Author note: Prepare yourselves, for the filler chapter of hell!
Disclaimer: On the rare occasion when I seem able to type coherently, I do not own Naruto.
A Demon's Dream
Chapter Eight: Gopher
"As soon as they left the room again, I ran in, fearing just what I would do now. When I broke through the door I found him standing there in all his glory, by the raw power of his being he had pulled his body's diced parts and pieces back together, and there wasn't a bit of evidence it had ever happened to him. Just being in the room with him would've filled me with awe, but he was so full of power, so unrestrained that just his being hammered on the air with a terrible pressure, if I hadn't already been to the heart of the Maze then I would've died from it I'm sure.
"He looked at me and asked 'who are you? And what am I doing here?' It took me a minute to find the courage to answer. 'You're Owen, you were dead but you seem well enough now-
A certain voice broke in almost hesitantly. "Sasuke, what are you talking about?" The boy in question looked up suddenly from his book to see the pink-haired ninja whom he had been evading for the past few weeks (1).
Sakura, for her part, looked like she was doing well under Tsunade's tutelage. It had only just begun and she already looked a little frayed around the edges, but she also had a genuinely happy and just a bit proud smile. Sasuke must've taken longer in studying her than he thought because she started looking herself over. "What? Is there something wrong?"
Sasuke quickly set aside his book and held his hands up in a gesture of warding. "No, nothing. I was just reading aloud, don't mind me. Anyway, why are you here?" Sakura inwardly blinked at him. Sasuke wasn't normally so… civilized, though he would not apparently ever be mr. manners, he seemed significantly more human now.
She realized by Sasuke's slight eye-tic that she must've been caught up in her reflection of that concept, "Ah! Sorry, uhm, I was here to see how you were doing, and that kind of thing… I mean, now that you can't be a ninja and all…" She trailed off, not wanting to press what she thought was a sore spot.
Quite to her shock, the black-haired orphan gave a dazzling smile, his imitation of Naruto's grin. Sakura shuddered just a little at how good it looked from the pale boy, but pushed it from her thoughts quickly, forcing herself to pay attention to Sasuke's words. "Well actually I could live for the rest of my natural life doing nothing because of all the money my family left me, but frankly I don't feel like being that lazy. Can you imagine what Naruto would say if he got back and I still wasn't doing anything?" He stretched in his chair again, a little lazily. Shocking Sakura once again with just how expressive he'd become. "I don't know, I was thinking I might try my hand at being a cook, what do you think?"
Sakura's surprise could be heard throughout the Uchiha estate, as she collapsed right away on the spot, and left a Sakura-shaped indentation on the floorboards.
Tsunade smiled quite happily as she sat at her desk, sipping green tea because she'd given sake up for the weekdays. Shizune gave an angry, heaving sigh from her own desk, prompting a giggle from Tsunade. The dark-haired woman shot a venomous look at her master and superior, who had ceased her giggling quite swiftly and returned to looking at her paperwork.
One might question why Tsunade was happy to work on her papers and files and things, but that was because she had so damn little of it these days. Upon the several revelations lately, the legendary ninja had found that she could redistribute the workload and no one said anything, it made necessary a new layer of bureaucracy but if all it meant was that a few other people had some work to do, then she was fine with that.
But why then was Shizune grumbling and doing paperwork? Tsunade, apparently, developed a mean streak and had decided to assign Shizune to the genin teams, deciding who went to what missions. This wasn't normally a problem except that the genin were actually in teams, and there were more of them than of any other class. Effectively, Tsunade had given Shizune the lion's share of paperwork, and had spared herself all but the final approval of B, A, and S ranked missions, which now that she knew the ninja of Konoha were on the same page, she could rubber-stamp for three hours before getting out into the streets to study people and do other things that Hokages wanted to do.
The civilians were being a pain in the ass though, and Tsunade had very calmly and cleanly stated that she owned each and every individual's ass in the village of Konoha. She owned them, she explained, because her ninja liked her, and shinobi are remorseless killers. So all was strained and peaceful in the now militarily-dominated village.
The blonde kage stretched luxuriously and set aside the sheaf of signed documents, waving at her assistant as she made her exit. "See you Shizune-chan," she waved lazily over her shoulder. In point of fact, Tsunade knew just what the paperwork was doing to Shizune, it was giving her that same kind of angry impotent feeling that Tsunade had been feeling right up until she established herself, and her ninja as the superior elements of the society. Proudly wearing her hokage robes, Tsunade walked through the village.
She had once hated these robes, because they were silly, but now she loved them because she hated the villagers. Relations between ninja and villagers became tense when it was seen that the military basically took over the village. Mostly, the ninja didn't care, they had their colleagues still and most had their families still, those that didn't had thrown themselves with fanaticism into their work, becoming fantastic shinobi in short order, and coming to realize that their fellow ninja were more family than they could ever hope for. The only family that seemed to have problems with this, was the only family that had ninja and non-ninja in almost equal measure.
Tsunade was thinking this over as she happened to walk past the Hyuuga compound, the two guards at the main entrance favored her with almost grateful smiles, and she smiled back at them. Their looks were for the various occasions when the heated debates had threatened to extend beyond the Hyuuga's compound, an action that would've forced the guards to restrain the white-eyed clan members. Tsunade had, on several of these happenings, been present and had forced the fighting to halt and the ninja and civilian alike to cool their heads.
It was a thing that had pissed off the clan's leaders to no end. It didn't help any that those same leaders thought the Hokage was completely incapable of doing her job for the fact of her femininity, and her unwillingness to follow the Hyuuga orders. Tsunade's impression of the old men was along similar lines, though far more colorful in its particulars.
Lately things had settled down with the Hyuuga for one reason, and one reason only; Hinata.
Hinata had sided with the branch family and several like-minded members of the main house, building an endo-clan power base that swiftly grew to encompass all shinobi of the Hyuuga clan. She wasn't in and of herself a fabulous fighter, but she had a cold, relentless streak in her that was strange and frightening, the unflinching loyalty of several others made it possible for the heiress to bully the civilians of the Hyuuga into line.
If Konoha was a dictatorship, then the Hyuuga had made slaves of their civilians. Most amazing was that the civilians looked at Hiashi and the Hyuuga council as the perpetrators and looked to Hinata, who had been the champion of the branch house as their savior. A view Hiashi had gone out of his way to encourage.
Tsunade thought the whole situation with the Hyuuga was ridiculous and frightening, not something she wanted to deal with, but it was a thing that had to be faced eventually. Thankfully, she mused as she walked on past the Hyuuga compound, today is not the day I have to deal with it.
Shikamaru sat, bored as normal, before a pile of books, looking through all the material he could find. On the other side of the desk was his unexpected companion, Aburame Shino. The bug-user had a similar stack of books, some opened, before himself.
In a rare moment of thinking about the past, the Nara genius recalled one day in his third week of trying to find out what the third's law was. The Aburame had simply shown up, and begun looking through the books he'd yet to get at, asking what he was seeking in the records. When Shikamaru had explained it, Shino had nodded and continued with his reading, making occasional notes on what he read.
Shikamaru had now been at this for over a month and was fed up with it. "This is too troublesome, what kind of capital offense doesn't even get written down?"
Looking up from his book, Shino regarded him curiously, "Shikamaru, you should not be discouraged. Perhaps we are merely going about this the wrong way." The Nara gave him a look with a lazily raised eyebrow. "What, precisely, did the councilman say, prior to his trial and execution?"
With a thoughtful frown, Shikamaru thought back to chapter two and wracked his brain to see what had happened again. "He called Naruto a demon and said that he did not care about Sasuke or the Village." He considered more, sitting up now as he thought. "We know Naruto's human, or at least he's not a demon. He hated Sasuke but so does everyone else who isn't a fangril… or a fanboy. And we know that he loves the village more than most of us… The hokage would only ban something to that degree if there were a grain of truth to it though." He tapped his chin and thought more about it.
Shino picked up where he left off, "We've also known that the village hates him for whatever unknown reason, and he has that strange healing and enduring capacity of his..."
"He made a reference to his battle with Sasuke, saying that he used only his 'other' chakra."
"Naruto, therefore has two systems of chakra, an advanced healing bloodline and an absurd stamina."
"I've read the battle reports, and he occasionally goes into a berserk state where his healing capacity increases exponentially and he exudes raw chakra, but that chakra seems heavily loaded with emotions and erases his rational capacity." They went into a long silence, thinking this over. They reached the same conclusion, but Shino did not speak. "Naruto is the half-demon son of the fourth hokage, who bedded a daughter of the nine-tails, thus prompting its attack and demise?"
Shino blinked a bit, not that Shikamaru could tell, but gave a slight nod. "Perhaps not on the particulars, but clearly he is the offspring of a demon and a human, the two aspects partitioned from one another. The villagers must have seen him as a demon as well, and the Hokage likely instated the law to prevent our generation from hating him."
After that, the two put away their books and agreed they would not speak of this until they had reached a proper conclusion of what to do with their new knowledge. (2)
Sasuke had to half-grumble as he walked on, everywhere he looked, in every restaurant they looked at him with the adoring eyes they always had. Didn't it bother these idiots that he'd betrayed them? Cursed Seal or no, he had been a traitor to this village, something that should by all accounts have been unforgivable.
He wished that he could feel the entitlement he used to about that kind of thing, to believe that he deserved their unending affection, but he had, somehow, developed a new semi-complex. Guilt was the now recurring theme of his life, not purposeless and debilitating like Kakashi's guilt, but the kind that made him want desperately to be better to people. The problem was that most people didn't wish to accept him as merely being a boy who wanted to find a job, they were bound to boast and say in a prideful sort of way 'the Uchiha boy works at my shop'.
Naruto didn't give him this kind of nonsense, Sasuke wondered where his former rival had headed off to.
When Sasuke had been well enough to see visitors, he was practically crying to Sakura, begging her forgiveness for killing their teammate. It had taken considerable time for him to be persuaded and calmed, that Naruto was indeed alive, just having gone on an extended training trip. Thinking about the blonde, as always, brought Sasuke to Ichiraku ramen, he saw it coming closer and thought about the first time he'd found himself here.
"Get the hell out of my shop, you traitor." Sasuke was surprised by the old man's reaction, and looked at him with the same eyes Naruto gave Iruka just after he'd graduated. He quickly nodded, bowed almost head to the ground and dashed away with a gleeful smile and a spring in his step. Sasuke was still new at emotions, and would never be a shining scion of sanity or normalcy, but he didn't care, someone rejected him for who he was, he was human in someone's eyes.
He'd returned again some days later, thinking once more about Naruto, saw where he was and walked in again, fully expecting the same brusque refusal as before. Ichiraku's chef did not disappoint, but before he got going Sasuke sat down. "I've done terrible things, Ichiraku-san, to the village and my friends. Since I never really got to know him on my team, I want to get to know Naruto through you."
The old man had grumbled, given him a long, studying look, called his daughter forward to do the same, and then consulted her. When the two finished their muted talk, the old man grunted and looked at Sasuke. "Order somethin', if you want to understand Naruto, eat like him."
That had been the start of their relationship, and over the weeks that he'd continued coming, Ichiraku had not exactly warmed to Sasuke, but he'd become increasingly tolerant. He slumped heavily into his stool and ordered his chashu ramen. Ichiraku set to work on the noodles and Ayame on the broth and meat, the stand was empty then and therefore silent.
"What's eatin' ya kid?" asked the old man, in a tone suggesting he'd rather not admit he cared.
Sasuke shrugged off the overlay, still touched by the fact that Ichiraku and his daughter thought of him as just another ex-shinobi. "It's nothing, Ichiraku-san. Just having employment troubles." He gave the two one of Naruto's face-spanning smiles to show them that it wasn't a problem, not knowing that they knew Naruto used it as a way to show he didn't want them to worry about him while his problems only got worse.
He also didn't know that they were experienced enough with that grin, to see he used it like a mask too. And he wouldn't get to know either. For all their ability to perceive it, the two also knew that just coming out and saying not to do it was totally useless, instead they would merely adjust the method of their attack.
"Well what's the problem? I figure most places would be plenty happy to hire you at a generous salary," the old man slipped the noodles into the broth and added the various toppings, handing the bowl to the Uchiha.
Sasuke picked up his chopsticks and split them neatly, murmuring an 'itadakimasu' as he did, taking a long, healthy slurp before he answered. "That's just the problem, no one's hiring because I'm qualified. Most places I'm really not. I don't want a job just 'cuz I'm 'the last Uchiha, beset by devils and terrors and things that go bump in the night. A man to be pitied and appeased at all costs!'" his mockery of people's adoration had been one of his few endearing qualities at their second meeting.
The meal went on in silence for another ten minutes, before Sasuke finished and set his bowl aside and tossed the used chopsticks away. He stood up and looked resigned to hunting down a place that wouldn't give him a chance before a voice stopped him.
"Hey kid, take this list and come back first thing in the morning with the stuff on it. Oh and welcome to Ichiraku Ramen's procurement division," the old man placed a slip of paper into the raven-haired civilian's palm and Sasuke gave the weathered chef a bizarre look.
The chef was apparently finished with him though and Sasuke was too happy to care. Sure maybe he wasn't a chef, but this was a nice enough job for him all the same!
It wasn't until it was dark, much later that night, that he noticed the list had absolutely no references of where to go for the supplies, and that he'd been given no cash with which to buy. Given his desperation for work, and his present state, he reacted how anyone in his position would.
"Oh you have got to be shitting me."
End Chapter Eight: Gopher
(1): Ah yes, about that… Time in Konoha moves faster because I hate these people and don't feel like dallying about with people who aren't the main characters. Or love interests.
(2): No, Uzumaki Naruto is not a half-demon. However like many authors seem to enjoy, these two have come to what seems to be a logical conclusion without having been given the complete information. Either that or Shikamaru has been smoking certain dubiously medicinal products.
Author Note: A filler chapter? Yes. Late? Yes. Apologies? Profuse. Blood loss? Imminent, knowing my luck.
Author Note2: Finally able to post this steaming tripe. My many many many apologies, this was supposed to go out on the nineteenth, but my beta is unable to beta, and when I tried to upload, ffnet was having none of it. Expect nine by the thirtieth.
