What Lies Hidden Beneath The Leaves
(Second half)
It was a bright and sunny day.
It shouldn't have been, but it was. If the world had any sense of justice it would have been a gloomy morning, maybe with a thunderstorm brewing on the horizon or hail the size of golf balls falling from the sky. But no the weather didn't even have the decency to be cloudy. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and there wasn't so much a single cloud to block the clear blue skies. It was as perfect a start to the day as you have hoped for
Which was why when Hanabi walked up to me, I was blissfully unaware of the bombshell she was about to drop on my lap.
"Onii-sama." She tugged insistently on my sleeves, drawing my attention to her, and I had to resist the urge to squeal and cuddle her when I found her staring up at me with wide puppy eyes. With a will that would have shamed iron, I managed to beat the urge into submission and patiently waited for Hanabi to finish speaking.
I'll cuddle up to her once she was done telling me whatever she wanted to.
"Onii-sama," she repeated, tilting her head to one side, "is it true that you're going to become Naruto-nee's Waifu?"
Something shattered in my heart.
I felt the world tilt beneath me at hearing those words leaving my sister's lips, throwing me off balance but, as I began to learn, children could be thoughtlessly cruel. Never did that truth become more evident to me than when Hanabi continued to speak, unaware that she had inadvertently shattered my world.
"Does this mean you're going to wear a dress for your wedding?" She asked me sincerely, her brow scrunching in thoughtful confusion as she brought a finger to her chin only to suddenly burst into an excited smile, "Then, then can I help you pick it out?"
It was on that bright sunny day, surrounded by the singing of birds that I began plotting my second murder.
I didn't know how, I didn't even know when, but one day I will get revenge on Kakashi.
And when I do, my vengeance will be sung in legends.
"-And then Shikamaru was like," Naruto scrunched up her face, her voice coming out as a tired drawl as she imitated Shikamaru, "this is bullshit."
I couldn't hold back a snicker from where I stood off to the side, the impersonation so spot-on. It seemed Naruto had the same problem because after a few seconds of holding the expression she lost it, collapsing into a heap as she wrapped her arms around her stomach and howled with laughter.
"You should have to see it Mom," Naruto said once she managed to pull herself together and pushed herself back up into a sitting position, humour thick in her voice. "His face, my god, his face, I don't know how to describe it. It was covered in so much soot that he looked like a raccoon. It was hilarious." She snickered and shook her head at the memory. "But I don't know what he had to complain about. We got the bell in the end, didn't we? So what if Hikaru needed to blow up a forest to do it? It's not like we can't grow more trees to replace it."
"I blew up a forest?" I parroted, blinking dumbly at the girl, caught completely off guard by what she said. As the meaning of her words began to sink in however, I found myself straightening up with indignation.
"I blew up a forest? I? Oh, no-no-no, no. You don't get to pin that one on me, that was all you." I thrust an accusing finger at the blonde as I stalked up to her, where she remained kneeling beside her mother's grave. "There is no me involved in that mess at all. You were the one who planted a thousand and one tags before triggering it and blowing the entire forest sky high. With us still in it!" Stressing the last part.
Seriously, that was the single most terrifying experience I have ever been through. Alright, maybe not the most terrifying experience. The time I stole Kakashi's Icha Icha book, that still earned the top spot. Still, it was right up there, top three easy, and this coming from a guy who had literally died before.
Forest fires were seriously scary.
You'd think that would be obvious but knowing something was scary and experiencing it yourself was a completely different kind of beast. And it was only when I found myself standing in the middle of a forest fire did I realise just how terrifying they were.
What made it worse was none of us had seen it coming until we were already surrounded by flames.
One minute we were fine, surrounded by miles of lush green forest, safe in the embrace of good old mother nature, then I caught sight of Naruto forming the 'snake' hand-seal and the next thing I knew there was a big boom and were surrounded by a sea of fire.
It was traumatizing.
Poor Shikamaru still flinches whenever someone strikes a match.
"Hey, that wasn't my fault." Naruto crossed her arms and gave me a stubborn look. "Kakashi was about to catch Shikamaru, what else was I supposed to do? And besides, it too was your fault. You were the one who told me to send my clones to get more tags."
"But I didn't tell you to set them off all at the same time! And I only told you to grab the tags because nothing else we tried worked on Kakashi." I countered as I approached Naruto and knelt down beside her before Kushina's grave. "We tried everything we could think of to try and stop him. Traps, ninjutsu, everything, it didn't even seem to slow him down. He just kept shrugging off everything we threw at him as if there were nothing. I swear the only reason why Kakashi hadn't ended the exam at the point was because he was having too much fun tormenting us. What choice did I have? We needed to get more fire-power or else we'd have failed the test."
"...So what you're trying to say is," Naruto, after spending a couple of seconds pondering my words, said, "it's really all Kakashi's fault."
I thought about it for a moment before nodding, "Yeah, pretty much."
Wordlessly, we nodded to each other before turning to face the grave and, speaking as one, "Kakashi blew up a forest."
That was team 7's official motto, 'If something goes wrong, blame it on Kakashi'.
It might have been funny if we weren't being completely serious. That really was our team's motto. It had been ever since our third mission went fubar on us.
Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't as if we held any real ill-will towards our grey-haired Sensei but necessity forced our hands. The amount of trouble our team kept attracting was unbelievable, and I meant that in the literal sense, as in I literally could not believe just how much trouble we kept getting into. And going by the looks the Hokage kept giving us whenever we ended up wandering into his office, I wasn't the only one.
Setting the Genin Exam and the Tora mission aside, there were two other...let's call them incidents, where we had to be summoned into the Hokage office to sort the mess out. And it's only been two weeks since our team has been formed.
At this point, I was sure that half of Konoha's population were convinced that our team was jinxed and that the only reason why the Hokage hasn't split the team up was that he's afraid that if he tried he might cause whatever unlucky curse that haunted our team to spread and contaminate the rest of the Shinobi population.
It wasn't as if I couldn't have seen this coming to a certain extent when our team first formed. I mean, I knew that Naruto and I had a certain knack for getting into all sorts of trouble and, let's face it, Kakashi was even worse if anything, but throw us all in a team together and it was like our ability to attract trouble amplified. Whatever synergy we had going on was frightening, our ability to attract mayhem grew to insane levels and it reached the point where our team had already gained a reputation as a trouble magnet.
After a while of suffering through catastrophe after catastrophe, we realised that it would be easier to just heap all the blame on Kakashi instead of trying to think of excuses each and every time we got into trouble. And besides, odds are, it was probably his fault anyway.
And that was how the new Team 7 motto was born.
Naturally, Kakashi tried to reject it outright, he wanted to go with the motto of 'Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are even worse than trash' instead. And while I had to admit that was a freaking awesome line, we all agreed that the 'blame Kakashi' was a more practical slogan, so it stuck. And since choosing a team motto was a group decision instead of just the instructor, Kakashi couldn't do a single thing about it.
I swear our Sensei sulked for days afterwards.
Around us the graveyard was bathed in an orange hue as the sun began to set, dyeing us with its light. The smooth surface of the gravestones burned, set alight in crimson orange flames as they reflected the evening light.
It was peaceful here, empty save for the two of us, the silence filling the hill only disturbed by Naruto's voice as she recounted tale after tale to her mother. It was how we always spent this day, a tradition that we started together ever since we were six. Every year we came here, just Naruto and me, and Naruto would spend all day telling her mum about all the adventures and mischief she had managed to get up during the year while I would occasionally chime in whenever the blonde left anything out.
And seeing that Naruto could get into a lot of trouble over the course of a year, it didn't surprise me in the least that we had to stay until well after sunset till she finished.
"...Wait," I cut in, interrupting Naruto as she was in the middle of recounting another tale. "What did you just say?"
"Huh?" Naruto, caught off guard by interruption, turned to shoot me a perplexed look.
"Just now, that story you were telling your mom." I explained, my voice sounding unnaturally calm even to my ears "What did you just say?"
"Uhm..." Naruto must have sensed something off in my tone because she began edging away from me, shooting me with a worried look. "I said that Mio-san thought it was so cute that you wanted to become my house-wife."
"It was you!" I hissed out, pointing at the girl, indignation and surprise filling my voice. "I thought it was Kakashi who was spreading those rumours but it-was-you!"
"Eh?" Naruto blinked in bewilderment, caught completely off guard. She stared at the finger I thrusted at her face, going a little cross-eyed, before looking back up to me, "What was me? What rumours."
"Waifu! Wai-fu!" I hissed the word out like it was poison. I hadn't even known that term existed in this world until I saw Kakashi holding a copy of 'Icha Icha – How I met my Waifu'. Which reminds me, I'm going to have to do something really nasty to Jiraiya for his part in this, but for now, I had another target for my rage. I stalked up to Naruto, who had the audacity to look genuinely baffled but I knew better, "It was you! Don't try to deny it. You're the reason why everyone keeps thinking I want to be your house-wife!"
"Ah!" Naruto gave a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of her head, "I wasn't supposed to not mention that?"
"No!" I snapped, resisting the urge to throttle the girl, "You weren't."
"He-he, sorry," She pokes her tongue out, "My bad, I didn't know."
Even though Naruto tried to give me an apologetic expression, I wasn't buying it. The way the edge of her lips kept twitching told me that she was fighting to keep a smile off her face.
"It's not like I went out of my way to tell people," She quickly explained, raising her hands up in surrender as she caught the stormy look brewing on my face, "but I was talking to Mio-san about how we met Kakashi-Sensei for the first time and she wanted me to hear everything, so I couldn't leave that part out, now could I? Besides," by this point, Naruto dropped any pretence of being sorry and a wicked grin bloomed on her lips. She reached out to pat my head condescendingly, "There is nothing to be embarrassed about Hikaru-chan, I'm sure you'd make a wonderful Waifu one day."
Naruto couldn't hold it in any longer and broke into another fit of laughter, all but collapsing into the floor and kicking her legs in the air. The glare I sent her did nothing to diminish her humour as she rolled on the ground and kept laughing for a solid minute.
"It's not funny," I told her sullenly when her laughter began to abate, "do you have any idea what you've done? My entire Clan thinks I want to become your house-wife, not husband but wife. I'm not sure if they actually believed that or were just saying it for laughs but it was all they could gossip about for days. Hanabi even told me I'd make a wonderful bride someday. Who the hell knows what my father thinks of this once he finds-" I stopped talking as I felt my face turn pale. "Oh god."
"What?" Naruto asked, curious at the cause of the horrified mortification that appeared on my face.
"My Dad, he must have heard the rumours." I answered, palming my face, "No wonder he was giving me all of those odd looks during dinner, he thinks that the rumours might be true." I lifted my hand off my face to glare at Naruto when she broke out laughing again, "Stop that." I snapped sullenly, "It's not funny."
"No," Naruto managed to reel in her laughter and sit herself up, propping her hands behind her. Grinning mischievously, she pointed straight at me, "That is very funny." She snickered again, "And what makes it even better Mio-san had no trouble believing it."
"I know," I thought back to how my mother had been behaving recently, "I thought it was weird when she handed me an apron out of the blue last week. Oh god, my mom is actually supporting the idea, she's actually ecstatic with the idea of me becoming your wife. It was probably her fault that the rumours spread so fast."
"Now, now Hikaru-chan," Naruto gave me a teasing grin, "you can't blame this all on Mio-san. It's partly your fault for giving her the impression that you want to be a happy house-wife."
"My fault?" I shot Naruto a half questioning, half offended look "How exactly was this my fault. When did I ever do anything that would give her that impression?"
All the humour drained from her face as Naruto shot me a deadpan look, "Hikaru, this morning you were scrubbing the floor of my apartment wearing the very same apron your mum gave you."
"There was a STAIN!" I yelled out in outrage, "What was I supposed to do? Leave it?" All but snorting at the thought. Preposterous, as if I would allow such a thing. You can't let dirt get a foothold in your house, give it an inch and the next thing you know your entire house will turn into a pigsty.
"...and you wonder why people have no trouble believing the rumours," Naruto said while giving me a pitying look.
Seeing the expression, I decided enough was enough. She wanted to rat out my embarrassing secrets to my mom, well then two can play at that game.
"Kushina-san," tuning Naruto out completely, I turned to face the gravestone and began speaking directly to it, my tone pleasant and conversational, "did you know I once thought Naruto was a boy? It's true! When we first met I honestly believed she was a boy. She had her hair cut short back then and had such a boyish name that it never even occurred to me that she could be a girl. In fact, I kept believing Naruto was a boy for the entire first day we met and only found out the truth when I-"
A hand suddenly clamped over my mouth, muffling the rest of my words.
To my right, the owner of said hand was glaring at me, her blue eyes narrowed in warning. But whatever threat Naruto held in her eyes was diminished by the way her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.
"We agreed never to speak of that day." Naruto hissed, her entire face turned crimson at the memory of the event.
Gently pulling her hand free from my mouth, I turned and gave Naruto a smile, one that was every bit as wicked as the one she had been giving me earlier.
"But Goshujin-sama," I purred, deliberately using the traditional word for husband, one that only an overly submissive wife would use today as it could also be translated to mean 'master', "You surely must know how us lowly house-wives love to gossip. Why we couldn't keep a secret if our lives depend on it. Besides," I nodded to the grave, "this is your mom, my future mother-in-law, and I'm sure she would love to know about the first time you took a bath with a boy-"
"Nooooooooo-" The rest of my words were literally knocked out of me as a blonde missile crashed into my side and pushed me onto the ground. I barely had the chance to gather my wits together when I felt a weight straddle my waist and before I knew it, I found myself pinned to the ground as a pair of powerful hands latched to my shoulders and held me down.
"Shut it, Hikaru," Naruto ordered from above, face burning such a shade of crimson that it would have put any Uzumaki's hair to shame.
"Now, now, Goshujin-sama." Still playing the role of a submissive house-wife, I looked away and pretended to be embarrassed, "Are you sure you should be doing this? Isn't this a little much?"
Naruto stared bewilderingly down at me, clearly not understanding what I was trying to imply, so to help her along I nodded down to where she was straddling me. "I know you're excited but Goshujin-sama, it is rather inappropriate to mount your wife right in public, in front of your own mother no less?"
Still confused, Naruto slowly lowered her sights from my face and looked down to see what I was talking about before, somehow, managing to turn even redder at what she saw.
Pinned to the ground by the shoulders while she straddled my waist, her face held only a hand's span over my own while I laid trapped beneath her on my back, we painted a rather suggestive image. Had anyone been watching, and were our gender's reversed, it would have looked like she had pushed me to the ground and was about to have her way with me.
And I could see the realisation dawning on Naruto.
With her face only a few inches away, I had a first-row seat to witness her reaction. And let me tell you, it was a thing of beauty. What I wouldn't give to have a camera because watching the rest of her face turn into a tomato red was a Kodak-worthy moment as I had ever seen.
"But if Goshujin-sama demands it," still playing my role I raise a hand to my cheek and looked to the side, feigning embarrassment, even as I twisted the metaphoric hilt, "then as your wife I have no choice to but to help sate your lust."
"Hikaru!" I swear the sound of her mortified embarrassment was music to my ears.
I felt Naruto shift as she faced her mother's grave, her back against my own, arms moving in excitement as she resumed telling her the story of our now infamous first D-rank mission.
Around us the cemetery was dark, the sun had set long ago, while above us, the stars glimmered like an ocean of jewels in the night sky. With little light pollution to compete against they shone more brightly than I had ever seen back on my old world. And between the stars sat the moon, a lone island in the middle of the ocean, providing us all the light we needed to see with.
I leaned a little further back into Naruto and stared up at the sky, taking the sight in. Sitting on the ground with our backs to one another, propping each other up by leaning on the others back. Naruto was naturally facing her mother's grave while I got a view of Konoha instead.
It was a rather beautiful sight from up here. The hill towered over everything so there was nothing to block my view and I could see the entire village laid out before me like a painting, thousands of tiny lights blazing from windows pierced the darkness, mirroring the stars that hung above.
I've long lost count of the hours we had spent up here together, Naruto speaking to her mother, telling her about her year while I just sat back against her, quietly listening to her speak.
Like every year, Naruto would start out slow, hesitant and uncertain. For the first few minutes, her conversation came in fits and starts or spoken in near-silent murmurs more often than not, her usual bravado nowhere to be seen. She constantly kept stopping in mid-speech, looking unsure what to say, only to visibly gather up her courage and start up again.
And like every year, I did nothing but watch as she did this, sitting quietly by her side in silent support, knowing this was something she had to do on her own. But as the minutes, then hours passed us by, she steadily began to get over her nerves and started to get really into it, until she ended up chattering non-stop while gesturing all over the place as she tried to emphasize certain points during a story.
She told her everything that had happened throughout the year. From her pranks to the time she spent in the Hyuuga compound, the Genin Exam, her new teammates and our latest missions. She talked about the everyday little misadventure she's been through to the major events of her life.
I stayed silent through most of this, only occasionally interjecting to throw in a comment or two when Naruto had forgotten to mention certain bits of a story or tried to leave out the more embarrassing moments.
She talked about Shikamaru, who she referred to as 'the laziest Genin Konoha had ever seen since Kakashi was promoted to Chuunin'. Though for all that she complained about our resident Nara, she ended her assessment of his character by saying, "He might be the laziest bum around but, well, he ain't so bad when you get to know him."
Kakashi never shied away from the topic of the Kyuubi and even tried to encourage us to do the same. So unlike in the show where Naruto's status as a Jinchuuriki had hung over the team's head like an invisible guillotine, one that they all knew was there but did their best to ignore, Kakashi went out of his way to bring the topic up as often as he could. It wasn't exactly smooth sailing at first, nothing like talking about the killer Kaiju that murdered a good chunk of your village and was currently caged inside the body of the little girl standing next to you to kill the mood, but got over it fast. Kakashi's method might have been blunter than I would have preferred but it did eventually help dispel any awkwardness around talking about the Kyuubi and we reached the point you'd often find our team discussing the Kyuubi or the Tailed-beasts in general.
It might have been thanks to the environment that Kakashi created or maybe it was a sign of how much maturity Naruto over the years that she was no longer terrified of rejection, but one day Naruto had straight-up confronted Shikamaru on her status of the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi.
One day, as we finished our daily training session, she stomped up to Shikamaru, looking as if she was heading to war, and cornered him before he could sneak back home. Staring him straight in the eye, she outright asked if her being the Kyuubi's host would be a problem.
Shikamaru, back slouched more than usual due to exhaustion, hair thoroughly soaked with sweat and plastered against his forehead, sent her a tired glare as he drawled out, "If I wrote down every single reason why I hate you, the both of you," he amended, shooting a quick glare at me over Naruto's shoulder, "I would have a list over two miles wide. And trust me, you being a Jinchuuriki won't be anywhere on it. You could be the reincarnation of the Kyuubi for I care and it still wouldn't make it on the list. Now, will you leave me alone already so I can get some damn rest."
He barely managed to take a single step before he found himself trapped in one of Naruto's bone-breaking hugs.
"This," he wheezed, fighting to breathe, "this is going on the list."
After that Naruto told her mother about our new Sensei, Kakashi.
"He's a dick."
And that was pretty much all she had to say.
I couldn't help but give our grey-haired Sensei a sympathetic wince. Kakashi, my man, I don't know what to tell you but you need to shape up fast and redeem yourself because your reputation is in tatters.
It was a good thing the cemetery was empty because with how loud Naruto was talking we would have bothered a lot of people. With the exception of the grave-keeper, a taciturn man that only nodded in greeting whenever we saw him, the only other people we'd seen were an elderly couple who visited a grave a few levels below, paid their respects to dead relatives before leaving only a quarter of an hour later.
This was how it usually was at this time of year.
Rather it was like this all year round. With the exception of Obon, the traditional time to visit dead relatives, the cemetery was usually empty. However, during the Obon season, the place would get crowded, jam-packed with people as entire families came to visit the dead. So it was a good thing Naruto preferred visiting her mom on Kushina's birthday instead because the experience would have been far more public than either one of us would have preferred otherwise.
Not to mention awkward.
A lot of the recent graves around us were from the victims of the Kyuubi. And while no one would have begrudged her for coming, it would have made the entire experience awkward when we would be surrounded by people mourning their family and loved ones they lost during the Kyuubi attack. So it was better for all involved if we just avoided the cemetery during that time.
But even had that not been the case we would have still have preferred coming now rather than during Obon. It was far more private this way and we ended up having the entire cemetery to ourselves.
"That's when Ji-ji whacked his pipe on Kakashi-Sensei's head." Naruto lifted her hand up before swinging it down, yelling out 'whack' as she did so before she collapsed into giggles. "It was hilarious mom, you should have seen his face. Well, you couldn't really see his face through his mask and all, but I could tell anyway. And...and...and," Naruto trailed off, drifting into silence before a moment later I felt her slumping on my back, "and this is stupid."
"Naruto?" I turned my head to glance behind me.
"This is stupid Hikaru," She muttered, slumping further against me and slipping lower to the ground.
"What is?"
"This." She waved a hand awkwardly before her, "Trying to hold a conversation when I don't even know what she would say. Heck, I don't even know her."
"Hey," I turned around completely and Naruto, who had been leaning against me, dropped into my lap. I scooted around to make sure she was comfortable, "Don't say that now."
"But it's true." She looked up at me, her head nestled in my lap, blue eyes so bright even in the dark, "I don't know her. Hikaru, I don't know my own mom. I wish that I did but I don't, I don't know a single thing about her. Not one thing. What was she like? What did she hate? Would she laugh at my pranks or scold me for them? Was she strict like your dad or was she like Mio-san?"
"God I hope not," I murmured, partly serious and partly to brighten the mood. "I don't think the world could survive if there were two Mios."
My little joke, however, did nothing to cheer her up and Naruto continued staring forlornly at the grave.
When she spoke next, her voice was quiet, and there was a tiredness in it that I never wanted to hear coming from her.
"Sometimes I feel so stupid doing this," she whispered, "talking to someone I don't know. I don't even know if she would have even liked me."
"Now you're just being silly." Brushing away a strand of hair from her face, I stared down at her. "Your mother loved you Naruto."
"But Hikaru," She yelled back, her eyes shining brightly with what may have been tears. "I killed her. If she didn't have me she would still be-"
"Hey," I flicked her on the nose, causing her to wince and crinkle her nose in surprise, "none of that now. How many times have we talked about this? Your mother loved you, and nothing is ever going to change that. Not even death. And I know that if she could go back in time and do it all over again, she would still choose to have you, and with her dying breath she'd still tell you this," I wrapped my arms loosely around her and lowered my head so that my eye hung over hers, "'Thank you for being born'." I smiled down at the blonde, "And that's a fact."
"A fact, huh?" She responded gruffly back at me but even though she tried to hide it, I could tell she was pleased. "How would you know, you never met her either."
"Of course I know." I straightened up but left my arms where they were wrapped around her. "I don't need to meet her to know exactly what she would say if she was here."
"Oh yeah," she smirked up at me, eyebrows raised in challenge, "then tell me, if she was here what would she say?"
Though she tried to make it sound like a joke, there was an edge to her voice that let me know that she was serious.
Naruto really did expect me to know what Kushina would say.
There it was again, that absolute faith that this girl held for me.
Even though there was no possible way I could have known a thing about Uzumaki Kushina, she would believe every word that I said for no other reason than because I was the one who said it. That was one thing I could never understand, just why did Naruto believe in me, trusted me with every drop of her soul, even when it came to things I had no right knowing?
But even if I didn't understand why she did, I had no intention of ever proving her wrong.
"Well," I began, thinking back to the words she had spoken so long ago to her newborn daughter, "first of all, she'll start off by saying: Naruto, don't be a fussy eater."
Naruto looked gob-smacked, clearing not expecting me to say that, and she stared up at me with bewildered eyes before breaking out in laughter. "She would not!" Naruto guffawed, "Hikaru~, there is no way she would say that! Hahaha."
"Yes, she would." I answered primary, "Now hush and let me finish."
I waited for Naruto to stop her snickering before carrying on.
Clearing my throat, I recited the words as well as I could. "Naruto, don't be a fussy eater. Eat a lot and grow up to be a big girl. Take your bath every day. Go to bed early and sleep well. Make friends, it doesn't matter how many. Just make sure they're real friends, people you can trust. Even a few is enough."
"Got it." She nodded as she slipped her hand into mine and gave it a firm squeeze.
I squeezed back before continuing. "And study your ninjutsu, I never was any good at it, maybe you will be."
Naruto snorted, "Nope."
"Everybody has things they're good at and things they're not, don't feel bad if you can't do it at all." It honestly felt as if Kushina knew exactly how her daughter would have responded even so long ago. "Make sure to listen to the teachers at the Academy. And remember to avoid the three vices of Shinobi. Don't borrow money if you can help it. Save what you earn from missions."
"No worries there Mom, I'm rich." She quipped, watching her mother's grave from where she laid her head on my lap.
"No drinking alcohol until you're twenty. And don't overdo it, you'll ruin your body."
"As if Hikaru would let me," Naruto grumbled.
"Alcohol is evil and drunks are gross," I told her firmly, thinking about the few times Naruto tried to swipe a drink from one of the adults-only for me to stop her. "Now hush and let me finish."
I shut my eyes and took a moment to think of a better way to phrase Kushina's words before speaking. "As for men, well I don't know what to say, but there are only men and women in this world, and you'll want to get a boyfriend someday. Just try not to pick a weird one, try to find someone like your father."
"Sorry Mom, I'm not sure who my dad is," Naruto answered wistfully, as her father's identity is one of the few things that had been hidden from her. However, all signs of wistfulness were soon replaced as she gained a thoughtful look on her face. "But if your taste is like mine then Dad probably was a girly-boy wasn't he?"
"Hey!" I glared down at her, feeling vaguely insulted at that description, even if it did happen to aptly describe Minato. Naruto only snickered in response. "Just shut up and let me finish," I grumbled half-heartedly before resuming.
"And the fourth warning, watch out for Jiraiya-Sensei."
Naruto frowned and glanced up at me. "Who?" But I ignored the question and carried on.
"Naruto you're going to experience a lot of pain and suffering but be sure to remember who you are. Find a goal, find a dream, and don't stop trying until it comes true. There's-There's-There's so much I want to say, to teach you about, I want to stay with you, I love you.
"I'm so sorry, I wasn't there to raise you, I wasn't there to love you! I wish I could have stayed with you.
"But most importantly, I want you to know.
"I love you.
"And thank you…
"For letting me be your mother, for letting your Dad be your father.
"Thank you for being our Daughter.
"Thank you."
Having finished conveying the words she wanted to deliver to her daughter since birth, I drifted into silence and gazed at the grave of Uzumaki Kushina.
For a long while, neither of us said a thing.
"Though it was only for a short time, even with everything that happened, they- they still-" I stopped and looked down at their daughter. "Naruto, you were really loved."
There was no greater truth than that.
Naruto nodded, unable to speak as her chin trembled slightly while her eyes shone as the tears they held reflected under the moonlight.
"Yeah," she whispered at last, her voice thick with emotion. "I was, wasn't I?"
As always, Naruto didn't ask how I knew this, only that I spoke the truth.
And so we both remained there, Naruto nestled in my lap while my arms lay wrapped around her, one of her hands in mine, and we looked at the grave of her mother and thought of what might have been.
"Bye Mom." Naruto walked backwards, waving to her mother's grave, wooden sandals click-clacking against the stone floor. "I'll see you again next year."
"Goodbye, Kushina-san." I called out over my shoulder, trailing after Naruto, but keeping my eyes firmly rooted on the blonde, "And don't worry, I'll keep an eye on the idiot and make sure she doesn't get in too much trouble."
"Hey!" Naruto shot me a glare, "I'm not an-ahhh!"
The edge of her wooden sandals got tangled up with the hem of her kimono when she spun to face me, throwing her off balance and tripping her. She began to lurch backwards, her arms pin-wheeling furiously in a futile attempt to regain her balance as she dropped to the stone floor.
I managed to snatch Naruto's hand in the last second, holding her up while her head dangled barely a foot off the floor. Quirking an eyebrow down at the blonde, "You were saying?"
"Ah...hahaha," She gave an awkward laugh, rubbed the back of her head with her other hand before shrugging. "Oops?
Rolling my eyes, I lifted her up and set her back down on her own two feet.
"Thanks." She flashed me a smile before turning around and resumed walking, properly this time. And when she didn't let go of my hand, I said nothing, and just allowed her to pull me along.
We had barely taken a couple of steps when I caught sight of another familiar grave just a stone throw away, and couldn't resist giving the top of it a friendly pat. "Nice seeing you again Mito," I said as we walked past it, "I'll see you next year so keep it real and stay awesome."
Naruto, thrown off as she usually was by my casual attitude towards the dead, shot me a bemused look.
"Are you sure you're allowed to do that?" She asked, dubiously, looking pointedly back at Uzumaki Mito's gravestone, "Isn't that, I don't know, disrespectful or something?"
"Nah, Mito's cool." I patted another grave, which just happened to be another Uzumaki. Seriously, there were a lot of them buried here. "Besides, the entire point of a graveyard is to give people a place to rest. So no one will mind if I hanged around a little."
"Dead people, Hikaru." Naruto deadpanned, "It's made to give dead people a place to rest."
"Exactly," I quipped, feeling an ironic smile tugging on my lips. I did die, after all, so technically I had just as much of a right to be here as any of the people buried here. Just because I got better didn't revoke my right to own a grave, the living dead had just as much rights to own one as the regular dead did. I mean, zombies can move around like I did but no one ever tried to claim that they didn't belong in a graveyard.
I just applied the same logic to me.
Looking around at the thousands of gravestones that littered the hill around me, I waved and gave a mental hello to all of my fellow dead comrades. It was odd really, back in my past life graveyards creeped the crap out of me, especially at night, but now that I've died myself I lost all my fear of the place. It was almost like returning home in some ways.
"Besides," turning to smile at Naruto as I patted another Uzumaki tomb, "this is the Uzumaki section of the cemetery. And if your relatives were anything like you I doubt they'd mind if I messed around a little."
"Fine..." Naruto relented after thinking it over, but not before sparing a worried glance around the graveyard. "But don't come crying to me if you find yourself haunted by a ghost."
I found myself rolling my eyes at Naruto. For a girl who would happily fight a bear with her bare hands, Naruto could be surprisingly timid at times. She had an almost irrational fear of spirits and ghosts. As a child a well-told ghost story would send her clinging to my side, trembling like a leaf as she tried to bury herself into my chest. She had gotten better over the years, but her fear of ghosts had never completely gone away.
If only she knew that the hand she was holding technically belonged to a dead man. I had to bite back the urge to laugh hysterically at the image that thought conjured up.
On either side of us, lining the path, were the graves of the Uzumaki, the last remnants of a once-great Clan. After the destruction of Uzushiogakure – the village hidden in the whirling tides – the surviving members fled to Konoha in hopes of finding refuge with their old allies, which they had. Konoha welcomed the survivors with open arms, of which numbered only a few dozen in total. With the destruction of their old home, the remaining Uzumaki decided to settle down in Konoha and try to build a new life for themselves in the village.
Unfortunately, the Clan's streak of bad luck followed them here and by the end of the Third Shinobi War the great Clan had dwindled to but a small handful, becoming nothing more but a pale shadow of their glory days. Just like their cousins the Senju, they were targeted by the other villages out of fear of their strength and so shared a similar fate.
The nails that stood out the most were usually the ones hammered down the hardest.
They may have recovered given time were it not for the Kyuubi attack. Now there remained but one living Uzumaki in the entire village.
So as we made our way back home, we were surrounded by the graves of Naruto's last relatives.
Well, all save one.
I had no idea where Namikaze Minato's grave was.
He hadn't been buried beside his wife. I checked. He wasn't there. He wasn't buried in the Namikaze Clan section of the graveyard either. In fact, I couldn't spot his grave anywhere. I hadn't managed to piece it all together until I noticed that I couldn't find Hashirama's nor Tobirama's graves either.
With techniques like the Edo Tensei out there it made sense they would want to keep their bodies out of the public reach, even if Shinobi bodies were traditionally cremated.
I considered asking around about Minato's grave but I decided against it. While the identity of Naruto's mother was common knowledge, her father wasn't. If I started poking around about Minato, some people might get suspicious about how I knew.
Before I realised it, we had arrived at the staircase that ran down the hill. This time with Naruto walking by my side instead of riding on my back, we began the long climb down together. Our pace was leisurely as we went down the steps, neither of us in any hurry to reach home despite the lateness of the hour.
A comfortable silence had fallen between us, neither of us feeling the need to talk, so the only noise that could be heard in the quiet night was the chirping of crickets and the click-clack of Naruto's sandals.
Our journey down the stairs afforded us an unobstructed view of the village of Konoha, which looked like it had fallen asleep since I last paid attention to it. Hardly an hour earlier it had been blazing with life like a bonfire but in the short time since it looked like most of the villagers had gone to bed.
There were a few splashes of lights sprinkled here and there pouring out from windows in the residential district, probably a few night owls, and on the main roads there were strings of light that in front of business still open and running even in this late hour but for the most part, the village was dark as it's denizens slept the night away.
Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack, click-…..
It took me a few seconds to notice that the sound of her footsteps had stopped.
"Naruto?" Halting, I turned around only to find the standing girl a few steps behind me, having slipped her hand out of mine at some point. "Naruto?" I repeated, but she didn't seem to hear. Her face was turned away from me, her eyes locked at something in the distance.
Naruto's beautiful yellow kimono was no longer in the pristine condition it had been this morning, not surprising after all the time she spent either sitting or lying on the ground. Her obi, the sash, had come loose at some point and sat slightly askew on her waist while the kimono itself had gained several creases and wrinkles in its folds. Strands of golden coloured hair had fallen loose from the elaborate design they had been stylized in and now fell freely down her back.
Naturally, Naruto didn't notice how she looked and wouldn't have cared even if she did. To her, the only purpose of getting dressed up was for her mother's sake and now that she had finished with what she wanted, she no longer cared what she looked like.
Naruto's face, illuminated by the light of the moon as it peeked out from behind the clouds, was unreadable. Her expression was blank, an expressionless mask that hid whatever thoughts she held from me as she gazed towards the horizon, eyes riveted at something beyond the village. It was disconcerting to see her like this.
Following her line of sight, I found myself looking at the Hokage monument where the faces of the Hokages, both past and present, were carved into the face of the cliff, where they continued to watch over the village in death as they did in life.
More specifically, I discovered that Naruto was staring at one face in particular, the one that sat on the far right of the mountain. She was staring into the visage of the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, Konoha's famed yellow flash, the fastest man in the Elemental Nations and the master of the Hiraishin – The Flying Thunder God Technique.
And more relevantly he was also the man that defeated the Kyuubi when it attacked Konoha, single-handedly stopping its rampage in time before it could completely wipe out the entire village, but failed to do it in time to save Naruto's mother.
He was also the man who chose to seal the beast into the belly of an innocent newborn baby.
Thus dooming the child to carry the burden of the beast for the rest of her life.
"I hate him."
She spoke at last, the three words cutting through the silence of the night like a knife, eyes never leaving her father's face.
Her voice was so cold, deprived of their usual warmth that I almost shivered.
"...But...Naruto," I began, awkwardly, wanting to stay something but not sure what. "The Fourth...he's-"
My words died still-born on my lips when Naruto turned to me. Her blue eyes hard and unwavering, not a single fragment of uncertainty to be found anywhere inside of them as she stared down at me, face as blank as stone.
She spoke the words again.
"I hate him."
I found that there was nothing I could say.
"…I see." I said in the end and smiled sadly at my friend, the cool night breeze tugging on my hair. I found it hard to watch her like this, her usually bright expression transforming into something so cold, so hard, that I found myself turning away to look at the Fourth's face as it hung over the village instead.
Oh, how I wished I could laugh at the irony of it all.
Ah, to be hated by your own child. I gave the stone face of Naruto's father a wistful look. I know how that feels. Sucks, doesn't it?
I chuckled sadly before shrugging. Ah, well. It's only natural I supposed. I turned back around and began climbing up the stairs. It's only natural for a parent to love their children, but no one ever said that the opposite had to be true.
I covered the few steps that separated us and stopped once I stood by her side.
Reaching out, I took hold of her hand and gripped it firmly in my own.
"Come on." I gently led her by the hand down the stairs, "Let's head home."
She didn't resist and followed silently after me as we made our way down, the click-clack of her sandals echoing off the stone steps returning once again as we resumed our trek.
The rest of the journey down was spent in silence, not a single word passing between us until we stepped off the staircase.
It was a long walk down.
"Here's your meal." The waiter set down a bowl of gyudon before me, a dish consisting of rice covered with beef and onions, and I almost felt myself drooling at the sight of it.
"Thank you," I called out but the waiter was already gone, rushing around to serve the other dozen or so waiting customers their orders. So without further ado, I snapped open a pair of chopsticks, I began to dig in.
The first bite was glorious, I could feel my tongue burn slightly as oil from the sizzling hot meat dripped into my palette but I didn't care, the taste was divine, especially on an empty stomach, and I hadn't even finished swallowing before I was already reaching for my second bite.
Then an elbow rammed into my arm, knocking the food out of my chopstick just as it was about to deposit it into my mouth, sending it spilling onto the table. I found myself staring down mournfully at the wasted food, before levelling a glare at the man seated to my right.
The jerk didn't even have the decency to notice what he did. He was a dark-haired man, dressed up in white robes and a black overcoat, and he had his back towards me as he enthusiastically continued to chatter with his friends, who had dragged their stools so that they all gathered around him, and his left arm swinging about as he vividly told some joke involving his wife.
After a few seconds of futile glaring, I looked away and returned to savouring my meal, putting the incident out of my mind. There wasn't a point in telling him off, not when it was painfully obvious that the man was drunk. Even faced away from me, I could smell the alcohol reeking off of him like a perfume and the way he kept swaying on his seat made it clear he was approaching his limit. The guy kept speaking far louder than he needed to, devolving into fits of snickers every few seconds as he tried to get through the joke, occasionally slamming his left hand on the counter as he did.
God how I hate drunks, always have. I hated alcohol entirely, the very idea of something affecting my mind was off-putting to say the least. While I didn't care if someone enjoyed a glass or two, I couldn't stand it when they got flat out drunks. It was…disturbing to see normally intelligent and well-mannered people dissolve into mindless clowns whenever they got too into their drinks. It was one of the reasons why I rarely ever touched the stuff.
Putting him out of my mind, I once again focused on my gyudon and began to devour it with gusto. I had barely taken a few more bite when the asshole next to me jabbed me with his elbow again, though this time I managed to keep hold of my bite. Grunting, I ignored him in favour of digging into my meal. I didn't know if it was because of how hungry I was or if the chief was having a good day, but whatever it was the food tasted absolutely amazing. It might have been the best meal I could remember having in a long while and I savoured each and every bite and morsel as I scarfed it down. There was no way I was about to let a little bit of bad company ruin a meal this good.
As tempting as it was to simply pick up my dish and find someplace else to sit, I couldn't. The restaurant was jam-packed with people, there simply wasn't any room anywhere else to sit.
I couldn't remember the name of the place, but it was one of those tiny cosy little mom and pop restaurants you'd find in every neighbourhood. Three long tables filling up the middle while a row of tiny booths lined up against one wall. There was a long counter that stretched almost from one end of the store to another with a line of stools set before it, while on the opposite wall from the booths was a small stage, which usually sat abandoned.
The place was as busy as I had ever seen it, so filled to the brim with people that I couldn't find a place to sit when I first stepped in. Crowds of men and women filled the benches that bracketed the long tables in the middle, leaving me with no room to squeeze in, with the booths being equally occupied with couples or even small families. I even spotted a few children mixed in with the crowd at the table, though why would any parent bring their kids out so late at night was beyond me.
I was lucky to find any place to sit at all. After a quick futile glance around the restaurant, I had been about to give up and leave when a customer had stood up his spot at the counter, having finished paying his bill and was getting ready to leave.
Unfortunately, that seat just happened to be next to this obnoxious bastard. Ah well, it was probably for the best, even if a spot did open up I would have probably just ended up next to another drunk. There must have been some kind of local celebration going on that I hadn't heard about or something because it looked like most of the people in the room had a drink in their hand and at least two in their bellies. Half the crowd was either already drunk or well on their way to being so.
There definitely must have been some kind of celebration going on for the place to be so busy this late.
While the restaurant was a fairly popular local spot to eat I'd never seen it anywhere near so crowded before, not even during the day. The last couple of times I popped by this late the place was usually deserted, with only a couple of other customers in here with me. But at the moment it was so overflowing with customers that it was obvious that the waiters were barely managing to keep up with the number going by the haggard looks they were sporting.
They even hire a musician to perform on the small stage, something that I can't remember seeing being used before. The stage usually sat empty no matter the time of the day but tonight, a young lady in a dark blue kimono with beautiful black hair that reached down to her feet was on stage, kneeling before a koto, a traditional stringed instrument. And it was obvious to all listening that she was remarkably skilled. The way her fingers flowed over the instrument, sending ripples running down the surface whenever she plucked at the strings was memorizing to watch, and more than a few customers had paused in their conversation to stop and listen.
It was a shame that Naruto hadn't tagged along, I'm sure she would have enjoyed the food here had she been anywhere near as hungry as I was, and unlike me, she wouldn't have minded the crowd either. Hell, she would have probably picked the drunkard up and tossed him out of the window had he messed with her food.
On second thought maybe it was a good thing that she wanted to spend some time alone.
Visiting Kushina's grave had become something of an annual tradition for the two of us. And like most traditions, we ended up establishing a certain routine that we went through every year.
Each year we'd start the day by waking up early in the morning and enjoy a nice big breakfast to last us the whole day. Afterwards, we'd get cleaned up and dress in our Sunday best. This year I had to leave early to pick up the flowers, but normally we'd leave the house together and head towards the cemetery. Once there we'd spend the entire day in front of her mother's grave, and mean the entire day. Anyone who had ever heard Naruto speak could tell you she had a lot to say even on a normal day and it was almost impossible to get her to stop once she got going.
Most years Naruto would only end up finishing speaking to her mom well after sunset, so late at night that it could have just as easily been described as morning. Then once she was done we'd make our way down the hill together before splitting up and heading our separate ways once we were back in the streets of Konoha.
Yeah, it was the last part that I always had trouble with.
It wasn't like I couldn't understand the need for space sometimes but I didn't like the idea of leaving her alone. Especially this time of year. The brat always acted a bit strange after visiting her mother's grave, almost standoffish, and wanted to spend time alone afterwards. And while I didn't understand why I always respected her wishes and gave her some space. Which is why she would spend the night without me in her apartment while I head back to the compound.
As worried as I was about her spending the night alone, I knew she'd be safe. She still had a guard watching over her, a bird-masked Anbu that replaced Kakashi, so intellectually at least I knew that I had nothing to worry about.
Still didn't stop me from worrying.
I had a feeling that I'd spend most of the night waking up and checking up on her with my Byakugan, just a quick peek from time to time to make sure she was okay.
Have I mentioned how much I loved these eyes?
And sure, while some people might call it an invasion of privacy for me to use the Byakugan to check on my blonde friend, I would like to point out that this was the same girl who, at the age of six, had splatters of her own blood staining the ceiling of her apartment. She hadn't even realised that it was anything strange either. God knows how much trouble she could get into at twelve.
So for her sake, along with everyone around her that she may inadvertently traumatize, I was going to make sure to periodically check up on her once I got home.
Anyway, I had originally planned to head straight home after parting ways from Naruto, maybe even sneak into the kitchen to see if I could find any leftovers to eat before bed. But as I was walking down the street home I heard the sound of a koto playing, drifting through the air of the silent street. And it was such a beautiful melancholic melody that I found myself curious to its source.
When I realised that melody was coming for this restaurant it suddenly hit me, I was starving.
Maybe it was the smell that triggered it but I couldn't understand how I failed to notice how hungry I was sooner. I hadn't had a bite to eat since breakfast, and that must have been a good fourteen hours at least, so it was hardly surprising that my stomach was threatening to eat my own liver in protest. Hell, it was more surprising that my stomach hadn't been growling like a lion even earlier.
Which is why I was stuffing my face like there was no tomorrow. I mean sure, gyudon wasn't anything like the five-star meals I could get the chief back at the compound to prepare, it was barely a step above fast food really, but sometimes it was the simple comfort food that was the best thing to eat when you were famished. And I was going to enjoy every last bite-
The bowl shot out of my hands when an elbow slammed into it, sending it flying over the counter and tumbling to the ground.
Time appeared to freeze as I was forced to watch, helplessly, unable to move, as the beef bowl tumbled end over end in the air. My eyes caught the entire event with infinite detail, the strips of meat being tossed out in all directions while the grains of rice trialled after the bowl, spilling down like water.
It was like watching a car crash, everything appeared to move painfully slow motion.
I tried to move, tried to force my hands to reach out and save it, but my body would not respond. My hands sat still in mid-air, pointlessly holding the chopsticks between their fingers, unwilling to obey my frantic commands to reach out and grab the food. It felt as I was frozen in ice, helpless to do anything more than watch as my delicious bowl of food tumbled closer and close to the ground until-
*crash*
Roars of boisterous laughter erupted from right, the group of drunken men doubling over as they howled in amusement over some joke, completely oblivious and unaware of the crime one of their own had just committed.
I stared down at the broken bowl of gyudon, it's contents splattered over the wooden floor, with a look of utter despair, feeling my heart breaking at its loss. For a few seconds I just sat there unmoving, just staring in disbelief at my lost meal as I felt a part of my soul mourn at its loss, that is until another round of laughter erupted and I felt my despair turn into a scalding hot rage-fueled with righteous fury.
A great evil had been committed this night, and someone will pay for it, dearly.
"Alright! That's it!" My hands smashed on the countertop as I stood and glared at the perpetrator, the drunkard on my right who still was facing away from me. "You, me, outside! Right now!"
"Oh?" The man didn't even bother turning around to face me, he just glanced over his left shoulder, swaying slightly. His cheeks were flushed red while his brown eye appeared to have trouble focusing as it landed on my face. His eye then shifted towards the floor and widened when he caught sight of his crime. "Oh! Did I do that? Sorry, sorry, kiddo, didn't mean to."
"It matters not your intentions fiend, only your actions." My voice was cold and formal, a stark contrast to the boiling rage that I felt filling my veins, my mind racing with possible locations I could stash the body once I was through with him. "And you have committed a grave sin this evening, one that can only be repaid with your blood."
"Hahaha, don't make such a scary face kiddo, you're beginning to look like my wife. Hahaha." The madman, for I had no doubt he must have been one to not realise that he was about to die, had the audacity to laugh at me. Well, we will see if he will continue laughing once I smashed in his kneecaps. "It's my bad, so here, let me make it up to you."
The drunkard raised his left arm in the air to signal the waiter, his other arm covered and tucked under his jacket, and once he caught the waiter's eyes he held up a single finger. "One more bowl for the kid here, put it on my tab. You know what, better make it two, the kid's too skinny, looks like he could use the extra meat on his bones."
When the waiter nodded his understanding the man glanced back over his shoulder at me, still not bothering to turn and fully face my way. "There, sorry about that but this should make things right. So forgive this old man, alright kiddo?"
I tried to continue to glare imperiously at the older man but I was betrayed by my own body, as my stomach chose that precise moment to rumble loudly at the promise of so much food. For some reason, I actually felt even hungrier now than I had when I walked in, probably because my meal had been interrupted before I was anywhere near finished.
The old man and his friends must have heard my stomach rumble, how could they not when it sounded like a beached dying whale, and they burst into peals of laughter. I could feel myself blushing at their response, my cheeks turning warm, but after shooting them a quick glare, I turned away and returned to my stool, ignoring them as I waited for my meal to arrive in peace.
Naturally, I was denied even that small comfort, I had barely sat myself back down when the old man began speaking again.
"Ho~~, what' this? Kiddo, you're a Hyuuga ain't you?" He stared into my eyes from over his shoulder before he turned back to his friends. "Hey fellas, lookie here. We got a real live Hyuuga with us."
"What do you want?" I groused, feeling too fed up with dealing with the drunkard to bother conjuring any real heat in my voice.
If there was one major downside to being a Hyuuga compared to any other Clan in the village, it was that anyone could tell you were one with a glance. Other ninjas could have blended in with a crowd if they chose to, even the Uchiha had the option of deactivating their Sharingan, at least when there were still any left in the village anyway. But we Hyuuga didn't have that option, even in its inactive state our eyes were unnatural enough that we stood out of any crowd.
"Ah, now don't be like that." He waved lazily at me with his left hand, his right still tucked into his coat. "We just have a question we wanted you to settle for us, that's all." He spun in his seat so that he now faced the counter instead of toward his friends, and almost ended up losing his balance for his effort. The man actually had to latch onto the counter with his hand to stop himself from toppling over.
His change of position did, however, grant me a better look of his face and I noticed for the first time the oddly shaped scar he had on his chin. "See, earlier me and the boys were talking about genjutsu and how it works. So with you being a shinobi and all, you could answer a few things about it for us."
"Actually I can't," I replied curtly, hoping that the annoying man would take the hint and leave me alone. "Hyuugas can't use genjutsu."
Well, that wasn't precisely true. We could use genjutsu just as easily as anyone else, especially the simple ones like the basic clone techniques. It's when we attempted the more complex ones that difficulties start to crop up.
The heart of the problem lies ironically with our clan's greatest strength, the Byakugan. Simply put, our eyes were too perfect. While it is well known that the Byakugan granted its wielder 360 degrees of vision with a range of miles, what was less known was that even in its inactive state the Byakugan was superior to normal eyes, granting it's user a perfect clarity of vision that could never be matched by ordinary eyes.
And I do mean perfect. There never existed a Hyuuga that was born colour blind or needed prescription lens and even in their passive state, our eyes can see farther and with far better clarity than the eyes of the average ninja.
And there lies the crux of the problem, none of us knew what the world looks like with normal eyesight.
How could we craft an illusion of the world when we don't know what the world looked like through normal eyes? Whenever we tried casting a genjutsu, our target immediately realised they were in an illusion and would try to break out of it. And that's not because our genjutsu were badly crafted but the opposite, they were too well made.
While most ninjas failed to add in enough detail to their illusions, we added too much to ours. The colours in our illusion were far richer compared to what a normal person would see while objects in the distance appear far clearer than they were supposed to, and that's because that's how we saw the world through the Byakugan.
In short, whenever we tried to create an illusion of the world around us, we inadvertently created an image of what we would see through the Byakugan instead of normal eyes. And that's because no Hyuuga – with the notable exception of me – knew what the world looked like through normal eyes.
Which is why, with very few exceptions, my clan tended to avoid genjutsu entirely. There was, however, an upside to all this. The very thing that prevented us from using genjutsu also made us resilient to them even with our Byakugan dormant.
Just like how we Hyuuga had no idea how the world looked like through normal eyes, the average ninja has no idea how the world appears through ours. And when they had no idea how we saw the world, how could they ever hope to trap us in an illusion?
"Oh?" The man's head bobbed drunkenly as he stared ahead. "So it is true that it's impossible for a Hyuuga to fall for one."
"Yes." I lied through my teeth. There was a way to snare us in a genjutsu, at least when our eyes were inactive, there was no way I was going to bring it up to this drunkard. Even if it was common knowledge, it was the clan's policy to always deny any weaknesses that our eyes may hold, true or false. "No would you please leave me alone."
"Aww~~, come one." The man drawled out in his seat, still facing ahead instead of towards me, and from the way his head kept bobbing up and down he honestly looked like he was about to tip over and fall asleep any second now. "Fine, fine," He whined, and I meant that literally, "Just one last question. One more and I promise I would leave you be after. Alright, kiddo?"
Stifling a sigh I just nodded resignedly, and he must have caught the motion out of the edge of his eye because he started speaking.
"Well, it's like this kiddo." He waved a hand lazily before him as if swatting away a fly. "If it's so impossible for a Hyuuga to get ensnared by a genjutsu, then why the hell haven't you realised you're in one?"
The young lady on the stage playing the koto, her dexterous fingers plucking its strings skilfully and producing the beautiful melody that had constantly filled the room ground to a stop, plunging the entire restaurant into silence, her fingers hanging still in their place above the instrument.
And the hunger gnawing in the pit of my stomach, the one that filled my thoughts with an almost overwhelming need to eat, disappeared like mist before the dawn's rays as if it was never there. And along with the hunger, I felt my mind begin to clear as the fog that had been clouding my thoughts, so subtly that I never noticed it was there until then, was lifted.
And for the first time since I stepped into the restaurant, no, since I heard the koto being played as I walked down the street, my thoughts formed with crystal clarity and my mind raced as I realised what had happened to me.
What the-?
I spun in my seat and stared at the Koto player, the lady in blue who knelt on stage, who was staring back at me with a face so expressionless I felt as if I was staring at a doll.
The brown eyes that met mine were like orbs of ice, so very cold. No, not cold, they were empty, hollow. When I looked into them it felt like I was gazing into the eyes of a corpse instead of a living person, and the empty look on her face only reinforced that impression.
It soon dawned on me that I couldn't hear anything, that when the playing of the koto was silenced so had everything else. I couldn't hear the rest of the diners, who just seconds earlier were chatting and laughing merrily as they drank the night away.
The entire restaurant had fallen silent, and as I looked around I realised why.
They were all staring at me, each and every single last one of them. From the diners, men, women, and even the handful of children, all of whom were sitting perfectly still in their seats, to the waiters who held up trays of food in the arms, all of them, the heads of every soul in here had swirled around to face me, watching me, their blank hollow eyes never blinking. Not even the children's.
And just like the koto player on stage, the hundreds of eyes that gazed at me from around the room were dead, empty things. Not a flicker of life burned in any of them. They all watched me with blind sightless eyes of a corpse, and I felt my skin crawl as those dead eyes bored into my soul.
"Let this be a lesson to you, Hyuuga Hikaru." The drunken man spoke from behind me, the only sound in the restaurant, but he didn't sound drunk anymore.
His voice had turned hard, harsh and unforgiving.
The sound of it caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end and I felt an abject terror grip my soul, all of my instincts urging me to run, to get the hell away from the thing that stood behind me. It felt as if I was a rabbit that was about to be caught by a tiger, so close to dying that I could feel it's breath on the back of my neck as its jaws were about to clamp down on my skull.
Killing Intent, my mind supplied helpfully, but even knowing what it was didn't help make it any less horrible to experience. The malevolence I felt coming from behind me was on a scale beyond anything I felt before. Unlike Kakashi's which had been fuelled with the passion of rage, this one was devoid of passion entirely though was no less deadly for it, it was like the uncaring cold cruelty of winter's breath.
It took every ounce of will I had in me to fight that fear, to push my instinctive urge to flee back down, and I forced myself to turn around so I could face the man that might be here to kill me.
He hadn't moved since I had last laid my eyes on him, he was still sitting on his stool and still facing the counter instead of me, so even now I could only see the left side of his face. But instead of his slouched form that kept swaying unevenly, his back now stood iron straight while all signs of weakness had bled out from his body.
And for the first time, I noticed the strip of white cloth that circled around his head, almost entirely hidden within his black hair.
A bandage.
"No matter how much confidence you hold in your prowess, no matter how certain you are in your safety," the man pulled his bandaged right arm from out his coat and used it to push himself toward me, steadily revealing more of his face to my eyes, "you must never allow yourself to lower your guard young Hyuuga. Because there does not exist a place where you are truly safe. This world holds no place that can keep you away from harm for you are always, always in danger of getting killed."
As he turned to full-face me, I got my first proper look at his face and the first thing that stood out to me were the bandages that covered most of the right side of his face. More precisely, they completely covered his right eye.
I finally realised who I was talking to.
And when I did, I wished that I had listened to my instincts and ran while I still had the chance.
"Hello, Hikaru." The voice was devoid of any warmth, cold as the single eye that watched me. "I have been meaning to speak with you for quite some time though this will be our first actual meeting."
Oh, Shit!
The man gave me a brief nod in greeting. "Allow me to introduce myself."
Shit! Shit! Shit!
"My name is Shimura Danzo."
I'm dead! I'm so fucking dead!
He must have read the fear on my face because he gave me a firm nod. "I see you have heard of me."
The monster hidden beneath the leaves has finally come for me.
*Chapter End*