Zombie Cat Science
Alt titles: Zombie Chakra Science or Black Cat Science.
a/n: yeahhh, kinda flopped on updating for a little while (staying up all nighters made me crash and burn)... but, here, enjoy some of my favorite chapters. thank you all for your reviews. I can see this won't be a mega-popular fic, but at least some people enjoy it.
Cool Cat
"Why are you sulking, Sasuke? I mean, you've sulked before, but never this bad! And are you crying? You never cry! What's wrong?" Naruto put his hand on my shoulder.
"Leave me be, Naruto. I don't need anyone!" I snarled, brushing off his hand. He only grew more determined.
"Hey, you said everyone depended on something! You said, not me!"
"I lied," I hissed, tempted to toss something at him. Instead I whirled away and ran off.
There were many comforting words by many tossed my way, mostly adults, for many of the children hadn't been told of the upsetting event. But I could tell it was really Itachi foremost in their thoughts, Itachi they grieved losing, their shining star. I was an afterthought.
Naruto, confusingly, didn't give up. Not long after, he jogged over beside me staring into the river.
"I asked a teacher. Is it really true? Your whole family?"
"Yes," I stated curtly, not bothering to look at him.
"I'm an orphan too! I know your pain, I know your loneliness."
I immediately retorted, "You don't know what it's like to have someone you thought you could trust stab you in the back, the loneliness of always wondering if there is anyone you can trust ever again, the feeling of betrayal of someone who claims to care hurting you repeatedly without remorse. You know nothing." Suddenly, in my head, I was fully Neko again, reliving it all. Not just Itachi, but my whole family, claiming to love me while they ignored me. More than once now it had happened, fucking Fugaku hurt me in the exact same way, ignoring me for not being Itachi version 2.
I was an afterthought.
I couldn't trust anyone. Hadn't all my experiences born that out? Didn't everyone just use me for what they wanted? In a way, that almost hurt more than Itachi attacking me did. Almost, because I'd fucking trusted him. He was the only one I had, unreservedly. I thought he cared.
"You're right, I don't know," Naruto said softly, scooting right next to me. "But I know pain."
I turned my head to stare at him warily, feeling emotionally exhausted. I opened my mouth to yell at him, to rage, but closed it because nothing would come out, because staring into his big blue eyes I couldn't muster any anger at him. He had nothing to do with this tragedy. So I looked away again.
"You're just like everyone else. You just want to hang out with me because you want something, to be friends with someone 'cool'. Because I'm a prodigy." It was incredibly mean, and he deserved none of it, being only a child, but in my head it made a sick sort of sense. I was feeling paranoid, no, not just paranoid, this was outright despair and fear of another betrayal speaking. He didn't actually like me. He'd leave the moment he found someone shinier and more fun to hang out with.
I began to walk away.
"Hey! Is that a crime now, to want to be friends, huh? You're such a teme, I don't know why I even bother to talk to you!" He yelled in frustration. Then he stopped, thinking quietly. "Wait, I never said I just wanted to be friends with you because you're cool! Did I?"
I stopped and closed my eyes tiredly, feeling as cold as everyone called me. "I've only been called 'cool' a thousand times." But... I guessed he never had used those exact words I spat at him.
"Ah," he was embarrassed. "I guess I looked like one of your fangirls! But it wasn't like that, honest! You're one of the only ones who hated me for me!"
What?
I turned to blink at him, wondering if it was possible someone was more screwed up than I was. Well, someone who wasn't an amoral murderer.
"I can tell when I listen to you, you get annoyed by me for the things I do, not just for being there! You don't look at me like I've got, like, some kind of monster in me!"
"Some kind of monster?" I lifted an eyebrow dubiously. I very much hoped he was being overly imaginative, but, inwardly I had a sinking feeling. My gut response was that, even in someone prone to exaggeration, you believe them and assume them innocent when they say someone has been hurting them. A person knows better than anyone else what's hurt them. And disbelieving children's stories has led to far too many deaths. Abruptly I switched my anger from myself and everything around me to focused concern that Naruto was in serious danger. "Who? How recently? You should tell the authorities, they could try to kill you." My child endangerment senses were blaring.
"Kill me!" he shrieked, and I plugged my ears in displeasure. "Oh man! But nearly everyone looks at me like that! The whole village! That's why I live alone, no caretakers liked me in the orphanage."
"But that doesn't make any sense," I furrowed my brow and muttered. Live alone? Who the hell let someone his age live alone?
Wait, I lived alone. Never mind then, same people. Though in my case, it was politics, everyone wanted their hands on the Uchiha heir so the terrible solution was that nobody got me. It left a bile taste in my mouth to be that sort of 'special'. I didn't feel special. Damned and cursed, more like.
"It's true! They call me a demon and sell everything at outrageous prices!"
"I believe you. I still think you should tell someone."
"Ah, do you think it would help if I talked to the Hokage?"
He and Naruto were buddies? "If anyone could help, it would be him. I'm seriously confused why this would be going on, but, it could be political." I considered the options. "Maybe your parents were infamous for something? And your identity is kept top secret, but the adults still recognize you."
"What? Really?" He looked aghast. "Wait, this could be awesome! I bet they were super powerful and stuff, and that's why I'm so awesome!" Naruto always looked on the optimistic side. "And then one day my dad will turn up secretly alive and he'll be all like I AM YOUR FATHER and I'll be all NOOOO! And then defeat him, and everyone will finally love me!"
"It's a possibility." I shrugged, not really knowing the truth. "You didn't do anything, did you?"
"No! Just pranks and stuff, but they hated me even before I started pranking, I swear! In fact that's why I started, so people would have to pay attention to me beyond just glaring all the time, believe it!"
"I believe you." I walked over to a grassy bank and laid down. This situation was a pain in the butt, but, as a bonus, it had distracted me out of my funk. Demon made me think of the Nine Tailed Fox, but, he couldn't be the fox, so I dismissed that. And even if he was somehow, he clearly wasn't a malicious fox anymore.
Although... the whiskers were weird. I'd always thought they were scratches on his face, but, they did look awfully like whiskers to me now and I couldn't unsee it. "Maybe your parents had the ability to summon giant fox demons?" I suggested semi-randomly.
"Wow, that'd be cool! But wait, that'd mean they summoned the Kyuubi! No wonder everyone totally hates me!"
"Hey, it probably isn't true." I paused, thinking further.
"Oh! Maybe they weren't evil, but were framed for it! I knew they had to be innocent!"
No you didn't, you just ranted about how you'd defeat your father and make everyone love you... I mentally facepalmed. "I don't think you should live alone. We're both orphans, so, I guess you could come live with me." A part of me would rather go live with him, but he probably didn't have a lot of room. The compound was eerily empty and quiet, plates set out for meals left in place just where they were, toys abandoned in the yard, a ghost town, it gave me nightmares just being there. If anyone was planning to go after him in his sleep, they wouldn't expect him there, and I could protect him. Sort of. Shoddily. Such an empty place would have lots of places to hide, although not as many as I liked. It certainly hadn't helped any of the other Uchiha children.
I need to get stronger. I thought with agitation. Fighting had never been my thing, in my previous lives, although this mind... body... life was more aggressive, having been raised to fight nearly from birth for years without Neko's influence. But this world was extremely dangerous, and even a pacifist had to know some tricks if they wanted to live here. The small part of me that debated just being a civilian was silenced.
"Wow, really! Do you think they'd allow that?"
I tilted my head, thinking. "They wouldn't have to know. But if they do, I guess we could, like, get married or something? Then they'd have to let us live together." Not that I had any romantic inclinations, in fact I'd never had any romantic inclinations toward anyone and didn't really understand the whole wedding thing. But if we became shinobi, we'd be legal adults and could do as we liked, right?
"Boys can't get married to boys!"
"I don't see why they shouldn't, if they want to." Although honestly I didn't fully get why anyone wanted to marry anyone. They could be buddies without getting married, right? And who wouldn't want to live with a best friend? Why not just live with all your friends?
"But I wanted to marry Sakura."
"Uh," I hadn't thought of that. He must have a pretty bad crush on her. "I guess after awhile we could get divorced?"
"Okay! I'll tell the old man I'm going with you, and if I doesn't like it, I threaten to marry you! He'll be sure to cave in! It's the perfect plan!"
A part of my brain whispered that this all sounded like seven year old logic, but, I wasn't thinking terribly clearly, was currently also seven, and couldn't care less. "He'll probably bow to your enthusiasm, if nothing else."
.
.
The Hokage broke down in laughter and touched his head to the table, took a deep breath, and straightened upright, attempting to repress further laughter. He did not entirely succeed.
"What's so funny?" Naruto exclaimed.
"No Naruto, you are too young to get married. You can't marry Sasuke." He smoked a pipe. "I thought you didn't like him that much, only last week you were calling him a bastard, were you not?"
"Well, yeah," Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Buuut, that was last week! This week we're totally and deeply in love, believe it!"
"Is this a prank?"
"Okay, no, it's not a prank, but you got me. I don't really want to get married. I just wanted to live with Sasuke 'cuz he seems really lonely and he doesn't have anybody anymore, just like me! He agreed to it and everything!"
He grew concerned, thinking over Naruto's words and of the recent massacre. The mind analysts had stated Sasuke was showing signs of suicidal depression and was at risk of hurting himself. However, not only did the boy show discomfort towards the idea of a care taker, nearly any care taker he assigned to him would be politically risky and alienate the other clans who felt they were best equipped to take charge of him. A non-clan ninja would be best, but that too would risk the wrath of the major clans, seen as a snipe that a non-clan ninja could be as good as a clan ninja.
Politics. He hated it, the least favorite part of the job.
As an afterthought, he considered whether Sasuke had really agreed to this or whether Naruto was really pulling his leg out of hopefulness or desire to prank. He'd have to double check and make sure.
"Alright Naruto, I suppose it couldn't hurt. If Sasuke really wants to."
"I'm not lying, honest!"
"I just want to give him the chance to change his mind, if he wants. No need to rush in," the old man told him, feeling a little ache in his back and a crick in his neck.
"Just to clarify, you're agreeing to me moving in with him, not with us getting married, right?"
The Hokage face palmed. "Yes, Naruto." As an afterthought, he considered that all this might be a good thing. Those two could use the friendship, and it would make it easier to keep an eye on them.
Or so he thought.
8Outdoor Kitty
It was nice. Months passed by in a blur. I actually found myself getting along with Naruto pretty well, when I wasn't busy. I had thrown myself into study with a fury and passion I'd never shown to learning before, having always been content to go at my own steady pace and simply have fun, having no real incentive to do much of anything. The compound, for all it gave me nightmares, was so much easier to breath in.
Especially after we decided to redecorate. Naruto painted everything a bright orange, to my embarrassment, and I managed to talk him into some nice contrasting colors, black, yellow, white, a little red. I convinced him it would be less monotonous, not that he knew what he word monotonous meant.
"Hey, Sasuke? Can I ask you a question?"
"Hn," I made a small noise of agreement, absorbed in training and only really paying half attention to him.
"What's having a family like?"
I stopped. "It's horrible. People saying they love you, but then going out of their way to hurt you anyway." Memories welled up in my mind. Going up, asking for a doctor for being in so much pain it made you cry (though half of it was just the stress of thinking of having to go to the doctor), getting a lot of fuss made over you but no willingness to actually take you (you're strong, you can tough it through, you think), but only a week later they get sick and they get to go to the doctor.
Telling you they love you, and ignoring you in favor of a sibling.
Telling you how glad they are you are alive. Slaughtering your whole family.
Asking for help with schooling, and always, from every family member, left alone.
How worthless you feel, for days on end.
"Gah, you're a real cheerful person, Sasuke!" Naruto managed to not let my sourness get him down.
Kind of unconsciously, despite my words, I took on a big brother role (no matter how much that made me shudder), getting him up in the morning and making him go to school on time, making him some real food. For all he complained about wanting to eat ramen, milk, and nothing else, he did seem to enjoy having someone care enough to make vegetables and eggs for him. I made sure he was caught up on his school work; sometimes, bizarrely, teachers handed him blatantly wrong material. I registered a complaint, but it didn't seem to make much of a dent in things.
Okay, that was really more like parent than older brother, but I wasn't about to let him call me dad or old man any time soon, thanks.
Learning about seals, I came upon a new theory about him, that he had something to do with the giant fox being sealed away. It was weird to think of any human being a container for a giant fox, though. Wouldn't a stone tablet you could lock far away or toss into the ocean be more convenient? It was crazy enough I wanted to dismiss it, but, I couldn't entirely. I still needed an explanation for the weird behavior of the villagers and the foxy whiskers on his cheeks.
I worked on a new project to learn about chakra. Naruto was quite interested. "What are you doing?"
"A project to learn how much chakra I or others have."
"Oooh, ooh, tell me!"
"Firstly, I borrowed a unit of measurement: a calorie. A chakra-calorie would be how much chakra it took to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree. If chakra is energy, then a calorie is pretty perfect. Now, I did run into a problem. When you are doing a jutsu, unless you have perfect chakra control, you are going to waste lots of excess chakra. So when you do a jutsu to heat water, what you are going to learn is not your 'real' chakra count, but your effective chakra count, the amount you can put into use. The best technique for learning your true chakra count would be one that requires an exact amount of chakra to do, or one that someone with perfect control has already figured out the correct amount for that gives indicators when you under or over power it. At best you'll probably get a rough estimate though."
"Wha? I don't need to know all that stuff, just tell me my chakra count!"
I grew embarrassed. "Weren't you listening to a thing I said? You'll need to do a technique. I've been using a fire technique to heat water." Then, thinking, I pondered. If chakra was energy, then simply putting it into the water should heat it a bit, shouldn't it? But it didn't really act like it. The same chakra put into water didn't heat it as much as a fire jutsu blown on it did...
"But I don't know any fire techniques!"
"I guess I'll teach you one, then. Don't feel bad if you can't do it, though. It is a fire release technique after all, and you might not have that chakra nature."
"Oh boy! I'm gonna learn a super cool awesome mega jutsu!" Uh... I was going to teach him something small, actually.
"Look carefully. This is Hitsuke no Jutsu(1), a technique developed to distract enemies by setting a small fire far away from yourself." I ran through the hand signs, and set fire to a piece of paper. I hadn't been kidding, it really was tiny.
"A small fire? I wanted to do a great massive fireball, like you! I saw you in the court yard, don't pretend you can't!"
"The Uchiha have always had a very strong affinity for fire. And besides, you should start with something simple first!" I knew Fugaku would probably throw an absolute fit with me sharing family techniques with an orphan who had no clan loyalty and no reason to keep it to himself, but I was feeling generous and didn't care what the dead man thought. "It's actually pretty good for faking out your opponents, as it uses the Tiger seal, usually associated with powerful devastating techniques. So they'll try to dodge, not realizing they're still in your line of fire, even if it isn't very powerful. So it's good for annoying people." I did find myself wondering why, if substitution was a thing, it wasn't possible to just spawn techniques where ever the enemy was for every technique, buuut, I could work on that later. As far as I could tell this was kind of like that, just sending a tiny little spark of fire over.
"Ah, I love to annoy people!"
"I guessed."
-–-
Naruto worked on it, but to his upset he just couldn't get it to work. I comforted him, cursed myself for not foreseeing this, and gave him a simpler task. "Okay, instead, just spam a jutsu you know you can do really well, and tell me how many times you can do it. Then I'll try to calculate an estimate for you, okay?"
Then I thought of a sort-of problem. I was using a fire technique as a basis, but, blowing a fire at water wasn't the most efficient way to heat it... what if it didn't heat enough for me to notice any difference in temperature? Aw, well, whatever, maybe I could just reduce the amount of water down until I noticed a difference, and try to concentrate the fire on one spot instead of having it fly everywhere in a haphazard manner like in the big fireball jutsu, which was kind of overkill...
"Heeyyy, are you paying attention?"
"Mm? Oh, sorry!"
"I've been doing and redoing henge jutsu constantly and I still don't feel tired!"
"Really? Huh." I was baffled. "I guess you must have a lot then."
"A lot isn't very specific!"
"Well, sorry. You'll just need to find a more chakra intensive jutsu, I guess."
I had a suspicion that chakra had very little to do with energy, and was really just like 'magic' where the numbers wouldn't necessarily add up, that maybe two techniques with the same chakra output would have different energy results, but, all of this really didn't hurt. It was nice to have some sort of number, even if, in Naruto's case, it seemed it might as well be put down as 'infinity'. Henge wasn't really very intensive though, I was pretty sure I could keep on a henge all day myself.
What would be really nice was a substance sensitive to chakra that would react to exact amounts that could give serve as a kind of measurement. But I didn't know of anything like that. Seals, maybe? Bah.
Naruto couldn't keep his mouth shut. Soon it was all over school that I was trying to measure chakra, and everyone at the academy was bugging me. "Measure my chakra, Sasuke!" "No, measure me!"
I grew rather grumpy quite quickly. "Tch, if you can do lots of intensive jutsus, you have a lot of chakra. If you can't, you either need more practice or you don't. Stop bugging me." I liked having alone time.
"Sasuke?" Iruka's voice echoed above me.
I turned around obediently. "Yes, sensei?"
"I hear you've been working on a project. I'd be interested in seeing it. If you turn it in, I'll give you extra credit, okay?"
"Oh." Somehow, it had never occurred to me to go to a teacher. Probably because it had literately taken me five minutes to come up with it, it probably had a ton of holes in it, and I had never had a teacher I could go to when I was teaching myself before. "Naruto helped." It seemed a good time to try and get Naruto some recognition. And he did help, him playing test subject made me realize some jutsu were almost never going to make you run out of chakra.
"Did he? Then he can have some extra credit too."
"Heh," Shikamaru had a chuckle at my expense. "If you didn't want extra work, you shouldn't have told the school."
I tilted my head at him. "I don't mind, truly. Besides, genius and laziness are opposed."
"How do you figure that?" His eye gave an annoyed twitch. Looks like I got to him.
"Because laziness encourages you to take mental shortcuts, to stop thinking."
"But genius can encourage you to find more efficient use of your time, good shortcuts for long meandering paths you have no need to take," he counter-argued.
I was kind of enjoying this. "True. I suppose there could be said to be a difference between physical laziness and mental laziness, but if you're lazy in one thing, you'll easily slip into being lazy in another; an unconscious tic won't distinguish situations for you."
"...are you guys having a smart people fight?" Naruto gaped.
For people our age? I suppose it was. Then again, I'd met adults who couldn't argue this well. Shikamaru was pretty smart.
"But if the reason you are lazy is because something bores you, and mental activity is something you enjoy, then you'll never be that lazy with it. If it comes easily to you, you won't even have to put that much effort into it anyway."
"Oh really?" I said with delight. "Then you absolutely shouldn't mind taking on extra credit assignments, now should you?" I thought I had caught him now.
"No, they don't mentally challenge me enough," he yawned.
Ooh, good one. I was really starting to have fun now. "Then you could set yourself a tougher assignment. They let me choose my own project, after all."
He stopped mid-yawn. I'd gotten him. Or had I? He seemed to think furiously for a few moments, before smugly saying: "It would be too strenuous. I might have to lift up a pencil."
Now I laughed. Really? He was THAT lazy? "You could give it verbally."
"Talking that much is too much effort." Now he was just being silly. He'd pretty much given up the argument here, though. He and I both knew that wasn't a real answer.
"You're talking right now, you goof!"
He opened and closed his mouth, mouthing 'No I am not'. Little kid tactics. Made me remember that yes, he was a little kid.
I decided to count it a partial victory. I'd underestimated his physical laziness (that was probably a phrase somewhere, Never Underestimate the Laziness of a Nara, or something) but he'd been arguing from an incorrect standpoint from the beginning over the mental laziness, and no matter how intelligent you are, if your argument is dead wrong, you can't win it if your opponent is good enough. Hopefully he'd learned that today. I did believe he was too lazy to lift up a pencil to write down a special project, but maybe I'd poked him into thinking about what he'd do if he did lift a finger for a project that he would find mentally challenging.
"Good fight." As a joke, I made the seal of reconciliation at him. I began to walk off, when he stopped me with his voice.
"Hey. About earlier, when you talked about the strong woman. How did you know she didn't use any chakra?"
I gave him a baffled look. "I sensed it. Can't you?"
"So. You're a sensor."
They hadn't covered that in class yet, but the title was fairly self descriptive, so surprise never even registered on my face. "I don't think I'm a very good one." I'd seen it with colors at one point, but, that had been more a case of baby-hood synesthesia (sense being muddled together) and I'd later realized that it takes large amounts of chakra to give off visible light in normal circumstances, so if the synesthesia had stuck and given different colors than the actual visible chakra that would have looked quite strange to downright obnoxious. As a side note, when I had become Sasuke, I'd lost my perfect musical pitch; that did make me want to cry, because I'd thought it was really cool. But in theory I'd one day have the sharingan, which did see chakra that wasn't visible to other eyes.
At least he bought my story though, or seemed to, having 'solved' one mystery. Shikamaru may have hated to admit it, but, I could tell his laziness was giving him intellectual laziness problems. Partially, he really truly wasn't getting challenged enough, I guessed. That was a shame, but he was unlikely to motivate himself to looking for something to go all out on on his own. I'd known lazy people before, I had bouts of it myself. Well, old Sasuke hadn't, being a very dutiful son, but Neko had. Part of that was depression, exhaustion and apathy though. I just wanted to curl up and stay in one spot until I died, never lifting a finger to do anything.
I wondered if Shikamaru was slightly depressed. He might not even realize it. It sometimes manifested as just apathy, not sadness, and he seemed pretty apathetic. I later discreetly sneaked him a book on it and let him go crazy trying to guess who'd given it to him.
Speaking of apathy and depression though... I felt like I needed to get out of here for awhile. Try something new, see the world. I was going to suffocate here.
I needed a vacation, basically. And luckily, I wasn't even a genin or official ninja yet, so if I left for a little while, I shouldn't be registered as a missing nin, right? The only thing that really tied me here was Naruto and the potential for more knowledge at the Academy. I was reasonably confident I could skip a month of the Academy and have no problems. Maybe several. It had been starting to bore me, except for the physical portions. That was difficult to study on your own, you really needed a practice partner for actual fighting.
I could apply make up, dye my hair, wear nondescript clothes, use a henge, and I had money, some survival training, and basic supplies. I was pretty set for traveling. Getting up very very early in the morning (less suspicious than the dead of night; I didn't want to attract too much attention from the gate guards, if anyone stopped me it would be them), I paused to write a note, agonizing over what exactly to say. I didn't want anyone to freak out, honestly.
'Going on a little vacation. Will wear disguise to avoid recognition as a Uchiha. If caught and recognized, I'll stab my eyes out, okay?
Please don't worry, I'll be back. '
"Ehh, what are you doing up this early?"
I went very still. "Well, what are you doing up?"
"I had to go to the bathroom, I drank too much milk last night!" Naruto exclaimed. "But you didn't answer my question! Ooh, hey, what's that?" He snatched at the letter, but I jerked it away. He managed to read a line of it anyway. "Hey, that's your handwriting! Going on a vacation? What's that mean? You going on without me?"
I bit my lip. "I wanted to wander. I don't think I'll have the opportunity once I'm an adult, because if I did that I'd get labeled a missing nin. So I want to go out now." Never mind that I was a child, but, I was not a normal child and could take care of myself.
"Aahh! That's so smart but so mean! You were going to go without me! You have to take me with you, I'd be awesome at protecting us from bandits, believe it!"
I thought that was an absolutely terrible idea, taking a small child with me, but couldn't say that without him countering that I was a 'small child' too.
"If you don't, I tell on you!"
I sighed. Looks like he'd completely defeated me. "Okay, okay. We'll go on a really short vacation." Damn Naruto messing up my plans. "But you have to go in disguise, and not just henge, either. Some ninja can sense if someone is under henge, especially when the henge is by novices like us. If your parents really are infamous or something, I don't want anyone recognizing you. We should probably go as siblings, to confuse people."
"Cool! Like a spy mission! We'll need secret code names!"
"Uh, yes, we'll need new names. You can be Wang Fox, I'll be Wang Fire."
"Wang Fire? That's the stupidest name I've ever heard! It suits you perfectly," he giggled immaturely. I rolled my eyes.
"It's the greatest name of all time. You just can't appreciate beauty," I said, joking, but in my most serious offended voice. He paled for a moment, then stuck his tongue out at me.
I jotted down a little more.
'P.S, Naruto decided to tag along, the little dork.'
"Hey, scratch that last insulting bit out!"
I did so, feeling agreeable. "Satisfied?"
"You forgot to add how awesome I am, but yeah, that should be good enough!"
Looking at it, I couldn't help but think we were going to be in sooo much trouble. This made me grin madly for a moment, before pausing to wonder if maybe they'd actually injure us. Their missing nin policy was extremely cold hearted, and I wasn't sure if we were really excluded. If either of us were important to the village, and I was fairly sure I was to my annoyance, well, they might stop at nothing to get us back. Of course, if we were important, they probably wouldn't injure us, just talk us into coming home. Which we would, since we weren't genuinely trying to run away...
I wonder what were the chances they'd just think we decided to skip school for a month and never bothered to track us down?
Probably not very.
We headed out, after Naruto packed a gazillion things of ramen, and in a spot of bad luck met, of all people, Shikamaru.
"What are you guys doing up this early, with such a large backpack? Planning to go camping?"
"Something like that," I admitted.
"We, uh, were training!" Naruto attempted to come up with an excuse. Shikamaru gave a flat look of disbelief. I noticed he was holding my book on depression I slipped as a gift near his home. "Hey, maybe you could come with us!" Naruto said, grinning. "The more the merrier!"
"If I can take Choji. Where are we going?"
"Oooh, while we are it, we should get Sakura! She's awesome!"
"What? No!" I exclaimed. "I didn't even want to take you, and now you're taking half the academy with us?" We're going to be in so much trouble. Naruto looked at me beggingly. Taking a breath and making a decision I was sure I was going to regret, I relented with a shake of my head. "Fine. But anyone who wants to come has to be able to do henge." Maybe this would shake Shikamaru out of his apathy a bit. And if I was going to get assigned to a team with people some day, getting to know some potential team mates wouldn't hurt. "And if you want others, you have to find them quickly. I want to scoot out of here pronto before anyone realizes we're up to mischief."
"Okay! I'll go look for Sakura and Choji right now!" Naruto fist pumped the air and ran off. Shikamaru didn't make a move beyond folding his arms and looking at me skeptically.
"Is this a prank?" Shikamaru asked, not an unreasonable question.
"We're leaving the village for a vacation. If we do it later in life, we'll get labeled missing nin and hunted down. As it is, we'll still get hunted but they should go easy on us. It'll be a very interesting mission trying to avoid trackers. You in?" I smirked mischievously at him.
"I already said I was." Shikamaru was starting to smirk too. "This should be interesting. What plans have you made to avoid trackers?"
"To be honest, my biggest plan was to use Naruto once he decided to tag along. He has lots of experience slipping away from ANBU, so he's the best bet here. Before that, I was going to make an excuse to the guards to slip out through the gate, see if they buy it, if not slip over the gate elsewhere. They are experienced ninja, so deception like using henge might make us more likely to get caught, not less. Then I'd focus on getting as much distance as possible before anyone realizes I'm not coming back shortly, which if they buy the excuse should be awhile. With so many kids tagging along, making an excuse might be easier or harder, frankly. Although, they'll be looking for intruders trying to get in, not trying to get out, so in that we'll have an advantage."
"You realize a lot of bad things could happen to us out there, right? Bandits, among other things. Any ninja who recognized our bloodlines would go after us in an instant. It's dangerous, not a great idea for a joy ride."
"I know. I'm going to take steps to mitigate that. I was thinking of heading toward the land of Tea. It doesn't have a ninja village, is right next to the land of Fire, and it doesn't really have anything important in it except tea." Tea was very important. Uncle Iroh drank it after all. "Another possibility is the land of Waves, which is bordered by the land of fire and by the land of Wind which is an ally to us. Although, heck, if things go well we might as well visit both."
"They probably won't expect us to leave the country," Shikamaru mused. "And if they worry about defection, they'd be checking borders with lands that have hidden shinobi villages, not no-name lands."
"Well, they might be expecting it, actually. I plan to leave a note that we're going on vacation so they won't freak out too badly. I don't want them all thinking we've been kidnapped."
"Ah, yeah, not a bad idea."
Naruto came back. He had Choji, Sakura, and to my disappointment, even more children with him! Hinata, Kiba, Shino, and Ino! My eye started twitching in anger. "Good grief. Why not just take the entire Academy while we're at it?"
"Ah, sorry guys. I couldn't avoid attention with Sakura and Choji following me! Kiba demanded to know what we were doing since he always likes to skip out from class with me, and then Sakura said she wouldn't go without Ino because they were best friends, and then Shino walked into us, or really I ran into Shino on accident, sorry Shino-"
"I get it, I get it." I held up my hands.
"You're leaving the village to mess around? This sounds like a profoundly stupid idea," stated Shino.
"Only for a little while! And I was planning just me, but then he decided to drag absolutely everyone into it." I pointed at Naruto and threw up my arms in defeat. "Alright, who here has tracking skills?"
"I do!" Kiba raised his hand proudly, his puppy barking agreement.
"I can, but I don't know if I want to be involved in this," Shino stated bluntly. "I think it would be my obligation to tell on you all before you get into immense trouble."
"Aww, don't be like that!" Naruto shouted. "This could be so much fun, everyone together on an adventure!"
"My apologies, but I have concerns other than fun." His voice was frosty.
I decided to ignore him for the moment, since he hadn't left yet. "It's your loss."
"No one likes a snitch, Shino," Shikamaru stated bluntly, aiming at him psychologically. "If you stay, you might make some friends." Shino flinched slightly at this. It was a bit cruel, but, it was also fairly true. I was interested that Shikamaru had decided to take my side, though. I would have thought he'd find it far too troublesome. Perhaps he yearned for a little mental stimulation and his earlier apathy was part of that, like I'd wondered earlier. Or maybe he figured he'd help protect us from our own stupidity, at least check me out and see if I had half a clue what I was doing.
"Anyone who wants to come, has to be able to do a henge. Raise your hand if you can." I raised my own hand.
Everyone else did too. Great, I got a bunch of prodigies on my hands. I waved us all to start walking together. "Okay, let's huddle somewhere a little more discreet. We'll have to gather supplies."
"Choji," Shikamaru's tone took on the air of an order. "Go get food. Since you love food, it won't be suspicious if you get enough to last a week for everyone, and only you know how much you need to eat." He dug into his pocket and gave the boy money. "Hmm, I don't think that will be enough."
"Oooh, get lots of ramen!" Naruto shouted.
I dug into my own pockets, having prepared money for myself ahead of time. "Here. You won't need to get any for Naruto by the way, he already packed his ramen."
"Aww!" Naruto pouted. "But more ramen is always better..."
"Get something meaty!" Kiba said loudly.
"Ah, Kiba, it'll have to be dried or canned, we don't want it to spoil," Hinata said shyly, blushing as she spoke and looking down at the floor, looking like she had the urge to hide.
"Er, right, what she said." Kiba said.
"If we're going to camp, I think my mom and dad have some tents," said Sakura thoughtfully. "We went camping once."
"That would be really useful, Sakura. That's a supply we don't have to buy while trying to avoid suspicion. Go run out and get that, if you can."
"Okay!" She saluted and ran off.
"Kiba, how do we avoid being tracked by smell?" Shikamaru asked, since I had gotten distracted by Shino originally when I asked who had tracking skills. I'd meant to ask the same question eventually, but, he beat me to it.
"Hmm, that's a tough question. Going over rivers and mingling over areas populated by heavy traffic can help. Taking meandering crisscrossing trails helps too, although that takes extra time." Kiba sat, hands to chin. "We could try perfume or heavy odors to alter our scent, but if they realize we've perfumed we'll be even easier to track than before, so it's a risk."
Shino nodded. "I would recommend that as a last resort."
"So, you decided to come?"
He nodded stiffly. He was quite hard to read, but I offered him a small smile and a handshake. "Alright. No hard feelings, then." We shook hands.
Ino raised her hand.
"Yes?"
"I love fashion, so, I was thinking I could help you guys do disguises! Where are we going first?"
"Ah, I was thinking land of Tea, then maybe Wave if you lot aren't thoroughly homesick by then. It's a nice little place without ninja, next to the land of Fire, and, well, I want to sample what's supposed to be the finest Tea in the world."
"Okay, I think I heard of what they like to wear there. I saw some travelers from there once, I'll help us blend in! This will be a piece of cake."
"Cool. I was thinking we should all dye our hair, too, can you help us with that?"
"Certainly." She nodded her head. "Something nondescript, browns and blacks would be good. Sakura is going to freak, she loves her pink hair, but, she's just too recognizable, isn't she? Alright, this will be a piece of cake!" She clapped her hands together excitedly and ran off.
I was surprised at how well everyone was working together, how well all of this was coming together, and I felt a little proud. It might be a makeshift team, but these guys were great.
"...I feel embarrassed I can't offer anything I can do." Hinata sighed miserably.
"Oh! Hey, that's not true. With your Byakugan, you can scan behind us and in front of us for danger and trackers. You're the most important part of this team so far." I comforted her.
"R-really?" Her strange misleadingly blind-looking eyes grew big.
"Really." I affirmed. "You'll be protecting us, along with Kiba who will smell for danger." Kiba seemed to brighten at that.
"Wow," she whispered, before growing determined. "I won't fail you, I promise!"
Choji arrived back, carrying a large backpack full of... scrolls? "I had them sealed," he said proudly. "Being able to carry your food without it spoiling on you is an important skill to my clan!"
"Wow, good job, I'm really impressed." That meant, hopefully, he'd gotten a much better selection than just dried rations. I admit I hadn't been looking forward to potentially just eating the same thing over and over again. I really was beginning to be pretty impressed by everyone.
Sakura ran in with camping supplies, and Ino with clothing, make up and hair dyes not much longer after that, her selection for us quite impressive. We couldn't wear the clothes just yet, though, that should wait until out of the village, although Hinata got to wear goggles straight off since they were harmless enough. Amazingly, Ino had an alibi for us already to get out, collecting herbs and flowers. It was something she'd done before.
We set out, got out the gate with no problems, but immediately realized a problem.
"Where's Shino?" Shikamaru stated with concern, scanning around.
"Ah, damn, he ran off to snitch on us!" Kiba yelled.
"Oh no!" exclaimed Naruto.
Oh crap. I thought, and burst into a run.
.
.
Hinata scanned behind us. "We're.. in deep deep trouble."
"Did they send ANBU after us?" I said with concern. That seemed a bit over the top, really.
"No, worse. Our... our parents." Hinata shivered in fear and looked like she might faint.
"Oh man!" Kiba freaked out and ran around in circles, Akamaru barking wildly. "I'm so toast! Mum must be so pissed!"
"Shino must have told them our plans to go to the land of Tea," I stated. "So, we'll go to the land of Waves instead. We can still have some fun before we get caught. Unless you guys want to give up now?"
"We've gone this far already," commented Kiba. "I'm not getting in trouble for nothing!"
"Me either, I haven't eaten all the best food I picked out yet," said Choji with a frown.
"I wanted to go someplace new! It would be so droll to stop now," exclaimed Ino.
I exchanged glances with Shikamaru, who sighed. Everyone else seemed to be in agreement. We were keeping on with these shenanigans.
"Ah, they are heading straight toward us. How could that be?"
Shikamaru's eyes widened. "Check yourselves for bugs!"
Bugs? I blinked and carefully felt through all my clothes. Yes indeed, there turned out to be a little bug. "Sorry Shino," I was about to squish it, but stopped myself on second thought. "Okay, everyone, put your bugs into a bottle."
Everyone had been tagged with a beetle. We were losing time. "We need to scatter these bugs to confuse them."
"Yeah, believe it! I'll set traps and decoys to annoy them!" Naruto jumped up and down, before grabbing the bugs. He was sporting nice brown hair now, instead of blonde, and his whisker marks had disappeared under makeup that made his face slightly darker like he had a tan.
"Don't sidetrack too much, or you won't be able to catch up with us."
"Okay, okay." Naruto looked worried and exasperated at the same time. "Sheesh."
"Try tossing one of the bugs in a river. It should travel a far way," added Shikamaru.
"Good idea." Naruto ran off, but not before I pointed him in the direction we'd be heading. I hoped he wouldn't get lost.
"Kiba, you help us start setting false trails."
"Got it," he saluted, and started to lead us. Once satisfied we headed on our way to the Land of Waves. And, to our surprise, some of the parents shortly headed back to the village, according to Hinata. Probably to get professional tracker ninja on the job.
.
-–-
.
He was uncertain why he had been called in, but he knew it had to be a mission of some sort.
"Kakashi, this is unlikely to be dangerous, but it is extremely important. It concerns all of the most powerful shinobi clans, and must be kept an absolute secret," Sarutobi spoke in his office.
"Oh?" Kakashi tilted his head curiously, leaning lazily against the window.
"A number of children, including the Hyuuga, Yamanaka, Akimichi and Uchiha clan heirs, have run off. The Kyuubi container as well, and some of the parents are ranting about the Kyuubi kidnapping their children."
Kakashi straightened in surprise. Uchiha and Uzumaki... "Are you certain it wasn't a kidnapping by enemy ninja?"
"Not absolutely, but a boy, Shino, came to us and was the first to alert us to the run aways. He seemed convinced they were leaving without an adult and of their own free will. He set bugs to track them, but they managed to detect it and take the bugs off into decoy trails."
Very interesting, much better than expected from a group that hadn't even graduated yet. "And they've honestly managed to evade detection?"
"Yes. They've even set up false scent trails, likely the work of the Inuzuka heir. His mother set off tracking him, you are to join her on this mission. Shino stated they were planning to go to the land of Tea."
"Who's the ringleader?"
"Ring leaders. It was started by Sasuke Uchiha trying to sneak off on his own," they exchanged looks over this. There could be all sorts of reasons the troubled boy might want to leave, and the most dangerous was that he might be trying to search for Itachi. "However, he got side-tracked by Naruto, who dragged in Shikamaru." He'd heard the two boys had some affection for each other, so that relieved him. If he did care for the other boy, he might avoid deliberately pulling him into danger. Hopefully. Vengeance could be blinding.
"Shikamaru?"
"Shikamaru Nara. He appears to be the second ring leader. It's odd, as by all accounts he is usually a laid back and lazy boy, but either Naruto or Sasuke seems to have motivated him somehow. His parents are completely baffled why he would want to engage in this, although they theorize it might be to get out of doing school for awhile." That was dangerous. A motivated Nara could do wonders, even if they were a child. But it made much more sense now that they had managed to evade search parties.
"Any other locations they might head to?"
"The Land of Waves was mentioned as a possible next destination, for it's lack of ninjas and proximity to the land of Fire. That's what they wanted in a location; not an unintelligent choice, and one that gives me relief over the idea they might meet enemy nin, but I'd rather they stayed in the land of Fire in the first place."
"Then that's where they will be headed. They won't go to the Land of Tea like planned after Shino snitched on them." Kakashi said, mostly to himself, as he was sure the Hokage had already guessed this. Bah, what a terrible mission, retrieving a bunch of brats!
.
.
We had a lot of fun, putting on a henge to appear as adults and going from town to town. We camped, roasted marshmellows (thank you Choji!) and hotdogs, romped, tried to catch rabbits, told ghost stories, and I actually found myself enjoying things and unwinding a bit; normally I was a lot more antisocial, but I roasted hot dogs along with the rest of them. After finding a strange bug I couldn't identify, I wished for a moment Shino had come along.
Hinata spotted some ninja at one point, completely unrelated (most likely) to any trackers after us, so we easily gave them a wide berth, being that they had no interest in us and we had no interest in them.
One town on the way to the other country was having a nice festival, so we stopped there to partake and have fun. We got masks, I chose a cat, and Naruto, obliviously, chose a fox, Choji chose a shark, Kiba a dog, Shikamaru a deer, Hinata a bunny, Sakura a peacock, and Ino mimed me by getting another cat. We watched fireworks and ate popcorn, and had a food fight with it too.
While there I felt a strange and familiar chakra presence, and paused, worried. "Ah, you guys stay at the inn, I'll be back. I'm going to scout. If I don't come back, assume it isn't safe and leave straight home, okay?" My sense only worked very close range, and he was extremely dangerous, too dangerous to be this near to us.
"I couldn't abandon you! I'm coming with!" Naruto bounced on his bed.
"I mean it, Naruto, stay here or I'll ruin your ramen for a month." I scolded him. He shrank back, chastised and horrified anyone could think of such a monstrous thing to do.
What was he doing here, so close? If he was planning harm, I'd have to discreetly move my group out. I'd never forgive myself if my impulses led to more kids dead. He was wearing a straw hat and a long black cloak that hid much of his figure, walking by the crowd. A glimpse of him made me second guess, as he didn't look the same... but no, that chakra, it had to be...
Orochimaru.
"Just passing through, or staying for the festival?" I asked, hoping I didn't provoke the very violence I was hoping to avoid.
"Passing through. Such festivities sicken me," his familiar cold voice answered.
Relief filled me and I bowed, "Sorry to hear. Thank you for indulging me." I rapidly turned to leave, trying not to seem frightened. Unfortunately, it seemed I need to work on my acting skills, because his voice stopped me.
"Why did you ask?" he said suspiciously. "The development of your chakra, it's more than a civilian. Could it be you recognized me?" Great. I was risking everything for nothing, he hadn't even been planning anything here. He was too sharp a ninja not to notice I seemed off, too nervous for an innocent child asking questions, so, stupidly, I'd caught his attention.
"I mean no trouble." I immediately held up my hands in peace. "And if I did run off to tattle, you were planning to be going anyway, right? You'd be long gone."
"Who are you? No games." He reached out his hand towards my face, killer intent beginning to pour upon the air, and I realized I was still wearing my cat mask. I inched back a bit.
"We've met before, but you probably don't remember me. It was fun talking science with you. Not that you care for sentiment, but I've missed that a bit. I wish you well. You look like you are doing quite alright." It was stupid, but, I was the kind of person to attach to a pet shark even if it tried to bite my arm off, despite my best efforts to keep emotionally detached from every living thing. I was just that sort of guy. And I wasn't much for deception or lies, unfortunately; I supposed I'd make a shit ninja for this, letting my heart talk for me.
"I don't, and I am not in the habit of forgetting people I've worked with, little boy. I especially think I would remember one as tiny as you." His eyes narrowed, and despite my stepping back no distance increased between us, it decreased rather. "The only one was - " he stopped mid sentence, faltering in his path and letting his arm drop low, staring at the cat mask.
"Neko." He finished, as I leaped, he grabbed at me, and I vanished in smoke.
In the same moment he came toward the end of his sentence, I decided to high tail it out of there, substituting myself just in time to avoid the grab, which I only got away from because I started to substitute before he began the grab, taking advantage of his dawning realization and his shock that Neko could possibly still be alive. Most likely, he'd seen my dead body, or perhaps Root had been thorough in order to avoid his full wrath and I had simply vanished. Instead of me, he found himself grabbing a shocked old man, and in frustration he threw the man aside. "Oy! What in the world!" the old man shouted, stumbling.
I substituted several times across the massive crowd, hoping to lose him, but saw the most amazing and terrifying thing. The crowd seemed to part ways like a sea as he practically flew across the road with inhuman speed. I made the sign of the tiger and vanished and reappeared repeatedly chaotically across the block, atop roofs and behind shop stalls and around corners, but it wasn't enough. As I leaped across a roof to another and looked around to see if I lost him, arms wrapped around my back and about my chest and yanked me up, letting my legs dangle in the air. It reminded me of how excruciatingly tiny I was right now.
I didn't kick or scream, but went very, very still, trying to resist the childish urge to wiggle. He had my arms pinned too, so I couldn't make signs. I looked up at him, trying to gauge from that fairly emotionless face how pissed off he was, blinking with my big kiddish puppy eyes straight at his yellow ones. Slowly, he held me with one arm and used the other to pull off my mask. I noted a ring on his hand that hadn't been there before, to my puzzlement.
"You don't look like Neko," he said, oddly breathless, though he couldn't possibly be winded, his voice a mixture of disappointment and puzzlement. "And they should have grown by now."
"I died and reincarnated. Remember my joking question of whether you could like someone if they were immortal?" Deciding to cut off any freakish experimentation he might want to do on me, I added to his annoyance: "By the way, I'd like to not be kidnapped again, however much I enjoy your company. Please do not annoy me too much, or I'll kill myself again, like I've done before." Unable to resist, I wiggled my legs a little in the air. "I don't suppose you know what happened to me before?"
There was a spike of killing intent, but like usual, such things did nothing to me. "Do you know why I was banished, Neko?" So he was banished.
"Did someone finally find your illicit experiments?" About time. I liked him more than I should, but that didn't mean I wanted him to get away with his crimes. I told him to stop his inhuman ones, it was his fault if he hadn't listened.
"More like Root decided to spill on me when I went on a killing spree on their own members," he laughed. "It annoyed me when they tried to tell me what I could and could not do, and then had the guts to murder my own assistant." Assistant? So that's what he thought of me. A good term for what I had been, I supposed. "But you were toying with me this entire time, weren't you? You had the secret of immortality all this time." His grip turned painful, nails digging into me.
"I was actually very truthful with you. I told you how I would go about immortality: natural reincarnation after death. And believe it or not, but I'm not that old. I never reached past young adulthood in any life, and I didn't reincarnate intentionally, being just a civilian in my longest and first life. It just happened."
He put me down, but didn't let go of me, holding my shoulder. I turned around to face him. "So you thought by researching with me you could figure out why, hmm?"
"No. When I first volunteered, I had no idea what you were researching. I was just bored and had no incentive not to die. But what of you?" Come to think of it, his chakra didn't feel quite as strong as before. "Did you achieve your goal? You feel a little sickly."
"I achieved a kind of reincarnation of my own. Living Corpse Reincarnation," Great. Not that one. "I can steal the body of another. But it has a great flaw. To my annoyance, every body I take rots within three years. I nearly died looking for one this time."
"You were foolish, Orochimaru," I berated him. "When I said you should test to make something safe before you use it on humans, I didn't just mean for any unfortunate test subjects, I meant for you too."
"I don't need a lecture from a child," he spat.
"Too bad. Your unethical behavior has gotten you into trouble, and frankly, you deserve it, Orochimaru." He looked ready to kill me for daring to scold him so. "But I am still fond of you, so I may be willing to help you out of this mess. For all you know, each body will rot faster than the last, leaving you dead before you know it." This made him stiffen, and I knew I'd frightened him even if he barely showed it visibly. This was someone terrified of death. "Haphazard experimentation can get you killed."
"What would you recommend, oh wise one?" There was a bit of sarcasm.
"Firstly, I'd start experimenting with animals, like I recommended the first time." I was annoyed he hadn't listened to me, but, I suppose he'd gotten upset and forgotten when I found me dead. That would be distracting to me too, so the forgetting was forgivable. The forgetting because hurting people was a habit part, though, not so much. Or perhaps, because this was a very messed up person, he'd abandoned my methods because he saw my death as a sign of weakness and it upset him. I supposed it was partially pity motivating me now, and a stupid, moronic part of me that wanted to fix everyone and everything. But... a standard had to be set in place. If I was giving him a chance, then it would be one chance, one choice to behave. No more than that. "Second, I'd like you to consider something."
"Oh?"
"You'll like it. It concerns snakes." I thought of an analogy he might like. "Snakes and rats are two very different creatures. Each manages to survive in their own way, occasionally eating the other, no way of life truly better than the other. The rat looks after its family, and the snake happily lives alone and abandons its young to fend for itself. From the snake's perspective, the rat is foolish to spend all that energy on something other than itself, and from the rat's perspective, the snake is foolish to let it dine on its eggs and babies unguarded." Then I smiled. "But, they are not bound to this way of life. Even a rodent will abandon its young sometimes, and even a snake will sometimes look after its nest and huddle together for warmth and protection with other snakes. It takes a flexible person to consider the viewpoint and values of another being, to consider a different strategy from the norm. Are you as flexible as a snake, Orochimaru?"
It should not be hard to deduce what I was asking, even if I had not stated it bluntly, unless he had brain damage that made it difficult to grasp abstract emotional concepts (as some pyschopaths did), although in such a case he was likely to answer while only pretending to understand.
He looked calculating for a long while, and I knew it was likely he would agree simply to aid himself, not because he had any real change within himself. But I knew my argument was one he'd have difficulty getting around, that the growing evidence that maybe, just maybe his methods weren't working fully even for him would sink into his skull and make him worry. I didn't sense his killing intent anymore, at least, and I thought I had managed to upset him. Not just make angry type of upset, but sadden. This kind of mental confrontation was not an easy one. If he was capable of making it, that is; that's the problem with some damaged individuals, they literately can't consider their actions and past mistakes in context and learn from them. The bigger problem was that he'd been rewarded too many times for breaking the rules, so to him it wasn't fully a mistake; he'd gotten away with it, after all. (2)
"I am."
At last, an answer. I deeply hoped this was not something I'd come to regret. "Excellent. I hope we are on the same page. You will stop hurting people in your experiments for sheer sadism or laziness in looking for alternative methods, and you will leave Konoha alone? I've been living there again, I'd like it to not get wrecked." I had never been one to pay much attention to superior and subordinate hierarchies, but I couldn't help but feel like I was acting as the boss here, in a strange twist of events, a total reversal of power from before. In a world where how much chakra you had meant everything, it seemed a bit funny.
No, he could kill me in an instant. Better to think of us as equals, with me simply having the upper hand for the moment. Anything else would be lethal.
"I am not fond of Konoha. I'd like to see those fools burn," he snarled, and I was taken back by his hate. "You should come with me, and not stay with such low-lives."
"I feel I am missing some context. I take it bridges are far too burned for you to ever return there."
"That much isss certain," he hissed. "They would kill me on sight."
"Was it just because of the research and my death?" I could pretend that was touching, if my death was involved.
"Partly. I was also up for Hokage, but they were foolish enough to reject me." Ah. I knew I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up that it would be anything involving sentiment.
"That sucks," I thought about rubbing it in how his own behavior had helped cost him the position, but, he had probably heard it before, unless his old Konoha friends were dunces. A little sympathy for the moment cost me nothing. "Still, I have a few things tied up there and people I am dealing with. I am happy enough to communicate with you and perhaps visit in the future, however limited my time for that may end up being."
"You are studying at the Academy?" he said with mild interest.
"I am. I've never had the chance to finish it before, so it should be amusing. It will get me properly acquainted with the basics."
"You should leave after that. Those weaklings will only be able to get you so far."
"I thank you for your concern and may consider it," I said with amusement, trying to decide if it was just selfishness motivating him to want me to abandon Konoha. Probably. I didn't expect him to radically change over night to an entirely different person, it would make me paranoid if he did, even if it would make me happy as the person acting as his therapist. "Do you have a preferred method of communication, or will we just leave our next meeting up to random chance?"
"I have a simple way." I tensed a little as he pulled out something, despite knowing he probably would not gut me with a weapon after all that talk. It was just a scroll. I stared at it curiously.
"It's a summon contract for snakes," he told me with a smirk. "When you master summoning, you can transmit a message to me through the snakes."
"I'm interested. Though I'll probably be too busy with other things for a few years."
I signed with blood and he vanished, the two of us officially parting ways again. I wasted a bit of time before coming back to my companions, knowing they were worried about me but also wanting to double check this time I wasn't being watched or followed, though at my level if he was extremely determined he probably could anyway.
.
.
I seriously considered heading straight back home after that admittedly disturbing encounter, but decided to ask my comrades. "I sensed a fairly powerful ninja pass by this way. Do you guys want to continue, or head back home?"
"Sounds dangerous. Did he recognize you under your disguise?"
"I don't think so." I had given my hair a brownish red tinge and my skin freckles and rosy red cheeks with makeup. "Still, do we want to take the risk? What do you guys think?"
"I vote we go! We're already a fair way from home and we're almost there. We should complete it, just to say we did, and then we can head straight back if you scaredy-cats want to!" Naruto yelled.
"If we're already in danger... I don't think an extra day will make much difference," Sakura said quietly.
"It could make all the difference between life and death. But we're certain to notice any pursuer over the water," Ino said, pursing her lips together.
"This is troublesome. At a minimum we should change our disguises around," said Shikamaru.
In the end, we voted to go forward after Hinata scanned and simply didn't find anything amiss. We took a boat ride to Wave on a clear, rare unfoggy day, which many of the kids enjoyed having never gone boat-riding before. I henged as an adult to avoid suspicion why a bunch of children were going around alone, something I'd done a few times during this little vacation, particularly at the inn to pay for rooms. It was nice living in a world that didn't care about ID or driver's licenses; made it much easier to travel.
It was a small and not very prosperous country of closely connected islands, very peaceful and out of the way. There was some talk of building a massive bridge, but nothing had been done quite yet. The weather was good this time of year.
We felt jubilant. We could officially say we'd sneaked our way all to another country, which, admittedly we never should have tried to do in the first place, but, we were determined to live it up before we got thoroughly punished. However, some of the kids were starting to get really homesick. It was about time to head back.
But first...
"We've been starting to have some trouble with Gato Corporation buying our businesses. I'm a little worried what might happen if this continues. With that much money, he could buy out all the transports. He hasn't bought many yet, but, those that refuse to sell to him have been rumored to... vanish mysteriously."
"You guys should really consider starting your own ninja village. You're really quite vulnerable," I told one stranger, a man called Tazuna, flatly.
"Hmm, you think so?"
"I know so. With so little money, there's nothing stopping someone from coming in here and messing the place up by force. Unless you get your own force."
He looked quite thoughtful. So did the children.
"Hey, if these people are in trouble, maybe we should help them!" Naruto exclaimed.
"I think you're right." I nodded my head. "Okay, I'd be willing to teach a few basic ninja techniques to your people, what about you guys?"
"Ah, that'd be fine. Individually we might not know all of it, but all of us put together should know the basic henge, substitution, and clone techniques, we could teach those!" Kiba looked excited at the prospect of being a teacher.
"This seems a little traitorous." Hinata frowned. "Are you sure we won't get in trouble?"
"I can't be bothered to teach anyone," Shikamaru said rather predictably. "I think it sounds like a drag. Aren't we supposed to head back by now?"
"Yeah," agreed Choji. "I miss the food at home." He was one of the ones suffering most deeply from homesickness.
"Ah, we'll help on one condition." I decided with amusement.
"What's that?"
"You have to name Naruto your first Hokage, even if it's only for a day."
"Whaaaat? AWESOME! I'm gonna be Hokage, believe it!" The blonde looked so joyous, it was like he'd fallen into an entire pool of ramen. Then he seemed to reconsider. "But I wanted to be Konoha's Hokage, not Wave's. Also, wouldn't it be Wave Kage rather than Hokage?"
"One step at a time, Naruto." I shrugged at him. "Well, will you take the deal?"
"I can't believe a bunch of children would have much to teach," he said quite dubiously.
"You're right, we don't, but it's better than nothing. You can fight off most bandits with this, and with time, maybe your people will develop their own secret techniques and come into their own." Pausing, I added. "I'd like it if you stayed on friendly terms with Konoha, personally, so make that two terms. You'd never be able to stand up to Konoha ninja with these three techniques anyway."
So, we taught them a bit, goofed around, saw the sights, got some free local cuisine, trinkets and fashion as gifts, Naruto got to officially Hokage for a day and happiest kid on earth ("I'm Hokage, believe it!"), and we headed home feeling pretty satisfied.
Until we ran smack into Kiba's mother and another ninja.
"Oh crap! We're all gonna die, it's my mom!" Kiba screamed the moment he recognized her, completely forgetting about pretending to maintain his disguise, running away with Akamaru, only to get pounced on and drooled on by a big black dog. I would have laughed at his expense, but I was too busy ducking and weaving away from the other ninja.
"We give, we give!" Hinata held up her hands pleading. "We were heading back home now anyway!"
"What a drag. I guess punishment is coming early." Shikamaru sighed.
Sakura shook. "Oh, my parents are going to be so pissed. Why did I let you guys talk me into this?"
"Talk nothing, you decided to follow on your own, didn't you?" Ino shouted, and things descended into infighting as children tried to stick the blame on other children. I felt embarrassed at the chaos.
"My opinion of you... is that you're all a bunch of brats," stated the unknown ANBU ninja who accompanied Kiba's mother. For whatever reason, he seemed to have it after me. I was perfectly willing to go, but I didn't like being grabbed much, and mischievously substituted other children into his grasp.
"Traitor!" they called me, and I just stuck my tongue at them childishly. Foolishly I let myself get caught up in that distraction however, and the next thing I knew, he had me. I looked at him without a trace of guilt. I wondered if I was going to be blamed as the main instigator of all this?
The answer was yes, yes I was.
.
.
(1)- In real life there is a fire katon technique called Hitsuke; the art of setting a fire to distract your opponent!
(2) – In the manga, his eventual rejection of Kabuto's methods (if I remember correctly, I never actually read that far, just picked it up from the fandom and Naruto wiki :P) is indicative he can learn from mistakes.
I have no idea how early on Shino received his bug pet minions. Let's just assume early.