"I don't think she's showing up Kakashi-sensei." Naruto idly murmured, raindrops drizzling down upon the brim of his orange vinyl rain poncho. Thunder cracked through the city streets while cold winds blew harshly against the team. Sakura and Sasuke were wearing matching rain ponchos with their respective colors, while Kakashi held up an umbrella that was only big enough for himself and about half of one of the genins heads. The group stood in a clearing that sat in the heart of Konoha's industrialized center, but the sound of the villages chatter was completely drowned out by the howling draft and pitter pattering of the rain.
"She's got a lot on her plate Naruto, she's just a little late." Kakashi said back, attempting to make it seem as if he wasn't also feeling the shivering effects bestowed onto him by the chilling cold winds. Anko had requested to see them all in person to discuss their chunin exams status, as they were now only a week away from the deadline. They were also supposed to take their official team photo, but Kakashi suspected that this wouldn't be the case with the weather they were having. Camera film was notoriously fickle to try and get a clear picture out of, trying to do so in cold conditions with thunder and rain in the background was an impossibility.
"I think she just isn't showing up." Sasuke said, statement immediately being backed up by Sakura.
"Yeah! Apparently, they do all sorts of tests like this in the chunin exam. If she's the coordinator this year, maybe she's just giving us our first taste of it."
"She's not. Anko can be easily distracted at the best of times. I imagine with the responsibility of the chunin exams on her back, her sense of time is probably disjointed." Upon the words leaving his lips, Kakashi immediately realized he'd said too much. He hoped none of the genin would pick up on it which was obviously an absurdist pipe dream judging just from how quickly Sasuke had turned over to him.
"You know a lot about her." He commented. It was quite ingenious bait actually. If his hypothesis wasn't correct, Kakashi would brush the comment off like the non-statement it was but if he was right…
"Well, she's a top jonin. I like to think I know her well." Kakashi's voice rippled with an undercurrent of hysteria that painted out the obvious answer in everyone's minds. It hit Sakura the hardest, her face becoming shocked with widened eyes.
"Oh my god! Did you two use to date?!"
Naruto burst out into laughter while Sasuke bit his lip to keep it from crawling up into a smirk. Kakashi lunged forward to try and shut the rumor down before it could spread any further, only to assist in spelling out the obvious.
"No we didn't Sakura, stop being an idiot." He spat, with a tone and vernacular so far removed from how he usually spoke that it proved the girl right instantly.
"Did she break up with you or did you break up with her?" Sakura asked, parasitically latching onto the man in an attempt to deride any information she could. He paused for a moment, wondering if he should completely give in to her interrogation, only to quickly realize that there was no point fighting it. If he tried to deny, Naruto and Sasuke would have no problem conscientiously ignore his defense if it meant having ammunition to make fun of him with. It was best to just own up to it.
"It was a mutual thing." Kakashi said, to which the girl's attention immediately snapped back to her teammates.
"She broke up with him."
The feeling of suddenly being back in the academy overtook Kakashi's greater judgment for the moment, flustering the usually stoic copy ninja.
"How on earth could you possibly gauge that?"
"It was a bad one too." Sakura commented, fanning the flames of Kakashi's anger.
"You are fourteen years old Sakura; how would you know?"
"You can just tell sometimes." She said back, somehow not realizing that, as a girl who was rocking a 0-0-0 statistic on her relationship record, she had little authority on the matter. Maybe this was for the best though, considering her observations were one-hundred percent accurate.
"Wait, but when we Anko talked to us in class, she was cute. How come she went out with an uggo like Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked, genuinely perplexed. Sakura turned to him with the same face a teacher made when explaining something they knew a lot about, complete with the extended finger motions that came with it.
"Well Naruto, maybe she liked him for his personality. Girls don't actually care about looks that much if their partner's nice."
"Also, you've literally never even seen my face, how would you know I'm ugly?" Kakashi added, to which Naruto looked at him with a deadpan frown.
"If you looked nice, you wouldn't have to hide your face would ya?" Naruto pointed out to which Kakashi really had counter-argument. At least, no counter argument that could properly function within Naruto's mind.
"Heeeeeeeey!" The quartet heard a loud yell bellow from across the street. Their eyes bounced away from each other and locked onto the figure who stood there. She wore a tan overcoat that scrawled down to the back of her knees as well as a dark orange mini-skirt above it. Mesh leggings bled out from underneath the skirts border while her upper body was covered in a dark purple top. From where she was standing, her head was partially covered by the parasol she was wielding, meaning her eyes and nose weren't visible. All that they could see were the edges of her short hair, which was a dee hue of black and purple and her mouth, which was crunching down on a stick of dango. Her deceptively long tongue lapped at the sides of her lips, removing any traces of syrup that may have lingered there.
"Is that her?' Sasuke asked.
"Yes." Kakashi murmured, keeping his gaze straight ahead.
Anko titled the umbrella upwards as she walked, exposing her headband-clad forehead and face. She wore a sharp grin on her face, seemingly not deterred by the awful weather as she made her way over to the group.
"Sorry I'm late, lunch lines were long today. I'm Anko, if you don't remember but I'm sure you do. That goes for all of you." She mused, eyes locking onto the older man instead of the children she was supposed to be focused on. Kakashi rolled his eyes at the girl in front of him, her grin only intensifying in response. "You have any trouble while waiting?"
Sasuke looked at her with an expressionless gaze.
"We've been waiting in the freezing rain for fifteen minutes, you tell us." He said. Anko's smug smirk turned into a frown for a few seconds before its motions were yet again reversed.
"I will. There are shops in walking distance from here. Why didn't you just go stay in one of those instead of waiting out here idiot?" Her words were more aggressive than you'd expect from a person in her position, especially since she topped them off with a crude insult. However, Sasuke didn't really have a reply. He could've made the argument that they might've missed her had they done that, but at that point, he was getting into a stupid argument with a direct superior. He decided to eat crow for the time being, simply shooting his eyes sideways instead of giving any form of response.
"Bad form Mr. Uchiha, that would've fucked you up if you were being watched under exam rules right now." She said, weirdly changing her tone to be more formal while also saying Sasuke would've gotten "fucked up". She quickly diverted her attention from the boy specifically, to all three of the genin in front of her. "So, Chunin Exams, where are we at?"
Before she could get any solid answer out, Naruto rushed to but in.
"Before we, like, say anything, can we just make it so that anyone who's maybe doesn't want to do the exam is kept anonymous?"
This was an absolute head-smacking moment, even more so when you realized that Sakura was literally about to do that exact same thing out of courtesy. The only difference was, Sakura was intent on taking the exam and Naruto wasn't and couldn't actually defend himself when Anko instantly realized that he was the one keeping Team 7 from taking the exam. Her sharp gaze squared in on him, eyes full of annoyance.
"Why exactly don't you want to take the exam Naruto?"
Naruto was put under immediate pressure, face squirming like he'd just bit into a full mouth's worth of sour candy.
"I didn't say it was me!"
"Well, let me just ask you directly then. Are you going to take the chunin exam?"
"I'm still thinking about it." Naruto mumbled, stuffing his hands in his pockets and focusing his gaze downcast.
"When exactly are you going to stop thinking about it and give me the information I need?" Anko asked, biting her lip in an attempt to curb the frustration that was currently mounting inside her. Naruto looked at her with a curious glance.
"How long until the deadline again?"
"Nine days."
"I'll get back to you in eight."
Anko slapped her hand onto her face in exacerbation. It almost looked like she was going to strike the boy as she clenched her hand, but this was quickly quashed. Her words clearly reverted to a memorized script with the kunoichi slowly lowering her palm down as she did so
"What possible apprehensions do you have about taking the chunin exam?" She asked robotically. This was useless, with the look Naruto gave the question doing it's best to illustrate the fact that whatever he said next would be a complete lie. To be fair, he really didn't need his tell-tale gazes' help in punctuating this considering what he actually said in response.
"I'm actually really worried about the morality rate."
Anko's face became run-down with a complete confusion as to what a "morality rate" was. Kakashi looked down at his student, exposed eye soft in its disappointment.
"Do you mean a mortality rate?" He asked, deadpan in the face of Naruto's idiocy.
"Oh yeah! That's the one." He exclaimed with little regard for the supposed concern he supposedly had over the subject. Anko did not know much about Naruto Uzumaki, but she did know that he had just become the biggest hurdle to her goal of "making her life easier" at this point in time. Maybe she needed to get tricky if she was to get him to take the exams. Just remember interrogation training…
Step one: everyone has a central motivation that drives their actions. Find that and you can easily fill in the blank spots of their equational character.
"Honestly Mr. Uzumaki, if you're still questioning whether you're going to take the exam this late, maybe the life of shinobi just isn't for you." She said, voice the same levels of robotic as before but significantly more focused. Naruto Uzumaki demonstrated ego when he refused to admit that he didn't want to take the exams in the first place. Calling that ego into question looked like the most probable way to get a character-showing response. Anko had to resist smirking as she noticed Naruto's face twist into a scowl.
"It is so! I'm gonna be the greatest Hokage the leaf village had ever seen!" He blurted out. This took her onto step two. Push and prod at the motivation until it morphs into your own goals.
"If you take the chunin exams now, your chances of becoming Hokage sky-rocket by virtue of potentially going up in rank while at a young age."
"Really?"
"Yep, you go from a zero percent chance of becoming Hokage to a zero-point one percent chance." This only caused Naruto's scowl to deepen, to Anko's delight. She hit him with the truth, and the "underestimated" him. The mixture of emotions this must've sent pulsating through his brain would surely through him off balance and cause him to expose his true feelings.
"Are any of the other teams doing the exams?" Naruto asked in panic, his verbal leverage beginning to slip down a ninety degree drop. Before he could further dig himself into a hole though, Kakashi interjected.
"Naruto, that's confidential information that's only to be shared between- "
"Every other team is at least leaning on the side of taking them." Anko cut him off, attention laser-focused on Naruto. The boy squirmed around for a few seconds, looking almost like he was having a fit. Clearly, he was having so many contrasting thoughts that he was struggling to contain them all.
"Okay, okay, I'll- "He bit his tongue to pause, dramatic tension beginning to seep through the cold air. Anko nearly licked her lips in anticipation as she waited upon his answer. Even the rest of Team Seven would be lying to themselves if they said that they weren't at least a little bit anxious to see what his answer was. Audible words began to crawl up from the insides of Naruto's throat, edging further and further towards coherency before he finally uttered those words: "I'll get back to you in a few days!"
Anko's serpent-like smirk was washed away, an exacerbated frown taking its place as she looked on in frustration. Instead of pushing back against his indecisiveness though, Anko decided to call it a day for now.
"I want an answer soon Mr. Uzumaki." She said plainly, to which Naruto half-heartedly nodded his head, clearly not going to give an answer soon.
"Okay, that should be all for today if you two are both wanting to take the exam." Sasuke and Sakura nodded along with the instructions, giving Anko a chance to look towards their teacher. She clicked her fingers, motioning to him.
" Kakashi, come with me, there's some forms you need to fill out before I can let ya' go."
The copy ninja was somewhat surprised at her directions, briefly taking a glance back at the genin before looking back at her.
"Alright then. You three are dismissed for today. Naruto, your mind should be made up by the next time I see you." He said before following along with the departing woman. This left the three teens on their own in the middle of a rain, the vinyl of their ponchos squeaking as they made movements. There was a short silence between them, the interlude being scored by the sound of the rain chattering onto the ground. Then Naruto spoke.
"Damn, she's mean." He groaned, still a bit scared that she was still in earshot.
"She's the main organizer behind one of the Villages most important events. If she wasn't, she wouldn't have been chosen." Sasuke explained.
"But she's still mean though, right?" Naruto asked, getting an instant response.
"Oh yeah, she's a total bitch."
Hiruzen's slim eyes sat distantly on his face, focused only upon the trails of rain drop that streaked his window. It was dreadful weather, ugly enough to make his normally beautiful view of the village seem dilapidated and droopy. The clouds that masked the sky were a mixed gradient of grey, some light and almost white in color while others were so dark they looked like the nights sky. His view of the village was further blurred by the dispatch of smoke from the end of his pipe. The expulsion clung to the window, muddying the pristine glass before fading away, disappearing as quickly as it had come.
The old man's hand steadily gripped his pen, tracing his signature on what was quite possibly the three hundredth piece of paperwork he'd signed that day. As unbecoming as it was for the Hokage to slack off on his work like this, Hiruzen had realized from even his earliest days on the job that ninety-percent of the paperwork he did was just to give authorization to another piece of paperwork that also only existed to give authorization to another piece of paperwork which also only existed to-. You get the picture. Only the sternest of rule suckers could truly fault him for his laxness.
His boredom was temporarily broken however, as a short knock on the door jilted him back to reality.
"Come in." He murmured, the wood door opening instantly in the wake of it. Through the small gap in the frame, Mao's head popped out, blond hair draping across his thin spectacles.
"Lord Hokage, Advisor Shimura is here to see you." He said, to which Hiruzen had to physically suck in air to avoid groaning. Now, he didn't hate Danzo. He may have conscientiously objected to the man becoming Hokage, leading to the only democratic election in Konoha's history in which Hiruzen had proceeded to label him a "potential unapologetic war-criminal" during a debate, but he didn't hate Danzo. It was just that Danzo usually only showed up unannounced when there was big news that consequently would require a big decision. This was all but confirmed as Danzo walked in with a stack of papers snugly tucked under his bandaged arm.
"Hello Hiruzen."
In his old age, Danzo had become almost physically withered (though no less mentally sharp). Due to both war injuries and natural ailments, Danzo's left side, namely his arm and half his head, were heavily bandaged, resembling a corpse in old-timey Suna. His eyes were beady, constantly looking as if he was scheming even though Hiruzen and him both knew that his times for doing that were far behind him.
"Hello Danzo." The Hokage formally said back, once more having to suppress a groan as the other man proceeded to place the stack of papers on his table though this was quickly balanced out by memories of a time much more on-edge. During his first-term as the Hokage, Hiruzen vividly recalled Danzo constantly slipping in extra details onto his paperwork and then "neglecting" to mention it. These were not small, benign budgetary issues either, they were usually serious foreign policy authorizations that would've drastically shifted the direction of the Village had he signed them. He let it slide with minimal reprimands most of the time, mostly out of sympathy more than anything.
See, Danzo had been classified as a prodigy in the political world of Konoha. as outstanding in the usual ninja field work as he was, Danzo's true calling was obviously of the politically aware nature, with him rapidly climbing up the political ladder until ending up as the advisor to Tobirama Senju. It was outrageous at the time, a boy barley old enough to smoke being named the right-hand of one of the most powerful people in the five nations, but that just spoke to how truly bright and strategic he was. The villagers often theorized as to why Tobirama had singled out Danzo for his advisor. An often talked about rumor that Hiruzen overheard at numerous bars was that Danzo had somehow come into possession of photographs of Tobirama having adulterous intercourse with a prostitute.
In reality, Tobirama had seen the same stone-cold attitude, mind for strategy and ruthless political acumen reflected into the boy and had taken him on-board as a protégée. Danzo's name would become more acquainted to the village, ensuring a constant spot in the pool of the selection of future Hokage's as well as serving a continuation of Tobirama's more militaristic political legacy. However, this same militaristic political legacy would arguably lead to the unraveling of the plan and Danzo himself.
There's a lot of details about the Second Shinobi World War that remain unknown to this very day. Hiruzen disliked dwelling upon the past, and so chose notto pursue those facts. All that was known is that while Konoha was technically on the winning side of that war, the complete brutality they showed in their "shadow clone flash bomber" assault of the flanking Kumo forces had serious repercussions. Tobirama was impeached as Hokage by the historically solitary unanimous vote from the higher Konoha council, though he was lucky to get off without a charge of crimes against humanity. Sensing blood in the water, Danzo attempted to instate himself as the rightful Third Hokage but this was blocked by Hiruzen, who was revealed to have been Tobirama's intended successor.
The power of the Hokage was temporarily split before the four members of the higher council, who decided to instate a democratic election between the two for the first time in Konoha's history. Here came the biggest problem for Danzo. While he was one of kind at manipulating and fooling those in power, his political game-playing was also hopelessly transparent to any working-class Konoha citizen (who made up the majority of the electorate). Against even an average no-name jonin, Danzo would've faced push-back. Against the second most charismatic Hokage in history, he had no chance. It didn't help that his ultra-patriotic "for the good of the leaf" tagline fell dead when it was exposed that he was half-Iwa, and that he'd only moved to Konoha in his early teens. Hiruzen still felt a little bit bad about that, and it may have been why he kept Danzo around as a successor. That and to placate the small but vocal following that Danzo had with Senju (more accurately, Tobirama) loyalists.
Click!
The sound of the door being slammed shut brough Hiruzen back from his recollection, memories of his youth withering with the reality of age. Danzo had made a point to lock the door, so it was clear whatever he had come to discuss was for the Hokage's ears only. To try and provide context to himself, Hiruzen felt his gaze linger down to the documents that had been placed in front of him. This cursory glance showed their contents to be the redistribution of funds and ninja placements to strengthen internal defence.
"Tea, Danzo?" Hirzuen asked, attempting to make it seem as if his curiosity wasn't piqued as he clutched onto the half-full kettle that sat on his desk. Danzo waved him away with one hand, clearly more focused on scouting out the room. His erratic movements spanned over the whole area, his eyes wandering over to the sides of windows in search of any ANBU details that might be guarding the Hokage at the present time. It was around a full minute before he finally turned to Hiruzen with his answer, apparently satisfied that his words were confined to the current room.
"No thank you. I drank earlier."
"Hm. Doesn't seem like it. You're obviously on-edge."
Danzo laughed at his observation, but both its gravely qualities and its shortness in length made it apparent that it was forced.
"Indeed, I am Hiruzen." He said, retrieving another piece of paper from the inside of his robe and passing it to the Hokage. This one was not a form, instead being written in the text-style of a letter. "I received this letter earlier today from Iwa. Two days ago, at nine fifteen pm there was a break-in at Iwa's storage. Over fifteen jonin were killed at the hands of the intruders. Several scrolls were stolen, including Iwa's six paths scroll."
Hiruzen's eyes widened. Thunder and rain crackled through the background, their heaviness punctuating the weight of Danzo's words. The Hokage said nothing, prompting Danzo to continue summarizing the letter.
"While hard to make out due to the darkness and their speed, the two intruders were both identified as male. One had fair skin and black hair, while the other had blue skin and navy hair. Both were spotted wearing black cloaks with spots of red on them. The latter used a large, bandaged sword while the former was specifically identified as wielding the sharingan." Danzo lowered the letter after that last part, indicating that this was all that needed to be said. There was a long silence with Hiruzen's eyes barely visible from behind his clasped hands. His gaze was indicative of a person deep in thought, countless variables shifting around in his mind before he finally got enough of a grip on them to speak.
"This lines up with the information Jiraiya gave us."
"Yes, it appears The Akatsuki has made their first move. Shall I add another million ryo to Itachi's bounty?" Danzo asked. There was a clear contrast within his and Hiruzen's voices. While the latter's tone was filled with an obvious concern for the situation, his took a back seat in favor of methodical strategy. Hiruzen didn't pay it much mind. It was just the way Danzo was. He was the only politician in Konoha that actually enjoyed playing the game.
"Don't bother. We could throw all the money in the village at him, and still no sane bounty hunter would take us up on it." He glanced up at Danzo. "Do we have even the faintest idea of their location at this moment?"
"According to smaller village reports, people matching their description were seen passing through the Land of boiling rock. It depends on the data, but their either heading towards or have already entered the fire country border."
"Fuck." Hiruzen growled, nearly slamming his hands on the table in anger. He couldn't help but squint down at the papers Danzo had left on his table. Their strangely militaristic demands didn't seem so strange or militaristic anymore. The gears began to twist around inside his head, clinking together and scrabbling to try and make a plan. "Contact Kiri and Kumo immediately."
Danzo shot a questioning look back at Hiruzen.
"Are you sure?"
"Definitely. Make sure they keep their own scrolls on lockdown. According to Jiraya's information, this Akatsuki group has at least four members. Who knows if their all on the move right now?"
"What about our own defense Hiruzen?" Danzo asked. While he tried to hide it, there was clearly a slight tinge of frustration on the end of his tongue. If Hiruzen were to hazard a guess, it was because he had instinctively prioritized other countries safety over the leaf's own. This sounded like an incredibly petty reason to get annoyed at someone, but also absolutely believable when dealing with Danzo Shimura. Hiruzen had never seen a man with so much love for a country that he literally didn't even grow up in.
"Well, our foundations are more centralized than any country except Kumo. I doubt they'll be able to effectively pass into the village even with lightened defenses so the most logical route of action would be to spread ANBU out closer to the border."
Danzo's one eye practically glossed over as a more strategic edge of the conversation appeared. It was like he was going into a trance, spirit and mind far far away from the Leaf Village yet ever so close as well.
"That's true, but we already have a decent number of ANBU helping with the escort of Suna ninja. Some that are incredibly important to that village's defense and stability." He murmured, implication beginning to seep off his tone towards the end of his sentence. Hiruzen nodded along with him. "In that sense, we are in a little bit of conundrum here. Spread our forces out too much and we risk weakening our main defense should they bypass it, but consolidate it all into the village and we become vulnerable to them gaining ground."
Hiruzen sighed, rubbing his fingers through his rough grey hair before recomposing himself.
"We'll need a more detailed plan of operations by the time the day's done. I entrust that duty to you Danzo."
"Consider it done. In the meantime, those forms I've given you are meant to try and consolidate the defenses on the scroll's location. This is probably our safest move at the present moment."
"Right."
Danzo took a few seconds to break out of his daze, before departing towards the door but not without a farewell.
"I'll be back later with our official plan of action. Farwell Hiruzen." He said, slinking out the door. He did a lot of his work from home, saying that it was the most secure place for confidential information to flow through. Ironically, his home in itself was confidential information, with Danzo having it redacted on any official profile that mentioned his personal information.
With the other man departed, Hiruzen finally let out the sigh that had been latched onto him for the last few minutes. Each village had been entrusted a six paths scroll by, of course, the sage of six paths, and this was for good reason. In his older years, Hagoromo had begun to tinker with his rinnegan abilities. His pursuit in the field of genjutsu lead him to creating the "Eye of The Moon". It was immensely powerful, capable of creating a light so powerful that anyone who saw it would become a captive within their own dream reality. If he'd been thinking clearly, he would've let the jutsu become lost to time, incapable of being replicated but he couldn't.
Hagoromo had always been obsessed with passing on his knowledge and innovation, and this time it was for the worst. The eye of the moon was his magnum opus, a jutsu so beautiful and powerful that it could never be matched. He sealed its contents within five different scrolls, which incongruously began to be known as the six-paths scrolls. Each one was durable enough to survive a sky-level drop yet also packed with enough chakra to wipe out a country should its seals be somehow destroyed. Hagoromo had dealed them out to the five nations, making sure that the jutsu could only ever be used in the name of unity. In fear of going against his Otsutsukusist faith, Hiruzen could not directly call this a bad decision. Instead, he would call it an ego-driven, ultra-idealist joke of a decision that had made his life that much harder for the long amount of time he'd spent as Hokage.
Maybe it shouldn't have affected him as much as it should've as Hiruzen liked to consider himself a slave to reason. Iwa getting robbed of their scroll meant little in the grand scheme of things. A single one the scrolls was useless by itself, and Iwa's internal defense was notably awful due to their frigid territory system and colonial background. If one nations' scroll was going to be stolen, it was obviously going to be theirs. Still, he couldn't help but let out that sigh he'd been holding in with intensive worry behind it. He looked back up at the raindrops rolling down the window, grimacing as he did so.
Of all the times for this to happen…
The tri-blend of ponchoed genin wandered through the streets, their brightly colored rain-guards being offset by the stormy weather that loomed over them. Sakura couldn't help but have deja-vu, flashing back to the time she had seen the Konoha streetways at early morning for the first time. It wasn't a one-to-one comparison, she'd obviously made her way home in harsh rain at least a few times during her academy years, but she couldn't help but feel strangely calmed by the barrenness of the usually bustling village paths. Their path was mostly illuminated by street lanterns, most of them being dressed with a snugly-fitted straw hat to keep the rain from drenching their material. Sakura almost laughed at this. It looked as if they were people.
"Damn, no one's out today huh?" Naruto commented. His words were intendedly hyperbolic as they had seen a few people on the streets but their appearances were few and far between.
"I guess no one else was dragged out into the rain to see you squirm in front of a jonin." Sasuke shot back, earning a glare from Naruto.
"I was not squirming. I was just being a reasonable, intelligent person." Naruto commented back, breaking out some "big" words to try and accentuate his point.
"How, by being a big baby?" Sakura asked, having become somewhat tired of her friends' indecisiveness as well. Naruto had no reply, simply sticking his tongue out at her (though quickly retracting it back in when he remembered it was fucking cold). The light of an upcoming store shifted all three's attention towards it, Naruto especially.
"Hey, Sasuke, have you got lemon Vibe at your place?" He asked. Vibe was a brand of soda that specialized in acidic and citrus fruit flavors. The census-agreed hierarchy from the village's youth was that lemon was amazing, lime was okay and orange and grape were vile.
"I bought one of those big packs a little while ago. I should still have a few."
"Oh, are you staying at his tonight?" Sakura asked.
"Yeah." Was all Naruto said in reply. Usually, when she found out Naruto and Sasuke were doing something, the Uzumaki would ask if she wanted to come too despite knowing that her answer was most likely no. He made a conscious decision not to ask this time, though Sakura cared little. She'd already disregarded her mother's rules to hang out with them once this week and had gotten off lightly. To abuse this luck would be madness.
"No girls allowed at the Uchiha compound huh?" She joked, to which Naruto turned to her with a grin.
"Yeah. Don't ya know all girls have lice? You'll probably spread them to us." He joked, recalling the classic schoolyard rumor that made the rounds in the academy when he was young. Sasuke let out a small laugh, whereas Sakura's eyes traumatically swelled up.
"I actually did have lice."
In contrast to her slow low tone, Naruto let out a loud laugh, eyes bulging with remembrance.
"Oh shit, I remember that!"
Sakura had contracted lice in the third grade, about the same time that the stigma of lice being worse than death had become incredibly prominent in the academy. Funnily enough, it may have been one of the bigger reasons that Sakura had been nice to Naruto, even back when they were first chosen on the teams. She was one of the only people who had actually had to endure a slot on the social totem pole that was lower than his, even if her time in that slot only lasted a couple of months.
"People called me "lice girl" for a full two months."
"Only two months? With how lice crazy the academy was supposed to be at that time, I'd have thought it stuck with you longer." Sasuke commented. He had taken a leave of absence during this period, for obvious reasons, so he was not queued into the specifics of the Konoha academy canon. His interest came from second-hand stories he'd heard from Naruto and other classmates.
"Shino tried to buy them off of me for 700 ryo, so everyone ended up making fun of him instead." Sakura recalled. In the end, this had actually been what ended the lice obsession. While various targets had been on the receiving end of the stick, Shino had served as a brick wall of bullying. He was too socially stilted to really comprehend that people were teasing him, and if he by some miracle did, he didn't care much anyways since his only friends were Kiba (who was also a peasant in the social monarchy) and his bugs.
"The academy was so fucking stupid." Naruto said, half groaning and half laughing. Sakura joined in on the humor, laughing to herself.
"Yeah, it totally was."
The humor continued to linger in the air right until Naruto and Sasuke made their way into the Uchiha compound. The pair quickly ran up to Sasuke's room, wherein he drapped his blinds down over any window and locking any entrance to their room. His normally pristine living conditions had been over with stacks of thickly-spined book, tuffs of paper and broken pencil leds. The Uchiha compound was not particularly big and Sasuke had not seen an uninvited guest roaming the grounds since a little bit after the massacre. However, with the things he and Naruto had to discuss, he wasn't taking any chances. With final peek from beneath his blinds, he turned back towards Naruto.
"You find anything?" The Uzumakia asked, slightly on-edge. Sasuke nodded, reaching towards a stack of books and pulling one out. In engraved silver letters it read: Notable Konoha Personal Volume 17 (Updated).
"I did. Firstly, that Orochimaru guy he mentioned…" Sasuke flipped the pages, skipping the books contents to a green bookmark he'd placed in there. There were numerous others stuck in the book, clearly indicating that Sasuke had found more information. Upon finding the place he wanted, he flipped the book around to show Naruto the illustration. Various detailed illustrations lay on the page, but the one Sasuke was clearly indicating was of a man with pale skin. Very pale skin.
"Woah, he's white as fuck." Naruto murmured, nerves temporarily subsiding due to the man's clown-like features.
"Stay on topic Naruto."
His face immediately stiffened back up. "Right."
"It say's he's a Konoha shinobi here, part of a group known as the "there sannin" so what Ookami said…wait, what did he say again?" Sasuke asked, needing a reviser.
"He said something like "Orochimaru has Konoha in his sights and will not rest until he's got its treasure. Beware the snake sannin"
Naruto had come to Sasuke a few days after they'd got back to Konoha with the information he' got from Ookami. The Uchiha boy had been quick to swear him to secrecy, making sure that it was known that Kakashi and Sakura couldn't know about this information under any circumstance. In the meanwhile, both had been scouring the villiage for any information related to Orochimaru, The Tailed Beasts or "The Eye of The Moon". Well, Sasuke had at least, due to having a generally untainted Uchiha library at his disposal. Naruto did not have the same luck. He had at first tried looking through local libraries but not only did they not have any info, but Sasuke, upon digging deeper, realized that Naruto should definitely not have been asking no-name librarians about these topics. This went double went you considered his jinchuriki status. In the end, Naruto had been relegated to simply waiting for Sasuke to finish his research. He had tried playing some of Minato's records (the musical kind), hoping to find some confidential information stored within them, but this was a blank. Then he tried to play them backwards like they did in mystery manga, and he ended up breaking six of them.
Sasuke's hands clasped together in thought, trying to decipher what "Konoha's greatest treasure" entailed. A few seconds past, but he quickly realized he lacked any context into who Orochimaru was and "Konoha's greatest treasure" was an incredibly contextual topic. As far as he knew, Orochimaru was currently a ninja of Konoha. This obviously wasn't true, judging from the fact that he had partners/allies/whatever saying he wanted to fuck over the village but it did serve to illustrate to him that whatever he was trying to find out was a dead lead with the information he had at his disposal.
"We should put a plug in this for now. I've found more important stuff anyway." Sasuke commented to himself, once again reaching into the stack of books. After a few seconds, his hands emerged gripping two books that were filled to the brim with bookmarks. Blue craft tape had been laid over the front cover as to indicate its status as a high-interest item for the two. Before he revealed any information from it however, Sasuke turned to Naruto with the most dead-set serious look he'd ever given.
"Naruto, you have to promise me that you won't tell anyone about this."
"Yeah, okay." He said back, not really grasping the weight of the Uchiha's words.
"No, seriously. Not Kakashi, not Sakura, not Iruka, not even Hiruzen. Whatever Ookami told you that night was stuff genin like us were not supposed to know so we can't let anyone else know that we know."
Naruto took a pause, losing the lackadaisical quality from his face. He stared deadpan for a second before both his features and voice became more solemn.
"Okay, I promise."
"Good." Sasuke mutterd, before standing up from his pile of books and walking over to the bed. He dropped down, fishing a hand into a hole that had been cut out in his mattress before he pulled out a large folded slab of paper (as well as a lot of residual fluff). This was quickly placed down in front of Naruto and unfurled, exposing a neatly drawn five circle venn diagram. Sasuke quickly snatched up the tape-covered books he'd grabbed before, placing them down next to the map and flicking through there pages. In the meanwhile, Naruto began analyzing the data that had been presented to him. Each circle represented one of the Five Nations, with Sasuke having tried to find a pattern between which Jinchuriki had been stationed where. Unfortunately, it was pretty clear that he only had the faintest idea on the most of them even were, with the only names he had actually written up being "Kushina Uzumkai", "Yagura" and "Yugito Nii". The rest were simply labeled with titles like "misc. Mist Jinchuriki" and "misc. Iwa Jinchuriki", little in the way of actual information other than the fact that they might have existed.
Sasuke marked his intended page with a sharp tap of his finger, settling on a drawn picture of a black-haired Kiri Woman. The name under her illustration read "Nami Kokai"
"Here."
"Who's that?" Naruto asked, not understanding what Sasuke was trying to convey.
"He mentioned a "fujinjutsu girl" right? This has to be her; Kiri doesn't have any other women on record who specialized in fujinjutsu and aided in the war."
"Right." The Uzumaki's boys gaze darkened as he looked down. "How'd she do it though? Killing a tailed beast, I mean. We couldn't even properly kill the Nine-Tails when he attacked us, why could they?"
Sasuke began absent-mindedly biting at his thumb due to thought, eyes spacing outward in search of an answer. They came back empty
"I have no idea."
The pair stayed silent for a little bit, before the unsettling gravity of their discussion forced one to speak up.
"Well, what about what you said before. About the tailed beasts being made of chakra. Maybe they had a seal or something that took away all the chakra in AN AREA?" He spitballed, using information Sasuke had discovered on the tailed beast a few days earlier.
"Maybe, but if they had the ability to do why didn't they use it against the Leaf during any of our wars?"
"Maybe they did and we just didn't hear about it?"
"Don't be silly. If they had the chakra draining technology potent enough to eradicate something like a tailed beast, we'd be living in a massive Kiri sect right now." Sasuke explained, causing a slight pout to form on Naruto's face. "The real question is how they even managed to get past village borders in the first place. Like, the Jinchuriki in the general water country are self-explanatory and Iwa was colonial for so long that they probably didn't have any real defense against imperialist war tactics but if we give them both two tailed beasts each, counting Yagura, as well as factoring in the two that were apparently spared in Kumo, there's still three jinchuriki they most likely couldn't have reached, let alone killed."
Naruto nodded along with him, though he found it kind of hard to follow. Honestly, with the amount of thought Sasuke had clearly put into it, anyone would. Instead of trying to deride further information however, Naruto's focus turned to the diagram paper he'd drawn up. Kushina's name had been placed in-between the leaf and the mist (presumably because she'd fled from one to the other) while "Yugito" sat solely in the leaf.
"Hey, who's that?" Naruto said, jotting at her nameplate. This at first got no response from Sasuke, who began shuffling through his books before quickly pulling out yet another Konoha registry. He flicked to the paper tag, scanning its contents before showing Naruto yet another page.
"There." He tapped his finger against a poorly-printed on photo of a girl with short-blond hair. A long biography ran down underneath this frame, text small enough that Naruto immediately felt tired upon seeing it. Luckily, Sasuke was there to summarize.
"Her name's Yugito Nii. She's half Kiri and Half Konoha, originally born in the former but immigrated over here when she was six years old." He narrated quickly, scraping his finger down the memoire, waiting until he reached the information he found the most interesting. "She, at the time this book was written, was the jinchuriki of the Two-Tails."
Sasuke looked up from the book, quick to get his ideas out.
"Naruto, think hard, did Lord Third ever, even off-handedly, tell you about her? Or even that there was another jinchuriki in the village?"
Naruto paused, crossing his arms as his mind sorted through his memories, combing over any remembered word Hiruzen said to him. This search brought back nothing of substance.
"Nope. I woulda' remembered if he did." Naruto said.
"Okay, so she's most likely dead. None of the later registries I've got have her listed as an active shinobi and no local library I've seen has a registry that goes further back then two or three years."
"You reckon Kiri got her or what?" Naruto asked, getting an answer back instantaneously.
"Nope. No way an army-force large enough to kill a tailed beast just casually crossed the border without it being recorded as an event on par with the Nine-Tails attack. There's no way they killed her unless she was outside the border, which she wouldn't be because why would you allow your jinchuriki to do that when there's an attempted culling going on, but then maybe she was killed first, but then why would you attack Konoha's first, when you could've taken out the ones in your own sects but then-" Sasuke's words became too harsh and quick in their delivery, questions overlapping each other like a military battle between too sides, only his brain was controlling each one. He attempted to regain his bearings and try make sense of the information available to him, but it was quickly rendered naught.
"Look, we can try and make sense of what we have, but we don't have enough info, we're just genin, there's not much we can do."
"Yeah, I know." Naruto agreed. For a brief second, he'd thought Sasuke was going to be able to successfully click it into place, but had quickly realized along with his friend that the gaps in their research were so insurmountable that no amount of perfectly thought out hypotheses using said research would bring them to anything resembling a conclusion. But maybe they didn't need too…
"Hey, I could ask old man Third about this. Maybe he can tell us who that Yugito girl is." Naruto said, attempting to contribute. Sasuke's eyes widened in panic.
"No! Naruto, do you not remember what we said literally ten minutes ago?! You can't tell anyone about this, especially someone like him. He's probably in on it!"
"What?! No fucking way Lord Third's a schemer like those mist guys!" Naruto shot back, misguidedly attempting to deflect from Sasuke's completely sound line of thought.
"Oh yeah? Tell me then, how come my privately owned library was the only place we could get any tangible information on a majority of the details?"
"Maybe we've got really shit librarians?" He quickly answered, only to completely falter as he heard the stupidity of his own words club him over the head.
"At best he's covering it up to keep the information out of the hands of the general public, at worst, there's something he wants hidden on purpose. Either way Naruto, you can't bring this to him or anyone unless you really want to play treason roulette." Sasuke's tone was icy, freezing the other boys' words for a few seconds before they managed to thaw out of his lips.
"Not even Kakashi-sensei?" He asked, practically whispering.
"Not even him. He fought against the mist; he could know stuff too."
"Fuck off with that bullshit! No way he knows anything, he would've told us!" Naruto's anger was spurned by his own defensiveness, immediately firing back when he sensed Kakashi's morality being called into question. Sasuke couldn't help but waver under this aggressiveness, waving his suspicions for the moment.
"You're right, you're right. It doesn't change the fact that you need to keep this information between us two okay? For now, anyway."
The anger faded from Naruto, a more frightful face overtaking his expression. He nodded his head, silent for the moment. The two didn't speak for a little bit after that, even after Naruto stood up to go do something else around the compound. Existential dread began to seep into them. It was strange how the scope of such a massive conspiracy could somehow make them feel like the walls were starting to close in.
Kakashi idly fiddled with his pen lid while Anko filed the forms he'd just filled out. They were called character essays, which Kakashi never liked. The word "essays" greatly overstated their depth. In that sense they were closer to "character multiple choice questions". Fill-in bubbles for who his students were and how they'd react in certain situations. Questions loaded with enough complexity that he could've written a novella on them, being distilled into a single flick of his brush. More than that, Anko's office was cramped, messy and boring and the smell of old wood chips being incredibly prevalent in the air. He chose to believe this is what was causing him to feel awkward and not the event of having to share an extremely enclosed space with her for the first time since a messy break up. Well, it wasn't that messy…
"What the fuck does "switched off" even mean?"
"You know what the fuck it means, Kakashi. You're supposed to be some smart ultra-prodigy aren't you, I'm not gonna buy that shit!"
"Oh yeah. Well, I'm sorry I'm not as "switched on" as Orochimaru. He's always switched on, the fucking pervert."
"Shut up, shut up, shut up! You always bring him up and you know how much I hate it!"
"You do the exact same fucking thing you dense bitch!"
"Because Obito died years ago Kakashi, why the fuck can't you get over it?!"
Okay, it was messy. Kakashi's boredom was speaking louder than his logic though, which is what caused his lips to move.
"How are the chunin exams treating you?"
Anko looked up at him, obviously surprised by the fact that he was (non-passively aggressively) speaking to her but trying not to show it. Then she spoke back, face becoming suddenly animated. She'd been in blank-faced business mode for a majority of her time spent with him, but suddenly, she became comically exasperated.
"Ahhh! It's giving me grief! Shikaku's kid is doing my head in, saying he doesn't want to do it because it'll be "a drag". Like, what the fuck does that even mean?" Kakashi chuckled as she threw herself onto her desk, thoughts that she'd assumed would have to go unsaid spilling out of her mouth.
"Well, like father like son."
"Yeah I know but still. Honestly, Asuma's whole team is a fucking mess. Inoichi's and Shikaku's brats go back and forth and back and forth. Nearly kept me there the whole goddamn day." She groaned, thrusting her body back against her chair. Upon hearing this dissection of the other teams, Kakashi tried his luck at excavating information more pertinent to his interests.
"What about Guy's team?"
Anko may have been carrying on like a child, but her shinobi instincts were not worn down in the slightest. She looked back up at him with a sly smile.
"Nice try. I'm not gonna just feed you info on the other teams because I like you." She sneered, the last part being delivered with a dozen or so layers of sarcasm.
"Drat. What's the point of having an incredibly tumoltiuos and rough relationship with the Chunin Exams coordinator then?" Kakashi joked back, successfully managing to get a laugh out of Anko. "I do have to ask why you accepted the position though. Seems like a lot of work that you could've just passed onto someone else."
Her laughter subsided in the wake of his question. In fact, it wasn't just the laughter, it was her humorous nature in general that faded. In its place was a self-conscious frown, that she clearly didn't want to display yet displayed anyway.
"I actually asked for his consideration and…he gave it to me."
"Seems out of character for you."
"You'd think so." The benign phrase dripped out of her lips with a surprising amount of venom. Kakashi chose not to pursue this in fear that he would awaken the same Anko that he'd spent many late nights/early mornings screaming at and being screamed at by. She shrugged her shoulders, pulling her jacket further up on her neck. "I didn't really want to do it, but…"
She looked down at the ground as if she were talking to herself and not Kakashi. Her eyes had shifted their usual spunky energy to a more somber mood. It wasn't like she was going to cry, in fact, she barley looked upset, but it was a stark contrast to the high-energy and cunning she usually radiated. To most ninja's that knew her, this would be uncharted territory and would put them off somewhat. It was familiar to Kakashi, but the end result was the same.
"Look, maybe if I do really well with this thing…maybe people will stop seeing me as his student and just start seeing me as me, ya know?"
Kakashi nodded, but didn't say anything. The silence probably whiplashed Anko harder than any response could've, because almost immediately in the wake of her comments, she snapped back to a smug (if slightly embarrassed) smirk.
"Ah! I should be good with the forms from here, you're free to leave if you want." She explained, to which Kakashi began standing up. As he did so, he felt something bubble up at his throat, desperate to spill out of his lips before he left.
"W- "
He spoke only the first sound but it was enough to catch her attention. The intended phrase was "Wanna go get drinks sometime?" There was no intended romance behind it and if there was, Kakashi didn't consciously intend it. No, he just wanted to go out drinking and Anko and Guy were the only people he knew well around Konoha, and god knows the latter wasn't going to voluntarily consume alcohol. It'd been a long while since he'd gone drinking. Well, drinking with other people at least. He drunk by himself a lot. The words crawled at his mask, trying to escape out into the world and bring their own conception.
"Was nice seeing you." Was all he said.
Anko half-smiled back. "It was nice seeing you too."
He left a second later, and in a strange way, he couldn't help but feel like the cold was mocking him.
The Uchiha compound remained incredibly quiet in the wake of Naruto and Sasuke's discussion. The only sound that had been really audible was the stirring of the rain and thunder that would crackle through the rooms. The lack of discussion wasn't out of malice but more so out of neither of them wanting to speak with the weight of knowledge burrowing down upon their minds. This was until Naruto spoke up late in the day.
"Hey, Sasuke. You want to go get some ramen?"
The other boy looked up with a contorted expression. "Fuck no. Not in this weather."
"Come on, rain ramen's good. Not as good as sun ramen but still…"
"Can't you just get me some takeout and bring it back here?" Sasuke responded, obviously too ensnared by the vice of the fire-place to justify the journey.
"Yeah! Good idea." Naruto grabbed his rain poncho from its discarded position on the floor, putting it on over his jacket. "What do you want?"
Sasuke made the mistake of indulging the question as Naruto already knew the answer and spoke simultaneously along with him.
"Barbeque chicken with extra chives and thin broth." They said in chorus, Naruto bursting into a chuckle while Sasuke's face screwed up.
"You're predictable dude."
Naruto's good spirits did not extend to even five minutes after he had departed from the house. The wind howled down the streets, almost strong enough to put him off-balance while cold ate at his fingers. He'd realized from the basic landscape-traversal training Kakashi had taught him that he was likely to catch frostbite should he keep his hands out of his pockets, but even in the confines of the vinyl, he could practically feel them turning red. He grumbled invectives to himself, keeping his head down to try and keep the wind and rain from touching it. It was for this reason that he didn't see the person he walked into. Naruto only needed to feel the presence of another human before he instinctively jumped backwards.
"Shit, sorry." He murmured, before his eyes widened as he realized who he'd bumped into. Flak jacket, brown hair and a scar across his nose. The man standing before him was Iruka Umino.
"Naruto Uzumaki, what the hell are you doing walking around in this weather?"
The pair walked through the puddle-laden streets as they embarked towards Ichiraku. Iruka had agreed to escort Naruto to and from the establishment to make sure he didn't get swept up by the wind and killed. If it was anyone else, he would've simply ordered them to go home, but he knew that Naruto would just wait until he got out of eyesight and then circle back. To try and deny him of a goal was a complete effort in futility.
"So, you're staying at Sasuke's? You two friends now?"
"Uh, yeah, like best friends. We hang out all the time." Naruto explained matter-o-factly. If he was being truly honest, a bit of that "matter-o-fact" attitude did come from the fact that Iruka had been the sole reason Naruto had even managed to pass in the first place, and he felt a little bit guilty for not having reconnected with him until this moment.
"Really? Never pegged you two as being friendship compatible."
"Your compatibility judgment must be pretty shit then huh?" He replied, making Iruka laugh (though he had to fight back the instinctive urge to scold him for uttering a swear word).
"Are you doing alright in your training?" He asked, expecting a grandiose response from the "future fifth Hokage". Instead, he got a significantly more nuanced response, it's subtlety serving to be, in a way, functionally identical to the strangeness of Naruto's usual arrogance.
"Yeah! Well, I think I am. I've been training really really hard even after Kakashi-sensei dismisses us. But not too hard, obviously, because I get sore and then I can't train as hard the next day so it's actually worse overall. That's what he says."
"What have you been practicing?"
"Water-walking and taijutsu."
"Ah, must be rough." Iruka said, flinching as traces of his own memories of that time flashed through his head.
"My chakra control is so shit dude." Naruto groaned, somehow still grinning his same sunny grin. "Kakashi-sensei say's I've gotten tons better though, and that's only in a few weeks!"
Iruka paused slightly, attempting to mask the look of bafflement that he wanted to direct at Naruto. While the boy had always been a hard worker when it came to training, he also overstated that work a lot of the time. Now, while his ego was seemingly still far greater than your average genin, he definitely had more of a grip on reasonable human limitations.
He's more self-aware, that's for sure. Iruka thought. A few seconds past with the chunin attempting to come up with a conversation topic, before the thought popped into his mind.
"Hey! How about the chunin exams, are you taking those?"
Once again, he asked a question and once more the answer was not what he expected.
"I'm thinkin' about it, but I don't know…" Naruto said, eyes shooting down towards the ground.
"Really? When's the deadline for your entry?"
"It's like a week or something."
Iruka was strangely taken aback from the absence of bravado in Naruto's voice. Soon enough though, his teacher side took over and he began to speak once more.
"That's strange, I really thought you'd be the first one to want to declare your participation."
"Why's everyone keep telling me that? Sasuke and Sakura say that too." Naruto asked, slightly frustrated. Clearly this query had been on his mind for a little while. Unlike his teammates, Iruka was more than willing to give an answer.
"Well, for all that Hokage talk you used to throw around, it seems like you'd want to take the thing that would get you closer to it as soon as you could."
Naruto pondered his response for a short while before beginning to talk again.
"Yeah, I guess, but don't people watch the Chunin Exams and stuff?"
"For some parts yeah."
"Well…what if I'm no good? What if I suck, or I make a really big mistake and they laugh at me?"
The two had stopped moving by this point, not even realizing it. The rain made Naruto's voice sound even more whispery than it already was. It echoed through the village, serving as a tarp for the boy's insecurities. No one was going to hear him; he was stuck in his own little part of Konoha with Iruka. Speaking of which, the chunin dropped down onto his knees to reach Naruto's general height. His eyes were stern almost to the point where Naruto thought he was about to be told off for something.
"Fuck 'em Naruto. Fuck em'. If you make a mistake, you own it. Don't bother listening to what some jackass who flunked the genin exam telling you you won't make it, because if you do, you really won't make it. If you want to take the chunin exam, take it. If you don't, don't but base it on what you want to do. Yeah, maybe you'll get punched down a notch but that's life. You've gotta learn how to take the hits sometimes because those hits won't matter if you've got the will to get back up after them. I know you've got it in you Naruto, get out there and show all those doubting pricks why they're wrong."
A twinkle started flashing in Naruto's eye, his self-conscious smile folding into a foxy grin. While the nuance remained, Iruka couldn't help but see flashes of the more braggadocios Naruto glimmering through his expression.
"Hey, I'll think about it." Was all he said.
"Haha, now you guy's cant make fun of me anymore for not taking it!" Naruto exclaimed.
"It still took you ten years to just say yes or no though." Sasuke shot back.
"Hey, I'm just glad it wasn't eleven." Sakura chimed in, the pair of ninja ganging up on Naruto who's confidence had immediately wilted in the face of his friends teasing.
"You three, settle." Kakashi ordered, as the cameraman took his place. Team Seven had officially entered into the chunin exams and as a result, needed their picture taken for I.D purposes. The backdrop was simple, being one of the training forests stationed around Konoha. The Photographer himself had been a lazy looking man, who had obviously spent the whole day taking pictures of the genin teams and was understandably fatigued.
"I'm going to take your official team picture on the count of three. An envelope containing various different sized photos of this picture will be mailed to your address in the coming days. If it does not show up by next week, check any address that may have been linked to your I.D in the past. Further matters will be brought up with the Konoha hall of records." He droned monotonously, before completely obscuring himself behind the lense of the camera. "Okay, you should now get into position."
They did as instructed, Kakashi heading up the back behind Naruto and Sasuke while Sakura practically leapt in front of the two, holding out duel peace signs in her hands.
"3…"
Sasuke tilted his gaze towards Naruto.
"You've got spit on your chin."
"2…"
Naruto raised a finger up to wipe the saliva off, only to find his chin completely dry. A playful grin broke out on his face.
"1…"
"Shut up asshole!"
Sakura snorted in laughter, while a chortling Naruto nudged his elbow at his friend. Sasuke bit down on his lip to keep the laugh from coming out, successfully managing to hold it off in favor of a smirk. Kakashi looked down at the trio like they were the stupidest people he'd ever met. Unfortunately (or fortunately) all of this was captured with a harsh, solitary…
SNAP!
It was a few days later that Naruto got his pictures. They were funny looking, the strange dysfunctions of Team Seven on full display, but he still loved it anyway. He broke out the same binding book with the leather cover that housed the pictures of Minato and Kushina, scrolling through it until he found a blank page. For the first time since he was born, another picture became added to its contents. It's cover read the same thing it always had though. "Family" written in bright gold letters.
Chunin Exams, here I come!