A/N: I only now realized how short chapters I've been writing for this fic compared to some of my other work. But I hope you like this chapter despite the shortness and the delay.
And I decided to do away with the fairytale titles underneath the chapter number. Too much of a hassle especially when I won't be explaining them in chapter.
Chapter 9.
"I'm sorry. But I really can't allow you to proceed." Kairi told her newly-found opponent. Hayate eyed her, measuring her up just like she did to him. He had seen her preliminary match against Hara. He has also probably seen that she hadn't gone all out on the boy. Kairi in the other hand was running through more information on him in her head.
Could use shadow clones for his sword technique thus making it harder to dodge the attacks coming from three directions. Stats… Strength and Stamina were only 2 according to data books but it was given due his ill health. Ninjutsu in the other hand was 4 and other stats comfortably 3 or more.
Kairi took a deep breath as discreetly as she could, glad for the cover provided by the shadows the light of fullmoon cast. It would do no good to show weakness.
"Can't allow me to pass? Why is that?" Hayate asked, his hand grasping the handle of his katana over his shoulder. Kairi crouched lower, ready to spring.
"Isn't it obvious?" The girl asked. "Classified information."
"You do realize that this is Konoha, and you are the one trampling the edge of rules laid on the guests?"
"You do realize that we are shinobi and flaunting the rules is something we are paid to do?"
He snorted. And then coughed. Kairi drew a slow breath…
With a clang of steel, they clashed. Sword against fan. Kairi blocked the overhead strike with the flat of Kogonhi, grimacing at the strain but nevertheless holding it.
"How did you spot me? I was ways away and concealed by a technique."
Transparent Escape Technique, Kairi's archive provided. She smirked.
"Maybe from eyes but not from ears." She said, her right hand drawing a kunai while left arm braced against her fan. She aimed a stab at his stomach which made his jump away. Wise decision. After all Suna was known for their poisons.
"'Hayate' means 'gale' or 'swift wind'…" Kairi mused, stowing away the kunai and flicking open her fan. "I wonder how that measures against Fuukatsu, 'dividing wind'…"
Pause… Some shinobi fights consisted surprisingly much of posturing.
"Fuuton: Kinkazekiri no jutsu!" Kairi swung her fan and with the concealing wind currents, moved in for a close-range attack. A risky move considering that Hayate was a closer range fighter with a longer reach than her but… She had a trick up her sleeve.
"Leaf-Style: Dance of the Crescent Moon." Hayate stated, moving out of the way of Kairi's attack and forming two shadow clones to assist him. The girl cursed and brought her hands together in a singular seal.
"Kazebunshin."
(Wind clone)
Two wind clones intercepted the shadow clones and got dispersed, the erupting blades of wind killing Hayate's clones in process too. Kairi in the other hand took the sword through her shoulder. She thanked the foresight of having an armor vest that blocked the worst damage for her shoulder but still couldn't help but chuckle at the fact that the fight could very well follow the tracks of the original fight in the manga.
"Saa… I really don't wanna know what it would've been like if those clones of yours had landed their hits too…" The girl mused, grimacing in pain when she shifted and the sword moved in the wound. With she dropped her fan and gripped the blade of the sword with her left hand. Hayate's eyes widened a fractionally at the action.
"What are you-…?"
But during the moment of distraction, Kairi had already reached one of her hairsticks with her right hand was pulling it down with one smooth motion. She couldn't do Kaze no Yaiba – Blade of Wind that Baki had pulled in this situation. That was an A-rank technique. But she could use her hairstick made of chakra conductive metal as a knife. And she rather used the hairstick than a kunai because of their positioning and easy reach.
She cut through the forest green vest of the TokuJo and pushed him away. Hayate collapsed on the roof, bleeding heavily but not as much as an A-rank wind technique at close range would've wounded him.
Kairi staggered and pulled the sword out of her shoulder. It stung. She needed a medic. But first she needed to get out of there.
"Soru." She vanished, only snatching up her fan before moving over the rooftops. Kabuto and Baki had already ended their meeting. It had been a quick one and over just moments before Hayate had landed his attack.
The blonde swayed and she had to crouch down on one of her landings. The blood loss was making her dizzy.
"That was quite the trick." There had been no indication of her fellow spy landing behind her yet the sudden announcement of his presence hadn't startled her.
"Yakushi-san…" Kairi breathed. Her left hand was staving the blood flow from her right shoulder while the right one hung limply on her side, just barely clutching onto Kogonhi. "Mind helping me?" She smiled tiredly. In some other world the blonde would've never even entertained the idea of asking Yakushi Kabuto's help but here…
They weren't friends. They were barely acquaintances and allies only because of their respective villages.
"Sure." The silver-head smiled back his genuine-fake smile and helped Kairi to stand. With a burst of Body-Flicker, they were gone.
Kairi flexed her fixed shoulder. It was as good as new. Kabuto indeed knew what he was doing with his medical abilities. It was pity he was ultimately a bad guy and currently beyond saving. Damn Danzo. Damn Orochimaru. Damn the murderous villages ready to stab each other in the back.
"It should be completely healed by the time of the finals. Light exercise until then." Kabuto told her, adjusting his glasses.
"Thank you." The girl said sincerely. "Are you going underground now?"
"Yes. There is no real need for me here until the finals… And if there were, I wouldn't tell you."
Kairi chuckled.
"Hai, hai…"
"What about you then?"
"Konoha knows something is up. They probably knew it was happening even before you blew your own cover. It doesn't cost them anything to let me walk free until the finals." The girl mused. "I'm just one ninja, not even chuunin compared to all the chuunin and jounin waiting for the signal of attack on that day…"
"May I remind you that you held against a Specialist jounin on your own quite well not even an hour ago?"
"One with bad health."
"Regardless true."
"…Yeah. I wonder if I'll get a field promotion soon for this."
"Is that all you are thinking about?"
"…" Kairi glanced at the young man, considering her next words. "I want a promotion in order to reclaim my father's name. I'm almost sixteen. And as much as I've learnt from my mother's family, I'm much more my father's daughter." She hopped off the examination table she'd been sitting on. They were in some abandoned building at the outskirts of Konoha. In the woods but still within the walls. The building had been made into a secret laboratory slash medical bay. Thankfully any experiments were cleaned out a long time ago.
"See you later then."
"Jaa ne."
Kairi left the place. It was weird how easy it was to talk with Kabuto. Almost as if they were friends even when they weren't. About as easy to talk to as Koto and Yomi.
The girl sighed. The next four weeks would be so long.
Next morning, Kairi returned to the hotel under the pretense of returning from her early morning run. In the lobby she ran into Natsuhiko-sensei who was writing a list of genin returning with him to Suna.
"Both Hara and Nagaya are going back?" Kairi asked in surprise when she glanced at the list.
"These are only their second exams." Meaning that they were too young, weak and inexperienced to participate in the invasion so they were being sent back for the future of the village.
"I see. Good. One less of a headache for me then." The girl nodded.
"If you need to ask anything, Baki-san will be able to help you."
"Understood."
With a wave, Natsuhiko left the lobby to meet up with Sesamu-san who was going back to Suna too and to gather the genin going back. There wasn't much as there hadn't been many Suna teams at Konoha in the first place.
Actually… Now that Kairi thought about the list she'd seen, it seemed that only the finalists (i.e. the Sand Siblings and her) plus some of the jounin were remaining behind. All other eleven genin would be taken back home.
Good, the invasion would have no room for cannon fodder and anyone who wasn't informed of it beforehand and completing their tasks, would be a security risk if the debrief were to happen at this point of time.
That being said, Kairi could only hope that she'd survive the ordeal with both her body and sanity intact.
"Let's just stay positive…" She muttered, heading for her room to get a shower and change of clothes. It was almost breakfast time anyways. Two hours from sunrise and all.
There was one training ground set aside for the Sunan shinobi. And that's where Kairi spent her mornings. Sometimes simply tree climbing and jumping, sometimes practicing her tessen-jutsu. There wasn't much that she could do with the possibility of the Konohan shinobi spying on her now that she was a known and active factor against them and not just a chuunin exam participant.
Kairi landed neatly on the ground from the standing backflip and sighed. She was honestly bored. She no one to train with either. No Koto-kun or Yomi-chan… No Natsuhiko-sensei. Not even her mother who was back at Suna. And frankly Kairi wasn't interested in striking up a conversation with Temari or Kankuro. Not to mention that she really didn't want to train with Kankuro and his puppet Karasu which was probably currently being outfitted with new weapons and poisons. Nope, nope, nope…
Her stomach grumbled. Kairi sighed again.
"I want ramen."
Teuchi-san greeted her cheerily and started a conversation whilst preparing her shoyu-ramen bowl. Ayame was there too, serving some other customers.
"Ah, Fuukatsu-san, long time so see. How are you?"
"I'm good, Teuchi-san. Preparing for the finals. Never really believed I'd make it that far." Kairi smiled back. "How about you? Business booming as ususal?"
"Ah, steady trickle of regulars with a couple of strays like you." The man laughed.
"Stray? I'd be offended if it weren't so accurate of a statement." Kairi smiled back.
"And as congratulations for making to the finals, the first bowl will be on the house."
"Arigatou!" And she dug into the bowl placed before her. "Delicious as always!"
She was enjoying her dish and barely even noticed when the Konoha's number one unpredictable ninja took a seat a couple of stools over and gave an exuberant greeting to Teuchi. And when his female teammate joined him.
"Hey, Naruto!" Nara Shikako greeted the boy. "How's training?"
"Ehehe, Shikako! I didn't see you there." The orange-clad boy smiled and shrugged then in response to the girl's question. "It's going okay. I mean, the toads are cool and all but the pervy sage just keeps wanting me to draw on – I mean, use more chakra and stuff. And Ebisu-sensei is boring, but I can tell I'm improving. And boy was he surprised when I asked for more chakra control techniques."
Kairi paused her eating, considering the information offered. It seemed that Ebisu had stayed as Naruto's teacher this time around despite Jiraiya's appearance. And Naruto seemed to tolerate him too. The building blocks for canon were still in place though, with Naruto trying to learn summoning and apparently Jiraiya trying to get him to use Nine-Tail's chakra. If the cut-off sentence indicated anything of substance that was.
"I bet he was." Shikako laughed. "So is this the real you? Not a clone?"
"Of course! Clones don't need to eat."
"I know. But I wouldn't put it past some of your clones to sneak off to eat ramen." The Nara girl smirked before handing over an envelope to the boy. "Here. These are for your fight. You should probably go over the information with Ebisu-sensei. Just be careful on there that you don't just anybody getting their hands on."
Kairi tried very hard not to snort at the statement, seeing as she was sitting just behind the girl. But then, she was wearing her 'civilian-esque' clothes once more and had her hitai-ate hanging from her belt on the side away from the two Konohan genin.
"Hey, these are like Kabuto's Nin-Info Cards!"
"It is not! It's detailed report on your opponents' skills, strengths and weaknesses with potential strategies to take advantage of them. It's nothing like-…"
Kairi resumed eating so she would seem like she was listening in. Considering that the rest of the current clientele at the ramen stall were civilians, she doubted they'd pay attention to her but better safe than sorry. But seriously though, what did that rookie genin have against Kabuto? The Nara girl had been weird during the first phase too but…
"Okay, okay, sorry! It's great. Thanks!"
"And here I was going to tell you about this awesome new idea that I had about your shadow clones… I guess you don't want to hear it."
"No wait! Yes, I do! Please tell me!"
"Oh, alright. Are you free for a bit? Or send a clone with me."
"I'll come. What is it? Is it a super cool move that'll help me defeat Neji?"
"It might be. It's just an idea. We'll have to see how it works…"
After Naruto had eaten, he and Shikako headed out. Kairi ordered another bowl of ramen, this time miso-ramen. While eating it, she let her thoughts dwell. Listening to the interractions of those two preteens, Kairi felt like she could pinpoint what exactly was causing the change in Naruto when it came to Nara Shikako.
Shikako was calm and could curb Naruto's more volatile nature. And considering how well she interacted with the boy, she probably had known him at the Academy too. And if they'd been friends even back then, she very well could've been a buffer between the boy and some meaner kids. And through her brother introduced other kids of their class to the blonde jinchuuriki. At least that would explain how the meeting between the rookies had been good-natured ribbing instead of a verbal attacks flying between alpha-males.
It was the same with Sasuke too. He wasn't an arrogant recluse but much mellower than his counter-part from canon.
Nara Shikako's mature approach bound the team together much better than Sakura's aggressive behavior.
Kairi let out a fond smile on her face while glancing at the seats the two had occupied. Only the clank coming from the new bowl woke her up. She looked up at Teuchi's gentle face.
"Relatives are a wonderful thing, aren't they?" The ramen cook smiled at her. Her surprise must've been visible when the man chuckled and continued with a lower pitch. "The resemblance between the two of you is obvious for anyone that's bothering to look for it. But as you are from other village, I doubt many people will see it. And they call themselves the master spies."
"T-Teuchi-san…" Kairi began but stopped. What could she say? While it seemed like Teuchi wouldn't go telling anyone, she couldn't be sure.
"Your secret is safe with me. I hope you'll someday speak to Naruto-kun about it."
"Someday." Kairi agreed. "But not for a while… We both need to be stronger for that."
"May I ask how you are related?"
"Cousins. Our fathers were brothers. And they had another brother in Iwagakure so we have two cousins there too." The girl smiled. "Reika-nee and Dei-kun are great and so is Arashi-jisan."
"It's great to hear that Naruto-kun has family left. Even if it's outside the village walls." Teuchi nodded.
"And it's great to see he is building a family here through his friends." Kairi added.
"Very true."
A/N: Naruto and Shikako cameo is from the chapter 29 of DoS. I decided to have Kairi to speculate Shikako a bit but she won't be going as far as to guess that they're in the same boat.
Teuchi knows the secret! I thought it appropriate. He knew Minato and Kushina after all and definitely recognized Naruto as their son. Since Kairi has similar features to Minato - shape of her eyes and the color of her hair being the most notable - I think he'd add one and one together. He lives in a ninja-village after all! But he won't be telling anyone.
Replies to reviews: (holy shiiii there're a lot of them)
-10th Squad 3rd Seat:
Thank you. It was difficult not to make her sound too arrogant but in the other hand she really wanted to crush him.
-gonewind321:
I see. I'll take this in to consideration with the future chapters.
I hope you liked the fight in this chapter more. It was surprisingly hard to write.
Sending Lee a card? Hmm... why not? Maybe in a next chapter. I need more ideas for the days preceeding the finals. Even this chapter had only two notes for me: Hayate-spythings. Teuchi thing just happened whilst writing. :)
-calcu22:
I'm very conflicted about those two. Even though their interractions are quite fake, they just click together so well. but considering what happened to Kazekage, Kairi can't exactly keep in contact with Kabuto in the future.
-The Real Chys Lattes:
I know. There won't be any redemption arcs in DoS like in canon methinks.
Thank you. For now, they are keeping up a status quo. And considering how Kairi can blend in and seem unthreatening while out of armor... Konoha is banking on her just following orders blindly. After all she left Hayate alive and only intercepted him before he could even find out who Kabuto was meeting with.
-Guest:
Thank you. I hope you enjoyed this chapter too.
-guisniperman:
Thank you. :)
-Axel Fones (chapters 1-8):
Thank you very much for reading my fic and taking the time to review all the chapters. I'm making a collective answer for them instead of answering each individually.
I'm really glad that you like Kairi and what I've already written for her story. I've planned on her making little changes on the DoS canon but they won't happen just yet. Especially when Kairi will be in the future mainly in Suna.
And for Shikako and Kairi... For now K is barely a blip in S's radar. She might be an anomaly since she made it to the finals but other than that Shikako doesn't care much for her. I might later write a chapter about Shikako's thoughts but not yet. And for Kairi... she is just happy that there is someone looking out for Naruto. And yes, I examined the DoS chapters carefully for a moment when Shikako's name would be said aloud and Kairi would hear it... there wasn't one until preliminaries.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter too. Sorry I couldn't answer for all the questions (rhetorical or not) without spoiling the future plans.
-Iaso (chapter 1):
Thank you. :) I'm glad to hear that.
:
Thank you. I'm glad to have reached (and maybe exceeded) expectations. I hope you liked this chapter too.
-gender-bender-lover-101:
I mader her a stat sheet but I don't have it with me at the moment... But she ranks approximately the same than Temari and Kankuro.
And... Oh, I guess that you've not read Dreaming of Sunshine then. It is an SI-OC fic as well. Quite good if you ask me. But as there is an 'extra Nara' in that story and also here, Kairi can't help but wonder it. But considering her own relatives, she won't look too deep into it for now.
-MLeggyLeaf:
Thank you.
-TFollower:
I'm glad to hear that you like my writing style.
I've updated! Finally! I'm not entirely sure where I got the inspiration from... (actually I do, I read the newest chapter of Civilian Pianist and then Sea and Stars...) And you know what? I'm intriqued at the idea of making a crossover between As the Sea calls and Catch your Breath... *sigh* What is my life...
Yes, I know it is hard to write someone else's universe. Especially when I'm sort of lazy in world-building. Tanigakure no Sato probably has the most of it and even then it's very character-heavy... But thank you anyways. I'll probably try to continue the fic as it is for now.
()
My notes for the next chapter say... Jiraiya. Oh dear, I sense a potential disaster coming.