Chapter 9
I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
The town is bustling with energy and life as lanterns glow and blooming flowers line the streets. Customers are chatting loudly with shopkeepers, and the crowds making their way through the festival are clothed in colourful kimono and yukata, like flocks of tropical birds fluttering by.
"It's the hanami festival!" Naruto says to Itachi, grinning.
They transform their own clothing into appropriate festival wear before mingling with the crowds. Naruto's gorging herself on delicious barbeque pork buns when she spots a family posing together before a painted backdrop, a man crouching behind a clunky camera set-up. The sign beside him reads: 3 photographs, 20 ryo.
The Uzumaki turns pleading eyes on Itachi.
"What ninja wants to get photographed?" the Uchiha asks rhetorically, but is already moving in the booth's direction before she can move him there. Naruto scoops up his hand anyway, laughing as she pulls him along.
Pictures taken, the photographer hands his film over to his assistant, a young boy who scurries off to some inordinately large printer visible through the open doors of the town hall. Ten minutes later they have their photos in hand.
"They're wonderful," Naruto breathes when she sees them.
As Itachi said, ninja aren't generally ones for getting their pictures taken, and cameras are expensive. Photographs in ninja families are only for special occasions, and Naruto only ever posed for her registration photo as well as a single picture with Hana.
The first shows her wearing a cheesy grin and making a peace sign, having obviously just dragged Itachi to the booth. In the second, Naruto has discovered the box of props at the side and is wearing a fitting pair of fox ears as Itachi looks on, bemused.
The third has the two facing one another, Naruto grinning goofily as she tries to convince him to put on the ridiculous fake moustache provided. Itachi's holding her hands away from his face, but he's got the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, and he's looking at her so fondly.
"Never taken the picture of someone with such stunning red hair," the cameraman tells her. "Looks just as lovely on film."
Naruto smiles and chirps, "Thank you!"
"Your boyfriend is a lucky man," he winks, and she can feel her cheeks flush.
"O-oh, we're not dating," the kunoichi stutters uncharacteristically, waving her hands before her.
The next bout of nerves hits out of the blue when they're pretending to struggle at civilian carnival games, competing at who can lose most spectacularly while appearing like they're trying hard. Itachi has a dart in hand, feigning concentration while looking at a target that even an academy student could hit when a gust of wind blows his hair into his eyes. His hand comes up, fingers running through the strands as he sweeps them out of his way.
It's mundane. It's ordinary. She's probably seen him do it a hundred times before.
But all of a sudden Naruto thinks it's the most fascinating thing she's ever seen, and her belly erupts with a swarm of butterflies. She has to turn her face away so he won't see her staring.
Whatever has inflicted her only gets worse when Itachi buys a beautiful spiral hairpiece that Naruto just had to have, helping curl her hair up and tucking it in.
"It looks good," he smiles. And Naruto – to her utter dismay – feels herself blush fiercely.
"Thank you!" she manages to squeak out, suddenly feeling like she's been clobbered over the head. Hands come up to hold her cheeks, and they burn brightly beneath her palms.
Naruto knows she loves Itachi, has known this for years and years; a love born from a thousand gestures of kindness and mutual regard. But it is a shock to discover that she finds him attractive.
Maybe it's her hormones suddenly kicking in. Maybe it's because of Tsunade's teasing. But now that she's thought it, she can't unthink it.
Itachi – firmly embedded in her mind as her best friend and the most precious person in the world – is now her best friend who can make her heart go crazy with a single brush of his hand.
The thought bounces around her head, echoing louder and louder instead of fading away, demanding her attention.
Naruto loves Itachi. She's attracted to him. But is she in love with him?
It's a lovely evening in late spring when they stop for the night earlier than usual after coming across a gorgeous lake. They both agree it would be nice to camp by the water that night, and they swiftly get everything set up, routine comfortable and familiar.
Naruto catches two rabbits that Itachi slow cooks over the fire with salt and spices, and they smell amazing. Several fish from the lake go into a pot of soup and they roast some vegetables on a flat rock then absolutely gorge themselves. Itachi even unseals chocolate and biscuits that they melt, Naruto happily making a mess of it as the smores drip and crumble all over her hands.
She's dozes on her bedroll afterwards in a food induced stupor, watching dragonflies dance across the water, listening to the breeze rustling through of the reeds and the skittering feet of wildlife. When she has finally recovered enough, she looks over at Itachi who has been sorting through his enormous book collection for the last half hour. Naruto sits down next to him, careful not to disturb the piles.
"Need to buy some more?" she asks fondly. He's such a nerd.
"Actually, there's one I haven't read," Itachi corrects her primly.
"Oh my gosh," Naruto gasps dramatically, "you've been slacking."
She grins at his eye roll. "Read it to me?"
The Uzumaki settles beside him, her head on his shoulder as Itachi's low, smooth voice fills the air, and Naruto is suddenly struck by how content she is. A good meal, beautiful scenery, spending time with Itachi - and she's happier than she's ever been.
How is it possible, Naruto wonders, that such simple things can bring immeasurable joy?
Is it normal that she even enjoys these dry, dusty histories when it's Itachi who's reading them to her? That a mere glance and a smile from him can make her insides tremble like an earthquake rattling through her bones? That simply by being beside him, she feels so, so happy?
Itachi has played so many roles in her life: Caretaker, teacher, friend. Guard, confidant, partner.
He has painted her in his colours, saturated her life with himself and forever enfolded her in his presence. Naruto no longer knows who she is without Itachi, her life intrinsically linked to his own - inseparable.
She doesn't think she can live a day in this world without him.
It's a dangerous feeling, a devotion bordering on obsession so strong it should scare her. A sane person would be frightened by how deeply she has fallen without even realising it. Terrified to know that her own soul no longer belongs exclusively to her.
Instead, all Naruto feels – is blessed.
Blessed to be capable of feeling such immense devotion. Blessed to know someone worthy of it.
Blessed that the sheer vastness of her love for him makes even the deepest oceans seem shallow.
That there is a person who can evoke such emotion feels miraculous, and Naruto knows nothing else that can possibly equal the strength of what she feels now. She loves him so fiercely she can scarcely withstand the strength of her own feelings. So ferociously it physically hurts, the sweetest of agonies.
Surely, Naruto thinks, chest tight with an irrepressible force as she basks in Itachi's warmth.
Surely, I am the luckiest person in the world.
She's fourteen closing in on fifteen, and Itachi's just turned twenty during the height of a scorching summer. Naruto's never had to worry about sunburn, the kyuubi healing her before it can even pinken her skin. Itachi on the other hand…
The kunoichi glances at the Uchiha and has to stifle a snort.
The kasa hat he'd worn while with the Akatsuki sits atop his head, and he's fanning himself with one of her fans, gusts of wind trying to dislodge the hair that has stuck itself to sweat-slicked skin. He's sitting sluggishly beneath the shade of their tarp, and even out of direct sunlight his cheeks are slowly turning from pink to red.
"Uchiha are not islanders. We stayed in the very middle of Fire Country for good reason," he glares balefully at her.
"Hehe, sorry Itachi," she apologises sheepishly. She makes a clone to stand at his side and send proper gusts of wind his way.
Leaving Itachi to his shade, the redhead hurries down the sandy beach to the shoreline, anxious to get some relief for the burning soles of her feet. Feeling the refreshing cold waves lapping at her ankles, Naruto kicks the water into the air playfully. Gulls call to one another overhead, a flock of birds fly in formation above her in the clear skies and there's not another soul but them to be found for miles.
Standing in the surf with the entire horizon filled with blue, it feels like the world is endless. Naruto spreads her arms wide and she spins and spins, twirling in dizzying circles, her head falling back to laugh at the open sky.
She feels so alive.
Breathless, she turns back to see Itachi looking at her with an indecipherable expression on his face.
"What?" Naruto asks, embarrassed for some reason.
"Nothing." His lips quirk up. "It's just - are you happy?"
The Uzumaki blinks.
"Of course!" Her answer is immediate and heartfelt. She's with him, how could she not be happy?
Itachi's smile widens. "I'm glad."
He looks so sincere. Despite the oppressive heat that clearly doesn't agree with him, Itachi is genuinely glad for her and Naruto feels her heart swell.
Gods she's so lucky to have him.
Before she can return the question, one of her many clones exploring further inland pops and its memory floods her mind.
"Itachi, my clone just found an underwater passageway that leads beneath the island!"
Naruto doesn't need to mention her copy only found it because it was slacking off from the search to swim in the sea. "Maybe there's treasure!" She bounces over to her sandals, shoving them onto wet, sandy feet.
"I doubt there's any treasure left," Itachi says dryly, heaving himself up to follow.
Sure enough, there is absolutely nothing of material value to be found on the island, invaders and time having left it ravaged and worn. But while the human settlements are nothing to write home about, the island itself is different. Whirlpool has picture perfect golden sand beaches on one side, and rocky crags and high cliffs on the other.
It is beneath one of these cliffs that there is a foot of air between the water and rock, and she and Itachi make their way beneath it, heads bobbing out of the water as they swim. The narrow passage soon gives way to an enormous open cavern, ceiling reaching upwards and into the island's bedrock.
The sunlight is reflecting off the sand beneath the water, making it seem as if its glowing, blue radiance casting the whole cavern into view. Combined with the brightly coloured corals growing on the rocks, it looks surreal, almost magical. It's one of the most awe-inspiring things Naruto's ever seen.
"Wow." When she finally finds her voice, it is hushed, reverent. She turns to see Itachi is equally as awed, eyes red and recording this for perpetuity.
Naruto supposes they did find treasure after all.
That evening, they sit around the campfire their clothes hanging up to dry, exhausted but content. Uzushio is everything Naruto could have hoped for. The only thing she had secretly wished – but knew couldn't be true – was to bump into another Uzumaki who had the same idea of visiting the island of their ancestors.
"I wonder if the people who lived here were just as wonderful as their home is," she says wistfully. "I wish I could have met them."
Itachi leans forwards. "Perhaps you still can. Haven't you heard the rumours of the ghosts of the Uzumaki who can sometimes be seen on the beaches at night?"
Suddenly all of Naruto's wistfulness deserts her. "Don't even joke about that."
She can't help glancing left and right, the thought now wedged in her head.
"The rumours sounded credible," the Uchiha defends, "and I have seen a ghost before."
"What?" Naruto's eyes bulge. "You have?" she squeaks.
"In Kiri, there are a lot of water graves," Itachi tells her in a low tone, "and you know the stories of Water Country. A lot of resentment can build until the lingering spiritual energy can gain sentience, until it eventually coalesces into an actual spirit. They can possess corpses and walk their bones out of their ocean graves."
The redhead is shaking. "Gods, you're serious?" She scoots closer to the fire.
Suddenly, impossibly, Naruto hears that exact noise. A steady, slow rattling of something dragging itself across sand, and the drip drop of water splashing onto the ground.
"Itachi?" she whispers, heart thumping, eyes wide and frantic. "Did you hear that?"
A chilly hand clamps onto her shoulder.
She screams, leaping and tripping over the bag at her feet in her haste to get away. Her shrieking could have awoken all of Uzushio's dead.
"Pfft-" The sound of Itachi's laughter makes her head whip in his direction, eyes narrowing with dawning realisation.
"Kai!" she commands, and the ghostly chill vanishes along with the bone hand on her shoulder. Fury tints her vision red.
"You jerk!" she roars, whacking him with her fists, not even holding back as he winces. "You know I hate ghost stories Itachi! You. Are. Such. An. Ass!" She slaps his shoulder with each word.
"Sorry, Naruto," He waves his hands before him defensively, ruining his apology by smiling. "It was the perfect moment."
Itachi's expression is light and open, and it makes her anger melt away despite herself. How can she remain angry when he looks like that? And, well, it was the perfect moment - and let it not be said that Uzumaki Naruto can't appreciate a good prank.
"Forgive me?" Itachi smiles, eyes crinkling with mirth. The redhead crosses her arms and pouts.
"No," she says angrily.
He moves closer and gathers her in his arms, warm and alive and it chases out the lingering scare. Naruto relaxes as her heartrate slows and returns to normal.
"I really am sorry."
"No you're not," she says stubbornly, even as she fails to marshal her face into a suitable expression of anger. It's wonderful that Itachi can openly tease her, he was far too careful when they first reunited, habits ingrained from his time in the Akatsuki slow to change. He's so used to concealing his true self and Naruto is glad he's stopped hiding from her.
He grins down at her, boyish and charming, and her cheeks tint even as she grins back.
Itachi, she realises, is so happy as well.
Naruto loves him and Itachi loves her.
That is the fundamental truth.
They aren't in love, but they do love each other, so what does it matter if she is also in love with him?
It doesn't matter, Naruto decides.
What they have is precious beyond measure, and she will not jeopardise that for anything.
Just by being with Itachi, Naruto is happier than she has ever been.
They mostly stick to civilisation after their visit to Whirlpool because Zetsu finds it more difficult to spy in large cities where there are countless chakra signatures to confuse him. The Akatsuki never got clear reports on what goes on inside them, and they'd temporarily lost track of several of the jinchuuriki when they returned to civilisation, though most tended to stick to isolated areas - something which made picking them off unnoticed even easier.
But while they're trying to stay off Zetsu and the Akatsuki's radar, they also need to train, and their full power is not the kind of thing they can unleash in a city.
So it's up above the clouds nearing the peak of a stark, coldly beautiful and isolated mountain that Naruto and Kurama make their first attempt at manifesting the entirety of the fox's huge bulk outside the seal. As Kumo's hachibi jinchuuriki is said to be able to do, this process is rumoured to have B vanish and the eight tails appear in his place. Logically, this must mean they have to switch places.
The first time Naruto and Kurama try to swap so he is outside the seal and she's on the inside, the kunoichi is drawn into the seal space as expected.
"Did it work?" she asks, puzzled. She thought she'd have some awareness of what was going on outside of the seal. Unexpectedly, Kurama remains where he is inside the cage.
"No," he growls. "Something interfered."
They both sense a presence behind her and they turn to look simultaneously.
"Oh, it's you."
Funnily enough, it's both Naruto and Kurama who say this, their voices overlapping; Naruto's is flat while Kurama's is dripping with disdain.
They get to see the Yondaime Hokage taken aback for a moment as both redheads (one redhead and one red-furred) stare at him with unwelcoming expressions.
"Yondaime," Naruto's voice is blank, and she regards the late Hokage before her with a flurry of emotions: anger, resentment, hurt, grief. She cannot pick out a single feature that they share and is glad for it.
Namikaze makes a pained grimace, eyes lingering first on her face and the unenthusiastic look upon it. Blue moves upwards to the slashed forehead protector before taking in the rest of her.
"What're you doing here, worm?" Kurama asks testily.
The Yondaime's gaze darts to the seal, eyebrows shooting up as he notices the modifications done to it to allow the ninetails out freely. It now resembles a gate more than a seal, and if Kurama wanted to he could choose to emerge whenever he wishes.
"Ah, I was set to appear when the seal was closed to breaking, but I see now that is unnecessary."
"That's right," the bijuu is suddenly gleeful. "You're not needed, and nor are you wanted. So scurry on back to the land of the dead."
Naruto – she is more than content to let Kurama do the talking. She knows that if she were to speak it would be to say something she'd regret.
"She never needed your protection, Yondaime. In fact, Naruto only ever needed protecting from you, and the life you condemned her to live."
The kunoichi knows Kurama's only saying that to dig the knife in deeper and not because he actually cares about her childhood, but she can appreciate his pettiness.
Naruto considers herself to be a forgiving and understanding person – at least compared to others if they were in her situation. She could have loathed the people of Konoha for their treatment of her, but she managed to overcome that and came out a better person because of it. She's also never made any personal enemies, never had cause to clash with anyone to the point it festered into seething abhorrence.
But it turns out she can hold a grudge after all, and Naruto can't help the instinctive wave of dislike she feels at seeing Namikaze's face. Her mother loved him, but that doesn't mean she has to as well.
Her father looks at her, his only reaction to Kurama's words a furrowing of the brows.
"Naruto," he says her name, the familiar sound unfamiliar when spoken with so much sorrow. "I understand if you hate me –"
"I don't hate you," Naruto blurts out, breaking her silence. She takes a deep breath, trying to marshal up the strength needed for this conversation.
"I used to when I was first told that you made me into a jinchuuriki. It was – easier to hate. Easy to have someone to blame for all my suffering, a face to put to the villain. But hatred… it's not important. It didn't do anything for me, only made me miserable so I just… stopped."
Namikaze makes a pained face. "That's fair."
Except Naruto is not finished.
"But I also can't forgive you. I tried; I tried really, really hard. I tried for kaa-san, and I tried for myself. But I just – can't." The last word comes out like it has torn itself from her throat.
Naruto has always tried to be understanding. Has always attempted to look past people's behaviour for their motives, because she knows better than anyone that you can't judge until you've gotten the full story. While she logically understands Minato's decisions – that he wanted to die with his wife, that he needed to do his duty as Hokage – Naruto can't understand how he could simply abandon his daughter.
Or well, she can. He loved Kushina more than he loved her, and that? That's okay. Naruto even understands it because she loves Itachi more than anything.
But if Minato was going to choose Kushina and Konoha over her, then he never should have had a child in the first place, because parents are supposed to love their children more than anything. The fact that he doesn't – it hurts, like she's been betrayed, even though that's unfair to Minato. Most fathers are never faced with such impossible decisions, and if the circumstances hadn't forced his hand, Naruto is sure she would have grown up loving him to bits.
But that isn't how the world is and she can't change how she feels.
"And you know what? That's okay. My life right now… I love it and I wouldn't change it for anything. But I know how different things could have been, how lucky I was that everything just happened to turn out for the best."
The Uzumaki struggles with her emotions, speaking slowly to make sure she properly articulates all her thoughts.
"There's no way you could have known I would be so happy, and for a long time, I wasn't. I became happy despite you, instead of with you or because of you like it's supposed to be with parents."
Naruto looks at Minato, her father, looking past the hurt and betrayal, the resentment and dislike.
Beyond that, she feels nothing for him.
He's a part of her past and has no bearing on her future. Naruto knows who she is, what she stands for and what she wants. Namikaze Minato is irrelevant to all those things. A weight is lifted from her and she realises he doesn't matter. Naruto is free to make her own decisions, her own mistakes, to steer her own destiny. This man is dead and will never interfere with those things again.
"I understand." Minato looks ashamed yet he does not try to apologise. If he had, Naruto would have stabbed him through with her chains.
He scans her again, drinking in her appearance with desperate longing, simultaneously awed, and infinitely grieved.
"Are you truly happy now?" Bright blue eyes bore into her own.
"I am," she tells him quietly, but with no uncertainty to be found. Her face is serene, peaceful, resolving her feelings about her father making her feel cleansed and renewed.
Minato smiles, tinged with sadness, self-recrimination and guilt, but it's real.
"Then I'm glad. Goodbye Naruto. I - I love you, and wish you all the best in everything – and I hope that your happiness lasts forever."
Naruto blinks back tears, their goodbye simultaneously stiff formality between strangers, and one of the most intimate conversations she's ever had.
"Thank you," she hesitates, then adds, "Goodbye, Dad."