But even she had to admit she had nothing on this "Haku", and honestly doubted she ever would. It wasn't just an age thing; Haku had the delicate features, shimmering hair and flawless skin of a model, and Ino could tell just from a glance that she didn't have to work for it at all. She was born with that.
'Lucky bitch…'
And as if that wasn't enough, the older girl was also gifted with fashion sense that rivaled her own. That short, sleeveless, turquoise cheongsam was to die for, though the slit up the left side would definitely be showing some underwear if not for the black spats, similar to Sakura's. The black, fingerless elbow gloves were also a very nice touch.
'…Why did I ever think arm-warmers looked good?' Ino wondered as she looked at her own arms. A quick glance at the only other person she knew who wore them provided the answer. 'Oh, right, Sasuke…'
There were a lot of things she had to rethink about her outfit. Like her sandals. So basic! So standard! She needed something unique, something with style. Like Haku's turquoise shin guards. They matched the cheongsam and the black buckles looked so cool!
'Not a fan of tabi socks and the old-school sandals, but she's making it work.'
"Yamanaka, can you please stop ogling Hinata and Haku?" Naruto let out an exasperated sigh.
"W-What?!" Ino shrieked indignantly. "I-I wasn't-"
"You really were." Sasuke said.
"You weren't even subtle about it." Hinata huffed, trying to sound offended even though she was secretly loving the reactions her new look had been getting over the past couple days.
"I didn't want to be rude, but…yeah." Haku nodded, a light dusting of pink on her cheeks.
"I-I was just…" Ino's justification, valid as it was, died in her throat when she saw Sakura looking at her, lips tucked under her teeth in a poor attempt to keep from laughing.
Ino would spend the rest of the meeting wishing she knew a technique that would let her disappear into the ground. Fortunately she had good teammates who paid attention for her.
(Streets of Konoha, 2:00pm)
"So, what's the deal with Hinata and Neji-san?" Sakura asked, trying to strike up another conversation since Naruto himself said it was part of making it look like they weren't on patrol.
That, and she was genuinely curious. Team Eight had arrived on the island less than a minute after Team Seven, and had been free to chat for a good ten minutes before the next team showed up. Sakura had spent most of that time gushing over Hinata's outfit, as well as dropping hints about the new secret additions to her own wardrobe. Hinata eagerly joined in the girl-talk, though she seemed a bit nonplussed when Sakura invited Haku as well, and was generally in a far better mood than the pinkette ever would've expected, considering the last time they had really spoken was after the mass funeral more than a week ago.
But then the next team came racing over the water and turned out to be Team Guy. Hinata's mood immediately soured, to the point where she managed to out-surly Naruto himself for a time. Whatever was going on, it didn't take a genius to figure out Neji was the problem, and he clearly knew it as well. But instead of the total apathy usually witnessed whenever the two encountered each other in public, Neji gave the girl a wide berth and, if Sakura didn't know better, almost seemed to be afraid of the younger Genin.
"Yeah, that whole thing was weird." Sasuke said, having noticed the Hyūga's odd behavior, though he wasn't curious enough to ask on his own.
"Why do you think I know?" Naruto grunted.
"Uh…because she's your girlfriend?"
That one stopped Naruto in his tracks. "Excuse you?"
"Sasuke…" Sakura whispered in warning. She had no idea when or why it started, but lately Sasuke had been taking more and more liberties with Naruto. Not in an antagonistic, pushing the envelope way, but more like the black-haired boy had just stopped caring about the consequences.
"What? She lives with you now, right?" Sasuke asked. It was Shino who had let that little tidbit slip after a joint training session just four days ago, thinking Naruto's teammates already knew about it.
Sakura paused at that, then looked at Naruto, waiting for him to confirm or deny.
"And? So do Haku, Kiriko, Chigusa and Kurohane. They all have their own apartments." Naruto realized too late that mentioning the latter may not have been the best idea.
Sakura put a finger on her chin and looked upward with a furrowed brow, then nodded.
"…Aren't Haku and Kurohane your girlfriends, too?" Sasuke inquired, doing his best not to imagine what it would be like to have three girlfriends.
Sakura froze and threw Naruto a dirty, judgmental look.
"Where are you getting this?" Naruto hissed.
"Genma." Sasuke shrugged.
"Genma can eat a dick." Naruto snorted.
"He can eat all the dicks, but is he wrong?" Sasuke pressed. "Haku's practically glued to you every time we see her. Of the last four times we've met you at your place, three times we've seen Hinata leaving YOUR apartment, and the last time she was the one who answered YOUR door. And Kurohane openly flirts with you, brings you lunch almost every day, and has actually called herself your girlfriend."
"…Okay, I'll give you that last one."
"And they make up three of the only four people I've ever seen touch you outside of a fight."
"I know you were unconscious for it, but Sakura's hugged me before; is she my girlfriend, too?" Naruto scoffed.
"Please leave me out of this." Sakura practically whimpered, turning her back on the boys to hide the blush creeping up on her face.
"You know how it all looks when you add it up, right?" Sasuke said with a smug smirk he knew would probably land him a beating at some point, but a defensive, maybe even flustered Naruto was too good to pass up.
"Uchiha," Naruto spoke slowly, a sign of his restraint, "if I really did have three girlfriends of THAT caliber, why would I ever deny it?"
"Because you're you?" one answer, two voices.
"Didn't you just say to leave you out of it?" Naruto turned to his female teammate with a glare.
"…I am so sorry." Sakura squeaked, ducking behind Sasuke.
Naruto responded with a rumbling growl, then turned on his heel and continued down the street.
Sasuke and Sakura shared a look and waited a few seconds before jogging to catch up. They hoped the other teams were having better luck than them, because so far they were on their fifth circuit through their area in the last three hours, and had little to show for it. Sure, they'd run into several foreigners, a handful of them ninjas, but no one worth looking into.
But just as they reached Naruto, his head snapped to the left and dashed off in the same direction. They took off after him, but had no hope of keeping up. One minute and three blocks later, they found him in an alleyway holding a sleeveless brown longcoat with an oddly short hood.
"We had a tail." Naruto said, answering their questions before they were asked. "That was the fourth time I've seen him."
"And you didn't bother to share with the class?" Sasuke frowned.
"I wanted to lure him in." Naruto shrugged and began searching the coat for clues. "Almost worked; he got close enough that I thought I could run him down easily. But he's better than I thought." 'Much better.' Naruto added mentally as he found the numerous pockets inside the coat empty.
He'd been on the guy's ass the whole time, only losing sight of him twice. But somehow he had not only managed to stay a step ahead of Naruto on his home turf; he'd ditched his coat and given the hanyō the slip in the span of maybe a quarter of a second before Naruto turned the corner into the alley.
"You make sure that thing's not lined with explosive tags?" Sasuke asked, unconsciously taking a step back.
"…" Naruto quickly dropped the coat into a shadow and started walking away.
"You're welcome."
Naruto readied a retort, but another voice rang out before he could open his mouth.
"Winnie! We gotta go to this 'Ichiruka' place; that's the third person who's said it's the best!" it was a female, and a very energetic one at that.
"It's 'Ichiraku', and I feel we should secure a room first before worrying about lunch." a male voice replied evenly.
"Aw, have Ken do that, we need to see what this place is about!" the girl insisted. "ICHIraku, ICHInose? We share half a name, Winnie! It's meant to be!"
"I like the sound of that." another voice, heavily distorted and modified through some kind of device, spoke up. "The less time I have to spend with you two, the better."
"I assure you the feeling is mutual." the other male replied. "But if you think for even a second I would trust you to wander around this village by yourself, you are sorely mistaken."
Team Seven shared looks as they kept walking. It had to be foreign Genin team.
"You say that like I need your permission." the distorted voice said with a clear edge in its tone.
"Someone has to hold the leash." came the flat reply.
"I will fucking murder y-!" the livid roar was cut-off when the two teams nearly collided with each other at the mouth of the alleyway.
For a moment Team Seven was rendered speechless by what they saw. It was a Kiri team, but that wasn't the problem.
The second tallest of the three was a boy in his early teens who was so unremarkable, it was actually kind of remarkable. The plain buzz cut hair, average facial features, drab grey outfit; it was enough to set Team Seven on edge. It was like the boy was trying way too hard to be "regular" and blend into the background while his teammates grabbed all the attention. And grab it, they most certainly did.
The girl, the tallest among them, was truly a sight to behold. With her blonde hair, tied in a ponytail that rested between her shoulder blades, and bright blue eyes she resembled Naruto's female clone Akiko, if she had a sunnier disposition. She wore a white cowboy hat with a sloped crown and upturned brim, showing off what looked like snakeskin lining on the underside. Her forehead protector was woven into a blue bandana around her neck, which matched the armored suit vest under her white jacket. Snug blue pants, a white belt with a buckle bearing the symbol of Kirigakure with a diagonal slash through it, along with a coil of rope clipped on the left side, and a pair of white riding boots completed the ensemble.
She more resembled one of the "cowgirls" that roamed the streets on Halloween than anything else.
And then there was the short one, wearing a bone-white, featureless full helmet and clad in dark attire absolutely brimming with pockets. Somehow he stood out even more than the wannabe cowgirl.
"…Friend of yours?" Sasuke asked as he turned to Naruto after several seconds of gawking at the Kiri Genin.
"My God, there's two of them now." Buzz Cut muttered, causing both Naruto and the helmeted boy to visibly twitch.
Then, as if things weren't weird enough already, the cowgirl walked right up to Naruto and leaned in with narrowed eyes.
"Hmm…" she hummed, stroking her chin, before she started circling the masked Genin.
"…" neither Naruto nor his teammates could understand why he was allowing it, but he made no move to stop her examination. He also noticed that his jacket wasn't reacting to her at all, which made him somewhat less antsy.
"Yeah, this guy's way stronger than Ken." the cowgirl said finally, looking into Naruto's face like she thought staring hard enough would allow her to see behind the mask.
"Ichinose, please…" Buzz Cut sighed, his perfect posture slouching just slightly.
"What? He is! Like, WAAAY stronger! And taller" the cowgirl, now confirmed to be "Ichinose", replied. "Plus, I'm digging the 'Dark Prince' look more than the 'My Pockets Have Pockets' look. Could use some more color, though. Just saying."
"Ichinose…"
"Just a few highlights, y'know? I think blue would suit you." Ichinose said, tugging at her bandana for reference.
"You think blue suits everything." Buzz Cut remarked.
"Because it does." the girl's eyes darted to her other teammate, who was clearly fuming. "Though there are some things even blue can't help."
"I've just about-" Pockets started, only to be ignored as the girl carried on as if she hadn't heard him.
"I don't suppose you guys would consider a trade?" she asked, leaning around Naruto to look at Sasuke and Sakura.
"That's not how it works, Ichinose." Buzz Cut said, having apparently resigned himself to what was happening.
"Why not?!" Ichinose turned to him with a pout. "What are the odds we'd run into a prime Ken replacement in the middle of Konoha? It's meant to be, I tell you!" she finished with a petulant stomp.
Though it was impossible to see his expression, body language alone told Team Seven that Pockets was more than ready to take a swing at his own teammate.
For his part, Buzz Cut only gave the girl a flat look before turning to the other team.
"I apologize for her. My name is James Winston, the one making a nuisance of herself is Ichinose Marika."
"Hi~!" Marika chirped, then suddenly turned to Sakura. "Loving your hair, by the way!"
"Oh, uh…thank you?" Sakura replied, tripped up by the comment since it had been a long time since she'd been genuinely complimented on her hair.
"And the other one is Ken." James finished with a lazy wave in the other boy's general direction.
"You know what? You can both go to hell." Ken growled and continued on in the direction they'd been heading, shoulder-checking James as he passed. "I'm going to get myself a room."
"Just remember what I told you before we came here." James called out after him, unfazed by the rough contact.
"Fuck off, 'Winnie'." Ken replied, throwing a middle finger over his shoulder for good measure.
"…You sure you don't know him, Naruto?" Sasuke asked cheekily.
"Fuck off, Uchiha." Naruto grunted, uttering a near-silent curse when he realized he'd just given the black-haired prodigy more ammo.
"Anyway," Sakura said loudly, interrupting the verbal sparring match she knew was coming, "I'm Haruno Sakura."
"Uchiha Sasuke."
"…Namikaze Naruto." Naruto relented after a pause, still not quite sure what to make of the situation.
"Pleased to meet you." James said with a short bow. "I know our villages have traditionally been at odds, but I assure you that has all changed."
"Yes, we heard your Resistance finally won the war." Naruto said, gesturing to the slashed forehead protector tied around James' right bicep. "Congratulations."
"Thank you, but the war is not quite over yet." James replied. "We may have taken our home back, but if we're going to keep it, the Mizukage must die."
"He'd be dead already if he'd stop being such a pussy and crawl out of his hole to come fight." Marika huffed.
"Excuse me if I sound rude, but…if the war is still going on, what are you doing here?" Sakura asked tentatively.
"Oh, that's easy!" Marika chirped. "Most of the small fry are either dead or captured. Only ones left are Jōnin, ANBU, Hunters and members of the Mizukage's personal guard. People we wouldn't stand a chance against."
"And since our leader isn't one for throwing lives away, it was decided that we Genin were of more use in other endeavors, such as representing the new Kirigakure."
"Huh. How many of you are there?" Sasuke asked.
"How many Konoha teams are there?" James countered with a raised eyebrow.
"…"
"…"
"Heh." Sasuke chuckled and nodded to the older boy.
James returned the gesture and turned back to Naruto. "Well, I feel it's time to take our leave, before the other one gets himself killed or worse: humbled." he allowed himself a small smile at Marika's giggling and held out a hand to Naruto. "Good luck in the Exams. I know we will meet later as opponents, but I hope there will be no hard feelings afterward."
"Same to you, but we won't be pulling our punches." Naruto said, shaking the boy's hand.
"You'll find yourself face down in the dirt if you do." James shot back with the smallest of smirks as he held his hand out to Sasuke next.
"Ugh, testosterone." Sakura grumbled.
"I know, right?" Marika giggled. "Kinda hot, isn't it?"
"…Kinda." Sakura whispered, cheeks flushing.
"So, between us girls…you seen under the mask yet?" Marika asked, nodding towards Naruto.
"…" Sakura said nothing, but her face spoke volumes.
"Ooh, that good, eh?" Marika chuckled and sauntered her way back over to her teammate.
"Ichinose…" James knew that look on his teammate's face. Knew it and feared it.
"So, tall, dark and spooky, you got a girlfriend?"
"Yeah, three of 'em." Sasuke said before Naruto could utter a word.
"Uchiha, shut your mouth or I will shut it for you." the hanyō said icily.
"Sorry." Sasuke apologized quickly, knowing he was right on the line.
"Really~?" Marika's smile widened. "Hmm, I get the feeling there's more than enough of you to go around, so…room for one more? 'Cause if you're into older women, I know someone who'd love to meet you."
"We're leaving, Ichinose." James ordered and started walking away without another word.
"But…Oh, alright, fine! I'm trying to be a good protégé and wingwoman, but you just gotta rain on my parade!" Marika fumed and stormed off after her teammate, ranting and raving the whole time.
"…Well, we've got something to report now." Sasuke said, starting to understand why people like Genma and Kakashi were generally unfazed by weirdness in their lives.
"I don't think anyone would believe us." Sakura scoffed.
"Good thing it's on video, then." Naruto said, jerking a thumb up towards the rooftop on their right, where one of his clones stood up holding a camcorder.
"So you just have clones following you around with cameras all day?" Sasuke asked.
"Not just me…"
"…" Sasuke's eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out if Naruto was joking or not.
"…" Naruto gave him nothing.
"Lunch!" Sakura suddenly exclaimed, far louder than she'd intended. "Let's go get lunch!" she then walked off in a random direction, too focused on trying to forget what she'd just heard to care if they followed or not.
(Meanwhile)
'Goddammit, I told you not to get so close!' Suto screamed mentally at the creature sharing his body. 'Now not only does he know we're here; he thinks were an enemy!' the only reason he had given the Dreadwraith control was because he had personal experience with their target. That turned out to be a mistake.
"My…apologies." Dread sounded as if he had to force the word out. "When last we met, I was almost on top of him before he noticed, and I wasn't even trying."
'That was in YOUR world with YOUR body! This is MY world and MY body, and clearly you have no idea what you're doing!' for all his inner outrage, Suto's outward expression as he walked through Konoha's streets was the definition of a poker face; totally neutral, betraying absolutely nothing.
He'd gotten used to being surrounded by people he trusted and wearing his heart on his sleeve, but the training of a shinobi, let alone an ANBU, could never be forgotten. The ability to wear a mask even when he didn't have one had been beaten into him long ago.
"…Perhaps you are right. Your meat-suit is easy to control, but I know little about how you 'ninjas' operate." Dread admitted, much to the human's surprise.
'While we're here, I'm in control. Always.' Suto ordered. 'I trusted you when we went into the Dark, now you will trust me out here.'
"Very well, fleshling. Do as you will and I shall follow your lead." though the words came with Dread's signature condescending bite, he was genuinely sorry he had nearly compromised the mission. Lives were at stake. Lives he had come to care about. Failure wasn't an option, but he had almost made it happen mere hours after they'd reached their destination. 'Unacceptable…'
'Thank you. First things first, we have to find a hotel so we can change clothes, and mask our scent so he can't use my coat to track us.'
"Then shouldn't we mask our scent first, so he cannot track us right to this 'hotel'?"
'Now you're getting it.' Suto walked for another two meandering blocks before he found what he was looking for and ducked into a rather colorful shop called "Yamanaka Flowers".
(Yakiniku Q, 3:10pm)
"You can't bring me to a place like this when I'm not hungry! It's not fair!" Kagimi whined dramatically before letting her head fall onto the table with a loud "thunk".
"No one told you to gorge yourself at that ramen place." Hōshima drawled from his seat across the table as he scanned the sizeable menu and built up an order in his head.
"But it was sooooo goooood!" Kagimi replied, almost drooling at the memory of the two-dozen bowls she'd put away not even an hour ago.
"I'm not arguing that, but we told you we were going somewhere else after you had your fill."
"Yeah, it's not our fault if you couldn't hear us over all that slurping." Kuishiro snickered, which turned into an outright laugh when his sister raised a middle finger towards him without lifting her head from the table. "How unladylike!" he said, references a comment their mother had made before they headed out from Uzushiogakure about Kagimi's long, shaggy hair.
"I'll show you 'unladylike', you fu-"
"Could you refrain from making any more of a scene?" Hōshima requested, gesturing to the other diners, mostly made up of other Genin teams, who were now looking at them.
"Tch, we're making a scene?" Kuishiro snorted as he leaned back in his chair next to his brother and looked around, meeting the various stares before settling on a trio even more peculiar than them. "Some of these people are a scene."
Both Kagimi and Hōshima knew exactly who he was talking about without having to look themselves. The Sunagakure team, the Kazekage's own children if the intelligence reports were correct, had already been seated by the time the time the Triplets walked in and it was hard not to stare.
The girl was the most normal of the lot. She had sandy blonde hair tied into four tufts in the back, narrow, teal-colored eyes, and sharp features; a looker for sure. Her outfit, consisting of a somewhat loose, lavender-colored tunic with a red sash around her waist and mesh undershirt that showed from her shoulders, up, showed off a bit more skin than most people would be used to, but it was nothing unusual for someone from the desert. The giant folding fan propped up on the wall beside her chair would likely draw more looks than the girl herself, however.
The redhead stood out a bit more, especially with those dark rings around his pupil-less, pale aquamarine eyes. He was a bit on the short side, but he was well built, with the black, short-sleeve compression shirt he wore under a brown, hooded vest showing off the rippling muscles in his arms. Combined with the white tape wrapped around his forearms and wrists, as well as the fingerless gloves with hardened knuckles, it painted the picture of an agile, hard-hitting and very physical fighter. Simple black cargo pants, taped angles, black sandals and a length of white silk draped loosely over his right shoulder and around his left hip completed his outfit.
All-in-all, not much to look at, but there was something…off about him. He had looked up and smiled at the Triplets when they came in, and though there was no detectable ill-intent behind it, it was one of the creepiest things they'd ever seen. There was also something up with the giant gourd next to him; somehow it had its own chakra signature.
And then there was the eldest of the siblings, according to the reports. Word was that he was a puppeteer, and it looked like he was wholeheartedly embraced the theatricality often associated with the art form. They had never seen so much make-up outside of a kabuki performance and had to wonder just how long it took him to apply it all. He'd also chosen to don a black jumpsuit and a strange cowl with two long points that resembled cat ears. The thing wrapped in bandages and leaning on the wall next to the girl's giant fan must have been a puppet, and the Triplets couldn't help but wonder: if the puppeteer looked like THAT, what kind of monstrosity would the puppet itself be?(2)
"And yet you are the one attracting all the attention." Hōshima pointed out.
"Sorry about my brother, guys!" Kagimi said to the entire restaurant, flashing a somewhat embarrassed smile. "He's a shit so just ignore him."
"Oh, I'M a shit?!" Kuishiro squawked indignantly. "Need I remind you that-"
"No, you needn't." Hōshima interrupted, finally looking up from his menu to glare at his brother. "Need I remind you that we are here to represent our home? Our mother? Control yourselves, both of you. You can bicker all you like back at the hotel."
"Sorry, Nii-chan." Kagimi apologized, sitting up straight in her chair and bowing her head slightly.
"…" Kuishiro said nothing and when back to his own menu with a scowl on his face.
Just then the door to the establishment opened, and whoever it was made the waitress up front so nervous that she flubbed her greeting. This immediately piqued the Uzumaki siblings' interest and they each paused to see who would be coming around the corner. The waitress appeared first, of course, but when they saw who was following her, they about shit themselves.
The dark attire, the mask, the hair; there were some differences to what their mother had described, but it was definitely him. The demon was here.
Kagimi felt a hard kick to her right shin and Kuishiro felt a hand grip his left thigh under the table tight enough for the fingernails to pierce the skin if not for his pants. They looked to their brother, who shook his head firmly. The message was clear: not here, not now. And so the two hotheads stamped down their feelings, schooled their expressions and set about pretending to read their menus.
They weren't the only ones who had to put up a façade. Seeing the place occupied by no less than six foreign Genin teams gave Sakura and Sasuke pause, but they were quick to collect themselves.
Naruto was quick to take stock of everyone in the building.
'Two Amegakure teams at the northwest corner table, likely to be working together. One Takigakure team in the northeast corner, alone. Two Sunagakure teams, middle western wall and southwest corner, oddly far away from each other. And…one Uzushiogakure team.' Naruto very nearly stopped in his tracks when he saw them.
They all wore essentially the same outfit, consisting of dark-colored, obviously tailor-made dusters embroidered with seemingly random swirling patterns, black shirts, pants and, surprisingly, full boots not dissimilar to his own.
The girl, sporting the deep red coat with black patterns, had long, black hair that fell haphazardly around her head and down to the middle of her back. She clearly wasn't one for a hundred brush strokes every morning, but even from a distance one could tell her hair was soft, shiny and well taken care of. It also made it impossible to make out her facial features, and Naruto had a sneaking suspicion that was the point.
Next was the boy in the navy blue coat with sky blue patterns. He had jaw-length snow-white hair, slicked back with what looked like quite a bit of product, and blue eyes a few shades lighter than Naruto's own. He also had lightly tanned skin and a somewhat feminine face, with sharp features that had a certain softness to them. He would definitely have his own fangirl following before he left the village.
And last, the boy who looked to be the largest of the bunch, maybe both taller and broader than Naruto himself. Decked out in a dark brown coat with forest green patterns, he cut a more intimidating figure than the other two, which the two scars on either cheek added to. That said, he looked rather plain in comparison, with short brown hair, somewhat dull green eyes and a face that, while certainly not ugly by any means, wouldn't have girls tripping over themselves to try and take pictures of him.
All told, they weren't much to look at, at least for now, but just the fact that they were there at all was enough to make Naruto anxious.
"Come now, Naru-chan, you were warned." Kyuubi cooed. "Regardless of your hate for her and hers for you, Whirlpool is still one of Konoha's most valuable allies and the old man personally asked for her help to bolster the ranks. Of course she'd send a team to participate in the Exams as well. Hell, she probably sent them to help you without even knowing it."
'I'll believe it when I see it.' Naruto replied.
"Now that redhead from Suna over there? He's one to watch."
'…He's a demon vessel.' now that he was paying attention, he could feel the yōki within the boy.
"The Ichibi's, specifically."
'You're sure?'
"One hundred percent. I can practically smell him from here." the demon queen shuddered in disgust.
'Wonderful.' Naruto resisted the urge to growl as he and his team were seated at the table in the southeast corner, just one table away from the Uzu team.
If his teammates were confused by his choice to take a chair with his back to the foreigners, they didn't show it as they took their own seats opposite him.
"Take a moment to look at our menu and let me know when you're ready to order!" the waitress said before flouncing off to the Takigakure team upon noticing one of them waving her over.
"Team Ten is gonna hate us if they find out we came here." Sasuke said, taking a moment to admire the place. He'd heard about it many times from many people, but had never actually gone.
"Then they can hate us." Naruto snorted. No way was he going to have a team notorious for slacking off patrol in the same neighborhood as one of their favorite hangouts.
"You say that like they like us to begin with." Sakura remarked as she picked up a menu.
"I thought you were friends with Yamanaka?" Naruto said, picking up his own menu.
"You aren't the only one who made that mistake." Sakura muttered.
Naruto looked at her, then at Sasuke, who met his gaze with a shrug.
But as Sasuke did this, he happened to look over Naruto's shoulder and saw what he could only describe as a vision of beauty.
Her long, silky raven hair shining in the light. Her dark, smoldering eyes peering deep into his very being. Her fair, flawless skin just starting to flush as she apparently felt the same irresistible pull as him. Her full, soft lips slowly parting as her jaw dropped, mirroring his own expression and exposing just a hint of her pearly-white, perfectly straight teeth. A dark-haired angel come to Earth, showing unfathomable kindness to mingle with those so clearly beneath her.
In that moment, all thoughts of his brother, the Exams and whatever else fled as his mind was consumed by the burning need to prove himself to her. To prove he was worthy of the attention she had deigned to give him.
It took a few moments for his teammates to notice. Sakura waved a hand in front of his face, then poked him in the side with a finger, neither of which got a reaction. She turned to Naruto, then they both turned to follow his gaze and saw that the Uzu team had done the same.
Their eyes all met for a good three seconds before they turned back around and four voices called out with the same incredulous tone.
"Really?"
And then things went from weird, to worse.
A loud bang signaled someone all but kicking down the front door of the restaurant, causing the other waitress up from to let out a startled yelp and drawing every eye in the building.
"H-Hello a-and welcome to Yakiniku Q!" the waitress said, composing herself quickly.
"Aw, she's adorable!" a loud, sort of nasally female voice squealed happily. "Jū-chan, isn't she adorable?"
An audible sigh preceded the reply from a light male voice. "Tira, you're making her uncomfortable."
Then came another male voice, raspy and grating. "Table. Now."
"Y-Yes, sir, r-right this way!" the waitress stammered before she all but ran around the corner to the closest table, which happened to be next to the Suna Jinchūriki's team.
Following at a leisurely pace was a tall boy in his early to mid teens with bright orange hair and yellow eyes, wearing a black hooded jacket bearing a bright orange stylized skeleton design, black pants and black boots with orange buckles. He walked with a slow, confident gait, hands in his jacket pockets and a superior smirk on his face. The forehead protector tied around his head was almost more interesting, however, as it bore the rarely-seen crescent moon symbol of Getsugakure.
But then the person trailing behind him came into view and instantly redefined the word "interesting". This girl could probably steal the thunder of an erupting volcano just by showing up. She was beautiful, sure, with her heart-shaped face, fair skin and hourglass curves, but those were about the last things you'd notice about her. First would be the bright turquoise hair with black highlights, tied into twin pigtails. Or perhaps the large, shining purple eyes framed by long, thick eyelashes. Or maybe the dress that appeared to be mostly made of large red and orange feathers. Either way, she was surely guaranteed to be the center of attention wherever she went.(3)
Except for Naruto, because at this moment all his attention was on the orange-haired teen who had just broken off from his team, and was walking right over to him with a grin that had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.
If the restaurant had been quiet before, it suddenly became dead silent. So silent that nearly everyone flinched when the boy grabbed a chair and dragged it across the tiled floor right over to Team Seven's table, where he sat astride it, forearm draped casually across the back and his chin resting on it. The entire time he stared right into the masked Jinchūriki's eyes, unblinking, and grinning like the mad man Naruto suspected he was.
"…Can I help you?" Naruto drawled.
"You can't even help yourself, so nah, I don't think so." the teen snickered.
"Great, that means you can take your carrot-top ass back over to your friends." Naruto shot back and made a shooing motion with his fingers.
"See, normally I'd fuck you ALL the way up just for being a smartass, but I'm gonna cut you some slack 'cause you clearly don't know who I am."
"The fact that you think you could do that means you clearly don't know who I am." Naruto retorted, his voice flat and cold as ever.
"Heh, I know all about you, sunshine." the yellow-eyed boy assured, his grin widening a bit.
"Then you should know that you don't want this fight." Naruto felt a sudden increase in the temperature around him and immediately pegged the teen as having a reasonably strong Fire affinity. 'He'll be in for a nasty surprise if he tries that shit with me.'
"Oh, I want this fight. I'm gonna get this fight."
"You're going to lose this fight."
"Boy, I've already won this fight. I hope you're not too attached to that jacket, 'cause I'm gonna take it after I kill you."
"Oh, you like my jacket?" Naruto asked, making a show of checking himself out. "Thanks. Yours is alright, too; I'll try to save it so your friends will at least have something left to bury when they go home."
"Hah, I'm gonna have fun with you!" the teen laughed and got up out of the chair. "Don't die too quick, yeah?"
"If I do, I'm sure it'll be of boredom." Naruto snorted, going back to his menu as the foreigner made his way back to his table and plopped down in a chair opposite Feather Girl and some grey-haired guy dressed like a Buddhist monk.
"…Naruto…" Nightmare suddenly spoke in a tone Naruto had never quite heard from him before.
'Yeah?'
"That kid…he feels familiar."
'Okay…'
"Think about what I am, jackass! Think about where I've been, what I've done and what I've seen. If he feels familiar to ME, then he's nothing but bad news, because I was nothing but bad news."
"So I'm not alone in thinking he's not human." Kyuubi said.
"The body is human, that much I'm sure of, but whatever Naruto just talked to? Not a chance. I'm thinking possession."
"Fucking Jumpers…" Kyuubi growled.
'Fantastic. So I guess that means-'
"You be damn careful around him and keep your fucking distance until we can find out more."
'…I was gonna say-'
"I. Am. In. Your. Head."
'I'm going to be damn careful around him and keep my distance until I can find out more.'
"Good boy."
"I'll see if I can narrow things down a bit. Expect me to be radio silent for a while; got five millennia of memories to sift through."
In the outside world, Sakura and Sasuke sat frozen in their seats. Even though only the barest hints of killing intent flowed between Naruto and the mystery Genin, something deep within told them to be as still and quiet as possible.
"So, are you ready to order?" Naruto asked, sitting the menu down and looking at his teammates, only to notice their expressions. "What?"
XXXX
So, did you have fun? I hope so. Otherwise I didn't do my job.
(1): You know the drill: Name the reference, get a cookie.
(2): Remember, in this story Kankuro is the oldest of the Sand Siblings, and Temari is the middle child.
(3): Tira's current look is based on her Soulcalibur V design, though her hair color is taken from SCVI.
Just for reference, as of the end of this chapter it is October 3rd in the story, and the Exams officially begin on the 5th. I'm so excited!
And here's the standard plug for my forum, DevilKeys' Playground. Stop on by to shoot the shit, talk about whatever, or ask questions about and/or make suggestions for Black Flames.
Now with that out of the way, I want to thank everyone who's stuck with the story this far, and especially the people who've taken the time to help me become a better writer. This is my vision, my passion project, and above all else I write it for myself. If you guys like it, that's fantastic, but that's not the point. The only reason I posted this story publicly was so I could get feedback that would help me improve and do my vision justice. That is why this story is still going, even as the Naruto franchise, and fanfiction for it, becomes more and more irrelevant. Even if/when no one else cares about Black Flames, as long as I care, it will live on.
So to those who have taken this ride with me, past, present and future, you have my thanks. And if you thought this shit was wild before? I promise you, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Until next time, ladies and gents.
Jason Out!
