Folded Hands, Chapter Thirty
Pairings: Zabuza/Haku, in all honesty InoChouji, possibly others later
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Notes:
Thanks for the reviews, once again! Someone already caught one of my typos and I corrected it, thanks!
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Night came and went. The tension Haku had felt was drained away the next morning, though he did not know why.
When he awoke, Sasuke was looking through his own closet. He turned around and nodded at Haku when he heard the water-nin sit up in bed, then grunted a 'good morning' before pulling some clothes out of his closet and shutting the door.
Words came freely to Haku now. "I saw that your brother came back."
Sasuke turned around again, a little surprised, and a smile lit his face. "Yeah, he did. I haven't been able to speak with him yet, though." As if he expected the conversation to go on, he sat down on his bed and faced Haku.
"Did you see the kids he brought with him?" Sasuke asked conversationally.
Haku nodded. "A boy and a girl." He paused. "I wonder who they were."
His roommate shrugged. "Maybe I'll ask if, if he can get away from training today long enough to talk to me." With that, Sasuke took his clothes and left for the bathroom.
A light, warm feeling took hold of Haku's chest, and he smiled as he stretched in preparation for the day.
He'll come back, too. I know he will.
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Zabuza woke at daybreak in accordance with his body's internal clock. He looked around the room he'd been given and shook his head in disgrace.
Yondaime's spare room was nice, yes, and his current bed was better than the sofa bed that he'd originally been promised, but this situation was the opposite of the one he wanted to be in.
Taking up some old guy's guest room while I'm disguised as a child…not to mention…Naruto…
He kicked off the covers and left his bed. A quick search through the chest of drawers the room held yielded a navy training uniform, Konoha-style, in his new size. Zabuza changed into it as feelings of disgust washed over him.
It's been ten years since I was this small!
A glance in the mirror only worsened his mood. He'd given up his bandages as a part of his disguise, and Itachi had even given him eyebrows. His coloring had been changed, if only slightly, to match Haku's. He noticed that his skin was a little pinker now, and his hair was darker. The transformation had also smoothed his skin and hidden the appearance of muscles in his legs, arms, chest…everywhere. His body did not look completely weak, but…it was still disgusting for him to have to look like that.
Zabuza picked up the last part of his disguise: a Konoha Temple forehead protector. He stared at it for a moment before tying it across his forehead at a slant, mimicking the bandages he'd once worn over his forehead. The mirror told him that this made him look too much like himself, but he hated the damned forehead protector anyway so he ended up shoving in his robe until the situation called for it.
He left his room and closed the door behind him. A light in the study told him that the old blonde guy was probably up by now, so he walked past that room on his way to his current destination and waved. Yondaime looked up, nodded, and returned to the document he was reading.
His walk took him to a room he'd usually never want to go in to. Zabuza braced himself before throwing the door open and striding up to its sleeping occupant.
Naruto lay on his side with his legs bent and an arm thrown over his face, snoring. A strange-looking nightcap covered his blonde hair.
Zabuza glared at Naruto for a moment before shutting his door. The blonde ninja turned in his sleep when he heard the door close, but his eyes remained shut.
"Kid," Zabuza said in the deepest voice he could manage in his current form. "Wake up."
The scarred young man opened his eyes and squinted at him. "Pink-boy?" he asked groggily.
A vein in Zabuza's temple twitched. "Shithead, it's me," he snapped. "Now get the fuck out of bed and show me around."
Naruto glared at him as he sat up in bed. "Now aren't you rude, huh?" He yawned and blinked dumbly at the annoyed water-nin.
Dumbshit doesn't recognize me? Zabuza thought. The blank look on Naruto's face agreed with this.
"I'm going to get my point across with as few words as possible," Zabuza said. As Naruto opened his mouth to say something, Zabuza held up one hand. "Silence. I swear to God that if you say anything, or interrupt me, or make me take longer explaining this to you than I'd like, that I'll thrown you right out of your bedroom window."
Naruto gave him a bizarre look but kept silent.
'Momoiro' cleared his throat. "It's me, Momochi Zabuza. Don't ask—hey, I said keep your damned mouth shut!" he said as Naruto tried to interject. Zabuza continued. "Haku is staying here, and I found out yesterday that there's an imposter here pretending to be me. I said keep your mouth shut! I came back from a mission with Itachi, and we brought a little girl from Haku's clan here with us. Itachi disguised me as a boy from the clan when he learned that—and if you question this so help me God—there was an imposter."
Naruto shut his mouth once more and waited for the story to end. When Zabuza said nothing else, he cocked his head to the side.
"So…you're Zabuza?" He squinted before shaking his head. "No way." The blonde ninja thought for a moment before saying, "If you're Zabuza, then you should be able to answer some questions that only Zabuza could answer."
Zabuza narrowed his eyes but complied. "Shoot."
"Okay." Naruto took a breath. "What does Haku look like?"
A little taken aback by the simplicity of the question, Zabuza shrugged. "Long dark hair, black eyes, a little taller than you…"
Naruto folded his arms and nodded. "Well, that one's right. Here's the next question." He looked over Zabuza's shoulder and thought for a moment while the water-nin's aggravation deepened. "What's your relationship to Haku?"
Zabuza raised an eyebrow. Damned eyebrows. "He's my slave and my student."
"He is, huh?" Naruto asked, glaring at Zabuza. The game of questions had changed. "Why haven't you let him free?"
"I have no reason to."
Naruto jumped off his bed and glared at Zabuza, who was now eye-level with him. "What do you mean, you have no reason? You can't make him stay your slave! It's not right!"
Zabuza glared right back but kept his cool. "There is no right or wrong in it, kid. I want him to stay with me and stay with me he will, on my terms."
"You know," Naruto said, clearly fuming, "you could still teach him if he wasn't your slave. That's perfectly acceptable." He took a breath and looked to the side before closing his eyes. "You're Zabuza, alright."
The transformed Zabuza nodded. As he left the room, he said over his shoulder, "Keep it to yourself. I don't know who else here's an imposter."
Naruto blinked. "How did you know I wasn't one?"
Zabuza turned around and gave him a 'dumbass' look. "Who'd want to be you?"
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Nara Shikamaru awoke with a slight headache. He left his room quietly so as to not wake Chouji, his teammate, roommate, and longtime friend, to visit the bathroom before the morning run. The walk to the bathroom and back was enough exercise for him, though, so once he'd changed into his navy Konoha training uniform, tied his forehead protector to his arm, and pulled on his training shoes, he once again left the comfort of his room and began his search for the Sandaime.
This was a normal morning for Shikamaru.
Old man beat me last time, he thought. There was no other reason for me to go back to my team. I just didn't want the old man to rub his victory in my face the next time I saw him.
Shikamaru sighed as he round the corner that took him past the academy section of the temple. He could hear children talking in one of the rooms.
"Ew! I don't want to be on a team with a girl!" one boy shouted.
One such girl decided to respond. "Well, I don't want to be on a team with a boy! Boys are yucky!"
"Girls have cooties!"
"Do not!"
"Do too!"
"What are cooties?"
He rolled his eyes and quickened his pace.
It's a temple rule, since girls were allowed into the temple, that there be at least one girl on each three-man team. The elders may not have considered it when they made the rule, but following that distribution can lead to less-than-optimal teams. For instance, Chouji and I wouldn't have to have been teamed with Ino. We could have been teamed with Shino, instead, or Sasuke. No, Sasuke's a jackass. Shino would have worked much better than Ino, though.
Shikamaru saw his teacher standing in the hallway. Hoping to not get caught in the act of dodging the morning run, Shikamaru decided to act cool and try to not draw his teacher's attention.
This was thwarted when Asuma turned to Shikamaru, looked at him hard for a moment, and smiled. "Good morning, Nara."
Nara? Since when does he call us by our family names? Shikamaru nodded half-heartedly and cracked a slight smile. "'morning, Master Asuma." he said as he paused in the hallway. If I try to get away too quickly, he'd think that I'm up to something. "What's up?"
The Jounin teacher of Team Ten rarely spent time with his team outside of sit-downs, missions, and team dinners. In fact, if asked, most of the temple's residents and employees would have said that Asuma spent much more time in the company of one, Yuhi Kurenai, than he did with his three-man team.
Not that they complained or anything.
So Asuma shrugged. "Not much. Hey, how's training with the new kid going? You showing him the ropes?"
"Who? Haku?" Shikamaru asked. Damn damn damn, I was hoping I wouldn't get pulled in to teaching him today. "Uh…yeah, he's doing fine. Chouji's the one who's teaching him, though. Ino and I are pretty useless at that kind of stuff."
"That kind of stuff?" his teacher asked in curiosity. Shikamaru raised an eyebrow and waited, thinking that his teacher was trying to be funny.
When Asuma said nothing and continued to wait for an answer, Shikamaru added, "Taijutsu. I mean, I'm decent when it comes to fighting non-specialists, but Haku isn't…well, and Ino sucks just as badly as I do…but you know that."
His teacher breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, right, taijutsu. I'll have you two work on that, so we can get you up to speed." Asuma waved him off and Shikamaru began to seek Sarutobi once more.
He's going to train us? Since when?
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"That lazy asshole!" Ino shouted as she walked with Haku and Chouji to the dining hall after their morning run. Haku had found that he was by far the fastest out of the three, and he planned to run by himself the next morning, if only to have some time to think by himself.
Ino fumed. "We had, like, a fight yesterday, so now he's going to ditch us again? UHH!" she threw her hands up in the air, complaining to no one in particular and not expecting a response of any kind.
"Shikamaru did run with me yesterday," Haku pointed out, although 'run' was a terrible exaggeration.
"He did?" Chouji asked. He turned to his female teammate. "That's a start. If he's okay running with Haku--"
"I know," Ino said, cutting him off. She spun around, her face dead serious. "I know, he doesn't want to run with me. So, wouldn't it just be so much easier if I ran by myself, and you two could run together, and--"
"That's not what I meant. And, if you did do that, you could run with Haku, or Sakura." Chouji held up his hands defensively as Ino's mouth shot open. "I'm just saying, that if you two aren't going to get along with each other face-to-face then we're going to have to make some compromises if our team is going to work."
Haku fell behind and let them talk. He felt eyes on his back but he knew better than to turn around and look.
"Compromises?" Ino asked. "How can we compromise when he's never going to come out here and talk to us?"
"In all fairness, Ino, you're a little too abrasive and Shikamaru can't function with that…" Chouji paused and Ino looked away.
"You two are ALWAYS like this," she said after a minute. "You always…make allowances for each other…you know, it would be good for him to get out, and not always hide like this…" Ino took a breath and released it slowly before turning back to Chouji. "Look, just forget that I said anything. He just keeps…getting on my nerves."
Haku's attention returned to the trees behind him. The presence had left, but an uneasy feeling settled into the bottom of his stomach. Maybe it's just ANBU watching me again. I don't see why they'd watch me when I'm still inside the temple grounds, though.
"Sorry for arguing in front of you, Haku," Chouji said apologetically, stealing Haku from his thoughts.
The water-nin shook his head and forced a carefree smile to his face. "It's alright, and I don't think you two were really arguing. I'm just happy to train with your team."
Ino suddenly turned around and jumped on Haku, smothering him in a hug. "Haku's such a great guy!" she exclaimed happily to Chouji. Looking up into her temporary fourth team member's face, she asked, "Haku, can you stay with us forever?"
A real smile lit up his face and he laughed a little. "Please, no."
Chouji chuckled. "Why not?"
"Well, I want to train with my own teacher again." Haku said. Ino released him and acted as if she had not done anything strange. They walked back to the temple in silence for a minute before Ino asked rather calmly, "Haku, do you like your teacher? Master Zabuza?"
Haku nearly tripped, and he was glad that he was walking behind the other two ninja so that neither of them saw it. "What do you mean?" he asked, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.
Ino shrugged and turned around so that she was walking backwards now. Pushing some stray hair out of her face, she asked, "I mean, you've trained with Kakashi's team a little, so you know Kakashi, and I saw Itachi training you, and I know you've met Master Asuma, so I was wondering if you'd, you know preferred any of them over Zabuza. Or do you really like being with him? Do you miss being back home?"
I miss him more than anything.
With the knowledge that a small verbal misstep could send Ino into either a defensive mode or into a very long and nearly one-sided conversation, Haku picked his words wisely. "I don't miss the Water Country very much. I think the climate here is better. And, about Master Zabuza…" The name made his chest burn. "I just can't imagine being with any other teacher."
"Why not?"
Haku swallowed nervously. "I…I just can't."
"Have you been with him for a long time?"
"I've honestly only been with him for a few weeks." Haku admitted. "But he's shown me that…that I can trust him more than anyone else I've ever met." A little embarrassed but determined to answer the question, a question he hadn't thought about nearly enough himself even though it was the most important question his life held at the moment, Haku took a breath and continued. "When I'm with him, there's nothing else that I want, or I don't feel like I want to be away from him or as if I need to be afraid of him. Since I've found a teacher like that, I don't want to look for any others."
Even if I wasn't his slave.
He looked straight at Ino, still flustered. "Do you feel like you could absolutely trust your teacher, Ino?"
She blinked and then burst out laughing. "Hell no! The bastard never spends any time with us these days anymore, and I wouldn't go to him for help or anything, but on missions…" Ino turned to Chouji and smiled. "Do you remember our old missions?"
The overweight ninja nodded and smiled back. "I think that we trusted him absolutely then. On the field, Master Asuma is pretty amazing."
Ino nodded in agreement and turned back to Haku as she continued walking backwards. "Well, when it comes to missions, I trust him with my life. I guess I get that part. But I wouldn't trust him with anything else. My dad trains me a lot, too, so it's not like I would even have Master Asuma to depend on for that kind of thing. It's the same for Chouji, I think."
"But when we're on missions," Chouji said, "there's no one in the world who I trust more than Master Asuma, Shikamaru, and Ino."
With that, Ino smiled a little and looked away.
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After breakfast with Moegi, Zabuza and Aka met with the rest of Team Gai on one of the training grounds in the forest outside the temple. Konohamaru gave 'Momoiro' a bored look as his teacher excited waved to the two newcomers and shouted things about 'Beginning on the Path of the Fire Country' and 'Bursting Youth'.
"Sorry you had to be on our team," Udon grumbled under his breath when Zabuza took a place beside him for their team briefing.
Zabuza nodded. It was about time that someone apologized.
Gai rubbed his hands together and smiled widely at his students. Aka met this with her usual weird stare and Gai's smile cracked a little. When he turned to 'Momoiro', the disguised water-nin narrowed his eyes a little. Gai laughed at their 'Youthful Antics' and began to address his team.
"Well, Students, Today is the First Morning for all Five of You to TRAIN Together!" he exclaimed, his teeth shining a bright, blistering white. "Now, Itachi told me that you, Momoiro," he said, focusing his attention on Zabuza, "already know a bit about fighting! He even said that your clan trained you in sword play!"
Sword play! Did that long-haired fucker actually say 'sword play'?
Zabuza nodded and held his tongue.
With that, Gai turned to Aka. "Itachi also told me that you haven't had any training. Moegi is proficient in taijutsu—that's hand-to-hand combat—so she'll train you while I teach the boys today."
Gai's older female student shrugged in agreement. "Sure."
"Now, boys," Gai said, addressing Udon, Konohamaru, and Zabuza, "my Original Lesson Plan for Today was to have one of my Old yet Youthful Students, an ANBU, help with Training but he was Unfortunately called away on a Mission and he could not come. In Honor of Our New Student, Momoiro, I have changed Today's Lesson Plan to Sword Arts."
Zabuza smirked a little, an action he was more comfortable with when his facial bandages were in place. If I have to be a kid again and train under some teacher, I'd prefer it if we would keep the material to my specialty. I don't want to have to LEARN anything over again.
Said teacher produced four swords, all in the style of the sword Itachi carried, from his gear pack. Konohamaru's eyes shot opened and he nudged Udon, who smiled and nodded back.
"Udon, Konohamaru, and Momoiro," Gai said, suddenly very serious. "You must remember that these are not like the weapons that you usually use. The are not kunai or shuriken. They're more dangerous than senbon, for kids like you who don't know how to properly use senbon. They're not toys like the other weapons. Understood?" He asked. Once he'd forced a nod out of the three 'boys' he smiled again. "Well, then, It's Time for Your Sword Training to Begin!" Gai shouted as he handed each of them a sword.
Zabuza took his with his right hand. It's pretty light. My strength is still the same as it was before, even if my body looks smaller.
To his right, Konohamaru carefully unsheathed his sword and admired the metal. Udon just stared at his without unsheathing it.
Their teacher clapped his hands together, drawing all of their attention from the new swords to him. "Well, Boys, it's Time to Start!"
About sixty feet away, Moegi sat her gear pack down on a relatively clean part of the forest floor and straightened her training dress and shorts. Aka looked around the forest soundlessly.
"Oh, it's just ANBU," Moegi said, breaking Aka away from her thoughts. The withdrawn water-nin turned to Moegi and looked at her questioningly.
"ANBU?"
"Yeah," the orange-haired girl answered. "ANBU is basically the secret police and guard squad of the temple, all rolled into one. They're probably just out here right now to watch you and your cousin."
Aka nodded. That explained the uneasy feeling she'd had.
"So," Moegi said, smiling as she sat down on a fallen log. "You don't have any fighting experience?"
"No," Aka replied blandly. I rarely got to do anything back home. I was in bed all day until I was eleven, when they decided that I was old enough…and then, when I took to childbirth, they had me stay in bed again.
Moegi looked her over. "You're pretty skinny. But, you know, some girls just don't have womanly figures," she said, indicating her own body. Aka stared at her weirdly.
"Womanly?"
The fire-nin nodded. "I have been gifted with a graceful, womanly figure." When Aka continued to stare at her, Moegi rolled her eyes and made an 'hourglass' shape in the air with her hands. "Like this."
Aka frowned. "I look a little like that too."
"No, you're skinny. But don't worry, some girls just bloom later than others. The boys will probably start to like you in a few years." Moegi shrugged. "But back to you being skinny. Most of the twelve-year-old girls who graduate from the academy look pretty much like you…I mean, they're not strong. We got a little training back at the temple, but it was more like a 'whatever gets you by' kind of thing for the girls." She sighed. "Anyway, you'll probably catch up pretty soon, not like that other guy who's training with the Chuunin. He sucks!"
"Other guy?" Aka asked curiously.
Moegi nodded. "There's a teenager who's training with, um…well, he was on Big Bro's team for a while, and now he's training with the other Chuunin. I think he was from the Water Country, just like you, actually. Poor guy is so far behind; I wonder why none of the teachers have told him to give up on becoming a ninja yet."
"Am I going to become a ninja?" Aka asked. This had not been discussed with her.
Moegi gave her a weird look. "Well, that's what people come to the temple for. If you don't want to, then I guess you don't have to, but you should probably get out of the temple."
"What…is a ninja anyway?"
"Oh, wow," Moegi said. She shook her head and patted a spot on the long beside her. "Sit down, we have a lot to talk about."
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Naruto managed to get a spot next to Haku during lunch as soon as he got away from Sakura and Sasuke. His departure was met with shouts of, "Naruto!" and "Where the fuck do you think you're going?" respectively, but he still left them unhindered.
As Naruto plunked his lunch tray (slightly cheaper food than the temple had served for the past week and a half) down next to Haku's, a cheeky grin lit his face. Haku caught his smile and couldn't help but smile back as he watched the scarred ninja silently pull his chopsticks out of their protective sleeve and begin to eat with a look of indestructible happiness on his face.
Hinata took the seat across from Naruto. Gathering up a little courage, she asked, "Did something good happen today, Naruto?"
He smiled back at her and shrugged a little. "Oh, well, there's a new kid staying at Yondaime's place with me. He's from the Water Country, and he's like thirteen or something."
"Did you two get along well?" Haku asked politely.
Naruto bit back a laugh and smiled even wider. "Let's just say he's a pretty funny guy, is all. Really serious, too." With that, the blonde ninja actually had to turn around in his seat so that he could laugh by himself. Hinata sent a worried look in his direction and Haku shrugged before pulling out his own chopsticks.
That bright smile and carefree attitude lit up his day.
Oh man! Naruto thought. I forgot that I couldn't tell Haku! But it's so freakin' funny!
Okay, okay, so Haku would probably want to know that his Master, UKKKKK, is here, but Zabuza said not to tell anyone! Ha hah, take that, Bandage Face!
I can SO stay silent about this! I'll be the best about staying silent about this! Hell, Zabuza will crack before me, I'll be so good at it!
"Hey!" Ino said as she walked up to Naruto. He raised his eyes to her now-angry face as she exclaimed, "Get away from my teammate, Uzumaki!"
"Your teammate?" Naruto shouted back. Haku began to turn around but decided to listen to their spat instead.
"Yeah!" Ino replied. She moved his tray to the side and set hers where his had been. "Now, get up! You had your turn with Haku and he's ours now!"
Chouji joined her in time to hear this statement. With an apologetic look at Haku's back, he said, "Ino, you shouldn't really talk about people like you own them…"
Naruto's face lit up again and he started to laugh, to the chagrin of Ino and to the amusement of Haku, for he understood about half of the reason for Naruto's laughter.
Ino stared at Chouji for a moment, open-mouthed and flustered, not sure of how to defend herself, when her blue eyes found Chouji's tray. "Damn it all to hell, Chouji!" she shouted, holding up a plate of french fries while Chouji opened his mouth in protest. "I told you, no fried food!"
"But Godaime finally brought them back! It's been three weeks since she told the kitchen to make those!" Chouji whined, letting Ino change the subject.
"No!" she said, stamping her food. The blonde young woman handed the plate to Naruto. "Here, be a good boy and go eat these with your own team!" she said. With one last smile Haku's way, the scarred ninja left the table and walked over to his teammates' current location, grinning madly in response to the strange looks they both gave him.
Ino rolled her eyes and sat down next to Haku. As Hinata picked up her tray to leave the table, Ino held up a hand without looking and said, "Hinata, you're cool, Shikamaru probably isn't coming so you can sit there."
Distressed, Hinata set her tray back down. I wanted to move to Naruto's table…
Chouji sighed as he sat down next to the Hyuuga heiress, but he said nothing else to Ino.
"So, Haku," Ino said in the same authoritative voice she'd used to get Naruto away from the table, "What are your plans for the rest of the day?"
He looked up, a little surprised. "I hoped to train with Chouji again."
"Really?" she asked. Ino turned to Chouji. "Do you want a break from training him?"
Chouji shook his head. "Even if I did, I wouldn't want either you or Shikamaru to have to take over because neither of you ever took well to taijutsu."
"That's not all there is, though," Ino said to a somewhat confused Chouji before turning back to Haku. "I could go over transformation and genjutsu and chakra control with you, if you want. I mean, no one's really trained you in that stuff, right?"
"No," Haku said. "Actually, I thought that I was just supposed to learn those things on my own."
Ino, now satisfied with her plans, leaned back in her seat and folded her arms in an authoritative posture. "Well, then, I'll help you train with that stuff from now on, and I'll alternate with Chouji. You really DO need someone to help you learn that stuff; otherwise, it'll just be a big mess. I didn't even understand that stuff all that well when I was at the academy and I learned about it in a book. It took a few months with Master Asuma before I could control my chakra as well as I do now, though my dad helped me out too."
"Well, thank you," Haku replied. He smiled at her and she smiled back, still self-satisfied, before beginning to eat.
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The Godaime sat up stiffly in her office chair when she heard a sharp rapping on her door. Holding her forehead in one hand and steadying herself against the weight of her hangover with the other, she closed her eyes for a moment before shouting, "Come in."
Uchiha Itachi entered quietly and closed the door behind him. Tsunade nodded at him weakly as he sat down in her visitor's chair, holding a file folder that read, 'ANBU Classified'.
Eyeing the folder, Tsunade asked, "Is that from your mission in the Water Country?"
Itachi nodded. "I've compiled my findings from the Yukitori clan, as well as taken an inventory of the artifacts brought back from their compound. The file also contains accounts given by people who lived in the nearby village, White Town. All that's missing is…"
"…information on the kids and Haku," she finished for him. Itachi nodded again, grateful that Tsunade had the presence of mind to include 'Momoiro' as one of the clan's children and to not let his actual name or identity slip out like she had been close to doing the night before.
"I'm going to let Gai supervise Aka's and Momoiro's training for the next few days," he said sternly. "I've been given a few men to assist me in the information-gathering portion; two of them watched this morning's training session. I'm still waiting for their reports."
"And as for Haku?"
"I've researched ninjutsu typical of the Water Country," Itachi said. "I'll begin training him soon, though I don't want to take him away from the teams he works with. It's important for the development of a ninja, to be able to work in a team and to work to complement the talents of those around you."
Tsunade nodded. "Well, you're more than qualified for whatever it is you're going to do, I suppose. Break a leg."
With that, Itachi stood and left her office.
Surely Itachi knows what's going on, she thought. He returned from his last mission yesterday, conveniently on the same day that an unidentified ninja was found dead outside the temple. Kotetsu's report said that the first ANBU on the scene found evidence of a battle…a brief battle. I don't know anything about the unidentified ninja's strength or his abilities other than the fact that he had six arms, but it's a sure fire bet that Itachi would have been strong enough to kill him without much of a fight, hence the short battle.
If I can assume that the imposter and the unidentified ninja are related, or rather WERE related, then I can also assume that Itachi knows at least a little about the current conspiracy at the temple.
Not to mention the fact that it seems that Momochi Zabuza has returned to the temple, in disguise. I wouldn't have caught it if I hadn't already known that there was a Zabuza imposter here at the temple.
So I've got Itachi on my side…or, that's all I can hope for. If Itachi is working for the other side, then I don't know how much time is left for our temple.
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During their late lunch, Konohamaru and Udon couldn't help but stare at their new teammate, Momoiro. Every student and teacher at the temple who saw the looks on their faces thought that the new student either had the ability to mentally issue death threats to his male teammates, or that the new kid must have had a major attitude to be able to hold Konohamaru's attention.
The latter part was partially right, and the former would have been true, perhaps, if Zabuza could use telepathy, but the true reason was that neither Konohamaru nor Udon could forget that morning's sword training session.
"So, Momoiro," Udon asked after a few minutes of silence. The noise that Moegi sometimes provided was absent due to the fact that she had ushered Aka away to the 'girls' table' for Genin. "You really spent a lot of time training with swords in the Water Country, huh?"
Zabuza nodded distractedly. He couldn't get over the feeling of air on his naked face. It is easier to eat this way, though; I don't need to wait to eat in private. Not that I like being in public for any reason, anyway.
"I think you fried Gai's brain a little," Konohamaru said. "But, you know, he doesn't usually use swords, so…"
'Momoiro' shrugged. "Whatever, at least I got some practice this morning," he said as he looked over Udon's shoulder to the table where several of the older kids sat. Haku was still sitting with the same kids Zabuza had seen him with the night before.
"Um…" Udon said. He glanced at Konohamaru before continuing. "Maybe you shouldn't train with Genin."
"Genin?" Zabuza asked.
"Yeah," Konohamaru said. "You know, the lowest level of ninja, Genin?"
Zabuza shook his head. "I don't know the names for everything here."
Konohamaru sighed before explaining. "Genin are the lowest level of ninja in the temple. To become a Genin, one must attend the temple's academy and pass a certain test by the age of fourteen. The next level is Chuunin, the 'middle ninja'. Most of the adults in the temple are Chuunin level. To become a Chuunin, you have to pass another test, but it's much harder, and longer, and there's no age requirement. You also have to pass the Chuunin exam in a group of three. Next is the Jounin level, the 'high ninja'. Jounin are incredibly strong, and to become a Jounin you need to be a Chuunin and you need to pass an even harder test than necessary for becoming a Jounin. There are also other levels around Jounin, but it gets complicated after that and I don't want to explain it. Anyway, you seem…a little too strong for a Genin. Maybe you could ask Gai to let you take the Chuunin exam the next time it's held."
Of course I'm stronger than the lowest level of ninja here, Zabua thought. He was a full-grown man, an assassin, a murderer.
"I don't think that's necessary," was his reply.
Konohamaru shrugged. "Whatever you want, it's just that the 'Genin' classification doesn't seem right for you."
At the girls table, Moegi tapped Aka on the shoulder and said, "You remember the other guy I was telling you about, the one from the Water Country?"
Aka nodded blankly.
"He's sitting at one of the tables behind us! Look really carefully, so he doesn't know we're talking about him," Moegi whispered. "He's the guy with long brown hair. He looks just like you."
Aka turned and looked. She'd seen him the day before; he'd smiled at Zabuza.
He's little now.
"Turn around! Turn around!" Moegi whispered. Once Aka had complied, she said, "If you stare at someone around here, they might think you're making trouble, or worse, that you LIKE them! You don't want rumors like that going around about you and an older student!"
Aka frowned. "What do you mean by 'like'?"
Moegi gave her a strained look and said, "You know, someone you want to be with and do stuff with. Someone you want to be around."
"I wish I was with Itachi now," Aka said firmly. "I enjoyed being around him."
This caught the attention of the other girls at the table. One said, "I like Itachi too! He's so cool, and strong, and he's a genius!"
Moegi nodded. "It's okay to like someone cool like Itachi…I think every girl at the temple likes him actually."
"Yeah," another girl affirmed.
I didn't feel so lonely when I was with Itachi. I felt like I had…someone. Like family. I think that he knows how to take care of people. I liked that.
Itachi said he'd visit me everyday. I wonder how soon I'll see him.
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"Okay!" Ino said enthusiastically, clapping her hands together in preparation for her first lesson. Haku sat on the ground in front of her and Chouji rested on one of the rocks located around the lake, watching the progress of the lesson.
"First things first! Chakra control!" To demonstrate chakra control, Ino stepped onto the lake and began to walk across the water. "When you've mastered chakra control, you will be able to walk on water!"
"I can actually do that now," Haku said quietly.
"What?" Ino took a step back in surprise. "I thought you said you couldn't control your chakra!" She retraced her steps to the shore.
"I'm not really sure about it myself," Haku admitted, "but I've been able to walk on water ever since I was little."
"It might be because of his Bloodline Limit," Chouji offered.
"Well, then," Ino said after a moment of thought, "forget about walking on water, you still need to master chakra control. You've read about chakra in the textbooks, right?"
Haku nodded. "Chakra is the source of a ninja's power. It circulates, like blood or lymph, through each human's body and can be focused, molded, or unleashed."
"Correct!" Ino said, folding her arms and nodding her head in agreement. "Now that you know that people CAN manipulate chakra, let me show you HOW they can manipulate chakra."
The blonde young woman walked up to the nearest tree and said, "Watch closely," before planting one of her feet firmly on the tree trunk. Haku watched in surprise as she began to walk up the tree trunk, completely unsupported. His eyes darted to the small amount of blue light visible between her feet and the tree trunk.
"Is that chakra?" he asked, pointing to the light.
"You can see it?" Chouji asked him before he turned towards Ino and squinted. "Oh, I guess you kind of can see the chakra."
"Really?" Ino asked, lifting one foot off the tree trunk to look. She instantly regretted this when her 'foothold', so to say, was lost and she fell from the tree trunk. Ino caught herself, though, by refocusing her chakra on the soles of her feet and regaining her composure.
"Lesson number one in chakra control: concentration," Ino said, still flustered from her near-death experience. Chouji let out a sigh of relief and put his hand over his heart as Ino's new student smiled up at her wearily.
To prevent any other such mishaps, Ino jumped down from the tree trunk and dusted off her hands. "Okay," she said, turning to face Haku, "now, you try. Focus your chakra on the soles of your feet and see if you can't stand on the tree trunk like I did."
The water-nin closed his eyes and tried to imagine his chakra circulatory system cycling throughout his body, blue zephyr running along veins and arteries and nerves. He unconsciously raised his hands in front of his face and held them together in an effort to concentrate.
Go down to my feet, he thought. My attachment to this world is the strongest at my feet. My attachment to this world is the strongest at my feet. Without that, I am weightless.
Haku opened his eyes and walked over to the tree Ino had jumped from. He raised one foot to the tree trunk and planted the sole of his foot to the tree. Now, my attachment to this world will exist only between my feet and this tree. Without this tree, I am weightless.
He took a deep breath and removed his other foot from the ground. The weight that leg had held found its way to his other foot and he balanced his body in the air precariously for a moment, one foot stuck to the tree and the other leg frozen awkwardly in the air, unsure of what to do.
Amidst a gasp from Ino, Haku swung his other leg in front of the first one to balance himself and held out his arms as if he was trying to walk across a narrow bridge. He held his breath and fought two sources of gravity as he realized that he had only redirected his chakra to his right foot, and not his left. Remedying this caused him to slide down the trunk a few inches, but he was soon stabilized on the tree trunk, standing horizontally in mid-air.
"Wow!" Ino said, covering her hands with her mouth. She nudged Chouji. "Oh my god, oh my god, look! He did it!"
As Haku took another step, and another, Ino squealed and started jumping up and down. Beside her, Chouji nodded. "Kids with Bloodline Limits often find chakra control easier than those without. There are exceptions…as I heard, Sasuke had some difficulty with this a few years ago…"
Haku took one more step and held himself in place on the tree trunk, about ten feet off the ground. It actually feels like I'm standing on the ground, he thought, but gravity from the Earth is still pulling down on my hair and clothes. He jumped down from the tree just as Ino had done and straightened his clothing before turning to his 'teachers' and waiting for more instructions.
Ino gathered herself and said, "Okay, well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would. You can do other things with chakra, too, but it kind of depends on your specialty."
"Specialty?" Haku asked.
"Yeah, like if you use puppets you can make chakra threads, or you can infuse things with chakra, or you can make things move…I honestly don't know everything about it because there are just so many ways that chakra can be used. Hinata, for example, can draw chakra out of her hands and her ANBU cousin, Neji, can form a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree shield out of it. The list goes on and on; now you kind of have to figure out how you want to use it, and I can try to help you do it."
Haku sat down on one of the rocks by the lake. "How would I use chakra…" he asked himself quietly.
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Gai laid his head down on the main table of the dining hall reserved for teachers. "How could this happen…" he lamented through a thick outpour of tears.
"Something got you down?" Asuma asked.
The smooth-haired teacher turned to Asuma and nodded. "That new student…that new boy…he's already a better swordsman than I! WHY?" he asked, reaching up to the heavens and calling out in grief. "Why is this happening to me? Is it because I insulted his name? His NAME? I take it back! Momoiro is a wonderful name! I'll name my first son Momoiro, just give me the skill I need to do my part as this boy's teacher!"
Kakashi raised an eyebrow as he sat down across from Gai. "Who are you talking to?" he asked.
Gai sat up quickly and wiped his eyes dry. "You, my Eternal Rival! Practice the sword with me! If you win, I swear that I'll do two-thousand pushups! I'll buy you a bookcase for all of your fashionably orange books! I'll even wash all of your half-masks!"
"Now, big guy," Kakashi said, patting the insane jounin on the back, "that doesn't sound like the Maito guy I know. He doesn't bargain; he shouts whatever he wants, even when no one else really gets what he's saying."
Gai tackled the silver-haired teacher with a bear hug. "Kakashi! You are a Great Man indeed! Your Words of Youthful Wisdom have Invigorated my Spirit! I SHALL teach that boy how to Use the Sword!" As he stood to find 'that boy', Kakashi pushed him back down into his chair.
"Tomorrow," Kakashi said. The clinic staff had gone home for the night and he didn't want poor overworked Kabuto to have to clean up whatever mess the black-haired man was going to create.
"Tomorrow," Gai repeated as solemnly as he could.
Uchiha Itachi entered the room and closed the door behind him. When he looked around the near-empty room, he silently reopened the door and stepped out.
It looks like Tsunade hasn't come yet. I can sneak in a few minutes with Sasuke.
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