Sarutobi Hiruzen was stirred from his thoughts by the six-year-old waggling his robes. "Ahaha, forgive me, Naruto, what did you say?" the old man said, having the decency to look embarrassed.
"Jeez, you always look off like that!" Naruto pouted.
"You must excuse me, Naruto. My mind isn't what it used to be," Hiruzen confessed. It was true that he may have been only in his sixties to civilians. He was ancient compared to most shinobi, some would say he deserved it, but Hiruzen would disagree with them. Ever since the Kyubi's attack and Minato's death, Hiruzen couldn't help but reflect on his mistakes. Admittedly being Hokage during two major wars and countless other meaningless minor crises had taken a toll on the man, and his guilt mounted every day.
"Who are the bush shinobi?" Naruto questioned, breaking Hiruzen's train of thought.
"The bush shinobi?" Hiruzen echoed with some confusion.
"Yeah! The shinobi with the funny masks that hide in the bushes", Naruto elaborated, then turned back to his bowl of ramen.
'Ah, the ANBU guard,' Hiruzen mused. He was surprised that Naruto had even caught glimpses; possibly one of them had gotten careless. Maybe they had shown themselves to the boy in hopes of staving off his isolation. By the Sage, he needed it. The boy hardly had any friends as it was.
"They're called ANBU Naruto. They take important missions that other ninja cannot do," the old man returned. They often work in secret so that others can't see them.
"Why were they following me then?" He inquired, eyes wide and blinking owlishly.
"Because I ordered them to protect you," the old man replied amiably.
The young boy beamed like a fox and returned to gorging his ramen with gusto. "Oi Naruto!" the cook to the boy, "Eat more slowly, or you'll get sick.
No intelligible reply was given, but it gave everyone at the stand a laugh listening to him attempt to speak through his ramen.
"Hey, Jiji?" Naruto questioned
"Yes, Naruto?"
"Do you think I could be one of those ANBU?"
Hiruzen's mind came to a halt as he switched gears. "No," he said sternly
Naruto looked surprised by his response. "Why not?" he pouted.
"Naruto the ANBU take on missions that are not only dangerous for the shinobi who takes it on but also is dangerous for the village,"
It was for the best that the notion was put out prematurely, Hiruzen thought to himself, by the Sage he had fought with half the damn council to keep him out of that cursed branch. He wanted to see Naruto at least have the best youth he could under the circumstances, though even that seemed to backfire on him as Naruto had been all but ostracised by the village and seemed that the life of a shinobi was his only escape from notoriety.
Hiruzen sighed heavily as he thought back to his decisions concerning Naruto's childhood. Perhaps Danzo was right about preparing the boy, as much as Hiruzen hated to admit it. Naruto was an asset, a trump card. Still, he shuddered to think about if the boy had been conscripted into the ANBU corps from birth. No, it was for the best that he was shielded from it. Besides, he would be going to the academy in a year and a half's time.
He was broken from his thoughts when a masked shinobi flickered into existence from his left
"Hokage-sama, your presence is required.
Hiruzen groaned once more and moved from his seat. "Well, Naruto, I hope that you have enjoyed your ramen as much as I have," He told the young jinchuriki.
Naruto gave him his trademark grin and gave him a thumbs-up, "Thanks for the ramen Jiji!"
The old man smiled at the boy's exuberance. He moved down the street toward the tower, leaving young Naruto to stew in his thoughts as he requested another bowl of ramen.
'Those ANBU guys sounded pretty cool! Even though Jiji doesn't want me to be one, he thought glumly. 'He said they go on super-secret missions. Maybe I can go on my own super-secret mission! That'll teach him that I can totally be ANBU!' With that thought in his head, he finished his ramen and paid for the food, and walked down the street, ignoring the ugly stares he got from strangers.
The boy trudged back to his house, speculating about his super-secret mission, when a thought occurred to him. There was a fireworks shop in the Uchiha district of the village. With that, Naruto entered his apartment, trying not to pay attention to the curses that had been on his front door, and began thinking about his options to get into the shop unnoticed.
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5 hours later...
It had been relatively easy to get into the Uchiha district. The clan members just tended to ignore him. It was getting into that bastard's shop that was the hard part. As soon as the man had seen a hair on his head, he kicked him out of the shop. Luckily for Naruto, he had found a window to the basement.
"Alright, this is it!" he said as he squirmed into the window, just for him to fall onto his stomach as he fell through the opening. He groaned and lay on the floor, waiting for the pain to subside. As he slowly got back onto his feet, he became confused by the ordinance lying around him.
"Hey, I thought this was a fireworks shop, not a damn armory!" He muttered to himself.
One of the boxes caught his attention with the paper that it contained. The flowing ink seemed to draw him in. He picked up a sheet and dropped it quickly as he recognized what it was. "Explosion tag," he whispered, "Wait, how did I know that?"
His thoughts were interrupted by the trapdoor rattling. Naruto quickly dove into the box full of seals and put the lid on top.
He could hear two sets of footsteps come down the stairs. As the two reached the bottom, he could listen to bits of their conversation.
"Is everything ready?"
"It is Fugaku-sama"
"You've done well, thank you."
The pair talked for quite a bit, but they moved back up the stairs after a while, and Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. Just be sure that there was no one else. He waited a time until he clambered out of the box. It was now dark, and Naruto, getting cold feet, decided that it wasn't worth the trouble he could get into for this stunt and was on his way out.
That is until he heard the screaming.
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It was dark. The night had an eerie quality that gave those who were still walking the streets of the Uchiha district a distinct shiver as if the Shinigami was breathing down their necks. How true they realized, such a thought to be when the screaming began.
At first, no one was sure what was really happening, but as more and more people crashed to the dirt, reports came in that it was the clan head's eldest son. In light of this, Daichi Uchiha had hidden in his shop. His shop was civilian, with many fireworks and the like to supply during holidays and festivals. Yet, in the basement of his shop, many articles would be found predominantly in the ninja district. Kunai, shuriken, Fuma shuriken, explosive tags, and other various weapons used by the ninja of his era were well stocked and ready to be put out for sale. But no such thing was to be done with these weapons. They were to be used for the glory of the Uchiha clan, to restore the Uchiha to their former power. To enact a coup d' état upon the village of Konoha.
Thus as the former shinobi of forty years of age sat trembling underneath the desk that held the cash register, he heard the screams come closer and closer to his "fireworks" store. When the voices had reached their apex, suddenly they stopped, as an audible hiss of shuriken met the air. Silence reigned throughout the street as the man sat, pissing himself, on the floor of his shop. Fifteen seconds, thirty seconds, a minute, now two. The terrified man, hesitantly peaking up from his admittedly terrible hiding spot, saw that indeed no one was in nor near his shop.
He closed his eyes and started to breathe slowly, an anvil lifted off his chest. That is until he opened them back up and saw two red eyes looking back at him. Narrowed as a judge who convicted the guilty. In a panic, Daichi detonated the explosive tag on the bottom of his cash register, a fail-safe for thieves. Hiding in the smoke, Daichi ran to the trapdoor that held the weapons of his clan's glorious cause when a kunai pierced his thigh. As the pain raced through his leg, he tripped down the stairs, causing him to break his nose on the hard concrete of his basement. At this, Daichi accepted his fate and turned to meet his executioner's eyes with blood dribbling down his chin. As he lifted his eyes to the 14-year-old boy, his rage mounted more and more. "TRAITOR" The man screamed, "ITACHI, OUR CLAN COULD HAVE BEEN AMONG THE GREATEST IN HISTORY, BOWING TO NO ONE, YET THE HOKAGE HAS TURNED YOU AGAINST US."
More shade than human, the boy silently walked down the stairs, his eyes forever fixed on the veteran with cold indifference. When he reached the bottom, he unsheathed his ninjato and moved like a ghost into stance. "I loved our clan with all my heart, uncle," Itachi said quietly. "But I love Konoha more." With that statement, the boy brought his sword through his Uncle's throat, making the man fall onto his side, quietly gurgling his lifeblood onto the floor. As Itachi watched Daichi pitifully mewl on the floor, he shed a single tear for his Uncle and, bringing his head up, closed his eyes, and sighed.
Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, Itachi noticed a shock of blonde, moving exceptionally fast towards the Anbu operative with a sword that was much too large for him. Quick as a flash, Itachi made an uppercut connecting with the person's upper face. With a cry, he dropped to the ground, his hands moving to his right eye. Itachi would have followed through with a stab through the neck, relatively painless death, when he realized who he was looking at. Naruto Uzumaki, the resident jinchuriki of Konoha, was lying at his feet, grunting and gasping in pain while fighting the urge to cry. Itachi was familiar with the boy, for he had been on the boy's Anbu watch for about six months and meant the boy no ill will. Though seeing him writhing on the floor.
Itachi was at a bit of a pause. At the same time, he couldn't kill the boy. He also was privy to classified information. While he had genjutsu, which could wipe an average person's memory, Naruto was a jinchuriki, meaning that the extra chakra pool in his body would disrupt his genjutsu on immediate contact. As Itachi pondered what he could do, he was broken out of his thoughts by the jinchuriki who had grabbed the sword once again and looked back up at Itachi, staring at him with a single left eye. As Itachi moved to disarm the boy once more, he heard Naruto utter a single word. "Why?" It was a whisper, yet it reverberated across the basement like it had been the scream of the now-dead Daichi.
"To test myself," Itachi began to explain to Naruto, remembering the lie he had told Sasuke. "I needed the best challenge to test myself against. It seems that my clan has fallen short."
Silence once more reigned in the basement, and when Itachi figured Naruto was satisfied, he turned to leave as Naruto once again said a single word "Bullshit." Itachi's eyes widened a fraction as he turned back to the eight-year-old boy looking at him with rage-filled eyes. "Your eyes," Naruto breathed. "They're just like mine."
Itachi's eyes widened even more, this time, though for a different reason. While being an Anbu operative, he was conditioned to emotional training. Usually, when he entered such a state, he would only comprehend what he had done afterward. But for some inexplicable reason, Naruto's words had brought him out of his zone. His breath hitched, his eyes dilated, and he sank to his knees. He had wiped out his clan, butchered men, women, and children. He had killed his mother and father, all to stop them from killing more and burying their village in ashes.
At this point in time, he was not the prodigy of the Uchiha clan, nor was he the Anbu operative who had carried out dozens of successful missions. At this point in time, he was simply Itachi Uchiha, a fourteen-year-old boy who had killed those closest to him for "peace." Thus Itachi had the inexplicable urge to pour his heart out to the eight-year-old boy in front of him for no other reason than to get it off his chest. If he was able to at the time, Itachi would have laughed. "Indeed, you are right." He sighed, closed his eyes, and, r, regaining his composure stood back up and proceeded to tell Naruto what had happened to lead him to this point.
"So the Uchiha were gonna try and kill Hokage-Jiji?" Naruto asked, eye wide. "Yes," Itachi replied,
"Then why do you have to kill everyone?" Naruto said quietly. Itachi privately pondered whether he should tell him one final piece of information.
"To save my little brother Sasuke" He quietly. "The massacre will happen either way, but if I do it, I'll at least be able to save one innocent." As Itachi wondered how this got to this point, he heard a fist slam into the floor.
"Why the hell did this need to happen in the first place!" Naruto muttered under his breath, "What the hell is the point of it all when stuff like this has to happen."
Itachi sighed "Because it is better to endure suffering and survive than to face extinction, from a biological standpoint even you can see that"
"BULLSHIT!" Naruto yelled again, "There has to be something worth death! You said it so yourself! 'You love the village more'! Isn't that more than self-preservation! You put your own happiness and suffering on the alter of Konoha! Isn't that the exact opposite of what you're saying? There are things worth dying for Itachi!"
Despite his newfound respect for the child in front of him, Itachi snorted. "You are a mere child. How can you claim to know such things?"
"Because otherwise my parents died in vain and left me here all alone, I refuse to believe that! Every time I look at the Hokage monument, I feel that. You're right, I am just a kid, but that doesn't mean I don't feel the same pull that you do!"
The fourteen-year-old looked at the mourning orphan and saw something that very few others had seen in him. He was not a prankster, not a good-for-nothing ragamuffin, nor a demon fox, but the makings of a leader. He was old enough to remember when people still spoke of the lost clan of the Uzumaki, distinguished for their determination. While the young boy looked nothing like an Uzumaki, he believed that notion. Itachi came to a split-second decision. He was about to damn himself to the deepest, darkest pits of hell. Perhaps he could help someone that deserved it out of those pits himself. He chuckled mirthlessly while looking at Naruto's bloody and now destroyed right eye.
"Thank you, Naruto," Itachi said softly.
"Huh? What for?" Naruto inquired, still clutching his right eye.
"For giving me strength." Itachi answered, "And for that, and to help you become Hokage, I am going to give you a gift. Naruto was about to reply when the butt of Itachi's ninjato met with his forehead, knocking him out cold. The Anbu operative caught him and laid him on the ground.
"Indeed, I will give you the best gift I can give if I don't botch the surgery, that is," Itachi said more to himself than anything else. He bent down beside the boy and performed five hand signs. Boar → Dog → Bird → Monkey → Ram. Smoke appeared beside him, masking whatever he had just summoned. "I pray that this works," he murmured. In front of him was a crow with mismatched eyes, one was with the eye of an ordinary crow, but the other had the eye of his best friend. Shisui Uchiha.
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1 hour later
Hiruzen was a man who rarely was mad. Years of experience and mistakes due to his emotions had taught him that staying calm was the best thing to do in a dangerous situation. And in this case, Hiruzen wasn't mad. He was utterly furious.
"What a mess," He murmured to himself. He watched the shinobi go about their tasks, collecting evidence and bodies alike. "What a damn mess."
"Who could've done such a thing?" an operative audibly whispered.
The old Hokage knew precisely who had done it. The boy had met him hours earlier and confirmed it.
Hiruzen, however, did not answer Inu though. A voice from behind him did.
"Itachi Uchiha," The man clarified.
Hiruzen could have punched Danzo. Of course, he was behind this fiasco!
"Itachi despised his clan. That is why he murdered Shisui and took his eyes, caused infighting among his clan, and finally committed this atrocity."
"But why would he-"
"Enough talking! I want the bodies gathered and taken away!" Hiruzen nearly shouted.
The operatives in the area complied with the order and quickly Shunshin'd out of sight lest they be in the way of the Hokage's ire.
The old Warhawk came to his left side. "This settles everything," Danzo said after a pause.
"What does this settle, Danzo? By the Sage! Do you not see the huge problem we're left with?!" Hiruzen retorted, whirling around to face the bandaged man, his anger quite visible.
"I consider it very minor," the Danzo confidently replied.
The old Hokage took a second to collect himself, lest he did something that he would regret later on.
"Danzo, I cannot allow you to act on your own any longer," Hiruzen finally stated after taking a deep breath. "As of this moment, you are relieved of your duties as second in command."
"But Hiruzen, I did it for-"
"The good of the Leaf?" Hiruzen angrily interrupted, "Well, the Uchiha were part of the Leaf, and look where you left them, tattered, bloody, and nearly extinct!"
"Sacrifices are necessary for the good of the whole," Danzo coldly answered.
Hiruzen was close to his breaking point, so he took another second to calm himself. "Your ANBU and NE will be dissolved, I will deal with you later, and until then, you are confined to your quarters!"
Danzo gave no outward sign of anger or frustration, but Hirzuen could see how his cane was shaking slightly. "I understand Hokage-sama," He hollowly said and turned away, two of his shinobi flanking him.
Hiruzen sighed and turned the other direction from which Danzo was and started to walk up the district's main street. "First the Senju, then the Uzumaki, now this?" He murmured regretfully. He knew that many nuke-nin, bandits, and possibly other significant factions would take advantage of the situation. Indeed Konoha had been severely weakened in the last few wars despite coming out on top, and this could have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
Inu flickered into sight, "Hokage-sama," he began, "We've found a survivor."
'Probably young Sasuke,' estimated Hiruzen. "Take him to the medical facilities, make sure he isn't under any genjutsu," he commanded.
Inu nodded and created a shadow clone that flickered out of sight. "There's something else, Hokage-sama," Inu said while walking up to the aged man. "I found Naruto-Kun in the district," he said in a loud, lowly voice.
Hiruzen's eyes widened, and his knuckles turned white. "Take me to him," he commanded harshly. Inu nodded and whispered, "I found him in the basement of Daichi's shop, he was unconscious, but he was stable."
The aged man breathed a sigh of relief and composed himself, he wished they could move faster, but as Hokage, he had an appearance to keep.
The shop was in mayhem. It looked like an explosion had gone off in the main room. Merchandise was thrown everywhere, and there were scorch marks where the cash register had been. Down the stairs, Hiruzen saw the young boy sprawled out on the floor.
"Has he been hurt?" Hiruzen asked Inu.
"I'm not sure."
"What do you mean?"
"Take a look at his face."
Hiruzen crouched over the boy and turned his head towards him. A large scar that ran horizontally to his face was visible. It was almost fully healed. Still, he didn't like that there was a scar in the first place. "It looks like a rather deep wound, Inu have you checked his eye for any damage?"
He remained silent as if uncertain of what to say. Hiruzen glanced back at him.
"Inu?"
"I did, but I...please check it yourself, Hokage-sama."
Hiruzen was unnerved a little by Inu's disinclination, to say the least, even in situations that affected him. Inu was as professional as it got. To hear him answer such a straightforward question with such trepidation made him a bit cautious.
Still, Hiruzen moved his hand to Naruto's scarred eye, and when he pulled back his eyelid, He couldn't believe what he saw.
A red pinwheel that resembled a shuriken swirled and stared back at the aged man. He recognized it as Shisui's Sharingan.
Hiruzen sat there for a solid minute, pondering what he should do before finally saying, "Inu, disregard all other objectives you have been given and take him to safehouse 401 as soon as possible."
Inu shakily bowed and moved to gather the six-year-old when Hiruzen stopped him. "As of now, this is 'S' rank classified intel. You are to share this under no circumstances without my express permission. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Hokage-sama,"
"Good, now leave before anyone sees you."
Inu slung the boy on his shoulder and carried him out of the dilapidated shop. Hiruzen stood back up and sighed heavily. 'Must that boy be burdened with more than he already was?' He thought to himself. There was no way out now. Naruto would have to become a ninja earlier than Hiruzen wished for. The boy would be ostracised even more than he already was. Neighboring factions might try to take the eye for themselves. He remembered the boy asking him about the ANBU branch earlier that day.
"Do you think I could be one of those ANBU?"
'May Minato and Kushina forgive me for what I must do,' He thought to himself. His hand had been forced, and now they were crossing a bridge they couldn't retreat from. Naruto, of course, would most likely have to be inducted into the ANBU corps.
Hiruzen pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily once again. He slowly moved up the stairs, his shoulders sagging.
"I really am getting too old for this," He chuckled mirthlessly as he reached the top of the stairs.
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Safehouse 401
Naruto first became aware of the bandages covering his face, specifically the applications covering his right eye, twitching badly from what he could tell. The second thing he became aware of was the pounding headache he had.
"Oh, you're finally awake," A voice said. "You've had a pretty rough night. I'd suggest you stay in bed."
Naruto shot out of bed and immediately regretted it as his headache became worse. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a young man with messy white hair and a dog mask.
"Inu!" Naruto cried, "Itachi didn't mean it! He was trying to protect the village..." Naruto broke down into an incoherent blubbering mess after that phrase. Inu was beyond perplexed by what Naruto had said. He sat down on the bed next to the boy and awkwardly patted the sniffling boy's head.
"If you can calm down, you'll be able to explain the situation to me," He gently explained.
After a few minutes of hiccuping and gentle rubs on the back, Naruto fell silent.
"Are you ready to explain?"
Naruto nodded and repeated the tale that Itachi told the young boy. By the end, Naruto was in tears again, and Inu sat in shock next to him. Inu realized after a few minutes realized that Naruto had fallen asleep again.
Inu left the room and entered the living room pondering the story that he was told. He found that he, too, like Naruto, was exhausted from the events that had occurred during the night and lay down on the couch, determined to get some shut-eye. He didn't need to guard the safehouse 401 was practically an impenetrable fortress. It used to be the Uzumaki compound, but because they had been nearly obliterated, the council thought it prudent to allocate it to a more practical purpose due to the robust seals protecting the compound.
'How ironic,' Inu thought to himself, 'that Naruto is the first person to be in this house in 6 years. He then drifted off to sleep.
A few hours later, he was stirred by a swift whack! to his mask by something wooden. "Hokage-sama?" He asked bleary-eyed.
"Hm indeed, how is our young charge?" The aged man replied, holding his pipe in his hand.
"Mildly traumatized by the situation, I'm not sure that he knows about the eye."
Hiruzen nodded, and the pair were silent for a moment. Inu finally asked, "Is it true?"
"Is what true?"
"That the Uchiha were planning a coup."
Hiruzen's eyes widened slightly for a moment. He sighed heavily and reached into his robes for his more expensive tobacco. He did not have a tool on him, so he mashed the tobacco into his pipe with his thumb. The first layer he pressed down on was somewhat hard, the second less, and the third even less.
This systematic process took the Hokage around a minute, and when he was done, Hiruzen lit the pipe with a small fire jutsu. He deeply sucked the smoke into his lungs through his mouth and expelled it through his nose, filling the room with the scent of pipe tobacco. His shoulders sagged, and somehow he looked 20 years older than his actual age.
"Yes," Hiruzen finally said.
Inu took off his mask, revealing Kakashi Hatake, and looked up at his superior "So what are you going to do about this whole situation now?" He asked.
"Itachi will be branded a traitor, and his name will be put in the bingo books." Hiruzen calmly explained.
"How can you justify that!" Kakashi all but shouted, "He averted what could have been a civil war, and you're just going to throw him to the wayside like a broken tool?!"
Hiruzen was silent for a moment and replied, "Itachi asked me to it so that his clan's honor would not be tarnished."
Kakashi looked away at that. "We've got to posture as if nothing is wrong," Hiruzen said, opting to change the subject. "Especially in regards to Kumo, they might try and pull a stunt as they did three years ago."
That was a political disaster, to say the least. During a diplomatic meeting, the Kumo shinobi attempted to kidnap the heiress to the Hyuga clan, they were caught. Still, Kumo had plausible deniability in regards to the situation and claimed they knew nothing about it. They then had the gall to ask for the head of the man who had killed the shinobi, who happened to be Hisashi Hyuga. In a series of events to which Hiruzen was not privy, his twin brother was sent instead.
"The Inuzuka will take over the police will genin and chunin to reinforce them," continued Hiruzen. "I will call an emergency meeting in the morning to discuss this with the council. The village will be put in a state of lockdown for a week or so to give the appearance of control over the situation. In the meantime, I want you to stay here with Naruto. My previous order concerning you and Naruto fraternizing is rescinded."
Though the young man wasn't showing it, he was relieved with the last statement. The old Hokage had ordered him to stay away from Naruto for his protection. It would've been very convenient for the 4th Hokage student to meet with a village orphan with spikey blonde hair. While Kakashi understood the order, it didn't mean he liked it.
With the order decommissioned, he could finally help Naruto from outside of the shadows.
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"Man, this place is just depressing," Naruto groaned
He was standing in what looked like a sewer with water covering about a half-inch of the floor. He had been walking through the place for a while now, but it didn't seem to lead anywhere.
"I wonder if there is a way out of here?" He muttered to himself, wondering whether he was just going to be stuck here forever. Nevertheless, he kept on walking, hoping to see an exit out of the tunnel.
Suddenly he could see something ahead of him, with a "yippee!" He ran toward what he thought to be an exit, only to be met with broad iron bars with a piece of paper that said 'seal.'
"What the hell is this place?" Naruto muttered, staring at what looked to be a giant cage.
"My hell, my own personal hell," a deep, ominous voice from behind the cages said.
"Who's there!" Naruto shouted, suddenly afraid.
"Come closer, and I'll tell you," the voice called out
Naruto came up to the bars when a clawed, orange, and covered in fur slammed into the bars, making a sound like a hammer striking an anvil, only amplified by about a hundred times. Then a large red eye appeared out of the darkness, frightening the boy further.
"With all the bad luck I have, you would have been given that cursed eye!" The being roared. "The eye of the traitor to my father's will!"
Naruto was scared witless at this point, but as the boy was prone to do in dire situations, he hid it under a veneer of confidence. "What the hell are you talking about, you bastard!" He yelled angrily
The being just chuckled, "Look into the water, you fool!"
The boy reluctantly looked into the water, and what he saw surprised him. Red-eye with a pinwheel pattern in the middle stared back at the young boy. Naruto's eyes widened as he remembered Itachi's words
"I am going to give you a gift."
"What in the world?" He said out loud. The being said nothing but released a roar that sent the boy back to the land of the living.
AN
I apologize for the weird edits that I've been making
-Buck