Wild-filly: What a life I lead... this chapter has been put together entirely during study breaks, so please take it as a token of my devotion to fanfiction. I'm really trying here! It's so very hard to think at the best of times... nah I'm just being obnoxious, as per usual

Thanks go to the last reviewers; JapanAnimeGirl, princessares, Grummur, Ame Suisei, kimpster, Katzuki, Dracovolan, Aluhamsu, Roxie Zephyr Jocelyn and xl-black-tears-lx; for all their support and encouragement, as well as taking the time to wait for the little review box window thing to load Yet again, I really appreciate it people! Special thanks to Ame Suisei for wishing me luck for my exams – just one week of pure misery left until year 11 week

Disclaimer: Don't own... I'm getting sick of this – why can't someone just donate the rights to Naruto and save me having to write this every time?! (stalks off muttering)

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Okumen Gokurakuchou: Chapter 12

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"Do you call that a bullseye?"

"It's dead-centre on the target, so what do you think it is?!"

"That's never dead centre! It's at least a centimetre off".

"Do you really think that matters? Either way it'd have been a lethal shot".

"With that huge gap? Come on, anyone could have dodged that".

"I think you're forgetting the basic principle here... this is one centimetre we're talking about"

"Well if you can afford to be that sloppy, then you'd better get used to carrying a sack-load of spare shuriken to make up for the ones you lose to bad throws".

"Who asked you anyway?"

Two Shinobi stood before a straw practise doll, staring critically at a neat line of shuriken, embedded with debatable accuracy into the rough, hessian material. One of them was shaking her head irritably, ponytail catching off the shoulder of the man beside her, who was pointedly ignoring this. Kakashi stepped slightly off to one side, one hand stroking his chin appraisingly. "You did ask for some coaching with your volley-throws, in case you've forgotten so easily".

"I said coaching, not pedantic annoyance, understand?!"

"Yes, but they are practically the same thing"

She growled under her breath, threw her hands in the air and stormed off, collapsing under a convenient tree cross-legged, arms tightly folded about her waist. She leant her head back, eyes closed as coarse bark made contact with her skin. "I'm sick of this. We've been throwing shuriken, dodging shuriken, retrieving shuriken and arguing over shuriken for the last three hours. And the two hours before that it was kunai. Can't we think of some more original way to pass the time?"

"At least we can agree on that one thing", replied Kakashi, ambling over to where she was sitting. With a yawn he sank to the ground beside her. "Any bright ideas?"

"We could go help Masurao with the scrolls".

Kakashi snorted. "Have you any idea how annoyed he gets when he's interrupted in the middle of something as tentative as decoding? Trust me, it's not a pretty picture".

"How bad can it be?"

"I'll put it this way... you'll find I was right about the one centimetre being too far off a lethal spot the hard way".

"You mean he's thrown knives at you, aiming for lethal points before?" She stared at him incredulously, one eyebrow arched in scepticism.

"Not quite knives... sticks, rocks, eleven bowls, a cup, a couple of cushions, some shoes, four sets of cutlery, eight packets of rice, three pairs of socks and something else... oh yeah, a scroll of summoning that exploded on contact. He got in a bit of trouble for that one, I can assure you. I daresay there have been several other things he has attempted to murder me with, but those are just the ones that stood out the most". He counted them off his fingers nonchalantly, eyes half-closed as he recalled each scene. "We've been friends since before our academy days, even though he's a couple of years older than me and was in a different Genin team. He's a perfectly nice guy. Just a bit volatile when disturbed". His eyes bent into a smile as he looked down back at her.

"And you don't do anything to help that, I guess", she snickered. Yawning, she unfolded her arms and blew upwards, trying and failing to shift her white-tipped fringe from her eyes. With a sigh of disgust she staggered to her feet, brushing the grass from her short kimono. "Oh yeah..." She turned back towards him. "What was that attack you used?"

"Attack I used?" Kakashi blinked. "You mean the annoyance tactics? They just come naturally".

"Not that, you moron" She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I meant the Chakra move you used two days ago, the one that shattered the prison. Where did you learn it?"

"I didn't learn it". He rose to his own feet, rubbing at his wrists absent-mindedly. The question had to come up sooner or later. He had a couple of his own questions already in reserve for her. The trick here was not to be the one to start the question-asking, otherwise he would be back at square one as far as her being agreeable towards him went; she had to initiate any move and he would follow it up. Finally... some sort of tactical process was coming to him. It had taken a lot of bruises, but it was coming to him at last. Now all he needed was for her to disprove this theory.

"Then where did you pick it up?" Her eyes were scrutinising his own. "A technique with enough power to render a Chakra prison to pieces is not one I want to be uncertain of. Tell me... where is it from?"

"I invented it when I was thirteen years old".

She stared at him, expression torn between aghast and incredulous. "Thirteen years old, for an attack that powerful?" Her voice was practically a whisper, fists clenched at her sides. "A genius?" The look in her eyes wasn't humorous when she mentioned the latter. There was nothing funny about being born abnormally talented; it was something that you either respected or loathed as far as other students went. Having a genius in your academy class was about as much fun as having an Olympic athlete competing against you in a race for the bus; completely unwanted as it made you look much worse than you were. The smarter students though, were the ones who didn't begrudge a talented student; after all, when they graduated, you wanted to make sure that you would still be able to walk down the street without fear for your life. Kurotaka was different again though, seeming to fall into neither category.

Unabashed, Kakashi continued. "Hai. I became a Chuunin at six, an ANBU at about nine; I can't quite remember". The meeting with the Third Hokage. The interviews with his senseis. The training at all hours of the day and night. The hot surge of pride in succeeding in his probationary period. The savage, shredding, searing of the burning brand thrust deep into his upper arm, scorching the muscle in a black curve. No. He couldn't remember the exact day, only the eternity before it.

She shook her head. "Too young, surely. How talented were you?" Her tone was different yet again, one more pitying than anything else. He had no idea what she was thinking. Apparently neither did she.

"I don't really know". He shrugged his shoulders. "I was only young at the time. My parents sent me to the Academy when I was four and I graduated at five, once the teacher managed to get me to sit in my chair and stop trying to climb out the window during tests. Masurao and Akiraka-chan are a couple of years older than I, but then again, so are most people. Even the members of my Genin team, Obito and Rin are two years older than I am."

"What did your parents think of you graduating so early?" Her eyes were fixed on him intently.

That question. He felt his shoulders sag, then stiffen. He had been expecting it coming, but every time it came he still couldn't quite deal with it in the perfect, planned reaction. She couldn't understand; not when she was filled with such hate towards half of her family. There were few who could understand, fortunately.

"They were killed defending the village". The monotonous reality seethed from his lips, eyes devoid of emotion. "I was not told who or what by, as I was too young to understand, despite being considered old enough to be a Genin. My suspicions lie with the Kyuubi, as they lived outside of Konoha, in a tiny offshoot town that came under the demon's attack. That ancient demon has been wandering these lands for centuries, but only recently has it started moving against Konoha. However border disputes have been known to come as close as this as well, so I really don't know". Bitter memories all the more bitter as they waned, escaping from his mind and into nothingness. People normally didn't ask about his family, so he never offered to tell.

Kurotaka released a withheld breath, air rushing noisily into the bright, quiet clearing. "I'm sorry that I made you say that", she said softly. Her hands wrung themselves together, stepping from one foot to another in uncertainty. He watched her from the sides of his eyes, shaking his head. "Don't be. It was a long time ago. Any problems I have with it have been dealt with" How effectively though, he did not say. He cleared his throat, "you were asking about the technique I used earlier?"

Back on the original train of thought, she nodded, relaxing visibly. "How precisely is it used? I couldn't see you initiate the move, so I'm not sure whether or not it is activated using a seal formation or purely mind-orientated. I'd like to know what I'm up against".

"Up against?" His voice was amused. "Do you intend to fight me?"

"That depends", she replied swiftly, "Do you intend to crash through another ceiling onto me?"

"Good point" He winced. That detour was still aching. "For your information, it has to be summoned by use of a seal formation, but the amount of Chakra and its positioning is reliant on the person's mind. If you haven't sufficient control and motivation, you can't get it onto your hand but if you have too much control, you won't be able to actually attack anyone with it".

"I see", she nodded appraisingly. "So if you're distracted, you can't charge it properly?"

"True, however..." He waved a finger at her in his most irritating fashion, eyes arched into a grin. "...Distracting me from charging it would take a very unusual attack; one that I doubt you would be willing to resort to". He let the suggestiveness of that statement hang in the air like a neon, flashing target. He wasn't disappointed. The fist sailed downwards in an unthwartable arc to his skull, making the world give a nasty shudder even as his ears reported that Kurotaka was speaking, as though she had ignored his last statement.

"Oh yeah, what do you call it?"

Massaging the top of his head mournfully, Kakashi responded. "I'm sorry, what was that? I seem to be hearing voices, but that could just be the concussion talking". He looked at her reproachfully and she sighed, "don't worry, you don't have brain damage. Had I aimed a bit lower then you might have been in trouble..." He winced, "that was harsh".

"Point taken, now back to the topic please; what's the name of your technique?"

"Well... I usually call it the Raikiri, but I'm not really so keen on the name".

"Thunder break? Odd... where did that come from?"

"I was having an argument with Gai actually when it was named. Something about my being an insult to him in every way possible. I think we may have been engaged in a death match... I can't quite remember. You know how it is..." The blunt stare she was giving him convinced him otherwise. "No? Oh... well I guess I HAD been a little annoying that day, but he completely overreacted. No sense of humour, or sense for that matter. Where was I? Oh yeah; well he was trying to kill me and I was trying not to kill myself laughing out on one of the main training fields, but neither of us noticed that the weather was getting worse and worse as our little brawl continued. In fact, we only noticed it was getting so bad when I charged up the Raikiri, sprinting towards Gai in order to scare him off and I ran into the path of an oncoming lightning bolt". He scratched the back of his neck in slight embarrassment. "Didn't half give me a turn. It's not every day you have this huge electrical surge breathing down your neck, but for some reason I decided to knock it out of the way rather than halt my charge. Much to my surprise, the Chakra sliced right through it". He grinned at her. "That certainly spooked Gai. Gave my hand a bit of a burn as well".

"You've got to be kidding".

"Ne?" He blinked in confusion. "No, that's the truth. Gai dubbed it Raikiri straight afterwards and from then on we only fight with rock-paper-scissors".

Now it was her turn to look confused. "Rock-paper-scissors?" She didn't even give him time to explain, collapsing to her knees in peals of laughter. Kakashi glared down at her. Annoyance flitted through his mind, but a bit of reality joined it. The whole situation was pretty weird to be honest. He politely waited for her to stop laughing at his expense. And waited. And waited some more. Finally he cleared his throat loudly and nudged at her back with his dark leather boot. She opened her eyes, blue meeting black before she snorted and subsided back into a useless, snickering pile on the grass. Fuming, Kakashi stalked off, over to the shade of a different tree to await her regaining of her senses. About five minutes later she staggered over to him, covered in grass and looking somewhat dazed.

"Kakashi-kun? I'm sorry I laughed at you".

He grunted at her, not even bothering to look around. Who the hell did she think she was fooling? And since when did she call him "-kun"?

"Ok, I'm not sorry I laughed at you. There wasn't much else I could do, but I do feel vaguely guilty about hurting your pride. Is that more accurate?" She planted her hands on her hips, "that's the closest thing you'll get to an apology".

He glanced around at her. "Do you want to see the Raikiri or not?"

She nodded, eyes shining in anticipation. "You'd do it right here?"

"Why not? Do you promise not to laugh this time?"

"I solemnly promise not to behave in any such manner that might unwittingly or intentionally cause direct or indirect damage to your over-inflated ego". She smiled sweetly at him. "Happy?"

"No, but I doubt I'll get any response better than that one". He shuffled out into the middle of the clearing, steadying his breathing and clasping his hands into the first seal, eyes closed in concentration. As the Chakra surged and swirled inside his core, a vague thought strolled into his mind. Why on earth was he charging up his best attack, one that used outrageous amounts of Chakra, just to appease this lunatic of an Uchiha reject? The logic behind his actions escaped him... All he knew was that he wanted to impress her. This conclusion disturbed him somewhat.

Kurotaka's eyes were narrowed as she observed the fluid hand seals, critically observing every stage of the sequence. Powerful seals – used only in the most lethal of combinations. The notion of a thirteen year-old boy playing with seals of this strength was unnerving to her, but all the same, it wasn't really that unusual in the world of Shinobi. Her own "ultimate" jutsu had been created just two years ago, on her fifteenth birthday, but her selection of forbidden jutsu had been schooled into her during the academy; there was nothing like a bit of paranoia to keep assassination attempts at bay.

Blue sparks licked upwards, twisting and flickering in Kakashi's clenched hands. Slowly he pushed more of his Chakra down into the hand, a bead of sweat glistening on his forehead. The heat of the pale sapphire flames wavered around his face, illuminated in a strange, ghostly light even in the height of the afternoon. He needn't put all of his strength into this one; it was only a demonstration after all. The blue, surging mass of fire in his hand writhed, spitting its shrieking flames into the air. It was ready. Weak, but ready.

Turning to face the practise dummy that they had been turning into a shuriken pincushion, he broke into a dead run, arms stiff at his sides as he loped easily over across distance. The wind rushed, ears overflowing with the sound of its passage and the high, chirping of the Raikiri in his right hand. The straw target filled his vision and he thrust his hand forward, momentum and Chakra meeting the doll with a great crash. His hand thrust all the through the straw, Chakra melting the iron framework concealed within and shearing the doll in half, landing in a sorry, melted and charred pile on the ground. Blue flames still licked his hand with earnest, hardly affected by the first charge, however there wasn't anything else to dispatch of. He always felt bad about spearing trees; they had, after all, been part of the environment longer than he had. He let the blue fire evaporate into the atmosphere, sauntering back over to where Kurotaka was standing, watching in a stony silence.

"Well, that was a pretty calm version", he rubbed at his wrist appraisingly, "if it's really essential, it can cut through just about anything. Not a nice attack to get in the way of, I'd imagine".

Kurotaka just stood there, head cocked to one side and eyes glazed. He released his wrist and stared at her. As the seconds trailed past, he slowly raised one hand in front of her face and waved it in front of her line of sight. "Anyone in there?"

No response. He was just debating whether to rap her over the head with the sheath of his katana when she suddenly screeched, "I've got it!"

"You've got what? A mental problem?" muttered Kakashi from where he was sprawled on the ground, having been knocked over by the force of the exclamation. She looked down at him in confusion. "Why are you sitting on the ground?"

"My question exactly", he responded irritably, rising to his feet and dusting himself off in a highly indignant fashion. "What, precisely, did you have to shriek about?"

"I finally remembered what the sound of your attack reminds me of". Her eyes were bent into a chirpy smile, giving her an expression of happiness that just didn't seem to fit her character. Kakashi growled under his breath, "that was the source of your "deep concentration"?"

"Hai", she cheerfully responded, eyes still closed in a grin. "It reminds me of the time I was in this huge aviary at my mother's village. There were a thousand birds in that enclosure". Her eyes were open now, replaced with a watery look of recalled adoration.

"I though you said you'd never been outside of Konoha", pointed out Kakashi suspiciously.

She glanced at him, "I never said that".

"I'm pretty sure you did".

"Oh. Well in that case I was lying. I don't think my mother used legal means to get into of Konoha and out of her old home. I can't quite remember, since I was about four at the time. Either way, that's just what your attack reminds me of; the thousand bird paradise aviary".

"Thousand birds..." Kakashi trailed off pensively. "Chidori? It still sounds weird, but at least Gai didn't pick the name". He slid one eye to her teasingly, "mind you, I'm not sure if I prefer Gai's name over yours". Quite an insult as far as Kakashi was concerned, but Kurotaka remained nonchalant. "Use the name if you want. I was only trying to help after all".

"Shall I make a note of this on my calendar as a historic moment?'

"Just shut up, Kakashi, ok?"

"Fine. But out of curiosity, what village was your mother from?"

Kurotaka shook her head, ponytail flicking out behind her. "I'm not sure what the name of it is. My mother tries to keep it quiet that she even exists, let alone where she lives".

Kakashi stared at her. "You truly live in such fear?"

Her eyes flashed. "The Uchiha clan doesn't take any kind of bad publicity, Kakashi. Such a well-respected, law-abiding clan can't afford to have its flawless reputation marred by the existence of the result of an Uchiha indiscretion with a confused, foreign woman".

She gave a shuddering sigh, sinking to her feet to pick at the grass beneath her hands. Kakashi slowly sank down to sit beside her. He could sense her internal conflict, debating whether or not she should tell him what she so greatly wanted to get out of her mind. Perhaps he would get some answers now, or perhaps he would simply be thrown further into the dark.

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wild-filly: Will update as soon as I can, once again. I'm trying to keep this fanfic as accurate with the manga as possible, so we will be meeting several other characters soon as well Please review!