Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, contents of the following text only serve entertainment purposes.
!Warning! MarySue and mild swearing in some chapters.
AN: This chapter has been re-edited.
NB: katana: japanese long sword, kunai: something like a dagger, shuriken: those sharp-edged stars ninjas throw
The rest of the story takes off when they are 17-18 years old.
This chapter: Hatake Fuyu Yuki is in charge of watching over Team 7. Finally, after all those years, the wall that has concealed her existence begins to crack.
Chapter: Caught
"Really, Naruto-kun's so temperamental," Yuki thought to herself, jumping for tree to tree to try keeping up with the blonde's pace. Something got him hyped up again. Hyper as in angry-hyper. Shecouldn't stop herself from sighingtiredly. "Not Uchiha again." She was getting increasingly irritated about the whole situation. Hatake Kakashi's team had been sent off for another mission: B-class this time, the Hokage mentioned something about it teetering towards A-class or something like that, and that they were to head south of the Leaf country.
"Sasuke, you bastard!" Naruto was screaming. "How dare you save me again!" The smirking Uchiha tilted his head a bit and coolly walked past him.
"Dunce," he said. As predictable as it was, Naruto started cursing theraven haired youthyet again. "If you weren't such a klutz, I wouldn't have had to save you so many times." Two veins popped on Naruto's head. Yuki felt like banging her head to a tree at the utterlyunamusingly exasperating andpredictable result. Naruto had risen to the bait again and was colorfully cursing the brunette before catching up with him and then trying to out-pace him.
"And there they go challenging each other again," she thought, gritting her teeth. "While Kakashi-niichan and Haruno-san stay behind and conserve their own energy. Smart." Naruto and Sasuke had gone so far down the road that they were almost out of sight. "Honestly, why did I have to get stuck watching this squad? Of all the letdowns." But she knew why. Oh, she knew too well. And, if given a choice, she wouldn't have changed this squad to watch over another for the world. Her complaining was her own way of coping with the monotony. After all, this squad barely needed anyone watching over them and it did get dreary most of the time.
"If you two don't come back here..." Kakashi said warningly. In a millisecond, they were back where they were, Naruto growling at Sasuke's back and Sasuke, with his glare, taking a leisurely pace and was leading the way.
"Why do we all have to do this mission anyway? If they'd just sent only me, I'd've been able to handle it! No problem!" Naruto boasted. Sakura punched his head from behind and they all stopped walking to watch Naruto wail and rub his head.
"Shut up Naruto..." Eep. Sakura had flames instead of pupils in her eyes. Yuki was roughly rubbing her head with a sheepish albeit cheerful expression carefully put on her face.
"It's time for lunch!" Naruto exclaimed happily as he started bouncing up and down along the road, ignoring the surprised look on Sakura's face.
"You dunce. There's still an hour left till midday," Sasuke said icily.
"Asshole!" There they go again. Yuri was virtually crying about the predicament she was trapped in. Not that the drama wasn't interesting enough with all it's colorful curses and hilarious accidents which, unluckily enough, all happen to Naruto - but she'd been watching this 'show' everyday since god-knows-when. The repetitive reruns were a danger to her sanity.
Days later...
"Sasuke!" Did they never stop? Naruto was jumping angrily in Sasuke's direction now. It was cute how Naruto always riled up against Sasuke, but it was getting too predictable.
3... 2... 1...
A loud thump indicated that Naruto's 'attack' went off the mark and he'd fallen to the ground.
"Dunce," Sasuke said indifferently as he started to tell him off on where he went wrong in the shortest sentence possible. Yuki's spirits were drowning with each passing second. Nothing had happened so far, and she wasn't sure that anything at all would ever actually happen to them on their trip. Barely anything ever did. Frankly, she'd been assigned to watch over their squad so many times that she knew for a fact that it wasn't necessary for anyone to watch their backs. Least of all an anbu. Of course, the Hokage just had to refute that argument by telling her that if their abilities were so good, then they should've been able to, at one point, pick up her presence - which they hadn't. Up to now, only Kakashi noticed when she was around - but then that was partly because he'd known that she was supposed to be there anyway, being an anbu so long ago himself. So Yuki had no choice but to plough on.
It was a double edged sword. If her presence was known to plain chuunins, that would show that her stealth skills were deteriorating. On the other hand, if it were not known, it meant that the chuunin bunch she had to watch over remained as the bunch she had to watch over. Yuki sighed heavily. It was going to be a long mission. By now, Sakura would've punched Naruto on the head. With a quick glance in their direction, she found that it was true.
But something was different. Kakashi had just made a shadow clone of himself while their attention was diverted and it was moving stealthily towards her direction. What could he possibly want?
"Kakashi-niichan?" she murmured ever so silently as she moved to meet up with the clone without getting too close to the group.
"Yuki-chan?" he hissed as he jumped to the high branch that she was at. Yuki looked up to the familiar face of her adoptive brother. He had an unreadable expression on his face. "Are you alright? I noticed that you were lagging back."
"Oh," she whispered, blushing behind her anbu mask. Thank goodness that he couldn't see her blush. "I... uh... I got tired of listening to Naruto-kun and Uchiha-san." It was puzzling how Yuki could call Naruto so affectionately and Uchiha Sasuke with such formality. Of course, it must've been that incident... Kakashi mentally sighed at a memory of her childhood. "How can you stand that? To think you actually have to deal with them almost everyday."
"Well, it has been years..." his voice trailed off as both their attentions snapped back to the group. "Did you see that?"
"I did," Yuki said as she moved to separate herself from the talking clone. As the clone disappeared, she jumped cautiously from branch to branch to as close as she could get to the group.
There it was again. A shadow passing somewhere in the clump of trees just beyond. Some shadows. She couldn't distinguish just how many there were. It didn't look good.
"Hey, Sasuke-kun, have you checked if your holster is properly packed?" Sakura asked sweetly as they started walking again. "I could do it for you if you want..." Yuki would've rolled her eyes at the typical Sakura's-obsession-with-Sasuke statement, but in truth, it was a code. A code... Can you sense an enemy nearby?
"Yes, I did," Sasuke answered indifferently as he quickened his pace. His affirmative answer indicated that he knew there was danger coming.
"What about me, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked eagerly. "Will you help me with it?" Now it seemed like another typical Naruto's-going-to-get-pounded conversation. Could you tell me from what direction you sense it from?
"As if!" Sakura exclaimed turning her nose up to a little on her left side, then fully to her left. To our left, and there was more than one. Yuki was practically laughing at their ingenuity. Who would've thought? And who would have ever noticed? If she hadn't been let in on the secret by Kakashi, she probably wouldn't have known it herself!
"Quiet down, Naruto," their instructor said, making the blonde boy step into his pace. Sasuke was still leading the way and Sakura was walking in the middle. Keep your senses alert.
"Hey Kakashi-sensei, are we going to catch our food for tonight?" Do we attack them now?
"Let's just wait till later. It's still early," Kakashi answered, looking bored. Wait till we know what they want.
"Naruto-kun's just going to get hungrier by later and he'll be tempted to catch more," Sakura teased with a lighter tone. There might be more coming.
"Dunce," Sasuke muttered under his breath, getting Naruto to start swearing at him again.
"That's enough! Naruto-kun! Could you stop picking fights with Sasuke-kun!" Sakura practically screamed, looking thoroughly aggravated. Their sensei visibly sighed and stopped walking. Might as well get it done and over with. Yuki was practically shaking with laughter on her perch. She knew what was going to happen next. It was all too predictable. Granted, it didn't happen much, but it was always entertaining to watch.
Two fast-flying shurikens suddenly made its way to Kakashi's back and he disappeared with a poof, leaving a scarred log behind him. The replacement skill - Kakashi managed to replace himself a log to intercept the attack in his position. Suddenly, a katana came flying at them, with a body to go with it. Everyone but Naruto reacted swiftly by jumping off to the side both to avoid being hit and to hide. Naruto turned around to see what was going on and then brought his two hands swiftly in front of his face, trapping the katana in between the backs of his palms. Right before the katana could slice him in half.
"Wh-What!" Naruto bellowed in surprise as he reflexively twisted his arm around the katana, dislodging the attacker's grip on it and threw it to the side. Yuki nearly fell from the tree as laughter threatened to take over her body.
Actually, Naruto had gone along with the conversation not because he had understood the code but because the trail of the conversation was basically second nature to him. It was hilarious! Of course, it was dangerous too, but Naruto was always one with the quickest reflexes when it came to battles, so whether or not he'd picked up on the code didn't matter much.
The attacker looked surprised at Naruto's quick reflex action, but wasted no time, he jumped a few feet back and got ready with an attacking stance. Naruto took few steps back too and copied his stance. In an instant, he was gone, Naruto made no hesitation in performing the replacement skill, similar to Kakashi's earlier move in order to disappear on the foliage that was above him. A hit connected to the side of 'Naruto'-the log, and his image disappeared in a poof. It all happened so quickly Naruto jumped down to where the hit had come from and tackled the man roughly to the ground. Swiftly taking a kunai out from his holster, he stilled the man's position and held the sharp edge of the kunai, tip to his throat.
"Naruto, you idiot!" Sakura half-yelled as she stepped out from her hiding place. Naruto nearly lost his hold on the man but managed to keep the appearance of being in control. What did Sakura think she was doing? Jumping out of her hiding place like that. Immediately, she was captured by another assailant and was pulled down to the ground. Yuki stopped smirking. Didn't she already know that there were more than one assailants? ...
And where was Uchiha? Where was Kakashi-niichan? Muffles from a nearby bush answered her question. Quickly, she moved away before being discovered. As she moved, she saw the situation that the two other exceptional ninjas were in. They were both trapped in an icy bubble. It looked like an unbreakable trap. It didn't look good. Not good at all.
"Let my friend go, and you'll have this girl back," sneered the enemy that had captured Sakura. Yuki turned her attention back to that group. They were in more danger of getting themselves killed than the Uchiha and the jounin. Naruto was gritting his teeth. And sweating.
Roughly pulling up the first attacker, he threw him to his friend to unbalance him, giving Sakura the chance to escape to Naruto's side.
"Naruto-kun!" she said in a high-pitched voice as she reached his side. "Thank you."
"Never mind that. Where are Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. Yuki looked back to where Kakashi and Sasuke were. They were still trapped. Assessing the situation, she thought that it would be best to intervene this time, and it'd be better to help them get out of the bubble first. Kakashi-niichan could think up some excuse for their 'sudden' release and then help Naruto-kun and Haruno. On her other side, Sakura shrieked. Since Yuki was going in the opposite direction, she thought it best to turn on her byakugan. Timing was critical, and she had to quickly choose who to save first. This little trip to the forest was very quickly going out of hand.
Focusing a controlled amount of chakra to her eyes, it turned on, giving her an all-directional vision, save for the blind spots, but that could be helped. She let the main of her attention focused on to the helplessly trapped pair though.
She mentally counted the number of enemies there were around them. Two at Naruto's direction. Three... no, four holding up the icy bubble and... one... two... th- no. Only two hiding. Eight rogue ninjas trying to attack them all in one go. Yuki saw Kakashi's hands come up to his chest level to perform a seal. Instantly her sharingan turned on as well. The sudden unconscious action started a torturous pounding in her temples. She tried her best to stop a gasp from escaping, and while doing so nearly fell off her perch. The pain was blinding... but nothing she hadn't experienced before. Time was most definitely against her now. She couldn't keep both the bloodlimits fuctioning at the same time for too long. Not long at all. She had to move quickly.
Kakashi made a second seal, grabbing her attention once again. A third and then seemed to have said something, judging from the bubbles his breath was making. But nothing happened. What were those seals for? Yuki took in a deep breath and then slowly turned off her byakugan. The byakugan was one matter, the sharingan another. But to have both of it turned on for too long was purely suicidal. She focused her attention on her back before reassuring herself that it would be alright to exchange the byakugan for the sharingan in order to copy Kakashi's technique. Already he was wildly looking around him, looking as if he were searching for more enemies but was really, from Yuki's own judgement, looking for her. Even he knew that he was trapped. Utterly unable to release himself. It was similar to the situation that had met the team during their first C-class mission - that one memorable first incident with Zabuza. But that was another matter. It wasn't water this time, it was ice. And it wasn't one enemy this time. There were eight.
Sakura and Naruto were fighting the two enemies. They were physically able so it was relatively safe and alright for Yuki to leave her focusfrom them. Closing her eyes and then taking in a deep breath, she put her hand to the level of her stomach. She opened her eyes and looked directly at Kakashi, who had, by pure luck, managed to catch her eye. Kakashi brought his hands up to try the seal again. He was telling Sasuke to do something just as she performed the first seal. Then came the second... and the third. Suddenly she knew just what to do.
Kakashi brought to finger in front of his clothed mouth and blew through it, and Yuki did the same. Wisps of white vapour shot out of her mouth, similar to the the infamous Uchiha fire skill, only instead of fire, there was ice. It made the already hard icy bubble even harder. It became much more brittle than it originally was. Amidst the confusion among the enemies, Sasuke brought his arm back and then focused all his chakra to his fist as he brought it down to the ice. It made a crack. Sasuke then brought down his other arm on it and it cracked even more. Yuki released the ice-skill and waited a second for the pair to completely break the ice. A little 'pop' sound indicated just so just as she tucked away her sharingan and headed over to the other two. They were handling everything much better. The sound of cracking ribs from the other end reassured her that everything was going to be alright.
Then everything went dark.
"We captured one of them!" said one gleefully next to her ear. Shit... that was so... idiotic. In her concentration of the safety of the team, she forgot the presence of the two other hidden rogues. Stupid. Stupid. Yuki took out a kunai and ripped herself out of the trap and threw two well-aimed shuriken to their throats. The move worked perfectly. Now it was time to dispose of the bodies. They shouldn't know that she was there, after all, she was an anbu. A really stupid anbu that had misjudged the situation and nearly got herself caught. That was really stupid of her. What was wrong with her today?
"Well that takes care of that!" she heard Naruto shout out triumphantly. Rustle. Rustle. Fuck. She was caught.
"Oh, damn!" Yuki screamed silently at herself. The body she was trying to disintegrate moved its hand in a reflex action. It was making too much noise. She was going to be discovered. Quickly bringing her hands up to a tiger seal, she concentrated all her energy to creating fire. It blew out of her mouth the same way her previous ice-skill did. She lowered the flame a little, just enough to make the body catch on fire and then hidit away behind the thick shrubs, performing a self-transformation skill just as Naruto came crashing down beside her. This time she really did scream - she was only halfway through her transformation.
There was a puff of smoke that enveloped her as she put away her sharingan eyes and her attire melt away to make new ones. She faced Naruto mask-less. Oh the stupidity that was her.
"Eh?" Naruto was startled, both by the appearance of a girl and the scream. Yuki, now sure that no trace of anbu gear was present, crawled to what she thought would be a relatively safe distance away. That ought to throw them off balance. She was to be the weak, unassuming girl. As Naruto looked at her curiously she made the transformation of her character complete by forcing all the blood from her face, making sure that the result would make her look like just any other terrified villager who was caught in the middle of battle. "Who are you?" Yuki jerked away and made herself frantically look around, as if looking for escape, hoping that her expression showed fear. It was working.Well, it wasn't as if she really didn't want to escape at all."I'm not going to hurt you. How did you get here?"
"Naruto-kun?" It was Sakura.
"Wait a minute, Sakura-chan!" he yelled right back. He looked curiously at her. She was... She reminded him of someone. Black hair, red eyes. Could she be an Uchiha? But... Uchihas had dark eyes, just like Sasuke. Could she be a relation to that jounin? That... Kurenai-sensei? She had dark hair and red eyes too. But... this girl did not look like a ninja. "There's some pretty evil people out there, I'd suggest you come with me and my friends," he said gently. Yuki turned her face to look back at him. "It's alright. I'm the great Uzumaki Naruto! The future Hokage of Konoha!" A bead of sweat trailed down Yuki's face. She decided to ignore the self-compliment and took his hand. A memory was nagging at the back of his mind, but, being unable to place it, he ignored it and started pulling her to the rest of the group. "Look who I found!"
Suddenly three pairs of eyes were on her and she focused her attention on getting all the blood away from her face so she could look even paler with fright. She could practically hear what Kakashi was thinking right then. What kind of anbu was she? To have gotten herself caught, of all circumstances. To 'transform' to her original form, of all transformations. To act weak... well, that was a good thing... maybe. Her abilities could be used as a trump card.
Sakura stepped forward and introduced herself, "I'm Haruno Sakura."
"H-Haruno-san," Yuki said timidly, acknowledging her. Sakura gave her a little smile.
"This is Uchiha Sasuke and Hatake Kakashi," she continued, pointing at the two men. Sasuke gave her a blank stare while Kakashi put a hand up in greeting. "We're ninjas of the Leaf, currently on a mission."
"O-okay," Yuki mumbled. "I'm Fuyu Yuki." Yuki left it at that and then blushed, looking down at her feet to show her timidity.
"Yuki-chan," Naruto began. Already so comfortable with her? ...But it feltokay somehow."How did you get here?"
"I... I don't remember," Yuki answered.
"Are you here alone?" Sasuke asked. Everyone turned to him, at the uncharacteristic nature of Sasuke. He was always the quiet one, wasn't he?
"Yes. I'm here alone, Uchiha-san," she said. She met the eyes of the Uchiha only to be met with a scowl. He turned away and started walking in the direction they were going just before they were interrupted with the fight.
"Where were you headed, Yuki-san?" Sakura asked.
"I'm lost," Yuki mumbled. It was getting so irritating! Why on earth had she chosen to be timid in this disguise! "I-I was on my way to Konoha."
"It's not safe here. Better if she follows us, right, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked, jumping in his direction. Yuki momentarily forgot about her brother, Kakashi and at the mention of his name, she froze up. Was he going to be angry?
"Yes," the silver-haired jounin said simply. Yuki was about to thank them for their consideration when hen he told them to start following Sasuke, which they did.
Sakura took one side of Yuki, and Naruto the other. With Sasuke in front and Kakashi at the back, Yuki realized that they had actually put up a defense for her, whether they knew it or not. Yuki mentally recorded this observation to be sent back to the Hokage later on. She then sighed. It was going to be a long time before they could go back to Konoha.
"Sasuke, you jerk!" Naruto's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. She saw Naruto jumping in Sasuke's direction and sweatdropped. Yup. This was going to take a long time...
