The apartment was quiet. Not a voice could be heard except for the low methodical swipes of a brush across the tiled kitchen floor, and the low sniffles of one small child with dark tear tracks running down her face.
"This is stupid." Said child grumbled, wiping her face on the back of her hand, her hair which was piled on top of her head in a messy bun flopping lazily to the side as she tilted her head to glare at the boy who still hadn't looked up from his practiced brush strokes.
"You know why we have to do it though, Satsuki." Was all that was said before the room fell once again into silence, with Satsuki glaring daggers at the symbols painted on the floor around her.
Her face for once was missing her characteristic mask, showing off two red triangle fang-like markings, one painting each cheek. Scowling, one lone canine poked out from under her top lip as she tried to focus on anything except for what was going on around her.
A seal to 'permanently' change her appearance. A seal that would turn her 'permanently' in to Kumo Hayashi: her alter-ego so to speak. A seal that would 'supposedly' keep her safe from enemies. A seal that would only be de-activated by two reasons: if Naruto allowed it with his own chakra, or if the seal was broken. A seal that according to Daisuke was worn by her father during his ANBU missions as even the Sharingan of the Uchiha and the Byakugan of the Hyuuga couldn't see through the seal.
If you asked Satsuki, it seemed rather far-fatched.
Her father had taught her on seals till he was blue in the face, but she could never get a hang of it. In fact, Naruto always did way better than she did, it was almost like he was born to do seals, and she was born to, well, not do seals.
Satsuki took a deep breath trying to force her annoyance and irritation out of her mind.
It truly does make sense that her father was a shinobi on the side, it just doesn't make sense as to why he would lie to her about it. Why he would go out of his way to make her believe that he wasn't a shinobi, yet teach her skills that all shinobi should know about.
He had taught her to dodge and throw weapons until she could practically do it in her sleep. He had taught her about poisons under the guise of cooking and gardening. He had taught her about chakra control, and how to suppress her abnormally large reserves of it to the point where she could blend in with civilians. He had taught her how to hear a pin dropping in a loud room, and how to pinpoint where exactly the pin had dropped while blindfolded. He had even taught her a taijutsu style, that she could one day pass on to her children, stating that it would be the 'family' style. He had taught her all that and more, stating that he had come across the knowledge in passing while in the market, or 'at work'.
'At work'. Satsuki made a very un-lady-like snort at that thought. Who would have thought that 'at work' was actually being a shinobi, in one of the most dangerous departments within the ranks.
Satsuki opened her eyes and squeaked in surprise to see two bright blue eyes staring back at her.
"Care to share with the class what you found so funny?" Naruto asked, a teasing lilt in his voice.
"Not really," Satsuki rolled her eyes, starting to cross her arms before Naruto caught her elbow.
"Watch the ink," He joked "I don't want to have to re-do it all again!" Naruto laughed gesturing to the symbols that were going up and down her left arm.
Satsuki said nothing, instead resorting to glare at her best friend who had squatted down in front of her to be on the same eye level as her.
"That's okay, I think I would much rather be able to permanently look like myself, thank you very much." She grumbled
Look," Naruto sighed putting his hands behind his head. "I know you're not happy about ths, but we need to do it. Anyways, we're almost done here. Daisuke double checked my work, I just need push chakra in to the ink to consolidate it and then activate the seal. You might feel a little twinge."
"What kind of twinge are we talking here?" Satsuki asked, one silver eyebrow climbing high on her forehead.
"Just a twinge." Naruto shrugged his shoulders. "Like being flicked on the forehead is all." His grin reappeared on his face and he placed the palm of his hand over the center symbol of the seal located just above her heart. "You ready?"
"Yeah, I guess." Satsuki mumbled watching Daisuke make his way in to the kitchen, dragging his casted leg behind him.
"Alright-y then! How about on the count of three?" Naruto once again flashed a nonchalant grin at his silver-haired friend and waited for the small nod, before continuing.
"One." Naruto wiggled his fingers above the main seal matrix as Daisuke sat down with an audible thud, a grin appearing across his jowl.
"Seal!"
Satsuki's eyes widened as the foreign chakra danced across her skin, flowing down through the ink that was spread across her body and the kitchen. She sucked in a breath of air between her teeth and started to double over from the pain as her vision began to swim.
"Not yet!" Naruto hissed, his free hand shooting out, and pushing his friend back into an upright sitting position.
Satsuki let out a noise almost constituting as a growl as she tried to lock eyes with Naruto and glared, one lone strand of hair dropping down to hang in front of her face.
"Almost done," The blonde spoke up, Satsuki breaking what eye contact she had been able to make and gritting her teeth at the pain. It felt as if someone was stabbing her with thousands of knives, while simultaneously feeling as if someone had dropped a bucket of cold water over her head.
She twisted her head ever so slightly to watch the last characters of the seal work its way across her skin. She watched as the seal moved towards the center seemingly draining her skin of colour, going from tan to pale as if someone had taken an eraser to her.
She felt, rather than saw, as the seal clicked in to place, and she watched as the pale hair still hanging in her face changed from silver to red, the colour dripping through it as if someone had poured a vial of blood on her head.
Them almost as quickly as it came, the pain rescinded. The knives stopped stabbing her skin, and the bucket of water seemingly empty as the coldness finally stretched through all parts of her body.
Naruto removed his hand, and almost instantly Kumo's hand shot up to clutch her shoulder.
"That hurt!" She all but growled, leaning over her crossed legs.
"Well you did great!" Naruto grinned, pulling Kumo's hand away to inspect the finished seal.
"Why didn't you tell me that it would hurt like that?" She reached her hand back towards her shoulder only to have Naruto smack her fingers away. "Like someone flicking you on the forehead." She mimicked Naruto's voice. "You never said that Tsunade Senju was the one flicking my forehead!"
"You never asked." The blonde stated nonchalantly, as if the idea had never occurred to him. "Besides, you did great! I bet an ANBU wouldn't have taken the pain as well as you did!"
There was a snort from Daisuke, and Kumo turned her head to look at the large Great Dane who was only half paying attention to his surroundings.
"You should have seen your father when that seal was placed on him. Cried like a girl."
Growling in frustration she glared at her best friend as he awkwardly scratched at the back of his head, a nervous tendency of his.
Slowly standing up, she walked over to a mirror hanging in the hallway of the small apartment. She poked at the face that stared back at her. The reflection was not her own, yet it was. A reflection that she had been trained to recognize as her own since she was very small. A version of her self that she was so used to creating on her own, but now, was an illusion being held in place by some chakra infused ink.
She frowned as she saw the bright red triangles that trailed down her cheeks. "Your seal couldn't cover these up?" She scoffed as she grabbed the strip of cloth hanging around her neck and pulled it up over the bridge of her nose, effectively covering the offending marks.
"I still don't get why this had to be done." She stated, rubbing her forefinger over the now raised skin. The black ink a stark contrast to her now pale skin.
"Because there are dangerous people out there," Naruto sighed, picking his sealing tools up off the floor. "Like the man at the gate last week. Hat-uh the silver haired one. He has the Sharingan eye, they can weave genjutsus as easily as they can dispel them."
"Impossible. Only Uchiha clan members can possess that Doujutsu."
"I don't know how he came to have it." Naruto shook his head. "But that's not the point Between him and the Hyuuga clan alone, someone would have noticed." There was a small pause as he threw a dark coloured jacket at his friend. "Besides, it's done. Now come-on, let's go outside!"
Kumo turned towards Naruto, slipping her arms inside the sleeves of the jacket and zipping it up, covering the offending seal on her shoulder as she took one last glance at it.
"I heard that there's a new type of ramen on the menu at Ichiraku's! I absolutely have to try it, I bet it's the-"
"Hey, Na-ru-to." Kumo cut her blond friend off right as his fingers touched the door handle. "I need you to answer one last question for me." Kumo's eyes curved upwards, indicating a smile hidden under her mask.
"Yeah, what's up?" Naruto didn't turn around as he answered, his fingers curving around the door handle hesitantly.
"Why was the kanji for 'heart' added to the seal?" the question was phrased so innocently that had Naruto not known her as well as he did, he would have thought she was just a normal, curious eight-year-old girl. As it was, he knew his best friend had been trained as a shinobi in such ways that she didn't even know that she was being trained. Case in point, such an innocent tone was what she used usually meant that she was halfway to an answer herself.
A sheepish chuckle left his mouth as he turned the handle of the door and threw it open to the waning daylight sun. "No idea what you're talking about!" he said, perhaps a little too quickly as he walked outside, putting his hands behind his head. "Now, come-on, let's go!" Naruto started to walk down the stairs, stopping halfway when he realized that Kumo wasn't following.
"Tou-san once said that the 'heart' can affect a seal in many ways but most importantly that by putting a heart in to the seal you can make it stronger," Kumo slowly walked out of the apartment, shutting the door behind her and shoving her hands into her pockets. "I always thought that he was trying to tell us to believe in our seals, and that it would make them stronger, but that's not it. Is it?" Kumo walked to the top of the stairs and stared down at Naruto, her shoulder slouched. "You figured something out." There was no question, just a statement free from intonation.
Naruto said nothing as his hands dropped from the top of his heads and swayed loosely by his sides.
"Whose heart? Hmm?" She took one step down the stairs, her eyes narrowing. "Whose heart has to stop beating for this seal to stop functioning as planned?"
Nothing was said for a long minute, tension filling the air.
"I just followed the instructions. The orders." Naruto sighed, still not turning to face the angry red -head.
"Who's orders?" She took another step down. "Daisuke? Hokage-sama? Wh-"
"Minoru-san." Naruto cut her off, turning to look at her as she continued down the stairs towards him.
"He's dead." Kumo ground out, a fire kindling in her stomach. "I haven't seen him for months. The only one who has seen him is Daisuke, and he's being pretty tight lipped about what happened. How-" She paused mid-rant, pieces slowly falling together. Somewhere in the back of her mind a voice whispered 'He knew.'
"You knew." Kumo echoed the voice as she looked up at her best friend, her eyes impossibly wide in shock. "You knew that you would have to place the seal on me. You knew how to make it permanent. Did he tell you? Did you know that I would end up in Konoha? Did you know that he was going to die" anger laced her voice and with each question asked she could feel the fire in her belly growing larger.
"Yes-no-I," Naruto stuttered before running his hands through his unruly locks. "It's not like that! I swear! He just made me promise about the seal is all!"
"And why did you do it?" Kumo was now standing on the step above Naruto, their eyes on the same level as she glared, her violet eyes sparkling with rage.
"Because I-" Naruto paused briefly. "Because-"
"Because, why?" Kumo growled out causing Naruto to jump.
"Because it's necessary!" the words came out of his mouth so quickly that Naruto's eyebrows reached his hairline in surprise as his hands shot up to cover his mouth. "I'm sorry," he mumbled from behind said hands.
"It's fine." Kumo stated brushing past Naruto.
"Are you – sure?" he asked, confusion lacing his voice.
"Yes!" She snapped, twisting back to glare. "Why wouldn't it be okay. She took a step towards the blond, who on instinct took a large step backwards. "You obviously admired the man, respected him. It's only natural that you copy his actions. It's only natural that you copy his actions. That you try to be just. Like. Him." She crossed her arms across her chest before continuing. "I mean, he lied to me and sent me to this stupid village. It's not like I was his daughter or anything. It's only natural that you have ALL the answers for the questions I've had for my ENTIRE life." The fire in her belly started to fade, slowly being replaced with a pit that seemed to grow larger with each passing second. "It's only natural that he left his own flesh and blood in the dark."
"Look I-"
"Save it," She sighed, turning away. "Look, I just need to be alone right now."
Naruto watched as his pseudo little sister started down the street, before taking a step of his own, wincing as the gravel crunched under his feet.
"And don't follow me!" Naruto frowned as he heard her voice float down the street. "I'll know if you do!"
The blond shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at a cluster of pebbles at his feet.
"You always do…"
1414141414141414141414141414141414141414
She wasn't sure how long she had been walking, but by the time she had stopped in front of the tall, stone obelisk, the sun was dipping behind the horizon, colouring the sky in deep orange, pink and purples.
She couldn't tell you why she had decided to stop there-in a deserted clearing on the edge of the village.
She could almost hear her father, as she circled the stone slab, her fingers grazing across the engravings of names of shinobi who never came home.
"Always keep an eye open," the almost voice of her father said. "Shinobi are tricky creatures. Could be hiding right under your nose."
She snorted at the faint whisperings of her father, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
"Seems like I did a great job of looking underneath the underneath. Some shinobi I am." She mumbled, her fingers coming to a stop over a familiar feeling name. "Minoru." Confusion sounded in her voice. "Uzumaki. Huh. I wonder if tou-san knew him." The tears hanging at the corners of her eyes started to dribble down her cheeks. "Not that either of you can tell me."
She sniffed loudly, wiping the sleeve of her jacket across her eyes.
"He was really great, Uzumaki-san. He may have lied to me, but I loved him," she sat down at the foot of the monument and hugged her knees close to her chest. "Did you have a family? Our family wasn't big. It was just my dad, Daisuke, and I. He was really great, and made the best an-pan. He always made learning fun-it was like we were just playing games most of the time. And every day before work he-" a sob caught in her throat as tears started streaming down her face "Every day before work he would always tell me that he loves me, right before leaving the house. And I would always tell him 'Goodbye! I miss you already!'" She laid her head against her knees, blood red hair spilling out from the cover of a hood, her tears soaking the mask on her face. "But I didn't get to say goodbye this time."
She stayed there, sobs wracking her small frame, vaguely aware of the presence of someone drawing near to her location.
Slowly her sobs quieted, leaving the exhausted girl sniffing loudly as she tried to wipe the tears away.
The vague presence that she had sensed earlier had come even closer while she was crying and she turned her head to look in its direction.
"You know it's rude to watch someone without their permission." Kumo called out, her voice cracking from crying.
"Heh, heh," a voice laughed nervously. "Sorry!"
Kumo watched as a figure loudly picked their way through the brush at the tree lines.
The sun had long since dropped behind the horizon, but Kumo could still pick out the bright colours of yellow and orange, and narrowed her eyes.
"Naruto?" She questioned, taking a step backwards.
"That's me! Future Hokage, Uzumaki Naruto!" a grin stretched across his face as he was suddenly standing beside the great obelisk.
The red head quickly took a step back, losing her balance as she caught the corner of the obelisk with her sandal.
"Woah! Are you okay?" Naruto had crouched down in front of her and reached his hand out.
She stared at the boy in front of her. This person wasn't her Naruto. Yes, he had the whisker marks, and the bright cerulean eyes, but everything else about him she could tell was fake. Her Naruto had stopped wearing a bright orange jumpsuit months ago, and he knew better than to be so loud when outside of the apartment. He knew the dangers that it would attract. It was almost as if this person who was portraying her best friend had not seen him in a very long time.
"Who are you?" she questioned her hand reaching towards a weapon pouch, that she suddenly realized was never put on before leaving her home.
"What are you talking about?" The imposter puffed his cheeks out and stuck his hands on his hips. "You know who I am!"
"No, I don't," she snapped. "Naruto is on the other side of town. Now, who are you?" She could almost always tell where he was, his Chakra was like a beacon, gentle and soothing, like a warm summer breeze. While the boy's chakra was not as gently at the moment, most likely due to their fight earlier that evening, she could still find it in the great ocean of chakra that filled the village.
A startled look crossed the whiskered face and Kumo took her chance to grab the nearest object that could be turned in to a weapon should she need one. She felt her chakra pulse through the item, and instantly in its place was a small chokuto. Pushing herself to her feet she held the blade diagonally in front of her.
"He-hey, Kumo! No need for weapons!" 'Naruto' said, taking a step closer, putting his arms straight out in front of him.
The smaller girl started to take a step back, but froze when a gentle breeze blew her way, bringing with it the scent of the person in front of her.
"Dogs and books." She stated definitively, watching as a blank look spread across the whiskered face in front of her. "You're the shinobi from the gate the other day."
Instantly the imposter Naruto was replaced by the crouching form of the silver haired man she had seen just days prior.
"Maa~~" the man cocked his head to the side, and his eyes scrunched up in such a way that Kumo knew that the smile was fake. "You're a smart one, aren't you? It's probably best that you put that weapon down. You wouldn't want to hurt yourself."
"I'm good, thanks," she said looking at the man. When she had seen him the other day, between the mask and the placement of his hitai-ate she could only see his right eye. Now she could see the whole upper half of his face, and while the eye was currently closed, there was a scar running straight down the middle of his left eye. Without know why, she tightened her grasp on the blade. "I think I'll keep it."
"Your loss, kid. I'm just trying to keep you safe."
"Somehow I doubt that," she said smoothly, a glare creeping across her face. "Naruto says that you're dangerous." She took several steps backwards to try and create some distance, only to have the man 'Kakashi' her mind supplied, close the gap in two large steps.
"Maaa~~ Me? Dangerous?" the silverette tipped his head back, a smile crossing the visible portion of his face once more. "I'm sure that you're much more dangerous than I am." The temperature instantly dropped, causing Kumo to shiver as she unconsciously took a step back. "Aren't you?"
Kumo's stomach instantly tied itself into a knot as Kakashi opened his scarred lid to reveal a blood red orb with three black tomoes surrounding the pupil.
'Don't look a sharingan user in the eye, lest you be caught in an unbreakable genjutus,' a voice sang from the back of her mind, causing her to snap her eyes instantly to the tree line behind the man.
"Well this is unfortunate; you obviously have had a run in with the Sharingan before." He paused, looking at Kumo's small hand as it gripped the chokuto tighter. "I wouldn't try anything if I were you. What a quandary it would be if you attacked a superior before you were even assigned a team."
A scowl appeared across the visible portions of Kumo's face as she weighed her options, spreading out her senses trying to calculate a way out without causing an outrage.
"Kakashi-san, I'm not really up for talking right now," a disarming smile fell comfortable across her face despite sensing a secondary ninja just out of sight behind her. "Can we talk later?" she moved slightly to her right, visibly relaxing her hold on her blade.
"Maa~~, as pleasant as that would seem, I will have to decline." A blank look appeared across his face as his hand dropped to a pouch on his waist withdrawing a single kunai knife.
She felt her heartbeat quicken at the sight of the knife, but stayed rooted to the spot, her sensitive ears picking up on a sound behind her.
"I have gone over every record of every child born within this village over the last eight years, and there is no record of you. As a student within the academy there should be a file on you. But one does not exist. Just who are you?" The man edged closer to the child till he was towering over her, the kunai held against her masked cheek with the barest hint of pressure.
"It doesn't matter who I am," she said calmly, despite the heart thrumming wildly against her chest. "All that matters is who I will be." She picked her chin up, ever so slightly "And I will NOT be bullied by you. This conversation is over."
"The conversation will be over when I say it is," The man snarled, a hand reaching out and coiling around Kumo's wrist.
In an action that spoke of skill beyond her years, she deftly spun the chokuto around her wrist, causing Kakashi to snap his hand back from his hold on her wrist.
"It doesn't matter what you do, I will get the answers I'm looking for." A gloved hand reached out and lightly tossed the kunai knife towards the small red head.
To his surprise, instead of dodging the knife, Kumo moved to position herself in front of the flying projectile, wincing slightly as it lodged in her left shoulder.
Kumo smiled as she felt a vaguely familiar burn in the pit of her stomach and the sound of kunai flying through the ear reached her ears.
Kakashi looked down at the small red head, his eyes narrowing as he saw the smile, a true genuine smile, spread across her features.
"As I said, our conversation is over," she raised her hand and waggled her fingers at the older ninja.
"You're not going any-" Kakashi stopped short as the girl suddenly erupted in to a thousand silver tipped flowers, and three kunai lodged themselves in to the ground at his feet.
Hayashi did not throw those. Someone must be close by. How much did they see-?
Kakashi mentally cursed, he was better than this. He used to be an ANBU Captain for Kami's sake!
He crouched down, and pulled his hitai-ate back over his sharingan as he plucked the knives out of the ground.
"Where-" Kakashi stiffened as a pressure became apparent across his back, and a voice floated down to his ears. "Did she go, I wonder?"
Kakashi stood abruptly, listening to a chuckle twist trough the air. He really messed up if she was able to sneak up on him.
"How long have you been here?"
"That's a pretty cool trick of hers." Kakashi refused to turn around to face the owner of the voice. "Just think of how useful it would be if she could utilize it without being in immediate danger. The poison on these flowers alone-" a low whistle breathed against Kakashi's ear as a body pressed firmly against his back, one arm wrapping around his chest, and another snaking into his field of vision, a silver tipped flower being held between two gloved fingers.
"What do you want?"
"It's a quandry, really. That you attacked my student that is-"
"She's not your student." Kakashi snapped.
"How cute!" she laughed, letting go of the older shinobi. "After the show she just put on? Standing up to an S-ranked shinobi with a flee on site status in the BINGO book? Being able to think on the spot to effectively stall her opponent until she had a way out of her situation? Any kunoichi-to-be with the balls enough to do any of that, to square up to you, is worth their salt in my margarita. She's already mine."
"That's a mistake."
"No, a mistake is-" another chuckle slipped between her lips. "Well you already know what a mistake is, don't you?" Her arms weaved their way around Kakashi's torso as she leaned close to whisper in to his ear. "I'll keep your secret."
Kakashi's eye snapped to look at the woman holding on to him.
"For now," the wind blew around the two as the woman licked Kakashi's ear before disappearing into the breeze, with nothing but a few leaves to show that she was ever there to begin with.
With a low growl, Kakashi tightened his grip on the knife that he had plucked out of the ground, and with one quick movement, launched it at the nearest tree, burying it hilt deep in the trunk, before he too, disappeared in to the wind.