Training Montage #7: The Importance of Co-Operation
Orochimaru sipped his tea, reading the morning paper.
Kabuto was buttering some toast across from him.
From down the hall somewhere, there was a loud shriek that permeated the entire hideout.
A few minutes later, a sopping wet and livid Hinata (covered entirely insufficiently by a towel) stormed in and slammed a pulverised hidden-swamp-boa down on the table.
"If I find." She hissed. "Any more snakes in my shower, then they will find themselves eaten by owls."
She grabbed Kabuto's toast out of his hands, jammed it in her mouth, and stalked off.
Kabuto grabbed another slice of bread. "She'll get used to it." He remarked.
"You did." Orochimaru agreed, taking another sip.
Water dripped slowly from the roof of the cave, collecting in a small pool on the floor. Down here, dozens of metres from the surface, was one of few places in Suna where natural water even appeared, and as it was a room appropriated for the Kazekage's use, it was the only place it was allowed to collect in such a useless manner.
Two boys sat by that pool, the air around them filled with sand particulates and hair-thin chakra strands.
"Is it working?" Gaara asked, carefully scrutinising the mechanism between them.
"Well I can't see anything, so not yet." Kankuro replied.
"Are you sure you can't simply use the third eye and make it float into your eye socket?" Gaara asked.
"Not unless I want to erode a hole in my skull." Kankuro explained. He had forsaken the tanooki suit he usually wore and was sat in casual civilian clothes. After the doctors had told him there was simply nothing they could do, he'd decided to keep the bandage across his eyes. 'Aesthetic', he'd told them. "Let's try again."
Gaara nodded. He carefully manipulated a small volume of sand from his gourd and poured it into the top of the simple puppet Kankuro had brought down for the exercise. It formed a perfect sphere. Kankuro reached out a set of chakra threads to animate the puppet, and more specifically the sand in its head. With one free hand, he began making seals.
After a few seconds, the strands tightened, and the sphere of sand changed colour to resemble an eye.
Kankuro gasped.
"Progress?" Gaara asked.
"It works!" The puppeteer grinned. Under his instruction, the puppet looked around between them. "Holy shit I can see! Oh, damn, I look like crap."
"I didn't want to bring it up." Gaara admitted. "It's the tiredness that does it. Do your nightmares continue?"
Kankuro grimaced, images of a pale boy darting forwards and slashing intruding again into his thoughts. "Yup. Hopefully now I have some new visual input they'll start to at least vary. How about you?"
"Now that I am able to sleep, my dreams are pleasant enough." Gaara replied. Kankuro knew that ever since his encounter with (and thorough beating from) the nine-tails, Shukaku had suddenly been more willing to cooperate with its owner.
"I'm sorry that I can't do more." Gaara spoke up, out of the blue, as Kankuro continued to take in his surroundings with the puppet.
"It's fine." He replied. "You've done lots. Teaching me your floaty-eye jutsu at all was more than I'd hoped."
"I'm trying to be better." The jinchurikki spoke up. "I don't...I'm trying to be kind."
"You're doing amazing, bro." Kankuro reassured. He turned around the puppet and grinned. "You do look stupid in that hat though."
Gaara tugged on his ceremonial garb with some distaste. "It is not very practical, no. But I am still the youngest Kage in Suna's history, so it's important to maintain some traditions."
"Heh." Kankuro chuckled. Then he turned his head down to the puppet. "I wonder if I can do this with something...bigger."
It was another few days before Naruto was able to get back in his mindscape. He'd tried to return immediately, but at first the Kyuubi had very clearly not wanted to talk. Eventually, though, the resistance lessened, and he was able to appear back in 'the dankroom'.
"Hey Kyuubi!" He shouted, to the bars. "You still there?"
"You again?" The fox appeared behind the bars and looked down at him. "Have you come to annoy me some more?"
"No, actually." Naruto shifted. "I got kinda caught up in the moment, yesterday, but there was a reason I wanted to talk."
"Spill."
"I want to be able to access your chakra in battle."
The nine tails looked at him for a moment. "...No."
There was a jolt, and Naruto was back in the clearing.
"...Asshole!"
Orochimaru was very surprised, when he walked down one morning to find Hinata holding out a bright green box with a pink ribbon tied on the top.
"What." He uttered.
"Happy birthday!" She said, with a smile.
"You-what?" Actually, now he thought about it, it was that time of year. Huh. "Who told you my birthday?" He asked, aghast.
"I caught Lady Tsunade reminiscing about it one time before I left the village." Hinata admitted. "She also mentioned something you might like~"
Orochimaru laughed, derisively, even as he tore the box from her and began ripping the wrapping paper open. "That sentimental old goat. I bet she doesn't even remember what I-oh my lord she does." He yanked the contents free of their container.
"'Critters, creeps and crawly things, the official annual'?" Kabuto read, looking from across the room. Then, tilting his head, "Volumes twenty through thirty?"
"I got that book every year since it came out..." Orochimaru stroked the cover, lovingly.
"That is a childrens' book." Kabuto deadpanned.
"I mean if you don't like it-" Hinata reached out.
"No!" Orochimaru clutched them to his chest.
"Awesome!" Hinata clapped. "I'll get you the next decade's worth next year, I figured there would be a bit of a backlog to work through since that one time you betrayed everything you loved."
"Great for some." Kabuto grouched. "We don't all have birthdays."
"You don't-" Hinata rounded on him. "Alright, that's it, you're having a birthday. Is there any date you have a particular fondness for?"
"Um."
"It's a surprise then. Great! Sometime this year, Kabuto, you will have a birthday."
Kabuto shook his head in silent surrender.
"Excellent! Now then..." Hinata spun on Orochimaru. "Where were we on that two-thousand tortures jutsu?"
The next time Naruto was able to get into the mindscape, he stalked right up to the cage doors. "Hey, what the hell was that for?"
One large eye opened. "Oh, you're back? Presumably got some other reason for trying to see me this time?"
"No I'm still on about the power thing-Don't kick me out again we're not done!"
"I think we're pretty done."
"Nuh-uh!" Naruto pointed an accusatory finger. "You gave me power to fight Gaara, didn't you?"
"Alright, addendum." Kyuubi held up a claw. "You can have as much power as you want when it comes to beating up the other bijuu, but that's it."
"Wait, really?" Naruto made a confused look. "Why?"
"Because I'm better than them." The nine-tails explained. "And I want them and everyone else to know that I'm better than them."
"I mean surely you're only like, a tiny fraction better than the eight tails, though." Naruto pointed out.
"Nope. Exponential."
"Expa-who now?"
The fox sighed. "Okay so there used to be the ten tails, and then that got split into the nine tailed beasts."
"But if you add up one through nine you don't get ten."
"Yeah that's because the ten tails wasn't split evenly." The fox explained. "It had a fraction of its chakra split off (me) and then the same fraction was taken off what's left. Rinse and repeat until you just have a husk that you bury on the moon somewhere. I'm stronger than eight by the same ratio that eight is stronger than seven, and so on. Shukaku is nothing to me. I could beat up one through four without breaking a sweat."
"You're probably dropping some incredibly important history right now, but I really don't care we're getting off track." Naruto dismissed. "You also gave me chakra when we fought on the bridge. Why was that?"
"You were about to die." Kyuubi replied. "And if you die I die, and if I die everything sucks for a decade or so while I reform."
"Oh okay." Naruto blinked. "Wait. If you'll give me chakra when I'm about to die, why won't you just give me chakra anyway? That way I'm less likely to die!"
"Because." Kyuubi huffed. "Alright. Tell you what. You lay all your cards on the table, and I'll do the same with mine. Sound fair?"
"Sure." Naruto thought about it. "Okay so I want to get Hinata back, and I want to become Hokage, and I want to save the world, I think. And to do those things I need to get more powerful. Accessing the chakra of the giant monster capable of beating up an entire village sounds like a good way to do that, but I'm being kinda bogged down by (a) I don't want you to break out and kill everyone I've ever loved, and (b) I'm kinda iffy on using the power of the monster that, well, broke out and destroyed a whole village and killed the fourth Hokage and presumably also my parents. I guess ideally we could be friends and you could apologise and be redeemed and we'd work together?"
"Wow." The ninetails shook its head. "That is the most idealistic blathering I've heard since the damn Senju that sealed me away the first time...alright, cards on the table. I absolutely fucking hate you. And it's not your fault, really, it's more because I have been stuck in your Idiotic Useless Child body for the last thirteen years in this damn cell without even enough influence to talk to anyone." It inhaled. Naruto was left completely nonplussed.
"Now your father literally sacrificed his soul to death itself to seal me into you, which means he got to make the seal however he wants. If he'd wanted I could have been stuck in here until you died and you'd have never noticed me. But, he wanted you protected. So he put a little loophole in the seal that meant that giving you my chakra would weaken it, and allow me to gradually give you more chakra. Eventually I'd be able to speak to you, try and influence you, and hopefully break the seal altogether." It folded its paws in front of itself and rested its head on them. "My main goal is to get out of you, plain and simple. If you're forced to desperately beg for help on deaths door, it lets me flood you with power, and put more cracks in the seal than if I slowly feed it to you in a nice controlled manner. Also I have no interest in co-operating with you. Because I hate you. So like I said, we're done here."
There was a jolt, and Naruto was back in the clearing.
The glade was silent, with the exception of the regular thunking of blade into wood, and the clanging of metal on metal. It's lone occupant had given himself a foot square within which he could move, and a foot square target he could aim for, and was trying to pepper every tree nearby with ricocheted kunai. He was about halfway done when he noticed someone approach, and lean against a nearby tree.
"If you stand there for much longer, I'm going to impale you." Uchiha Sasuke said, with a level voice.
"Not at that angle you won't." Replied the newcomer. "The trick is to use your upper arm more, lets you get a greater spin."
Sasuke tried it, launching two kunai forwards, and was able to get a deflection so that one of them bounced almost 180 degrees backwards.
Uchiha Fugaku caught it before it could pierce his skull. "Not bad, son. I see Itachi has been teaching you well."
"Father." Sasuke turned to face him. "It's...good to see you?"
"Likewise, even f you were being sarcastic." Fugaku replied, pushing himself off the tree and walking forwards. "I came to congratulate you on your performance in the Kage discussions a few months ago."
"The discussions where I was diametrically opposed to you?" Sasuke replied, confused.
"Those ones." Fugaku replied. "You performed very well under pressure and showed great creativity and charisma, even if you were playing second fiddle somewhat to the Hyuuga."
Sasuke wanted to object to his father's dismissal of his teammate, but didn't really have much of an argument. Officially she had betrayed the village. "You didn't seem too happy with me at the time."
"Make no mistake, I have great respect for the lady Tsunade." Fugaku refuted. "We were on the same side during the third ninja war; I do believe she saved my life, in fact. But a courtroom is a different kind of war, one in which arguments are soldiers. If I had allowed that you sometimes made good points, the clan would have felt like I'd betrayed them."
"The clan...which wanted to take over Konoha."
"That isn't-" Fugaku sighed. "Make no mistake, son. My loyalty is to my clan, yes, but it is also to the village. I mean no harm to its people. You may not have experienced it, but you know what injustices we have undergone in this village."
"Injustices worthy of taking over the whole thing?"
"While I personally-" Fugaku stopped, and shook his head. "No. I'm not here to argue politics with you." He twirled the kunai in his hands. "I'm here on your mother's behalf. She wants you to come home for dinner tonight."
Sasuke winced. "I...wasn't aware I was welcome." He hadn't been back into the Uchiha compound since his fight against Hinata (not counting the time he'd broken in with Itachi for some clothes and breakfast).
"Unwelcome? Why?" Fugaku asked.
His son coughed. "This may sound strange, but I was under the impression you were upset I didn't kill my teammate."
"Upset you-" Fugaku shook his head. "I was upset you'd thrown the match, but if killing your teammate was the only alternative I understand why you did so. Especially as that was proof enough you were stronger than her! If you had come to explain..."
Sasuke grimaced and looked away. "Sorry, just...Itachi thinks you're an asshole. What is it between you two?"
Fugaku looked down. "Me and your brother...disagree on a number of matters. I know he's been telling you things, but, well..." He grimaced. "I don't want to sound melodramatic with phrases like 'seducing you away from me', but I know you're spending a lot of time with him and I don't want it to sour your opinion of the clan, or the family." He reached forwards and held out the kunai. "Will you come home tonight? Please?"
"...what's mum making?" Sasuke asked, suspiciously.
"Lasagna."
"Hn. Alright fine." Sasuke sighed and took the kunai. "When do you want me?"
"Dinner's on the table at six."
"No! This one goes here, that one goes there!" Karin put her fingers to the bridge of her nose to try and hold off a stress headache. "I swear to Kami you useless...I specifically, specifically put the chemicals in very strong glass vials, because I was worried you'd break them. But nooo, turns out I should have been more afraid about you putting them in the wrong-"
"Am I interrupting something, dear?"
Karin froze. She schooled her expression carefully, and turned around with a smile. "Orochimaru-sama! No sir everything is fine, just sorting out a few organisational difficulties-"
"I remind you again that you are more than welcome to imprison the guards should they prove themselves not to your liking." Orochimaru replied, walking in. "I understand you are missing a few prisoners?"
"A few." She winced. "One hundred and eighteen. It's, uh...it's not my fault."
Looking up, she spotted a girl with dark blue hair stood at her master's side.
"Ah yes, introductions." Orochimaru gestured. "Karin, this is Hyuuga Hinata. She will be working with us from now on. Hinata, this is Karin. A recent acquisition of mine, she and her chakra suppression chains take charge of the prison here in the southern hideout."
"Chakra suppression chains?" The Hyuuga girl walked forwards. Her eyes, white and wide, seemed to be scrutinising every part of Karin at once. "Do you perhaps have Uzumaki heritage?"
Karin blinked. "Yes, actually. On my mother's side." She paused, and took the time to analyse the girl's chakra. It was...strange. Dark, yes, intense and strong, but there was a glimmer of light in it that seemed to be glowing brighter as time passed.
"Uh-huh." Hinata mused. Then she turned back to Orochimaru. "Can I keep her?"
"What?"
"If you want." Orochimaru shrugged. "But only so long as it doesn't impact her usefulness."
"You have people missing." Hinata responded, stretching. "I'll help Karin retrieve them. I can see some of the stragglers from here, actually."
"Excellent." Orochimaru beamed. "Get it done. You have six hours."
"Three hours, got it." Hinata grabbed Karin by the hand and walked off.
"H-hold on." Karin pulled her hand free when they were clear of Orochimaru's sight. "Why do you want to 'have' me? Why are you helping? Who are you?"
"I'm a girl motivated by a childhood crush and the need to kill someone." Hinata replied, smiling at her. "I'm sorry if my language was a bit simple back then; I 'want' you because one of my best friends was also an Uzumaki. Your chakras look similar and I am terribly homesick."
"Oh." Karin responded, a little overwhelmed. "Okay. That was very...succinct."
"Thank you!" Hinata replied. "Now then. Let's go round up some probably innocent prisoners."
The chunin exams.
The first real test of a prospective ninja's mettle. A life threatening situation in which friends were pit against friends, where only the strongest, toughest, smartest could ever hope to survive, let alone succeed.
Haku didn't know what all the fuss was about.
"Congratulations, Temari!" He called across to her, after the official ceremony was over and the ninja and viewers were free to spill into the streets.
"Haku!" The blonde looked over to her and smiled. "Well done to you too! That was a fun final round." She walked over with a wink. "Glad I got my revenge after our fight six months ago."
"Home field advantage." Haku made a mock pout, before both laughed. "And speaking of that fight, where's Kankuro? I heard you said he was improving."
"He is." Temari reassured. "He's got a new method that'll let him fight again which is frankly insane, but he wanted to take more time to rebuild his repertoire before starting again. He's going to stomp the next exams, I'm certain, but for now he's still recuperating." Temari cast her eyes outwards. "Also speaking of our last fight, where's your boyfriend?"
"Sai's..." Haku paused and looked around. "Missing. Again. Great. I don't know, he's probably reporting to his dark master."
"He still doing that?" Temari rolled her eyes.
"I'm trying to pry him away, give him time." Haku eyed her. "I'm surprised Gaara actually passed Sai, considering...you know."
"Oh, my brothers are still planning to kill him." Temari said, breezily. "I think it's a bonding exercise, they stay up late talking about it. But they're not gonna stop Sai being promoted, that wouldn't be fair."
"Ehehe."
Haku was saved from that very awkward conversation by another very awkward conversation, appearing in the form of a busty redhead coming in from behind them. "Well well, if it isn't the celebrities of the day! I've been looking for you!"
"Mizukage-sama?" Haku addressed her, surprised.
"Call me Mei, please."
The woman walked up with a wide smile that didn't show in her eyes.
"I'm surprised to see you're here. I don't think any of your genin made it to the finals?" Haku trailed off, slightly regretting the trio of Mist ninja he and Sai had taken out during round two.
"Well, I figured that since I only recently acquired my position, it would be important to get my face out into the world. I don't quite agree with my predecessor's isolationist policies."
"Yeah, Yagura was a bit of an asshole." Haku agreed. "I should know, I tried to assassinate him. Twice."
"Good attempts, both." Mei admitted.
"You...don't have a problem with that?" Haku checked, hesitantly.
"Well I did it too." The Mizukage shrugged. "The trick was catching him in his sleep so he didn't have time to use his tailed beast form. Turns out the whole time there was actually a genjutsu on him, so it wasn't really his fault, which was a little awkward..."
"Nobody spotted that?" Temari asked.
"Well we had a guy with a Byakugan he'd stolen one time, Ao? I think? But then Hyuuga Neji showed up and killed him, so that was that." Mei sighed.
"Nasty."
"But I'm not here to talk about me, lets talk about you." The woman clapped her hands together. "People are calling this the year of the kunoichi, you know. Look at who passed; miss Haruno, miss Ino, Temari here, you-"
"He's a dude." Temari interrupted.
"Sai-"
"He's a dude." Haku interrupted.
"Wow, okay." Mei blinked. "Well they could have mentioned that...but I'm getting off topic. Haku dear, has it been mentioned to you how intriguing your position is?"
"Not to my knowledge." Haku frowned.
"Odd, but understandable. I can imagine Leaf trying to keep some of these options from you." Mei squatted down to Haku's eye level, something he found really condescending. "It's intriguing because you are a Mist citizen, from a Mist ninja clan, who currently wears the headband of a Leaf chunin." She reached out and poked it.
Haku scowled. "Which means?"
"Which means you are capable of applying for a senior position in both villages." Mei extrapolated, standing back up to her full height.
"I thought I was a missing-nin?"
"You were. I took the liberty of having that changed. It really shouldn't have applied at all, since you weren't officially a ninja, and it hardly matters since that old git Zabuzza is dead."
Temari looked between them, feeling thoroughly left out.
Haku's fists tightened. "Thank you for that. Is that all you came to say?"
"No. I came to offer you work." Mei smiled again. "Mist would be more than happy to hire your services, and due to your legal dubiousness it wouldn't even be, well, legally dubious. Not to mention..." she leaned forwards, in a posture that quite prominently pushed her cleavage together. "You'll find that there are plenty of 'perks' for someone of your powers and lineage. Think it over, okay?" With a wink, she walked off.
Haku paused, looking across at Temari. "...Is it me or was she a-"
"Massive bitch. Yeah." Temari agreed.
"Why did you attack the village?"
The Kyuubi opened one eye. "What?"
"At first, I thought you were an actual monster. Some sort of mindless animal." Naruto continued. He'd spent a full month training with Jiraiya, thinking on what the nine tails had said, before trying to come back. "But you're not. You're an asshole, sure, but you don't seem like you'd attack Konoha just for kicks. But you have, apparently. Twice. I just...I wanna know why."
The nine tails regarded him for a long moment. "Have you ever read '15 reasons why the Sharingan can go fuck itself' by Senju Hashirama? This is assuming you can read."
Naruto glared but let it go. "No, but Sasuke borrowed it from Itachi sometime after Christmas, and I've heard him complaining about it."
"My first jinchurikki in Konoha read it once, we both had a whale of a time." The beast chuckled. "Reason number seven: someone experienced with the Sharingan can apply genjutsu with all the subtlety of a bijuu bomb, and still get results. Even if you're prepared for it, they can make you stupid, or angry, or forget everything. They can make you obey." It glared at nothing in particular. "They can make you wear their magic blue armour and try to kill their best friend. They can even make you lose your mind, and try to destroy a village even though you were planning on running away to your cave in the mountains."
"Wait." Naruto held a hand up. "Are you telling me that the worst massacre in recent history was an accident?"
"No." Growled the kyuubi. "Not an accident. I'm telling you that right now there are plenty of people I want to kill. But back then? The destruction of Konoha was not my will. It was the will of a man with an orange mask, and a Sharingan."
There was a jolt, and Naruto was back in the clearing.
"Alright, this is order 66! One slice of life with a cup of exposition to go?"
Self explanatory chapter is self explanatory. Kurama is not going to be as easy to work with as Naruto had hoped, Sasuke is attempting to repair his relationship with the fam, and Hinata is adjusting to life with snake-sensei. A few POV points from some other characters, and the astute among you will notice a few changes that have blossomed in Mist's history. Funny thing, Ao managed to get a Byakugan at some point during the last war, but you can't get those from the branch family members. Wonder whose eye it was...
