AN: No time to proofread this, so prepare for a lot of spelling mistakes. Also, Naruto and the OAT has surpassed a 100 reviews! Yay! Special mention goes to HansImGlueck for being number 100! Congrats! =)
Interlude 1: The Chef and the Monkey
It was during the final days of the Second Shinobi World War, and Konoha had just received a great hit. It wasn't a loss of territory or manpower (though those had suffered as well) but one of reputation.
And in the ninja world, reputation could easily mean the difference between victory and defeat.
A strike force of Konoha shinobi had invaded the Land of Rain, but had met its gruesome end at the hands of the legendary ninja Hanzo the Salamander, leaving only three survivors, who would ever after be known as the Sannin, the finest shinobi of their generation.
Hanzo was one of the strongest shinobi of his age, a truly impressive feat considering his lifetime saw many other living legends, such as the Third Raikage, who was thought to be invincible before he fell under an assault of 10,000 enemy shinobi that lasted a three days and three nights, allowing his comrades to escape to safety. Or the Third Tsuchikage, who had an extremely powerful Kekkei Tota, the Dust Release, which he had used to wipe away enemy armies and cities alike, with the ease of blowing away sand in the wind.
And of course, Konoha's Third Hokage himself, the teacher of Jiraiya, the Toad Sage, who in turn would teach the Yellow Flash, Namikaze Minato, the deadliest ninja of his time. Sarutobi Hiruzen had been apprenticed to the Senju brothers themselves, and chosen successor of Hashirama Senju, the greatest shinobi to have ever lived, even having inherited the title 'God of Shinobi' from his mentor for his combat prowess.
Together with Enma, the Monkey King, there was no foe who could duel the powerful Sarutobi in personal combat, his strikes too fast to dodge, too powerful to block, his ninjutsu flawless and destructive enough that he had no equal when it came to destroying the enemy with the very elements of nature itself.
But he had yet more to offer.
He was also called the Professor, due to his working knowledge of nearly all ninja disciplines, more than a few of which most ninja had never even heard of, and sometimes more extensive than those who proclaimed themselves experts in their fields.
No matter what tactic you used, Hiruzen Sarutobi would already have a counter strategy already in place. No matter what special jutsu you inherited or invented, chances were Hiruzen Sarutobi knew more about its mysteries and intricacies than you did.
No, for all that the mere sight of him and his unbreakable staff instilled fear and defeat in Konoha's enemies, it was his mind that was the terror of the other nations, for surely he understood their inner workings and hidden secrets even better than they did.
He was after all, the Professor.
It had been a hard earned title, and one Hiruzen took great pride in, having worked almost every waking hour on doing it justice, studying by the light of candles and the sun alike. He understood the nature around him, he understood the people that inhabited that world alongside him, he knew what made the earth go round and his fellow humans tick.
So it was a very rare occasion when Hiruzen found himself truly surprised anymore.
But that's just what happened during the final stages of the war.
He was in some small, unnamed village in a heavily contested border country between Kumo and Konoha, the ever hot-headed Raikage taking Konoha's loss at the hands of Hanzo the Salamander as a sign of weakness. The fact that Konoha had gained three more legends to its impressive roster had not been enough to dissuade the near-indestructible man from his aggressive course.
After all, they were untested, and their legends, though hard-earned with both sweat and blood, had yet to grow to match their prowess.
Unfortunately, Hiruzen couldn't call upon most of his legendary warriors to contest the challenge that the Raikage had made by overtaking one of their vassal territories.
Jiraiya was still in the Country of Rain, doing Kami knows what. Tsunade had turned her back on being a shinobi after the death of her lover, yet another heavy blow to Konoha's power and reputation. And Orochimaru… Orochimaru had been changed by the War that plagued them.
Then again, weren't they all?
Minato Namikaze was a prodigy, true, but not yet old or powerful enough to send to the stage of war. There was also Hatake Sakumo, the White Fang of Konoha, but he was off on mission that was vital to the survival of Konoha, and could not be spared for a border-dispute, no matter how important that dispute may be.
Which was why it was Hiruzen himself, that was standing in the rain on a torn-up field, his trusty friend Enma standing beside him.
And in front of them, was probably the strangest sight either of them had ever seen.
The Land of Flowers had no Ninja Village of their own, since their numbers were too small in order to maintain one, forcing them to usually hire shinobi from their ally Konoha.
However, that didn't mean that they didn't have any ninja at all; it was simply a result of all the major clans grouping together to form the various Shinobi Villages, that the unaffiliated ninja of the minor Lands were overall weaker than those of the major Villages, simply because they had no clans or Academy to fall back on in order to strengthen their skills.
So it was definitely an odd thing to see a single shinobi from a minor Land hold his own against a group of ninja's from not one, but two major Villages.
With his bare hands.
A lone man stood in front of a small wooden house, his clothes stained with blood, as he was surrounded by ninja wearing headbands from both Kumo and Konoha. The enemy forces traded a few confused glances at their odd impromptu team-up, before focusing on the bigger threat.
At the man's feet was a small mound of dead shinobi, all of them with caved in skulls or chests. The man himself, looking more like a civilian instead of a deadly ninja, if not for all the blood covering him, stood with his back towards the house, his eyes flitting from one enemy to the next, his fists raised in front of him.
Even as Hiruzen watched, a Kumo shinobi flashed through a couple of handseals, before holding out both hands towards the lone man, his arms outstretched and his fingers curled into claws.
Hiruzen knew what was coming of course, once again doing his title as the Professor justice. A veritable lighting storm would fly from the shinobi's fingertips, and while at lower settings it wasn't immediately lethal, it was extremely painful and paralyzed the target.
Lightning began to build up around the Kumo shinobi's hands, while the scent of ozone filled the air-
Crack!
"Aaaaaahhh!"
-before the lone man ('Shinobi? Civilian? Samurai?') blurred to the enemy shinobi's side, his hands flashing out and grabbing the Kumo ninja's fingers and breaking them with a quick snap of his wrist.
It was one of the first lessons taught to shinobi and samurai alike; a ninja's weakness will always be his fingers. Without them, only the strongest of ninja could still preform ninjutsu, and if they could, then there was very little chance you managed to break their fingers in the first place.
Without a way to release the pent-up energy, the lightning inside the shinobi's body became unstable, before unleashing itself in an explosion of light and gore.
The lone warrior hadn't paused to watch his handiwork however, and instead had moved towards the next enemy ('Shunshin? Kawirami? Or is he just that fast?'), a ninja from Kumo as well. Like many others of his Village, this shinobi favored a sword, but as he tried to bring it down on the bare-handed man, he slapped the sword on the flat of the blade with a powerful palm-strike while twisting his body to the side, letting it bury itself deep into the earth.
The ninja was clever and experienced enough to not hold on to his weapon and instead jumped back, trying to create some space between him and his enemy. However, in mid-air, the lone man's hand lashed out, grabbing the air-borne ninja by the ankle, before swinging him around-
FWOOOSH!
-right into a Great Fireball of one of Konoha's ninja's. Having shielded himself from the deadly technique, the lone warrior jumped away, leaving the burnt-out husk of the Kumo shinobi behind, returning to his previous spot in front of the wooden house.
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed at that, even as he let Enma transform into his staff form, his thoughts shooting through his brain like lightning, his gaze analyzing the odd spectacle in front of him.
'He's protecting something. Something inside that house means enough to him that he'll fight to the death in order to protect it.´
Hiruzen made to jump in, Enma at the ready as he was turning this new intel over and over in his head, thinking of the best way to exploit it, before his eyes widened in shock. A Konoha and a Kumo ninja were both flying through handseals, but had not seen the other one do it.
Hiruzen, however, recognized both sets of handseals (he probably knew more about the jutsu than their casters did) and in his minds-eye he saw the disaster about to happen.
"NO! DON'T!"
Both shinobi looked up in surprise, but both had been veterans of war, and had trained their bodies to move independently of their minds; if you had to think about how you're supposed kill someone, chances were, he had already killed you instead.
So, even as their eyes widened as they saw the same danger that Hiruzen had seen, a look of horror and fear crossing their features, their hands still completed their techniques unabated, both landing on their final seal simultaneously, calling out their technique as much because of automatism as well as a hopeless warning.
"Fuuton: Tachikaze!"
"Katon: Ennetsu Jikogu!"
"NO!"
A blade of wind, screaming through the air with an almost visible sharpness, tearing up the ground behind it with deep furrows made with the ease of a hot kunai slicing through melted butter, met the pillar of flame that shot out of the ground where mere moments before the lone warrior had stood, shooting up into the sky with such heat that the rain in a diameter of a mile simply evaporated.
And then things got worse.
Hiruzen had to shield his eyes from the intense heat, only vaguely seeing the blurry shapes of the Konoha and Kumo ninja jump away, while the unknown enemy had already made himself scarce when the ground below him erupted in to flame, flipping through handseals as fast as he could, a terrified expression on his face.
And then Hiruzen didn't see anything anymore, as the world was consumed by fire and light, an explosion shaking the ground, while the sky itself was set aflame. The 40 year-old Hokage could feel heat slam into him with an almost physical weight to it, scorching off his eyebrows and beard, while the metal plates in his helmet and armor started heating up to uncomfortable degrees.
Hiruzen tried to work himself to his feet as fast as possible (there were Kumo shinobi nearby, after all) only vaguely noticing that he had been flattened against the ground from the sheer intensity of the blast.
He was too busy trying to pull of his armor without burning his fingers.
As he looked back at the small village the fight had taken place in, a heavy sadness rested on his shoulders. Most of the buildings simply weren't there anymore, only blackened and burned skeletons of framework remaining.
'Another village… gone. Another victim of this damned war…' the Hokage morosely thought to himself, the destruction of his allies' hearth and home heavy on his conscience.
Wrapping Enma, who was still in his staff form and glowing an ominous red, in the few scraps of fabric not torn up by battle, or burned by the disastrous misfire of the two techniques, Hiruzen glanced back at the village, his grey eyes trying to pierce the thick smoke and ash that obscured everything in sight.
'Guess we'll never know who that ninja was… or what he thought was worth protecting so much that he fought two groups of enemy shinobi on his own.' He thought to himself, before his eyes widened in shock.
A gust of wind blew away the lingering smoke, revealing the unknown enemy standing in front of the wooden house, red as a lobster, and looking like he could drop dead any second, while behind him, steam wafting in great clouds from the woodwork, stood the house, relatively whole compared to the rest of the burned-down village.
Before he even knew what he was doing, Hiruzen had shunshined to the ninja's side with pinpoint precision, just in time to catch the unknown enemy as he sunk to his knees with a strangled gasp. As soon as the legendary Sarutobi laid his hands on the other ninja's reddened skin, he almost recoiled with a hiss.
The man's skin was hot to the touch, and instead of looking burned, as Hiruzen had expected, he instead seemed to be cooked alive. A quick glance at the man's hands (one on the wall of his home, the other on his own chest) as well as the lingering chakra trails that hung around them, told Hiruzen just what had happened.
'He used a modified Water Prison Jutsu on the home, while using a similar one on himself. It's why he is hurt the way he is; he wasn't burned by the fire, but the water around him flash-boiled at the sudden heat, cooking him inside. However, it was probably the best option out of a slew of disastrous ones. But still, to create a Water Prison large enough to cover an entire house, with just one hand, while making another in the other hand? Who is this man?'
As close as he was, Hiruzen could finally make out more details about the mystery ninja. He was young, somewhere in his early twenties, meaning Hiruzen was almost twice as old as him. His features were strong, with deep set eyes and a square jaw.
Hiruzen had never seen him before in his life.
However, before Hiruzen could demand an answer to his question of the badly hurt ninja's identity, his earlier question was suddenly answered, as a soft wailing was heard from within the house.
It was the sound of a baby, crying out to its parents.
'Guess I now know what he was trying to protect.' Hiruzen wondered, staring at the half-dead ninja in his arms.
As the wailing picked up in both pitch and volume, it seemed to reach the nearly unconscious shinobi, whose eyes snapped open at the sound.
"Ayame!"
Despite his grievous injuries, the (apparent) father made to jump to his feet and race towards his child. While a credit to his parenthood, trying to stress himself right now would very likely kill him, so before Hiruzen could stop himself, he laid a firm hand on the ninja's chest, pushing him back down.
Immediately, the unknown shinobi's eyes snapped to his perceived assailant, his hands balling into fists with the sickening sound of skin being torn open, reacting much like any ninja would to restraining contact when weakened.
Cutting off the fight before it could even begin, Hiruzen spoke up, his voice soft and soothing as he tried to hold the frightened father down.
"Be at ease. I am not your enemy; I am Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage of Konoha. I came here to free your village from Kumo's clutches, but I am afraid that it was destroyed when two ninjutsu combined with disastrous results. You were caught in the explosion; though you have managed to save your life, you are very gravely injured. Please, remain here. I will retrieve Ayame, and bring her to safety."
Hiruzen knew that the ninja wouldn't accept the offer, even before he made it, but he had to get this mysterious man talking and quick. They did not have the luxury of time; Kumo could be on its way with reinforcements, the child could be gravely hurt inside of the house, and the man in his arms could very well have mere hours yet to live.
"Why should I trust you?" the unknown warrior said, his tone wary but not hostile, and so steady that if it weren't for the fact that he was clearly cooked alive, Hiruzen would've thought he was in perfectly good health.
"Like I said, I am Hiruzen Sarutobi, Hokage of Konoha. The Land of Flowers is a vassal of the Land of Fire, and as such, your village is… was as well. You are under my protection, on my blood and honor, I swear it. I am your ally here. Let me get your daughter, before any harm befalls her." Hiruzen said, his last words accentuated by a piercing shriek of fear and distress coming from within the house.
That convinced the unknown man probably even more than Hiruzen's words, because his eyes flickered to the house, and then to his own injured body, which was clearly not up to the task of doing much more than just lie there, waiting for death to come and claim its ruined form.
A jerky nod, accompanied by the sound of even more skin tearing, before the bare-handed warrior focused on Hiruzen with an uncomfortable intensity.
"Bring her to me... p-please. I need to see her… b-before it's…" he said haltingly, fear of dying clear in his face, but more for the sake of his daughter than his own.
Hiruzen nodded, before he quickly patted down his pockets, searching for something to put underneath the man's head, in order to ease his suffering, which was clearly visible to his experienced eyes, no matter how well the man tried to hide it.
"Here."
Hiruzen looked up in surprise at a yellow vest pushed in his face, held by a large calloused hand. Enma, smoke rolling off of him and with his fur burnt in some places, sans his vest, looked away in embarrassment.
"Use this."
Hiruzen smiled at his old friend, even as he folded the garment, which smelled strongly of smoke, and laid it under the injured man's head, providing a little comfort, no matter how small.
"Thank you, Enma."
"Yeah, yeah, go get the sprog will ya." The Monkey King said, sounding faintly embarrassed.
Giving one more smile, Hiruzen dashed into the house at his greatest speed, leaving a gust of wind in his wake as he sprinted from room to room, worry for the child occupying his mind. He had been a Hokage during two World Wars now, and had done or condoned some pretty stomach-churning stuff that still occasionally kept him up at night, but he refused to let innocents die under his watch.
In his heart, something that Hashirama himself had seen and treasured, Hiruzen Sarutobi was, and always would be, a big old softie.
Finally he found the nursery, made immediately clear by the bright, but soothing, walls, the toys littering every inch of the floor, and the clearly hand-made crib in the corner.
Well, that, and the wailing suddenly became a lot louder.
Peering over the edge of the crib, Hiruzen smiled at the wailing little baby, chuckling as she started yelling even louder when she spotted his soot covered face.
"Easy there, young one. I mean you no harm. Let's go and get you to your father, shall we?"
Gently picking her up, taking care to not get any of the soot or dirt that covered him on her pristine yellow baby-clothes, Hiruzen settled the child in the crook of his arm, before making his way back outside.
As he stepped out of the home, child in hand, Hiruzen saw that what had survived of his Konoha strike force had grouped around the house, while Enma was seated next to the badly burned father, giving him sips to drink from a water flask someone had unsealed.
In the distance, Hiruzen could see the shapes of the Kumo force retreating back to the safety of their own borders, feeling a dark sense of vindication when he noticed that their number of survivors was significantly lower than their own.
They weren't called the Land of Fire for nothing, after all. While Suna had a higher affinity for wind, Kumo for lightning, Iwa for stone and Kiri for water, Konoha had a large affinity for fire. As such, most of his forces had managed to deal slightly better with the sudden firestorm than the Kumo shinobi had done.
Then again, as was once more demonstrated today, "slightly" in the ninja world could very well mean the difference between life and death.
As Hiruzen bend down so father and daughter could be reunited, he didn't miss the looks of comprehension that dawned on his force's faces as they saw the reason their enemy had fought as passionately as he had.
A warm feeling of pride swelled inside his chest when he even saw a couple of looks of sympathy for the man, even though he had slain some of their numbers during their fight.
"And the mother?" Hiruzen asked gently as he handed Ayame back to her father, though he expected the answer already.
There was a brief pang of sorrow, before his face smoothed out, giving a shake of his head as he closed his eyes in pain, both emotional and physical.
"No. No mother."
"Ah. I see."
Hiruzen straightened himself, trying to hide a smile at the reunited family, but ultimately failed to do so when little Ayame's eyes lit up at the sight of Enma, her little hands waving about while a toothless smile appeared on her face.
"Kitty!"
Yeah, no, that was a losing battle from the start.
"Sir. What do we do now?" one of his shinobi asked, bringing him out of his thoughts and wiping the smile from his face.
Hiruzen's expression hardened as he stared in the direction where the Kumo shinobi had fled to, his hands balling into fists.
"There's no way that A didn't hear or see that explosion; he'll be here within minutes at most. We need to move. While we denied Kumo a foothold within the Lands of Flowers, the destruction of this village is still a victory for them, another sin on their long list of crimes during this War. Take that to heart men; look around you, at the destruction of our people at the hands of our enemies, and use it fuel your Will of Fire to even greater heights!"
A short, subdued cheer went up at his little speech, though it left a bad taste in Hiruzen's mouth. While slandering wasn't something that he enjoyed doing, this was war, and to show your enemy in the worst light possible was simply par for the course.
"And the unknown, sir?"
At the question, Hiruzen looked back at the unnamed ninja, who was cradling his daughter to his chest, his eyes closed in exhaustion. Looking at the man's daughter, who was playing with a little patch of golden fur on the back of Enma's hand, Hiruzen realized he had already made his decision.
"He comes back with us. Call ahead, inform base that we are on route, multiple injured, one severe. Have them ready for us. I want this man's live saved, understood?"
"Hai, Hokage-sama! Everyone, move out!"
Without saying a word, Enma gathered the now unconscious ninja in his arm, while Ayame was placed on his broad shoulders, where she grabbed two tiny fist-full of yellow-golden hair on the Monkey King's head.
As he walked past Hiruzen, the great ape glanced at his summoner from the corner of his eye, his face set in stone.
"Not a word, Hiruzen, not a word."
With a badly hidden grin, Hiruzen placed his hands behind his back as he fell in step with his old friend.
"I wouldn't dream about it… oh, great Uba King-san."
"WHY YOU LITTLE-"
Hiruzen pulled away the heavy flap to the field hospital, his eyes zeroing in on its only patient, who was sitting up awake in his bed, while on the bed next to him, his little daughter was playing with a large stuffed monkey.
Hiruzen didn't know who amongst his troops had gifted the young child with the toy (Ayame, carried in as she was on Enma's shoulders, had been an immediate hit amongst his forces, all of them cooing over the little girl whenever they had the chance) but if he would ever find out, then he would buy them the finest bottle of sake he could find.
Enma's face when he had seen the little girl gnaw toothlessly on the plush monkey's head had been truly priceless.
His good mood evaporated however, when he looked at the father of Ayame. Nobody knew his name, and with the destruction of his village, there were no records for them to check. Luckily, most of the population had already been evacuated beforehand, leaving only those who couldn't travel fast enough behind.
Such as a single father with a one-year old child.
However, the surviving population of the unnamed village had already been moved further inward, away from the ever-shifting frontlines, which meant that they couldn't even ask them for information.
The man himself had been no help in that regard, being unconscious most of the time he had been in their care. Concidering some of the surgeries that he had been forced to go trough, Hiruzen rather saw that as a blessing in disguise.
Skin-transplants in field-hospitals were very messy things.
"It's good to see you awake. How do you feel?"
It was clear that the enemy ninja was still a little out of it, as he appeared startled by Hiruzen's sudden voice. He looked away from where his daughter was still playing with her toy, oblivious to the world, and stared at the Hokage with a stony expression, keeping his eyes closed to slits.
"As well as can be, for someone who thought he was going to die, I suppose." He said after a short pause, his tone bland, but thankfully not hostile.
Hiruzen moved closer to the bed-ridden ninja, smiling briefly when he saw Ayame look up at his approach, before she decided that her plushy monkey was more interesting, and resumed her gnawing attack.
"You have a name?" he asked casually, though his tone held steel.
The ninja in the bed stiffened, before forcing himself to relax. He stared defiantly at the Third Hokage in silence, though he couldn't stop the worried flicker of his eyes towards his playing daughter.
"Come on, you must have a name, right? I need to call you something, don't I? Or should I just call you Teuchi, hmm?" Hiruzen rumbled with amusement, though his expression was flat and his eyes cold.
The young man looked back at him, before taking a deep breath and lifting his chin.
"Teuchi will do."
Hiruzen raised a surprised eyebrow at the young man's defiance, before chuckling.
"Tell me, Teuchi, you aren't from the Land of Flowers, are you."
It wasn't a question, and they both knew it. Teuchi's hands balled into fists, but otherwise he didn't move or talk.
Taking that as confirmation, Hiruzen nodded to himself, before looking at the young man with a calculating gaze, clearly making Teuchi uncomfortable.
"Quite frankly Teuchi, I don't care which Village you came from. I don't even really care why you had to leave in the first place. But this is war, and Konoha needs soldiers. You stay with me, and I will protect you. I will allow both you and your daughter to live within Konoha's walls, and in return, you fight for me. Not on the front lines, and not in the open, we don't need to run the risk of somebody recognizing you after all. But you will fight for me."
Teuchi looked at him with suspicion, as if he couldn't believe what Hiruzen was saying.
"You will allow me, a foreign nin, entrance to your Hidden Village? Just like that? And whenever I am on missions, I'm just supposed to leave my daughter behind in the midst of my enemy, like the perfect hostage? Why should I trust such an offer? Why should I trust you?" the young man hissed, taking care not to upset his daughter, who was still oblivious to the tense discussion going on next to her.
"You are asking the wrong questions, son. You shouldn't ask, if you can trust me. You should ask, why am I trusting you?" Hiruzen said back calmly, looking completely unbothered by the suspicious (and therefore volatile) ninja in front of him.
Taken aback, Teuchi blinked in surprise, before he frowned in confusion.
"Okay. Why would you trust me? You don't know me, don't know where I come from, or what I've done."
Hiruzen smiled, before seating himself on the chair next to Teuchi's bed, making the younger ninja shuffle a little closer to the other edge of the bed in clear discomfort.
For all of his bravado, Sarutobi Hiruzen was still a God in an age of legends.
There was a fine line between bravery and stupidity, and Teuchi new very well where that line was.
"Like I said, those Water jutsu gave me a pretty good idea of where you came from. As for what you did…"
At this, Hiruzen trailed off, his eyes glancing over at little Ayame, who was obviously getting tired, yawning wildly and snuggling close to the thoroughly drenched plushy.
"… let's just say that I won't be surprised when little Ayame here turns out to be… special."
Immediately Teuchi shot up with alertness, fixing Hiruzen with an intensity that surprised the older ninja.
"No. Never. Whatever sort of deal we end up making, she stays out of our world. She will be a civilian. Understood?" the young ninja said, his knuckles creaking with the strength he gripped his sheets with.
Hiruzen simply smiled as he leaned back into the uncomfortable chair.
"So you do wish to make a deal. Very well. You fight for me, black-ops only. In return, you will be allowed to set up a civilian identity within Konoha, with all the rights and freedom that that entails. Your daughter will not be approached by me or mine, and allowed to live out the rest of her days as a civilian."
With that, Hiruzen sprang to his feet, and moved to the exit of the field-hospital, leaving a gaping and confused Teuchi behind.
"Once you're healthy enough, pack your stuff. You and Ayame will be travelling to Konoha as soon as possible."
"Wait!"
Hiruzen paused at the exit, one hand resting on the heavy entrance-flap. With a raised eyebrow, Hiruzen turned to look over his shoulder, glancing back at an uncomfortable looking Teuchi.
"Yes?"
"You never answered my question. Why do you trust me? Uh, Hokage-sama."
Hiruzen smiled at the hastily added honorific, before answering in a warm tone.
"Because within you, I can see the Will of Fire, burning brighter than any I have seen in a long time. Goodbye, Teuchi."
"Goodbye… Hokage-sama."
"So, how has Konoha been treating you?" Hiruzen called, as he bounced little Ayame on his knee, the happy two-year old giggling with every bounce, her little hands waving around in the air in joy.
Though Hiruzen had the sinking suspicion that the little girl was much more attached to Enma than to him.
'Hmm, how should I counteract my opponents influence upon this child?' Hiruzen thought amusedly to himself, only half-serious.
Okay, maybe a little more than half.
"Oh, it has been fine Hokage-sama!" came Teuchi's harried voice from the kitchen, where he was making dinner for the three of them, the Hokage having decided on a whim to check on his Village's latest addition to its forces.
"I sense a but, Teuchi." Hiruzen replied patiently, before making silly faces at the toddler in his laps, causing Ayame to burst out into gales of laughter.
The young man came out of the small kitchen wearing a dirty apron and wiping the sweat from his forehead with an equally dirty towel.
"But the neighbors are starting to ask questions Hokage-sama. They know I pay my rent; they just can't figure out how." The ANBU-in-training replied.
Hiruzen's lips thinned in thought, even as he rose and started putting Ayame in her kid's chair, Teuchi having called that dinner was ready just moments before.
"It seems as if there's no choice; you'll need to get a civilian, day-to-day job."
It was not that uncommon actually. Many of the higher ranked ANBU-operatives were working full-time for Hiruzen's black-ops, and it was incredibly difficult to keep up a regular shinobi life-style alongside a secret black-ops career.
Add to that the fact that there were plenty of shinobi that had signature techniques, and thus were easily recognized, such as Hatake Kakashi, who everybody would know had been in ANBU, and sometimes it was simply not viable to have a ninja be both a rank-and-file shinobi and an ANBU-operative.
To circumvent this, occasionally, a shinobi would "die" during a mission and his death made public. Then, the ninja would join ANBU and enjoy perfect anonymity, even when using famous techniques, since those could have been passed down to him or her.
Should such an operative find a need to move openly within Konoha (or another Hidden Village) then they underwent plastic surgery and received chakra-suppression seals, and took on the identity of a mere civilian.
At any given time, there were around two dozen such "civilians" within Konoha, with around the same number spread amongst the other ninja nations, most of them acting as contacts to his student's spy-network, which also allowed him to check and update their seals at the same time, which was why he was forced to visit each contact in person, a time-consuming process.
A similar method was used for ninja who Konoha couldn't exactly be allowed to see employ. Usually this involved missing-nin from other countries, but it could also simply be a VIP that shouldn't be in Konoha in the first place.
If the missing-nin or VIP was too well known, then they received the same treatment as the ANBU-operatives who went civilian did, so they could move freely within Konoha. If they weren't, like Teuchi, then they were simply installed as civilian newcomers, while joining ANBU instead of the regular shinobi force.
However, while Teuchi had successfully been integrated as a civilian, he didn't have a day-job yet, having been too busy with familiarizing himself in Konoha's special forces operations. And while their home wasn't particularly luxurious, it did raise some eyebrows.
"My thoughts exactly, Hokage-sama. But I don't know how to pull something like that off. Kaba-taicho has been working me into the ground, and trying to fast-track me up the ranks." Teuchi replied, as he set the table, and brought out the food.
"Have you ever heard of the Kage Bunshin, Teuchi?" Hiruzen asked good-naturedly, before he glanced at what the younger ninja had placed in front of him.
"Ramen?" he asked with amusement lining his voice, looking back at the ANBU trainee with a raised eyebrow.
Teuchi blushed, before shrugging his shoulders.
"I didn't know you were coming for dinner, Hokage-sama, and this was all that I had left in the fridge. At least Ayame seems to like it." The young father said, looking over at his daughter with a fond smile.
Follwing Teuchi's gaze, Hiruzen found himself bursting out into laughter, as little Ayame looked up from where she had been dunking her face into her bowl of ramen, several strands of noodles hanging from her mouth, nose and even her eyebrows.
Still chuckling, Hiruzen took a fare more sedate sip, before he opened his eyes in shock.
"Teuchi!"
"Yes Hokage-sama?"
"This is really good! You should do something with this!"
"Oh, I don't know Hokage-sama… are you sure?"
"Of course I am! It's gonna be great!"
"You know, you didn't actually have to keep the name Teuchi when you registered yourself here in Konoha, right?" Hiruzen asked as he sat at the empty bar of Ramen Ichiraku's, the shop finally closed after a long day of unruly customers.
Eight-year old Ayame was already sent to bed, and it was only Hiruzen and Teuchi that had remained, the two friends sharing a little night-cap.
Teuchi chuckled, wrinkling the lines that started to form around his eyes, and downed his sake in a great gulp.
"Yeah, I did."
"But?"
"… but, Teuchi… I know why you gave me that name, Hokage-sama, but it's appropriate in more ways than one."
"Oh?" Hiruzen asked in surprise, sipping from his own sake.
"There used to be a saying, in my family: 'Always protect what's precious to you, with your own two hands.' After Ayame was born, I decided to finally honor that saying, and left behind all of my shinobi tools. Never used anything else than my bare hands since that day, even when that horrible fight between you and Kumo happened. So, Teuchi. Because I use my hands to protect what's precious to me." Teuchi said heavily, lifting his calloused hands and studying them intently.
"Do you know what happened to your family?"
"Scattered, most likely. I was only one of the few ninja that our family had; the rest of us were strong, yes, but no shinobi material. My guess is that they left Wa… my hometown, in search of greener pastures." Teuchi answered, glaring at the sake in front of him for making him commit that slip-up, before downing it in one gulp as revenge.
"You use shinobi weapons now." Hiruzen said softly, graciously changing the subject as he downed the last of his sake.
Teuchi snorted in response, before filling Hiruzen's cup again.
"As Teuchi, I still keep to my family's saying, and use my own two hands for everything, from building this place up, to defending the most precious thing in my life. I'll probably get plenty of opportunities to show you that, Hokage-sama, when Ayame gets older and the boys start chasing her." The ramen chef chuckled, before his expression became somber again.
"But as Salamander… as Salamander, I use everything I can, with every ounce of strength that I have. Because that's important as well. An ANBU-Captain should be well rounded, and not limit himself in anyway, because he has a responsibility to more than just himself, or his own beliefs." The single father said with a decisive nod, missing Hiruzen's smile as he hid it behind his sake cup.
"And that goes double for Commanders, I suppose."
Teuchi's eyes went wide as he choked on his sake, before he rounded on Hiruzen, shaking his head as he opened his mouth, but the Hokage cut him off.
"Commander Kaba is retiring, Teuchi. He has chosen you as his successor, and I agree with his assessment. Congratulations, Commander Salamander."
"I… I don't know what to say… thank you, Hokage-sama." Teuchi said haltingly, before giving a deep bow.
It was made somewhat less impressive when he stumbled a little when he did so.
Hiruzen snorted in amusement, before shaking his head.
"Stand up Teuchi, I can see the alcohol rushing to your head. There's no need to bow or scrape; you earned this, so well done. All I ask is for, is a small favor in return."
"Say it, Hokage-sama, and it will be done." Teuchi said in a serious tone as he straightened himself, clearly unaware that the effect was ruined by the fact that his face was as red as a tomato.
"Uzumaki Naruto. I foresee great troubles in his life, and I think that a safe-haven-"
"Say no more, Hokage-sama; no matter how much the Village may turn on young Naruto, you have my word that he will always be welcome here. And at a discount too!"
"That's all I ask, old friend. That's all I ask."
Translations (courtesy of Google Translate)
Uba = Nanny
Kaba = Hippo
The two technique are anime-references, can you guess them?
Fun Fact (courtesy of Kitsuneswiftpaw)(his review inspired much of this chapter): Teuchi's name can mean "to kill with one's own two hands."