Chapter 5: Snape's Blood Replenishing Brew
Kurama ponders about the topic of life choices.
Yes, more specifically, he ponders about the topic of his life choices and making deals with dark-haired humans.
'I should have asked more questions,' he whines to himself.
"I'm a giant majestic nine-tail fox," he tells the human.
The human nods.
"The most powerful tailed beast in all the land," he continues.
The human nods again.
"Humans tremble when they hear my name!" he emphasises.
The human raises an eyebrow but continues nodding in agreement.
"So why is it that I'm now stuck in this pathetic form!?" he shouts up at the towering-human sitting in front of him.
The blasted raven cackles out loud from where he perches by the human's shoulder.
Kurama throws a glare the bird-brain's way but the bird merely caws harder in laughter.
"You agreed that we should be subtle and discreet to avoid the notice of the Konoha shinobi," he reminds the creature.
"I agreed to subtle and discreet, not to me being put into this tiny plush toy! It's a disgrace to my majestic self I tell you, a disgrace!" the small, palm-sized, fox plush toy in front of him rages as it jumps about in anger.
The bird cackles so hard it falls off the human's shoulder and lands on the floor rolling in laughter.
"I knew I stuck around you for a reason," the raven tells the human in between bouts of cackling.
The fox glares again at the raven and runs over to pounce angrily on the exposed feathered belly. In his original body he could have squished the stupid bird into a pancake with one giant toe.
"It tickles, ahaha, tickles!" the bird laughs and mocks the mini fox doll that is jumping up and down his feathered chest in ire.
Severus amusedly watches the scene.
He'd sewn together the red plush fox doll from scratch using cloth made from the spider-summons' silk thread which he had requested for a week ago. The spiders had especially imbued their chakra into the threads and created a piece of cloth that would be almost indestructible; unless someone was trying really really, S Rank-shinobi level, hard. He'd also imbued his own magic into the material and it would stop most from discovering any traces of the Kyuubi's chakra in the doll.
'Subtle and discreet,' he thinks with a grin. He'd been tempted to dye it a polka-dotted pattern but had soon curbed his evil inner urges and dyed it purely red in deference to Kurama's own natural colouring.
"It makes it easier for you to hide or blend in the village," he reminds the fox. "You could just play dead and look like any other lost doll if you were ever discovered on the streets," he adds.
"You could have thought of a better idea!" the nine-tail fox, or the now currently one-tail fox doll, shouts out at him. Kazu had returned to his perch and is snickering softly.
Severus puts on an innocent expression and tells him, "I thought this was a brilliant idea actually."
The fox looks up angrily at him but soon just plants his face to the floor and ponders on the topic of life choices once again. 'You should never agree to shady deals when you're desperate,' he thinks.
Severus shakes his head and gets up from his sitting position. He waves his right hand and the runic circle around them starts to fade.
He magics away the rest of the tools and ingredients they had used for the mind-transference spell and floats a small silver ring embedded with a white crystal, perfectly sized for the plush doll, Kurama's way.
"Keep the ring on you," he tells the fox.
"It'll allow us to communicate over long distances in case we need to," he further elaborates.
Kurama nods from where his face is planted on the wooden floor and Severus leaves him to his profound musings to head to bed.
He checks in on the young boy sleeping soundly next to his bedroom and turns in for the day.
He hears Kazu snickering quietly from his perch before he falls into dreamland.
He sleeps that night with a smile on his face.
The next morning, Severus is already seated at the dining table with a breakfast of jam and scones spread out before him when he hears Naruto trot into the kitchen with a yawn.
"Morning, Kuro-sensei," the blond greets him drowsily as he rubs at his eyes.
"Good morning, did you sleep well last night?" he asks the boy as he sips on his green tea. 'He should have slept like the dead again after ingesting another dose of restful-sleep potion,' Severus thinks to himself.
"Ahuh," the boy agrees and climbs up onto 'his' dining chair to Severus's right.
"I had a weird dream though," the boy tells him.
"Oh?" Severus asks, curious, "What was it about?"
Naruto rubs a palm across his face and tries to recall the dream but it mostly escapes his grasp.
"I think there was red fox in a cage and Kuro-sensei and Kazu were talking to it," Naruto says.
Severus isn't quite surprised. It was a shared dream between the boy and the nine tails which he had entered once again after all.
"That sounds interesting," he remarks casually.
"It was weird," Naruto says with a frown but soon forgets all about his dream and digs into his breakfast with gusto.
Severus pours the blond a glass of milk and Kazu ignores them both for his blueberry jam.
Kurama sits sulkily in Severus' coat pocket and remains silent.
He had promised the boy an excursion so on that bright Sunday morning, after cleaning up from breakfast, they head out towards the forest near the Hokage mountain to look for mushrooms.
He had run out of red-headed mushrooms and it had been a good excuse to get the boy to stay over the night before.
He wonders if this might become a trend from now on.
"Kuro-sensei!" he hears the boy call out and looks straight ahead to see the boy waving at him. "Hurry up! Come on!" the boy excitedly shouts before running further ahead.
Severus sighs and thinks about children and their endless energy.
He walks leisurely after the blond, happy to move at his own pace but Naruto gets impatient and runs back to tug at his hand and Severus has no choice but to be unwillingly pulled along by the child.
Kazu caws amusedly at him and takes off from his shoulder to fly on ahead.
Pretty soon they arrive at the entrance to the forest and Severus warns the boy not to run off and to remain in his sight at all times.
He didn't want to have to rescue the boy from a stray bear or fish him out from the river if he fell in.
"Okay!" Naruto agrees and rushes off to look under a nearby tree for the mushrooms.
"Remember what I told you, only pick the ones with the red-heads and brown stems. Leave the others alone and stay away from the all-red mushrooms," he reminds the boy.
"Okay!" the boy hollers back again.
Severus looks on, slightly worried about finding the child poisoned somewhere deep in the forest.
He looks at Kazu and the raven nods before flying off after the child.
Severus sighs and follows after the two.
Kurama stays silent and unmoving in his coat pocket.
Hours later, the boy runs over with a small basket full of red-headed mushrooms. He grins up at him to show off and Severus pats his head.
Kazu yawns from a nearby branch and Severus decides it's time for lunch.
"Can we get ramen, Kuro-sensei?" the child asks excitedly.
Severus sighs but nods. They had ramen just yesterday but the child looks too excited to be let down.
"Woohoo!" the brat shouts out happily.
Kazu looks amusedly at Severus.
'So he has a soft spot for his employee, so what?' he rolls his eyes at the bird.
The new chakra he senses behind them starts trailing along after them as they head out of the forest. Severus had noticed the new addition to Naruto's watchers today the moment they had left the house.
He recognises Panther and Falcon, but not the new presence.
'Perhaps it's a new guard,' he thinks.
Panther and Falco, he had noticed, had been solely assigned to guard the brat and Bear and Racoon were usually the ones who popped up whenever the Hokage showed up at his tea house.
"You do know that there are three shinobi hidden behind you right?" questions the fox telepathically from his coat pocket. It's the first time the fox has used the magical communication ring and Severus almost jumps in shock at the voice in his head but keeps his expression even.
He thinks that the fox might have done it in revenge.
"Yes, I'm aware," he answers back in his head, his own ring is tied to the magic in the fox's.
The kyuubi keeps silent after that.
They head out for lunch in Ichiraku's and the noodle-shop owner, Teuchi, greets them in welcome. Naruto orders ten bowls of ramen and Severus tell himself that he's glad that he's rich.
Severus orders a bowl each for himself and Kazu and they dig into their lunches. Teuchi just smiles at them, used to the sight of the black bird eating ramen.
At the edge of his senses though, Severus keeps track of the chakra of the new guard.
His gift of seeing tells him that there's a connection between the boy and the owner of the chakra but nothing else.
He decides to observe for now and wait for the other to act.
His magic senses that the new watcher most certainly will.
A couple of days later, he's walking home with a basket full of Konoha florescent night-moss when Kurama's voice pops up in his head again.
"I think he's about to make his move," the fox tells him.
Severus continues his walk leisurely at the same pace.
Kazu flies overhead, a speck of black against the bright crescent moon.
"You sure you don't need my help?" the fox asks again.
"I'm sure," he says, "just keep still no matter what happens. I doubt he plans to do any real harm."
As he is walking by the large river that runs through the village, he sees a figure languidly walking up to him with his hands in his pockets.
The young man's gravity-defying silver hair is the first thing he notices about him. Also, three-quarters of his face is covered by a mask and a Konoha head-band.
'Konoha's Copy Ninja, Hatake Kakashi,' his mind supplies.
"Yo, you're out about late," the other says casually to him.
"Some ingredients can only be collected at night," he tells the copy-nin, with a nod at his basket.
Hatake nods in understanding, seemingly unconcerned about the fact that he had just walked up to a stranger and started a conversation out of the blue.
Severus makes to walk away, bowing his head politely in farewell. He takes four steps when he hears the man say, "I heard you own a tea shop."
He stops in his track and turns his head to look at the shinobi.
The man is looking at him in a laid-back manner. If Severus was an ordinary civilian, with no magic or chakra, he would assume that the man was just making polite talk.
"Yes, Snape's Tea and Brew" he tells him.
"I heard Naruto is working there," the shinobi adds.
Severus just nods, observing the man.
In a blink of an eye however, the copy-nin closes the small distance between them and before he knows it, Severus is staring into a red eye with three black tomoes spinning wildly about. He hears Kazu's caw of alarm and soon feels Kakashi activate a sleep jutsu that knocks the raven unconscious.
He finds himself being pulled into a world of red and black.
He's still in the forest and the river runs red next to where they are standing.
The silver-haired shinobi grabs him by the throat and holds him up threateningly in the air.
"Now, tell me who you really are and why you've approached Konoha's jinchuuriki," the man demands dangerously.
Kakashi staggers back through Konoha's red gates feeling like a dried up sponge. He's lost a lot of blood from the wound to his leg and his head feels dizzy but he had pushed himself to make the trek back home.
He soon uses the body-flicker jutsu to make his way to the Hokage building.
The Hokage notices his arrival and motions at him to present himself.
Sarutobi studies the haggard-looking Copy Ninja and asks, "Have you gone to the hospital?"
"No, Hokage-sama," Kakashi informs him up front.
Sarutobi sighs and tells him to make his report before shooing him off to get treatment.
Kakashi bows, ready to leave when Sarutobi says to him, "You might want to check on Naruto, there's been a change since you've been gone."
'A change?' he questions internally. He'd only been gone for two months and he wonders what could have occurred during that time.
The Hokage doesn't seem too concerned so he bows again and shunshins off to check on the boy.
He's had worse injuries and the hospital could wait till later.
He searches the village for the whiskered boy, checking his usual haunts but doesn't see him. After some time, he finally catches wind of the boy's familiar chakra in the eastern part of the village where the residents are much more affluent.
He wonders what the boy is doing at that part of town and why.
He soon spots the boy waiting tables in a cosy-looking tea shop.
He's surprised at first as he knows that most of the civilians in the village are usually wary of the jinchuuriki.
He watches the boy putter about the shop for a while and when Naruto heads home, he lands on the roof of one of the buildings nearby to question Panther.
When he learns of what has transpired in the two months that he's been gone, he's not happy about it at all.
He then decides to tail the suspicious tea-shop owner and to make his move when the boy isn't around.
He's more than ready to flush out the enemy.
The nurse tells Severus that one of the Uchiha police had found him collapsed near the bank of the river a couple of hours before sunrise.
She asks if he feels any residual discomfort and if he needs anything.
He tells her 'no' and sits up on the hospital bed.
One of the Uchiha police, a young man by the name of Uchiha Reiji, comes through the door into his hospital room to take his statement after the nurse leaves.
The shinobi tells him that he'd been the one to find him on the ground by the river last night while he was on patrol.
He then questions Severus if he recalls about what had happened.
Severus tells him that he had been collecting ingredients for his tea brews and was on the way home. He had taken the path that was near a river and then nothing, his memories end there.
"I don't remember anything. Do you know what happened to me?" he asks looking quite troubled.
"We found your raven asleep next to you," the enforcement officer tells him. "We suspect that it could have been the work of a shinobi but there's been no clues so far," he adds.
Reiji doesn't want to tell the poor man that they have a suspect in mind and that his name is Hatake Kakashi.
Severus asks him why he could have been targeted but the Uchiha tells him that whoever had attacked him had probably gotten the wrong target and after realising it, had left before carrying out whatever plan they previously had in mind.
He tells Severus not to worry as they will be diligently working on this case and will definitely get back to him when they find something.
Reiji knows that they won't but the poor civilian doesn't know that, so he offers him empty words of comfort.
Before he goes, he leaves his contact details with Severus and tells him to look for him at the Police Bureau if he remembers anything else.
After he leaves, Severus turns to look at Kazu who had been pretending to be asleep on a basket by his bed which the nurses had so kindly provided for the 'poor hurt birdie'.
Severus throws out his magic and senses that there is no one watching before waving a hand to cast a silencing spell around the room.
"Full marks for your acting," Severus tells the bird in amusement.
Kazu hops up from his basket and flies over to land on Severus' lap. The wizard pats his head gently in praise.
"You did a pretty good job too," the raven praises him in return with an amused caw.
Kurama takes the opportunity to climb out of Severus' coat which the nurses had carefully folded and left by the bedside table.
He studies the two on the hospital bed before snickering.
"I like the part where you acted like you were terribly upset. I think the Uchiha boy looked like he wanted to offer you a hug at one point," the fox laughs.
Severus smirks at that.
'I've still got it,' he thinks smugly to himself.
"So what happened in the dream-world after I was 'knocked out'?" questions the raven.
Severus grins.
"Oh, Hatake threatened me and I pretended to look mightily afraid," he starts.
"After that, I go on to 'reveal' every terrible deed Snape Severus of the Land of Tea has ever done. I tell him about the time I stole someone's candy when I was seven and about how I pushed my brother into the lake for taking my favourite pencil when I was ten. Etc etc etc," Severus tells the two with a wave of his hand.
"He then threatens me some more and I repeat the same thing over and over again before it satisfies him and he pushes us both out of the dream-world."
"And after that I pretend to remain unconscious till I was found by the Uchiha and then I 'wake up' in the hospital," he concludes.
He bows dramatically at the two and Kazu laughs.
Kurama smirks at him and gives him a thumbs up.
"I gotta say human, it's been quite amusing so far sticking around you," the fox comments toothily.
"Do you think the Hatake boy has given up?" questions the nine tails.
Severus smirks and says, "He's welcome to try again but next time I won't be so nice."
Inviting someone into your own dream-world is like opening the door of your own soul. The sharingan wielders have forgotten it and like to think themselves superior for being able to trap the consciousness of another into their own.
But it's like inviting someone else into your own home, you might know where everything is but a serial killer can still surprise you with a knife to the gut hidden up their sleeves.
Severus has more than knives, he's got a whole arsenal of weapons. Tsukine's teachings were not for nothing, after all.
He lies back, cancels the silencing spell and puts on a tired and confused expression on his face.
He has a character to play.
Inwardly, he cackles in glee.
Kakashi is sorely disappointed that the man is exactly who his files says he is.
He had used the Mangekyou Sharingan on the man certain that the self-proclaimed tea brewer was a spy.
Instead, he is regaled with petty tales of wrong-doings that the man had committed ever since he was three. And the worse thing the man had ever done was mistakenly knock out a stranger who had only stopped to ask for directions.
He had then brainwashed the man and erased his memories of what had occurred before leaving the civilian for the patrolling Uchihas to find.
Kakashi sighs, hands combing through his silver hair in frustration.
He recalls the scene of a blond little boy clinging tightly to the waist of a dark-haired tea shop owner in pure affection and thinks, 'That should have been Minato-sensei, not some stranger with a hooked nose.'
A niggling voice in the back of his head pops up to say, 'Maybe you should have volunteered to raise the boy' but he dismisses it.
Everyone that gets close to him only ever dies an early death, after all.
He couldn't be responsible for the child.
Naruto would just suffer if he was with him.
Kakashi looks at the memorial stone in front of him and then bows his head in defeat.
Naruto fusses over him when they get back to the house.
When he had heard about what had happened to his Kuro-sensei, the boy had rushed straight to the hospital to look for the man.
Severus had only a few hours of quiet in his hospital bed before a blond whirlwind barges into the room and proceeds to pounce over him with snot running down his nose.
"Sensei, don't die!" Naruto had cried out with streams of tears running down his eyes.
Severus had had to pry the child off of him before assuring the brat that he wasn't dying.
He had then summarized what had happened and told the boy that he was to be discharged in a few hours.
Naruto had cried out again and jumped onto his bed to cling to the man saying, "I'm so glad you're not dying sensei."
Hours later as Severus sits sipping tea in the kitchen, he watches Naruto puttering about making ramen for dinner.
Naruto had insisted that his Kuro-sensei must not do any chores and just relax.
And so, Severus is sipping green tea and relaxing. Kazu is eyeing them with amusement from his perch.
Kurama keeps silent in his pocket but is really quite entertained.
Severus looks up from drying a teacup and feels a familiar chakra approach.
Annoyance bubbles up.
He'd thought the man would have decided to leave him alone by now.
The bell rings and Severus sees the familiar silver haired shinobi enter the shop.
Hatake doesn't even look his way and just nonchalantly walks to one of the tables and plops himself on a chair.
Severus grinds his teeth for a moment before plastering on a neutral expression.
"Welcome, what can I get you?" he asks the man as he goes up to the table.
The copy-nin merely glances up lazily from where he's studying the menu before saying, "Cold black tea."
Severus nods and makes his way back to the tea counter.
Sharingan no Kakashi soon becomes a regular at the tea house.
He even has the nerve to only appear when both the brat and the old man-Hokage are not around.
Severus has to remind himself not to reach for the bottle of venom under in his robes every time the copy-ninja walks through the door of his tea shop.
Kurama laughs at him when he voices out loud about poisoning the annoying shinobi.
Kazu caws out his agreement with the plan, still unhappy about being hit with a sleep jutsu.
Kurama reminds him that it didn't actually affect him but Kazu responds that it's the thought that counts.
"The usual?" he asks politely, inwardly thinking about types of poisons he has in his storage; foxglove, poison ivy, stinging nettle, giant hogweed and so many more delightful combinations.
Kakashi slouches in his chair and looks up at him but asks this time, "I've heard that you provide special brews?"
Severus nods.
"I've just come back from a mission and although I killed all the enemy ninja, I was injured in the skirmish," he tells the tea shop owner like he's explaining killing like he's talking about the weather.
"I lost quite a lot of blood. Do you have something to make me feel better?" he asks in a fake-pleading tone, one lazy eyes studying the dark-haired man.
Severus merely smiles politely back at him and says, "I'll see what I can put together," and walks back to the tea counter.
'Poison oak, water hemlock, rhubarb, wisteria, oleander….' Is his litany of toxic plants as he gathers together the ingredients for a Blood-Replenishing Brew.
*Blood Replenishing Brew*
- Oolong tea (10 g)
- Red dates (10 g)
- Red-headed Mushrooms (5 g)
It's not quite as effective as a real blood replenishing potion, which works instantly, but it does its job; albeit over a period of time.
He wouldn't think of offering any of his real potions on the menu.
The ingredients for those would be hard to explain should they ever question him on their origins.
'I got it from the dimensions of various animal-summons,' is not something he is prepared to admit to the Konoha shinobi.
He puts together the brew and takes it to the laid back- looking copy-ninja.
He hopes that he chokes on it.
He doesn't but he does come back for more when he's had injuries on missions.
The tea shop owner still gleefully plans his demise by poison every time the copy-ninja visits the shop.
A/N Hello everyone, a big thank you to those who have reviewed and given me such encouraging words. I'm really glad you're all enjoying the story. This isn't my first fan fiction but it's been awhile since I've written anything. I decided to try my hand at it again due to boredom and being cooped up due to the Covid virus. Boredom cultivates creativity right?
On that note, I hope everyone's doing ok and staying safe and healthy as much as possible during these trying times.