I do not own Naruto!
Satsuki's eyes shot fluttered open and she groaned slightly as she peeled herself from the hardwood floor beneath her. Her mind was groggy, her heart was beating quickly, and she was having difficulty putting the pieces together. Where was she, and why was she on the floor?
"Rule 48: Orientation" a voice clearly sounded in her head.
She silently stood to her feet and willed her heart to calm down. She took a deep breath and cleared her senses. She took a step further towards the center of the room and took stock of what was around her. The room she was standing in was divided in two: one side being the sitting area and the other the kitchen. There was as a window on two of the four walls. 'Must be in an apartment' she thought to herself seeing the hallway that led further into the building.
Satsuki started towards the window on the far wall and paused, 'Someone is knocking on a door somewhere.' Satsuki closed the gap between her and the window in a few short strides and peered out.
She couldn't see much from her vantage points other than the small quantity of sunlight starting to bleed in to the streets, but she could hear and smell enough to give her some semblance of what was going on. 'Someone shuffling their feet in the street below. Someone is knocking on a door again. One, two, three. Three times. A cat just yowled. Oh, a trash bin fell. Cat must have knocked it over. No people are yelling. Must have been an alley. Someone fell off of something. Bread. There's a bakery nearby. Something smells spicy. There's no spicy food in the land of water. Something smells of copper. Must be the water pipes. It's warm already, and dry also. That's unusual for Kiri' She paused in her thoughts tilting her head to the side. 'Someone is coming up a set of stairs.' She focused on the footsteps. 'There are two someones, and they're coming this way.' She listened as the foot steps drew closer stopping in front of the door of the small apartment she was currently standing in.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Three raps sounded upon the door, and Satsuki froze as someone began to speak on the other side of the door. 'I don't even know where I am. How would someone else know that I'm here? Where is my dad? Why-'
Three distinct raps sounded on the door a second time. She half listened to the person on the other side of the door as they called out a greeting and she narrowed her eyes. Rule number 23: Always be prepared for something to go wrong.
Satsuki reached her hand into the kunai pouch still attached to the belt of her battle kimono, and pulled one out, holding it firmly in her hand. Rule 5: Silence is your best friend. She silently crossed the few feet to the door and whispered 'henge no jutsu', red hair and violet eyes once again replacing her normal features.
Keeping the kunai hidden behind the door she slowly unlocked the door and opened it just enough to see who was on the other side.
"Hello there!" a brunette man with a large scar across his nose greeted, "I'm Umino Iruka, and I'm here to escort someone at this address to the Academy for their first day today. Who might you be?"
"Who sent you?" She questioned, the distrust evident in her voice.
"Hokage-sama, sent me to escort you. I am a teacher at the academy." Iruka stated, a smile gracing his features.
"Excuse me, did you just say Hokage?" confusion sounded in her voice as her mind went in to over drive. There's no way she could be in the land of Fire. Could there?
"Yeah he did!" a secondary voice shouted "Old man Hokage sent him to come get you and bring you to school today!"
"Hey, careful!" Iruka stated stepping out of someone's way, giving Satsuki the ability to see a mop of unruly blond hair.
"Wait a second-" the mop of hair whispered so low that Satsuki could barely hear it. He continued to step closer to the door, her eyes widening and taking in the threat, Satsuki tightened her grip on the knife in her right hand.
"Rule #2: Expect the unexpected" the voice once again rang clearly through her head.
"Saaa-Kumo, is that you?" the door pushed further and she stepped back a half step.
All at once everything clicked back in to place and she remembered what had happened: Daisuke, Orochimaru, Sasori, her father-everything.
With a speed she didn't know she possessed she grabbed the shoulder of the blonde pushing her door open and pinned him to the doorframe, her knife held firmly against his neck as every single one of the lessons that her father ever taught her ran through her mind.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Iruka shouted trying to close the distance between them.
"Don't come any closer." She stated evenly looking out of the corner of her eye as she applied more pressure on the knife.
"It's fine Iruka-Sensei," the blonde chuckled. "Rule number-what is it again? 8? Beware a wolf in sheep's clothing." A smile erupted across his face and he winked back at the scarred teacher.
"Why does the caged bird sing?" Satsuki questioned through gritted teeth.
"Because it knows that one day, it will have the chance of freedom. That all the suffering that it is currently experiencing will all be in the past and will be nothing but a memory, a bad dream that they can use to further themselves in getting closer to their dreams." The smile faded slightly, a glimmer of sadness reaching his eyes for a moment as he finished his answer. "How does the mountain stand?" He countered the question, the grin back on his face and reaching his ears.
Satsuki let out a long breath that she didn't know she was holding in before she answered. "It stands tall. It stands knowing where it came from, and what its' future may bring. It stands, knowing the creatures he adores below have somewhere safe to stay and live out their lives, and that no matter what dangers may come, he will always be there to protect the ones he loves, because he never stands alone." A grin spread across her face as she lowered the kunai.
"Kumo!" he shouted wrapping her in a large hug. "I was so worried the other day!"
"You? Worried?" She scoffed hugging him back, the knife held limply in her hand. "The Great Naruto Uzumaki is capable of feelings?"
"Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" The two jumped away from each other as Iruka shouted, confusion, annoyance, and worry written across his face.
"Well you see, Iruka-sensei," Naruto paused gesturing towards Satsuki who was instinctively pulling her face mask further up on her already covered face. "This is my friend. You remember? The one I was telling you about?"
The confusion remained on his face for a moment longer before slowly dissipating. "This, is your friend?" Iruka asked the worry and annoyance still present in his tone.
"Yeah! Iruka-sensei, she's great, her father too! Wait till you meet him." Naruto paused and then turned to his friend, a questioning look on his face. "Where is he anyways?"
In that moment everything froze. Satsuki felt as if her heart and dropped out of her chest, and as if there was no air left in the world. 'Where was her father? Probably back in the land of water. Was he okay? What happened to the other two ninjas? What happened to Daisuke? Was he even still alive? Why did they come after her in the first place? What-'
"Sakumo," she felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently, and she tightened her grip on the kunai. "Sakumo, are you alright?"
She let out a breath that she didn't realize she was holding and blinked her eyes to see the brown-haired ninja on his knees in front of her.
"Sakumo, are hurt you?" Iruka questioned suddenly "There's blood all over your kimono." He prodded further.
She looked at him with a furrowed brow and took a deep breath in. That old copper smell. She looked down at her yellow battle kimono. It wasn't water pipes that smelt like copper, it was her dress. Ignoring Iruka's question for a moment longer she closely inspected one of the tears in the sleeve. It was a clean incision, approximately two inches in length, matching the width of a standard kunai knife. One, two, three, four, five, six. Six incisions in her outfit with old blood staining the area around the incisions. The now red-head stuck her two of her fingers in to one of the holes and widened it, and looked at the unmarred skin underneath, kunai dancing through her vision as she remembered the last few seconds outside of Kirigakure.
She looked back up at Iruka, pushing all emotions of what had transpired into a small box at the back of her mind. "Kumo, and no." she stated flatly. "Didn't you say something about school?" She questioned, trying to draw the subject away from her "Won't we be late, if you keep asking silly questions?"
Iruka sighed looking down at his watch, knowing that the violet eyed child in front of him was correct, but not liking the answers he had been given so far. "You can't wear those clothes to school. Do you have anything else?"
Kumo snorted, "Well y-' she paused once again coming to the startling realization that she was in a completely different country from yesterday and that she may not have any other clothing. She looked down at the floor in embarrassment, all of sudden very thankful for the dark mask covering the lower half of her face that was keeping the others from seeing the red tint spread across her cheeks.
"Wait a second!" The boy shouted, the three whisker marks that graced each of his cheeks turning upwards with his smile. "I have some of your things down stairs in my apartment from last time I visited! Your dad must have put it in my bag by accident. I'll be right back!" Naruto was already half way out the door at this exclamation, leaving the so-dubbed Kumo alone with Iruka.
"Sakumo-" He started, unsure of how he wanted to proceed on what was obviously a difficult subject for the child in front of him. "I know we just met, but if something happened to you, you can tell me. I'm a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf, just like you will be one day." Iruka gave a small smile. "And it's our job to help defend the future of the village."
Upon hearing this, Kumo tightened her grip on her kunai and a frown reached her eyes, and took a few steps back from the still kneeling shinobi. "Why aren't all Konoha shinobi like that, then?" She muttered.
"KUMO!" The exact moment that Iruka opened his mouth to respond, Naruto came running back in to the apartment with a set of clothes in his hand. He stopped between the two and looked back and forth for a moment before speaking up again. "Did I interrupt something?"
"No." Kumo growled, grabbing the items from her friend's arms, and running down the hallway in the direction she assumed led to a bathroom.
Iruka stood back up to his full height of five feet and ten inches and crossed his arms across his chest, his mind running a thousand miles a minute trying to understand exactly what had happened to the little girl that was his charge for the moment.
"Iruka-sensei, what did you do?"
"Just asked her a few questions is all. Nothing to worry about."
At that point Kumo came out from the back of the apartment changed in to clean clothes. She had black thigh length compression shorts on underneath a dark forest green battle kimono. The skirt on her kimono was finger length leaving it only four inches shorter than her compression shorts. The kimono had long flowing sleeves and what would have been a V-neck collar had her mask not been connected to it. Said mask was fixed in its normal spot across the bridge of her nose, covering the two triangle marks on her face that she had been taught since she was little to never show the world. On her feet she wore knee high boots, and to complete the outfit she had a large black hood that was covering her blood red waist length hair.
Kumo stood with her head held high and closed the distance between them as quickly and silently as possibly. Any and all emotions that had been playing through her mind since the two visitors arrived in the apartment completely wiped away. "Are we going?" the question was flat, more of a statement than a question.
Iruka took stock of her outfit and frowned, noticing the kunai pouch attached to her hip, and her right thigh. "You can't take real weapons to school."
A shocked look danced across Kumo's face for barely a second before she pushed that emotion away as well. With a huff she took off the two pouches and set them on the bookcase situated by the door.
The smile reappeared on Iruka's face. "Now we're ready. Let's go" He opened the doors and took a few steps outside. "Try to keep up, guys, we are running late." Iruka sighed, worry still running rampant through his mind for both children in his company.
Iruka took off running towards the academy, Naruto and Kumo just behind them.
"Kumo," Naruto hissed keeping his eyes on the path in front of him. "What happened yesterday?"
"Now's not the time Naru." She hissed back through clenched teeth.
"You sensed them too?" Naruto glanced to his right, just enough to see a curt nod being directed at him.
The two of them ran in silence after the brunette teacher guiding the way. After ten minutes the three of them came to a stop in front of the large red doors with the kanji for fire written on them.
"Iruka-sensei, where is everyone?"
Iruka rolled his eyes at Naruto's question before responding. "We're almost late. They're inside already. Come-on." Iruka led them inside. "You're going to be in my class with Naruto, Kumo." He looked down at his watch and sighed 'Just in time' he thought opening the doors to the classroom and leading them inside.
As soon as she entered the room, she knew that she didn't like school. Kumo had never been in a traditional classroom a day in her life, but this, after being in the classroom for thirty seconds, told her that it would not be an enjoyable experience.
There were children screaming, causing her ears to twitch every time that someone opened their mouth. There were scents of every degree, from body odor, and too much perfume, to food, to the chemicals used to clean the floors. Kumo faltered in the door way, grabbing on to the doorframe for extra support.
"EVERYBODY QUIET!" Iruka hollered walking to the front of the room, causing everyone in the classroom to instantly silence and causing Kumo's knees to buckle under her from the sudden increase in sound, and her knees hit the ground with a loud thud.
Kumo gasped, her hands clutching her ears for dear life. A ringing filled her ears, and stars danced in her vision, as she took several deliberate deep breaths in. Kumo slowly stood back up, the hood that had previously been covering her head falling backwards revealing her masked face and unusual hair colour.
The whispers started anew as the students noticed her standing in the doorway of the classroom.
"Who's that?"
"Who does she think she is?"
"She has a stupid hair colour."
"I love her kimono!"
"Why was she on the ground?"
"I'm sure she's just as weak as the rest of the girls here."
"Why does she wear a mask?"
"She better not try to steal Sasuke-kun from me! I'll teach her what it means to be a real kunoichi! Cha!"
Kumo ignored the comments that were being made, her ears perking up when when she heard Iruka starting to speak again, this time at a softer volume.
"Class I would like everyone to give a nice warm welcome to our new classmate: Sakumo. Sakumo, please come down and introduce yourself."
Kumo walked down to the front of classroom ignoring the eyes that were tracking her every move. She came to a stop right next to Iruka, and with her shoulders back and her chin up she calmly introduced herself.
"My name is Hayashi Sakumo, but please," she stressed the last word a little too much and directed a small glare at her blonde best friend. "Call me Kumo. It's a pleasure to meet you all." Kumo couldn't bring herself to say anything further so she gave a short bow.
"Alright, Sakumo, please take the seat between Naruto and Shikamaru." Iruka pointed to an empty seat between Naruto and a sleeping boy with brown, pineapple like hair.
Kumo responded with a small "Hai" And quietly walked up and took her given seat, taking inventory of those around her. To her right was the sleeping kid, Shikamaru, and to her left was Naruto who was sending he concerned looks every minute or so. Directly in front of her was a boy with unruly brown hair who smelled like-Kumo took a breath in before scrunching her nose in disgust-he smelled like wet dog. The boy to his immediate right, wore an outfit with a high collar-one she was sure covered most of his face. He seemed very stoic, sitting with has back straight in his chair. He didn't smell as bad as the boy next to him, but she could hear what sounded like thousands of tiny wings buzzing around him. Odd.
Taking stock of the other children in the class, she saw a girl with purple hair wearing a thick winter jacket, one girl with bubblegum pink hair and another one with platinum blonde hair. There was a larger boy munching on a bag of potato chips (barbeque flavor if she was smelling correctly), and there was a boy with a smug look on his face and his nose held so high in the air, Kumo was sure he couldn't see the board or either of the teachers very well at all.
The first teacher was Iruka-Sensei, he wore what appeared to be the standard Konoha shinobi uniform and had his hitai-ate tied across his forehead. He had a small smile on his face that reached his chocolate brown eyes and he stopped often making sure that everyone was understanding what he was explaining.
The other teacher, went by the name of Mizuki. He too wore the standard Konoha Shinobi uniform, and his hitai-ate was tied like a bandana around his head. He had pale blue, almost white hair, and a calculating smile that did not quite reach his eyes.
She caught him staring at her several times throughout the day, and each time and made her skin crawl a little more making her extremely happy when the bell rang at the end of the day.
"Alright, everyone," Mizuki spoke out over the bell. "Make sure you complete the assigned reading and the essay on the Third Ninja World War is due tomorrow." Mizuki looked up from the stack of papers he was shuffling. "That means you too, Kumo-chan." The way Mizuki phrased that made her shudder, wishing that Iruka hadn't left him in charge when he left early.
"Forget him, Kumo," Naruto said grabbing her hand and pulling her out the door.
As soon as the two of them were out of the classroom they started sprinting towards the front of the building. Kumo following the bright blonde hair of her best friend as he wove in and out of the other children. They were almost home free when 'SMACK' Naruto ran straight into someone, causing Kumo to run straight in to him.
The two of them fell to the ground with an ungraceful thud, causing the student to laugh. From her spot on the ground, Kumo took a good look at him. He wore a fur lined hoodie that was pulled up over his head, and the standard shinobi pants with bandages wrapped around his right thigh. He had wild looking eyes and a toothy grin on his face that gave him a feral look. What struck Kumo the most though, was the two red triangles on his face-one on each cheek.
"What's the rush Loser?" He crossed his arms and looked down at the two, the grin even wider on his face.
"What's it matter to you Kiba?" Naruto shot back, picking himself up off the ground and dusting himself off.
Kumo watched the interaction start to play out and stretched her senses out to keep an eye out for incoming adults.
"I just thought you would want to introduce your friend to Akamaru and I." Kumo could hear the mischief dancing in his tone. Kiba took a step closer and Kumo scrunched her nose in disgust, wet dog, this was the boy who sat in front of her in class.
"You heard her introduction in class dog-breath," Naruto crossed his arms, a frown appearing on his face.
"Why, you!" Kiba jerked forward, catching Naruto by the collar of his bright orange sweat jacket.
"Adult, coming down the hall. Two turns down." Kumo stated her tone even, trying to keep the two from fighting.
Kiba snapped his head towards her and growled, "There's no way you can know that!"
"Are you guys fighting again? Man y'all are such a drag." A new voice carried down the hall.
"Stay out of this Shikamaru, this is our fight." Kiba glared at Shikamaru out of the corner of his eye.
"Y'all should listen to Kumo, she's pretty good at what she does." Naruto stated bluntly ignoring the exchange between the two brunettes.
At this point Kumo stood up from her spot on the ground and dusted her skirt off. "Three." Shikamaru and Kiba turned to look at her. "Two." Shikamaru jammed his hands in to his pockets and slouched backwards. "One." Kiba tightened his grip on Naruto's collar and growled.
"Do you seriously think I believe that you could hear a teacher coming around the corner before I could? I'm an Inuzaka and we are-"
"INUZUKA, KIBA!" Instantly Naruto was dropped on the floor and a horrified look appeared on his face. "What on Earth do you think you're doing?" A tall woman with short brunette hair and wild eyes that put Kiba's to shame snarled. She too, like Kiba, had a long red triangle on each cheek.
"They did warn him that you were coming, Inuzuka-sama," Shikamaru drawled walking away from the scene.
"I told you, Kiba, she's good at what she does." Naruto scoffed, picking himself up from the floor and crossing his arms. "Inuzuka-sama, I am terribly sorry," Naruto bowed addressing the elder Inuzuka "We were in a terrible rush to get home and accidently bumped in to Kiba. It was not our intention to start a fight." Politeness laced Naruto's voice, but Kumo knew it was faked.
Inuzuka-sama raised her eyebrow taking in the appearance of the blonde and red-head in front of her. "I've never seen her around, who is she." The question was bluntly put, demanding an answer rather than giving the option.
"Inuzuka-sama," Kumo also bowed in politeness. "I am Hayashi, Kumo. Today was my first day in the academy." She stood up straight and eye smiled at the woman in front of her. "Naruto was to show me straight home after school today, and we were not fully paying attention. My father was leaving on a mission today, and we wanted to catch him before he left." Kumo allowed a crestfallen look to cross her face, willing her lie to be believed by the experienced kunoichi in front of her.
"Kiba," the older woman snarled. "Go home. We'll deal with this later." Kiba instantly did what she commanded and turned heel and ran, a small white dog following after him. After he disappeared from view she too turned to leave, pausing for a moment to look back over her shoulder at Kumo and Naruto. "That's a most unusual hair colour that you have, Hayashi-san."
The duo paused and looked at each other for a moment before watching the elder Inuzuka disappear from sight. Kumo stretched her senses out to make sure she wasn't sticking around but in doing so, she noticed two faint chakra signatures. The same two she had felt this morning on her way to school. They were faint, but not because they were weak, they were faint because they were suppressing their chakra, the same thing that her and Naruto had been trained to do by her father over the last year. Who ever the two signatures belonged to, didn't want them to notice that they were being followed.
Kumo made a small hissing noise and held up two fingers and eye smiled as she pulled her hood up over her head, making it appear almost as if she was flashing him a victory sign. Naruto mirrored her understanding the message and took off sprinting in the direction of the apartments that they came from that morning.
Naruto led them down abandoned alleys and side streets avoiding as many civilians as possible making it to the apartment complex in short time. The two walked up the stairs in silence, Naruto leading them upstairs and in to the apartment that Kumo had woken up in earlier that day.
"Hey Kumo?" Naruto asked, reaching his hand out for hers.
Kumo looked over at Naruto a questioning look on her face as she raised her hand towards his.
"Mind if I borrow this?" Naruto smirked grabbing Kumo's hand and pumped some chakra from his hand to hers, a trick to break a Henge no jutsu that Kumo's father had taught him earlier that year.
Instantly the red colour drained from Kumo's hair, and her violet eyes melted into their normal charcoal colour.
"Satsuki," Naruto started, letting go of his silver-haired friend's hand. "What exactly is going on?"
Satsuki opened her mouth the say something, and then stopped hearing something move in the far corner of the apartment.
"That's what I would like to know."
I hope y'all enjoyed!
See ya next time.