Everybody fails at least once
There's no shame in that
"Bah! This'll take forever!" was the first thing that Naruto had said when Sakura had pulled down the thick volume of records. It was very intimidating to look at, and judging from the dust that had settled on it no one had bothered to look at it in a while – who would? Most people had better things to do than flip through a large book on the Uchihas.
Except, of course, for Team 7. Naruto sighed when he received a look from Sakura that all-too-clearly stated, "Do you want to figure out who this ghost is or not?" and sat down at the table, opposite Sasuke. Sakura rolled his eyes at him.
"Unless you read upside down, I suggest you get over on this side of the table too," she said, sitting down with the book next to Sasuke. A bit too close for Sasuke's comfort – he scooted away a little as Sakura opened the book. Shooting a standard glare at Sasuke, Naruto slid around the table next to Sakura, peering over her shoulder at the book.
Surprisingly enough, the section on those who'd activated their Sharingan eye wasn't much. Sasuke only 'hmphed' and informed them, "The Sharingan's rare, even in the Uchiha family. It's activated only by a few clan members."
"Oh, so that makes you really great, huh?" Naruto shot back, saying it in a mocking tone. Sakura hushed him, already scanning through the list. There were pictures accompanying brief descriptions, but it hadn't been updated in a while, as Sasuke wasn't on there. Being Sakura, she'd quickly checked for a picture while neither of her two teammates weren't looking and was disappointed, not finding it.
Insisting that she was the fastest reader, Sakura immersed herself into the records, actually reading through everything instead of skimming over it. Having nothing to do, Naruto got fidgety and finally spoke up.
"Sakura-chan, you're taking so long," Naruto complained. "Why don't we just look through the pictures?"
"There are a few without pictures," Sakura snapped back, irritated at being interrupted. "We might miss him!"
"Well, if we do we can just go back to the ones without pictures and look over them!"
"I want to look through this, okay? It's actually really interesting!"
"You're only reading it because it's related to Sasuke!"
"Am not!"
Having no input on the conversation, Sasuke, looking bored, rolled his eyes at both of them. Sakura turned back to the book and flipped the page –
"There he is!" Naruto shrieked.
"Quiet!" Sakura hissed, her hand shooting up to smack him. However, she caught sight of a librarian around the corner who'd come to check why Naruto had shrieked and her hand froze mid-air. The librarian shook her head and turned back to whatever she'd been doing and only then did Sakura give Naruto a well-deserved smack.
"We're in a library!" she whispered. "Be quiet, okay?"
"Oy…I thought I heard Naruto…"
All three genins turned around to face the infamously lazy Nara Shikamaru. He was holding up a book with one hand, which, to Naruto looked quite boring. It was on shogi tactics, and Naruto was quite firm in the belief that shogi was the most boring thing on earth.
Sakura greeted him; "Hello, Shikamaru."
"What are you three doing here?" Shikamaru asked, giving them a skeptical look. Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke were the last people he'd expected in a library. Without waiting for a invitation, he walked over to look at the book all three were huddled over and his skeptical expression quickly changed into one of surprise.
"Hey…"
Having already lost interest in Shikamaru's presence, Naruto had already turned back to the book and was excited jabbing his finger at one section of the page. "It's him, I swear it is! Sakura-chan, look! See?"
The picture was in color, but even so it looked rather old and faded. In it was the face of a boy with short black hair, goggles, and jet-black eyes, face turned away from the camera but still looking at it, mouth twisted into a scowl, and what looked like a sharpened stick clamped between his teeth. Upon seeing the picture and matching it to Naruto's description of the ghost, Sakura's face melted into triumph and even Sasuke discarded his normal face for a moment to look surprised.
"I told you I saw a ghost!" Naruto hissed, careful to keep his voice down. "See? It's a perfect match!"
"Oy!" Shikamaru drew attention back to himself. Decisively, he snapped his own book shut without ever taking his eyes off the picture. "I saw that kid, too…where I usually watch clouds…he came up and sat next to me, didn't say anything, but…he didn't have a shadow…"
"See! Ghosts do exist!" Naruto was in a triumphant frenzy now, and if he didn't calm down quickly it was obvious that he'd start shrieking in a few moments, so Sakura hushed him again.
"Name, Uchiha Obito – Yeah, Sasuke-kun, didn't we see that name on the stone?"
"Yes…" Sasuke still looked surprised.
Shikamaru didn't wait for Sakura and started reading the description himself. "Gender, male. Age at death, twelve. Date of birth, September 17th. Date of Sharingan activation, July 28th. Date of death, July 28th. That's it?"
"He died on the same day he awoke his Sharingan?" Naruto asked incredously.
"Died at age twelve…" Sakura said.
Sasuke was looking over the picture. "Well, you said that he only had one eye…he has two in this photo."
"Yeah, he doesn't have the Sharingan either and everyone else on this page does…"
This time, it was Shikamaru who rolled his eyes. "Obviously," he said dryly. "If he died the same day he activated his Sharingan eyes, then it's unlikely that they had time to photograph him with them."
"So…either Kakashi-sensei killed him or –"
Sakura didn't give Naruto time to finish his sentence. "Or they were friends," she said, finishing it off for him.
"When did Kakashi get involved?" Shikamaru asked, looking more than a little confused.
"Oh!" Naruto exclaimed, realizing Shikamaru didn't know the story. "Well, you see, I saw this ghost and I was telling Kakashi-sensei about it and then Kakashi-sensei went sorta crazy and he ran faster than anyone I've seen before – even Bushy-Brows! – to the memorial stone because that's where I saw the ghost. So Kakashi and the ghost – Obito – must be related somehow!"
"Maybe he was just worried that a ghost would cause trouble. It's possible that there were ghosts in Konoha in the past that wreaked havoc on the people. After all, there's bound to be chaos if dead people start appearing in the village," Shikamaru said, shrugging. "Then again, if something like that did happen I'm sure it'd be in the records somewhere."
Naruto scowled. "That's true…but…I still think they have some sort of connection!" With that, he ran off after his teammates, forgetting again that they were in a library and one; he wasn't supposed to run and two; he wasn't supposed to shout for them to wait up.
Shikamaru watched them get shooed out by the librarian, then reached up for the Uchiha records to flip through them again.
"Boss…I think someone's been stealing!"
Ino was attempting to tie her apron on while looking for the owner of the flower shop she worked at. It wasn't an easy feat, because while she was walking her foot or leg would often catch on the long strings and ruin the knot and she'd have to start all over again, but her efforts were valiant. Frowning, and biting her lip, Ino stopped for a moment to look at the store again.
It was a Sunday, so the store had opened later than usual but when she'd arrived, many flowers were out of place and there were quite a few missing. She couldn't quite remember the ones missing, but she had immediately spotted the empty vases and knew that someone had been around while the store'd been closed. Those vases had been full when she had closed the store the day before.
"Oh, really?" her boss said, not sounding like she'd been listening at all. "Who?"
"If I knew, I'd search them out and give them a beating!" Ino fumed, poking her head in through the door where Okada Akama, her boss, was.
"How many flowers?"
"Um…" Ino looked backwards to take stock. "Well, not a lot…but still! Ergh!"
"Well, there's nothing to be done about it. Just open the store and forget about it – it's probably not much money lost, anyway."
"Fine, Akama-san." Turning around, Ino strode over to the doors and flipped the sign over, proclaiming that they were open. Then, deciding that it was a nice enough day, she opened the doors as well. Maybe the smell of the flowers would draw customers in.
She strolled over to her normal spot behind the counter, giving the empty vases a glare before quickly turning it into a smile as the first customer of the day walked in.
Kakashi stared at the memorial stone and the flowers carefully set upon it. Most people who left flowers had their own arrangements, or types of flowers that they left, and those flower arrangements of types didn't seem to change. The first example Kakashi could come up with was Uzuki Yuugao, who'd been Hayate's girlfriend, who always brought some type of white flower that Kakashi couldn't remember the name of. Anyways, Genma did the same, whenever he was thoughtful enough to bring flowers, as did the others who mourned for their friends on the marker.
Rin had always brought small fringed orchids – she'd called them sagisos. She'd grown them herself. When she died, they'd died too, because without her no one was there to take care of them. Kakashi remembered walking into her room to clean her apartment out for another inhabitant, and seeing the wilted flowers in their little box at the window.
Dead, like Rin and Yondaime and Obito.
But these flowers…they looked like they'd been chosen with care, but at the same time they also didn't seem to go well with each other although the person who'd left them had evidently tried to make them look good. The quality of the flower arrangement looked like Naruto-quality work.
Which wasn't very good work.
Still, aside from it looking like Naruto's work it also looked like something Obito might've done.
But Obito was dead. That didn't go together very well.
So Kakashi did what he did every day.
"Well, I forgot to set my alarm so I woke up late this morning. Sorry about that. I'm usually not late to talk to you…"
Finally got around to typing this up. X.x; Something different happens! (insert gasp here.)
Well, kind of different.
Anyway, thanks to all those great people who have either reviewed or added me to their faves or done both. You people rock! xD