Samsara took a some time to laugh themselves silly when Shimura was declared a nuke-nin after it was discovered he was missing and with no evidence whatsoever that he had been kidnapped out from under Konoha's nose.
"Fuck, man, maybe we should cut off the old man's head, burn the body, and turn it in for the reward," Ken said, then shook his head. "Nah, better to leave it a mystery. If people think he's lurking somewhere, they might stay or become cautious."
"I've been doing some reading," Chikusa said, ignoring when most of them smiled indulgently, "and I've come across something interesting in what was copied from the archives. There is a branch of ninjutsu called jikūkan."
"Space-time?"
"The description rather handily sounds very much like our storages," Chikusa continued. "If they are, in fact, alike, it means we each have a pocket dimension that we could visit and, if we have the chakra to back it up, could allow others to access. I don't see the point for us, but it was noted that you can store people there and they'd have no way to get out on their own.
"Of course, considering how much stuff we store in ours, that'd be a bad idea. I think Heul lucked out into figuring out not only how to store things, but also how to use that to move around and essentially teleport. The point is, there are ninja who can do it, so this 'Madara' fellow is using some form of jikūkan.
"The Yondaime was doing something similar with his hiraishin, except that I think he managed to link himself to the seals on his special kunai and wherever else he put them, so that he could sense them no matter where they were and teleport to one of the markers. I rather doubt he was even in his pocket dimension long enough to recognize it for what it was, or thought he didn't have one," Chikusa said with a shrug.
"And your point would be that if they are similar enough, we could step into our storages without harm to ourselves, and step right back out," Hayato said.
Chikusa nodded. "It might also explain why we can step into the trunk. It's just another pocket dimension. The magicals really don't understand what they created. They're too limited in their thinking, and too stagnated to question it. Whereas we have been too worried to fully explore what we have. Understandably so."
"Well," Daemon said briskly. "We're using materialized bodies. One of us can test it. Worst case we just have to materialize a new body." He quirked a brow at Tsuna.
He looked inward, looking for an answer, or a hint. All he got back was a sense that it would be okay, so he nodded.
Xeul immediately stepped out, and a window opened a moment later showing them where he was. Xeul was standing in a featureless plain—or it would be if not for the multitude of items stored there rather untidily. The ground was a grass green and the sky was the indigo of his primary flames.
It made Tsuna wonder what his own pocket dimension would look like. On a whim he tried to open a window to it and blinked when he saw the results. The sky was locked in sunset, glowing with orange and amber-gold near the horizon and darkening outwardly through violet and indigo. The ground was a reddish-brown, probably signifying his Earth Flames. It was … peaceful. Relaxing.
Everything he stored there was in an untidy mess, but being able to see it meant he could organize it. It wasn't like it mattered a whole lot. Nothing had ever gotten broken or damaged in there, and he had never had any issue extracting exactly what he needed. He was going to have to check the next time he Edged if he was really mostly in his pocket dimension, with only his senses looking outward at the "real" world.
"How's the old man faring, by the way?" he asked as he closed his window. "There have been shocks recently and I wanted to be sure your tampering didn't get knocked loose."
"We will check," Mukuro said. "You know, if Swirly really wanted to, he could swirl on into the village and slit everyone's throat while they were sleeping. That he hasn't says a lot. Either Konoha isn't that important to him now that he thinks the clan is dead, or he has something brewing down the line."
Tsuna groaned as Xeul closed his window and stepped back. "Unless we can come up with something that would modify the barrier around Konoha, which would prevent people from stepping past that barrier… Which would likewise prevent us, unfortunately, unless we could key it somehow…" He ran his hands over his face tiredly.
Sin shook his head slowly. "We can already get past that barrier and it's supposed to sense everyone passing through it so they can track down unauthorized entry or exit. I don't think there's anything that could stop what we do, or anyone who can pull off jikūkan."
"I suppose we could categorize apparation as jikūkan," Ken said. "Well, except for the part where magicals can ward against it. Huh. And portkeys, which might also qualify."
Looks went around in contemplation.
"There's no reason we can't try to come up with a rune-based schematic and test it," Xeul said.
"Have there been any other Root members popping up?" he asked.
Xeul shook his head. "Not in the last few days, anyway. And I was thinking… Maybe we should get on with investigating the tower at the center of Training Ground 44. If there's nothing underneath it, we could use that space. We'd have to set up the runes in order to get air exchange and all that, but it wouldn't need an actual entrance, not when we can step in and out."
"It's only used by higher-level shinobi for training…"
"And occasionally for when the Chūnin Exams are held here in Konoha, which only happens every few years. The only issue I could think of is sensor nin and the Hyūga."
"We could always go into the mind of a Hyūga and see what they see," Daemon said. "Preferably one of the main house, though. No telling what sort of nonsense that cursed seal might do to a brain."
"Okay, so current goals," he said. "Investigate the tower at the center of Training Ground 44 as a possible location for a stronghold, investigate what a Hyūga actually sees with those eyes of theirs, and figuring out the best exercise for me when it comes to chakra control, since leaf-sticking is just not going to cut it."
xXx
"There's a bunch of different techniques, but the one taught to academy students is leaf-sticking, also known as leaf concentration," Hayato reported. "Beyond that, the next two most common are tree climbing and water walking."
"Which would explain the ninja I've seen scampering up the sides of buildings," he said.
Hayato nodded. "The main difference between the two is that a tree—or building—is a solid, stationary surface, whereas water moves. So for the one you'd have a static output, so to speak, whereas with water you'd be constantly adjusting how your chakra was being used. For that reason, water walking is taught after tree climbing, as a refinement. Later exercises tend toward shape transformations, though that's kinda fuzzy. The Yondaime's Rasengan is an example of it, where chakra is shaped and condensed into a sphere with the chakra rotating in multiple directions."
"What, like a model of the solar system, except the planets are not all going in the same direction or on the same plane?"
Hayato did a nod-shrug combo. "Something like that. I expect it's very difficult to manage and takes excellent control, but it would also make it an excellent form of chakra control training. In theory, if you can shape a sphere, you could shape arrows or senbon or whatever, to be used as an attack."
"I'm going to assume that if chakra is used to stick to a surface… Well, for walking it'd have to cycle, too," he said. "Enough to stick so you can move the other foot, then stick with that one, release the other, and so forth. So… Too little and you slide right off, too much and you blast off, like those poor leaves I was trying to practice with. Same basic concept."
Hayato nodded. "And you'll have the worst struggle just because of how much you seem to have."
"Well, I imagine it doesn't need to be a tree, so we can slap a cushioning charm on the floor and practice on a wall. Then a tree. Well… It might be harder on a wall, actually, since it's smooth, whereas a tree's bark is rough. Hm. I'll try the wall first, and if that's a wash, a tree, still with cushioning charms."
"Whatever works in the end."
The main house of the Kuro compound had an entryway with double-height walls and a gallery that overlooked it, so it should be a good spot to try, and also limit the people who would inevitably laugh at him to his own family.
The others wandered in to partake of breakfast and agreed it would be a good place to start, so afterward, once the washing up was done, they departed to the foyer and placed cushioning charms at the base of the wall, all the way to the opposite wall, and on the opposite wall itself.
The others had all had decent success with the leaf-sticking exercise, so they would all try using chakra to walk up the wall. The wall wasn't wide enough for all of them to try at once, so they split into two teams. Tsuna waited in the second team, mostly because he wanted to hear the first team's impressions before trying himself.
Hayato, Mukuro, Chikusa, and Ken all nodded and set a foot against the wall, then paused. He could almost sense them building up chakra at their feet before making the attempt for the second. Ken went first, almost jumping to get his other foot against the wall—and of course, he immediately hit the floor with a sharp exhalation of breath.
"Shit," Ken said. "This is gonna be hell on our muscles."
"Eh, hold up, you guys," he said. "It'll be cheating, but… Use your control of Earth Flames to give you a cushion against the strain. You should still be able to tell if you're sticking correctly, but you won't be struggling so hard against gravity itself. Once you have it down, you can lessen the effects of the flames to get used to dealing with both."
The four of them exchanged a look, then the three with a foot on the wall removed them, took position on the floor, and put both feet on the wall. Ken copied them a moment later. The barest hint of reddish-brown flames were seen, and then came the pause again.
Hayato moved his left foot upward and began to rise off the floor with a grunt of effort. "Gah, even with gravity mostly negated this isn't easy. It is making it easier to concentrate on actually sticking, though."
Tsuna smiled, pleased his idea was a fruitful one.
The next half hour was spent watching the four in their efforts to climb the wall. Thankfully, with gravity mostly negated, they could easily catch themselves if they slipped, and none of them had made the mistake of using too much chakra, saving themselves from blasting across the foyer.
"So, what have we learned?" Daemon asked, trying his best to look like a sensei.
After glaring at him, Mukuro said, "It's a very delicate balance, and the way you think affects the results. I was thinking of the bottoms of my feet being tacky, more like sticky notes than proper glue, but I don't think that'd work so well against a rough surface."
"I was imagining it as cilia," Hayato said. "Or flagella. I figured, with gravity mostly negated, which would mean my body weight would be mostly negated, I could look at it like an insect would. Though, how that'd work with full gravity I don't yet know."
"Suction cups," Ken said. "Minus the noise."
Chikusa tilted his head toward Ken in agreement.
"You all seemed to be doing decently," Daemon said, "so I suppose any method would work, varied by the composition of the obstacle. That being the case, with a wall this smooth, I'm going to try the suction cup idea."
Tsuna thought about that for a moment. A suction cup worked by forcing the air out of the "cup" part of it to create a vacuum. The edges of the chakra shaped into that cup would seal to the surface, and it could just the partially dissolved from that shape to get it to release. A partial transformation would make it quicker to reform, rather than doing it from scratch each time. Hopefully.
It took him twice as long to even start up the wall, mostly because he had so much trouble narrowing down the amount of chakra required for the technique. And even then, it was much easier to manage than the leaf-sticking exercise. If necessary he could make huge suction cups, though just imagining it made him realize it would make walking anywhere difficult.
He could have practiced the technique on the floor, even, then graduated to a wall.
Either way, he got halfway up the wall in the amount of time it took for the others to get to the top, back down, and back up again. It was progress, though he was greatly annoyed that it was coming so slowly for him. It was going to take a fuckton of hard work on his part, and then he would have to start all over when it came time to try it on trees.
He could just imagine if he had one of the original Reborns training him to do this and blanched.
Sin started cackling.
xXx
Shadow clones had become a part of their life, after they had all mastered tree climbing and water walking and, after they had seen through the eyes of a Hyūga just how much they had in terms of chakra reserves, to know if they even had enough to manage the technique.
While they could be "popped" if subjected to damage and therefore were not as useful for things like sending them off to take their places at a school, they were incredibly useful for anything aside from physical exercise to build muscle or stamina.
Shadow clones could help them with muscle memory, chakra control, learning various ninjutsu, and learning and testing fūinjutsu. They could set two clones to a spar and watch to see far more easily where they were going wrong with taijutsu, as another example, though the same could be said for watching a memory of a spar in a pensieve.
They almost didn't need to time-turn their days—though Tsuna, Sin, and Daemon did anyway due to the hours at the academy—because the clones were magnificent at speeding up any and all learning.
Tsuna, with his massive reserves, could make far more than any of the others, and his family encouraged him to do so if only to hasten his mastery of chakra control.
"After all," Sin said, "if you're not cheating, you're not doing it right. We've already secured all the lesson plans for the year, what the graduation requirements are, and without the necessary chakra control there's no way in hell you're going to be able to do the academy bunshin. So we cheat."
"I can always cheat o—well, no, I can't. There's still too much risk of me exploding heads or liquefying brains if I tried to cheat on the genjutsu stuff," he said with a scowl.
"Untrue, darling," Daemon practically sang. "You forget. It's only when you actively try to mine someone's mind that that happens. You never had a problem using illusion to get people to see what you wanted."
Tsuna brightened up. "Yeah, thanks for reminding me. It's been so long since I've done it directly, as opposed to using something anchored… All right, then. If I can't get fine enough control to properly do genjutsu, I'll just have to cheat."
"…Is there a reason why we haven't used what we learned about the Fidelius Charm to use here?" Chikusa asked. "To hide that Heul is the jinchūriki of the Kyūbi?"
Everyone stopped their training to consider the idea.
"We did run all those tests," he said. "It might not change the way the villagers see Naruto, but I can't see that it'd hurt, either. If nothing else, if pressed, they'd never be able to explain why they hate, and maybe it would get them to think."
"It'd drive the Hokage bugnuts, though," Sin said. "Suddenly not knowing who has the Kyūbi would be incredibly alarming."
Tsuna scowled. "Maybe I'm being childish to go along with my current body, but… Not sure I care. If nobody has a clue what happened to the Kyūbi, maybe that would wake this village up—the shinobi, anyway—and get them to stop being so lazy."
"We may not be at war, but there's always the chance of one looming on the horizon, especially after all the meddling Shimura did, and the shinobi here seem a bit too secure and aren't pushing themselves or their students, not like what we've seen in other villages we've opened windows to."
"Shimura is no longer a problem, but I don't doubt for a moment there aren't others out there who would love to kill Heul to get their hands on the Kyūbi, and anyone who would kill a child for what they contain cannot be a good person or have good intentions."
"I think we should do it," Xeul said. "We have the means, it's information that paints a target on Heul's back, and really, no one needs to know about his burden. If they honestly gave a fuck about the container, they would not have let the entire village know who held it!"
"And the fact that it's Heul might factor in a tiny bit," Mukuro said.
"Who will keep the secret?" he asked. "I can't be the one to do it. I'm part of the subject."
"One of us civilians," Xeul said.
"Draw slips from a hat, a jan-ken tournament?"
Tsuna closed his eyes and said, "Shuffle positions, you five."
"Okay, they're ready," Daemon said.
Tsuna leaned on his intuition (and not his sense of who was where) and pointed, then opened his eyes. "Looks like Ken will be the Secret Keeper."
"All right, let's get to it, then."
xXx
There were a lot of confused people in Konoha after they hid the identity of the Kyūbi's jinchūriki. The Hokage was in a very quiet state of panic, as were his advisors, Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura. Samsara was keeping an eye on those two, as they leaned too much toward Shimura's beliefs and ideals.
"They're starting to lean even more heavily toward meddling with the Uchiha children," Xeul reported. "Having lost their focus on the Kyūbi, they have more time to eye up those kids and the power they could gain from them, despite being utterly confused as to how they survived. They were in agreement with Shimura about offing all of them except Sasuke."
"Has a replacement for Shimura been found for the Konoha Council?" he asked absently as he worked on the day's homework.
"Not yet. Despite that, I am tempted to suggest we deal with those two. They're almost as bad as Shimura was. Thankfully, they have no access to Root, so we don't need to worry about them finding all those sleeping agents."
"Maybe we should just reprogram them slightly," Hayato said. "The Hokage is already down one advisor. Losing all three would be incredibly suspicious. Would it be better to force them away from greed and a hunger for power?"
"On the other hand," Sin said, "taking them out completely would force the Hokage to get new, fresh minds in place as advisors, and not the people who were his teammates once upon a time. Either they were always like this, or they were corrupted by Shimura. They're old and set in their ways, seeing things they can't control as a threat."
"I have to assume they were still active ninja when they were made advisors, so that shouldn't completely negate inclusion, though I doubt any clan heads would be considered. They're already too busy, mostly likely."
"…They're defects," he said, "but they might be useful yet. We'll start with reprogramming. If that fails to get results, we'll remove them entirely. Alter them for a lack of greed, removal of any tendencies toward being control freaks, and to be open to new ideas. They are supposed to be advising for the good of all Konoha, not personal agendas."
His Mists nodded and started another of those silent conversations.
"Speaking of those sleepers, we ought to do something about them sooner rather than later," Chikusa said. "Perhaps get a copy of the seal they bear and start breaking it down?"
"If we do figure it out," Daemon said, breaking out of the silent conversation temporarily, "we'd need to wipe any memory from the ones in the office as to what condition Shimura was in. Can't very well have them giving away the demise of their leader."
"The problem with kids that brainwashed is that they'd need a clear leader. We could set that to be the Hokage, but if the old man retired and a defect was put in place…"
"In theory, the Hokage, presented with that crew, would turn them over to T&I for debriefing. Maybe a Yamanaka or six brought in to poke around and figure out the best way to rehabilitate them."
"I think giving them a specific leader would be a mistake. They should be impressed with the same instructions as any normal ninja, that the Hokage is the ultimate authority, but their immediate … leader … would be their leader. Sensei, taichou, whatever. The problem remains that they've possibly been brainwashed or had it beaten into them to only follow directions and not think for themselves, and to not have any emotions."
"I don't think we can take on that much responsibility. Wipe out the memory of Shimura for the office guards, but let the Hokage determine how they'd be handled."
Tsuna sat back and listened to his family members bat the issue around for some time before making a decision. "We modify the memories of the office bunch and hand them over to the Hokage. Let him handle it. We've already done almost more than enough when it comes to them.
"I already imagine there have to be countless versions of this basic dimension, just like my original dimension, but the problems here don't seem to be the kind that can be solved by passing along a message, not if Uzumaki Naruto is in any way a focal point. I get the feeling that I was, should I not have died, destined to figure out the Arcobaleno problem.
"But places like the Harry Potter dimension set, or here… Harry Potter truly only mattered because he had a Horcrux in his head, which is why I think there was a prophecy about him. Of course, that makes me wonder if there are prophecies in this world, and if Naruto is subject to one. But, whatever. I generally don't get dumped into a body unless that body is a focal point of some kind.
"And of course, with our ways, our tendency to start meddling, we've probably already pushed the original course of this dimension way off. That being so, let's not take on more than we should. I am still willing to investigate the issue of the Hyūga cursed seal, since what they're doing is barbaric, but the Root agents? Nah."
As his family returned to planning he smiled over one simple thing. Shadow clones and time turners mixed really well. They got so used to seeing identical copies of themselves front and center (well, his twins had ages ago) that the prospect of seeing a time-turned version of yourself just didn't matter so much.
Their Flame clones were not the same. They were programmed, so to speak, for a specific purpose, but had no real will of their own. Shadow clones, however, were independent and functioned as a second version of their creator—still subservient to their will, but capable of original thought—which made it easier to bypass the fear a magical person would suffer at the very idea of being faced with their time-turned self.
It did open the possibility of being blind-sided by someone else wearing his face and him not immediately cottoning on, but given that they did all their training within the safety of the Kuro compound, it was not a pressing issue. It did lead him to say, "No time-turned selves in direct contact, and we should find a way to ensure we always recognize our clones in case some sneaky person henges into one of us."
"And since we're so good at concealing our flame types, I'd have to go with a basic for-your-eyes-only symbol somewhere on each of our clones," Mukuro said. "Under one eye, perhaps."
"A moebius strip of some kind," Hayato suggested.
"Okay," he said with a shrug.
xXx
He was ten by the time they figured out the Hyūga cursed seal, and by then they were all very good at fūinjutsu, especially with all those clones to pack in practice hours. Naturally, having arrived at a potential solution, it meant they needed to find defects to test it on. Putting the new seal on a Hyūga only to have that Hyūga keel over and die or suddenly no longer be able to use their dōjutsu or chakra would be a bad thing, to put it mildly.
Sadly, there were not exactly a plethora of dōjutsu bearers out there to experiment on, aside from the Hyūga elders. They were fair game in their books, but not until they were certain the seal would not kill anyone. Then they could peek in on an elder in the middle of the night, apply the seal, and see what happened.
(Had they known just how much of a useless twat Hatake Kakashi was, they'd have tested it on him immediately.)
The Kuro Clan, unknown to anyone, started hunting down missing nin for the opportunity to practice on them, then killed and disintegrated the bodies. The heads were turned in by a disguised Xeul for the bounty money, because more money was always good. Not having to dip into their stored gold and spend the time to convert it to ryo was also good.
They never went after anyone highly ranked, because that would cause too many waves, though it might have been interesting to make all the villages think there was a super-powered heretofore-unknown hunter nin running around collecting bounties. It would, presumably, also light a fire under Konoha, as plenty of their jōnin were in various Bingo Books.
The mysterious bounty hunter claimed no village and wore no hitai-ate, so nobody knew where he (or she, because they could be under a very good disguise) came from.
After they had taken out a decent amount of the lesser-ranked nuke-nin they switched focus to the Hyūga Elders of the main house and chose one who was particularly vile—one of the grannies.
"And how does that work, anyway?" Sin said. "I'm missing something here. Hiashi only remained part of the main house because he was born first and his twin Hizashi second. Hizashi found himself a wife, had Neji—who has the active dōjutsu, so it's not like the seal prevents genetic transmission of it—and he was sealed at three or four years old. But the main house elders? I thought the point of the seal—aside from it being a way to enslave most of the family and make servants and guards out of them—was to protect their dōjutsu."
He would have said more but Hayato cut in with, "And yet, Hizashi was bartered off to Kumo. True, they could not have taken his eyes to implant in someone else, but what was stopping them from using him as a stud? They could easily have bred up their own Hyūga Clan."
Sin nodded. "That, yes. But the elders. They're old! The men might still be able to father children, but the women? No. Why aren't they branded? What, are old main house members exempt because they're old and don't go on missions? Don't buy it! Not for a second. With the number of spies I expect are in Konoha right this moment, and how someone from Kumo got into their compound and stole their heir, I don't fucking buy it."
"Seal or not, the men could still father children if required," he said. "All the elders should have it under that reasoning. They are at risk like anyone else. From everything we've learned it boils down to the main house wanting the power to subjugate their own family, and that's fucking sick. They can't handle the very idea that a member of their family could stand up and say, 'What you're doing or proposing is wrong,' so they seal them and use it to torture or kill them."
"We have, what…? Hanabi, Hinata, Hiashi, Hiashi's parents, and his grandparents. Nine people out of a family that size free of the seal, and Hiashi, despite being head of the clan, bows under the weight of what his parents and grandparents say is right, and because he's been raised to believe they are right."
"Fuck that noise," Ken said. "So, what's-her-face, Asuga. We start with her? She's old enough that if something goes wrong, well… We cover it up."
Tsuna nodded. "If we can successfully seal the elders and Hiashi and nothing goes wrong, they don't even notice, then we take the step of causing Asuga's death and trying to extract her eyes. If they go normal, awesome. Then we can take the steps to remove the instructions for placing the cursed seal they use, activating it, and force everyone asleep so we can remove it from the branch members and put in the new one."
"It won't do anything for unborn babies, but if we can get past the bumps in altering what they're running with, we could implant the directives into the remaining elders and Hiashi. Hinata and Hanabi probably only know how to activate the cursed seal, not how to place one. The actual heir position is still up for grabs what with how Hinata is eldest, but they see Hanabi as better suited."
Tsuna did a nod-shrug combo. "If it works, it won't matter. The only downside to what we're doing at the outset is the ickiness of where we'll be placing the seal, if only so they don't notice it anytime soon and we have more of a testing window."
"We could just hide it in their hair."
"Not without shaving them and forcing a hair growth potion on them."
"With where we plan to put them, they'll just all have a case of piles or something, maybe."
Tsuna rolled his eyes.
xXx
Asuga did not die, did not lose access to her chakra, and did not lose access to her byakugan, which they counted as a success. Until Hayato said, "And if someone tried to place the original Hyūga cursed seal on her?"
"Shit."
"Okay, we give it two weeks to see if anything flies apart and kills the old hag, then we kidnap her and toss the cursed seal on to see what happens?" Hayato said. "If she dies, at least we'd know, and we can cover up the death by tripping her down the stairs, meddling with their minds, and making the seal invisible."
"Uh… A spell of low blood pressure-induced vertigo that made her lose her balance and fall just the wrong way," Sin said. "The death suggestions here aren't nearly as amusing, by the way."
Half the room rolled their eyes.
"The deaths here aren't as personal, really," he said. "And with how often the idiots kill themselves off due to lax training, and uselessly flashy attacks, well…"
"Okay, you have a point," Sin conceded.
"She will have to die unless we put that cursed seal someplace very unnoticeable, or adjust it so it's not visible even to the byakugen," Mukuro said. "It does make me wonder about any other seals. Most Konoha nin don't seem to have any. The closest would be the ANBU tattoos, and those are just oh-so-special-snowflake ink rather than an actual seal. Well, and Half-Naked-Chick's cursed seal."
Two weeks later and Asuga was still alive and kicking (mostly her husband in her sleep) so they acquired her via window, knocked her out, and applied the Hyūga cursed seal. She went into a meltdown, which was bad.
"Fuck," Tsuna said quietly. "We cannot miss a single thing when it comes to erasing all evidence and memory of that damn seal."
"She melted, darling. We're going to have trouble covering this up," Xeul said. "Kami-sama, the skin on her face just…" He shuddered, which was sort of hilarious coming from an incarnation of Daemon Spade.
Ken was over in the corner quietly gagging.
"We should look into a seal that Ken can use to mute his senses when necessary," he muttered, then said more loudly, "Right, a plan. We have a clone who can radiate confusion take her place long enough for her to go outside the Hyūga compound and fall into a suspiciously convenient puddle of acid."
"That blacksmith in town uses hydrochloric acid to pickle some of his metal. We could arrange for a convenient spill, and then for her to conveniently fall face-first into it and die," Daemon said. "And then make sure nobody does the sensible thing like establish the time or cause of death for some reason because it's already ostensibly obvious."
Tsuna beamed at his brother. "Awesome."
xXx
The Hyūga Clan went into mourning (which translated to faking it really well for the majority of them) over the death of Elder Asuga. Their stoic expressions had just the barest hint of an expression which suggested that they might conceivably, just maybe, be slightly upset over the death of a clan member, or possibly indigestion. But no one could be sure, really.
Life went on (for most) as Samsara scoured the Hyūga compound (and minds of the remaining main house adults) to find any and all documentation regarding the Hyūga cursed seal for removal, scrubbed their brains of how to place it (but not that it existed or how to activate it).
"What if we inscribed that seal on each eyeball rather than skin?" he said. "Then they'd be protected more directly."
"So we try it on her husband," Sin said. "And if that goes weird, we come up with another death. Worst case scenario, every last one of them gets a visible seal on their foreheads—and I bet Hiashi would be the first to start wearing his hitai-ate properly to cover the thing."
"Let's do it."
xXx
Once again Konoha was in something of a pother, but it was limited to the Hyūga Clan, and they were not inclined to explain why. The elders and Hiashi were filled with impotent rage that they could no longer abuse, torture, and kill their branch house members, but with their minds thoroughly tampered with and only the knowledge of how to protect the eyes of any member available to them (with strong compulsions against recreating the Hyūga cursed seal lodged in their brains), there was little they could do.
It did not make little Neji any less of a snotbag, but it was a start, and the two girls were no longer pitted against each other so nastily, nor in danger of being enslaved.
xXx
"Quiet down!" Iruka-sensei bellowed.
Tsuna's class of aspiring shinobi was full of chattering children (Nara aside, as he was napping, and Akimichi, who was snacking), but they all jumped at the sound and settled down.
"Now," Iruka said more quietly. "The final part of the graduation exam. We'll be calling you in one by one to perform the ninjutsu tests. First…"
Tsuna sighed quietly. Someone (Mizuki-sensei) had tried to sabotage his written test, had tried to sabotage his throwing test, and then tried just a bit too hard during the taijutsu test. Tsuna, as Naruto, played stupid to the manipulations, and also played at being the possessor of sheer dumb luck.
Sin (Shōga) and Daemon (Menma) had already been called in and passed out the other side, and Tsuna was left in an increasingly empty room. At long last he was called, the very final testee but one, and stood before Iruka and Mizuki.
"All right," Iruka said. "First, demonstrate kawarimi for us."
Tsuna dutifully swapped with a log there for exactly that purpose.
Iruka ticked a box on his clipboard. "Now a henge."
Tsuna dutifully henged into an exact duplicate of Teuchi of Ramen Ichiraku.
After a few moments of inspection Iruka nodded and make another tick on his clipboard. "Good. Now a clone."
Tsuna dutifully ran through the handsigns of tiger → boar → ox → dog, and two clones appeared, one to either side of him.
Iruka insulted him by appearing surprised, and Mizuki narrowed his eyes in dismay.
"Okay! You pass!" Iruka said, then made another tick before picking up a hitai-ate and offering it to him.
Tsuna accepted it, the usual serene smile on his face, bowed, and exited the room.
Sin and Daemon awaited him, took him into their company, and the three headed out. They did not get very far, only to the grassy area just outside the academy, before Mizuki came striding up.
"Naruto-kun!" the man called.
Tsuna exchanged a look with his family, then detached himself from the group and went to meet with their sensei.
"Good job, Naruto-kun!" Mizuki said with seeming pleasure. "I was curious. There's always been an option for certain students each year to earn some extra credit, to bump them up in the standings for their year. You're the only one who's shown that kind of promise. Are you interested?"
Tsuna's serene smile reappeared, which made Mizuki's eye twitch. "I'm not sure I see the point. I graduated and will be placed on a team."
"Yeah, you did, but if you pass this you could be bumped up to rookie of the year and get matched with the top-rank kunoichi."
'And the dead last,' he thought. 'Not that it matters, as Xeul and Mukuro will be handling team assignments.' Tsuna shook his head. "I am satisfied with my ranking, Mizuki-sensei, but I thank you for the opportunity."
Mizuki's eye twitched again. "Well… All right. Don't say I didn't offer." The man strode off, a certain tension in his frame, and disappeared from view.
The three of them headed off to the Kuro compound, but not before a window was opened on Mizuki.
"So let's see… What's he up to?"
Mizuki had started muttering to himself, which was a bad habit for a ninja. "Fucking brat, managing to graduate despite my tampering, turning down my offer. How the hell am I supposed to get that scroll? Orochimaru will kill me if I don't get it and bring it to him."
Brows went up and his Mists went into a huddle.
Tsuna snickered and said, "I know what I want to do. Make up a fake scroll, plant it on this guy, knock him unconscious, and let ANBU find him to take to T&I."
His Mists cackled and nodded.
Once dark had fallen Mizuki, who was still rambling to himself in a panic, was sent to sleep, a scroll slung over his back, and he was left near ANBU HQ (a very unassuming, plain building masquerading as a utility company).
One of the ANBU lookouts, Sparrow, went stock still on seeing Mizuki, who was dressed in a caricature of stealth gear, bearing a large scroll with "Totally not the Scroll of Seals" written along the outside, slumped nearby.
A quick flit later and Mizuki was being hauled away.
"So much for him. Never did question why he hated Naruto so much."
xXx
After the weekend, they arrived at the classroom again on Monday morning for team assignments. The very fact that no one was able to get their ninja ID yet should have clued everyone in to the fact that the testing was not yet over, but most of the children blithely ignored that.
Tsuna zoned out during Iruka's opening speech and most of the assignments being revealed, but woke the fuck up when he was teamed with Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke on Team 7, which was not supposed to have happened.
The Great Shuffler at work?
That or Fate, maybe Destiny, he wrote back, his serene smile being severely tested at the forced change in plans.
I don't see the point in passing the unannounced test if we're not on the same team as you. We can get more done from the background.
Tsuna nodded slightly. And the odds of a team with an Uchiha on it not passing is slim to none. There's not much point if we're not together. Though it would come into play with you passing if we all made chūnin at the first opportunity and could mix up teams.
Ideas on how to force those two into showing teamwork? Haruno will agree to anything the Uchiha says, but even with so many of his clan alive, he's still an arrogant little snotbag.
"And Team 11 will be Menma, Shōga, and Chuya," Iruka droned.
Thanks to the civilians, he said. We either illusion these two long enough to make a showing, or we fake out the team sensei.
Xeul here. I'll be keeping an eye on you, darling, and will assist. According to the list I'm spying on right now, the sensei for Team 7 will be Hatake Kakashi, which is awful, but understandable. He has that sharingan hidden under his headband, and was Naruto's father's student.
Sin and Daemon exchanged a look. We'll pass, but if things go south, we can always get ourselves discharged medically.
And we can beat the fangirl out of Chuya.
"Right!" Iruka said, still not saying a word about the missing Mizuki. "You're all dismissed until one o'clock. Be back then to meet up with your jōnin sensei."
A quick step brought them to the Kuro compound where Tsuna and Sin got started on lunch.
"Hilarious," Xeul said. "The Hokage and Hatake are currently rifling through that shithole so Hatake can see how you live."
"The same shithole that has cup ramen in the cupboards for show and expired milk in the refrigerator?" Tsuna shook his head.
After a wonderful lunch they all stepped back to the academy and filtered into their classroom. The three of them took seats at the back, in the top row to wait, sighing when Sakura and Ino got into yet another cat fight over who got to sit next to Sasuke, ignoring the fact the he had taken the center seat and the ones to either side of him were open.
The classroom itself was another massive clue to team structure. Each row had tables suitable for three people, though the teachers never even hinted at it as being on purpose. It was no wonder so many aspiring shinobi failed the secondary test.
One by one the other teams were led away by their senseis, until the only three left were Tsuna, Sakura, and Sasuke. Sasuke brooded, which was normal, Sakura aimed calf eyes at the snotbag, and Tsuna quite sensibly sat quietly in his seat reading up on the history of Iwa while hovering three kunai over his head to appear to work on his chakra control.
Hatake showed up three hours late—which guaranteed that Samsara would get on his case if it kept up—and said, "Well, you three are boring," though he did spare an interested look Tsuna's way. "Meet me on the roof."
Tsuna brought the kunai down and tucked them away, secreted his book, then followed the others out and up the nearest staircase. He could have showed off and exited the window to walk up the exterior, but why cause trouble before he had to?
"Well, let's begin with introducing yourselves," Hatake said from his position leaning against the roof railing.
"What do you want to know?" Sakura asked.
"How about your likes, dislikes, your dreams for the future, and things like that," Hatake said lazily.
"You look kinda suspicious," Sakura said. "Why don't you go first?"
Hatake's one visible eye did not react aside from making him appear even more desperately in need of a nap. He shrugged and said, "Oh, me? Well, my name is Hatake Kakashi. I have no desire to tell you my likes and dislikes. Dreams for the future, hm… And I have lots of hobbies."
"So … all he told us … is his name?" Sakura complained with a scowl.
"Now it's your turn. Let's start on the right," Hatake said, nodding at Tsuna.
"Uzumaki Naruto. Secrets, ignorance, survival, and not something I'd share with strangers."
Hatake stared at him for a long moment. "I see. Next," he said, nodding at Sasuke.
"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There are lots of things I dislike and I don't really like anything."
'Liar. You're a sucker for tomatoes.'
"And… I can't really call it a dream. But I have an ambition, to kill a certain man."
Predictably, Sakura went moony over the declaration.
Hatake's visible eye narrowed. "Okay. And lastly, the girl," he said, as if he hadn't bothered to read up on his team beforehand.
"My name is Haruno Sakura. The thing I like is…" She shot a sideways look at Sasuke and blushed. "Well, the person I like is…" And again. "And um… My dream for the future, um…? Oh, yeah! What I dislike is Ino-pig. My hobby is…" She shot another "discreet" look at Sasuke while blushing.
Hatake's eye twitched. "Tomorrow we'll start our duties as shinobi," he said, then continued after all he got were two disinterested stares and one love-stuck baboon not paying him any attention, "First we are going to do something with just the four of us, survival training."
Sakura's head whipped around. "Survival training? Why is our first duty that? We've had enough training at the academy."
"This isn't normal training," Hatake said. "This time I'm your opponent." He dropped his head a little and snickered.
"What's so funny, sensei?" Sakura asked sourly.
"Um… Well… It's just that when I tell you this you guys are totally going to freak out. Out of the twenty-seven graduates, only nine are expected to be chosen to become genin. The rest will be sent back to the academy. This training is a very difficult exam with a failure rate of over sixty-six percent!"
Sasuke actually sweat-dropped, which was hilarious, and Sakura had an expression torn between anger and the surety that her prince would make it all better. Tsuna? He just smiled serenely.
Hatake laughed. "I told you you'd freak out. The academy exam was just to show who had the potential to be real genin. So, anyway, tomorrow you have to show your real skills on the training ground. Bring all the shinobi tools you have. Oh, and skip breakfast. You might throw up otherwise."
Hatake pulled some papers from his flak jacket and handed them over. "The details are on these. And don't be late tomorrow." He disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
Sasuke immediately got up, his paper crushed in his hand, and headed for the stairs. Sakura, like the brainless fangirl she was, darted off after him.
xXx
He arrived at eight o'clock as ordered and hung upside down from a tree, using his chakra to suspend three kunai from his head, and continued to read up on the history of Iwa. The place was a large, fenced field with trees bordering one section, and three wooden stumps set up, most likely meant to be used as pells.
Sasuke trundled in moodily with a bright and chattering Sakura dogging his steps, took a seat, and stared moodily off into the distance. Sakura took a seat close by and continued to chatter, shoot the boy love-struck looks, and generally be a useless pain in the ass. Neither of them appeared to notice Tsuna.
Three hours later Hatake finally showed. "Hey, guys, good morning," he greeted as Sakura shouted, "You're late!" He placed an alarm clock on one of the stumps and set it. "Okay, it's set for noon. I have two bells—" He paused a moment to nudge the ones hanging from his belt. "—and your task is to take these from me before time's up. Those who don't have a bell at that time don't get lunch!"
As if on cue, the stomachs of his teammates growled in hunger.
"I'll not only tie you to one of these stumps, but I'll eat right in front of you. You only have to get one bell, but since there are two, one of you will definitely be tied to a stump. Anyone who doesn't get a bell fails and gets sent back to the academy. I told you to bring all your tools, and you won't succeed unless you come at me intending to kill."
"But! You'll be in danger!" Sakura cried.
Tsuna's serene smile was hard pressed to stay in place in the face of such naïvety.
"Start!"
Sasuke and Sakura leapt away to hide.
"The most important thing for a shinobi is to be able to hide yourself," Hatake said, nodding slightly toward where the other two were, then swiveled his head to stare at Tsuna, who was still hanging from a tree reading his book. "Well, you're a bit off, aren't you."
"Hm, did you say something?" he asked.
"Why aren't you hiding?"
"I'm waiting to see if those two buy a clue, but I suppose I could play along." He tucked his book away, flipped off the branch and landed lightly, the kunai still hovering over his head, then darted off behind the tree.
Hatake huffed and came to investigate his "hiding" place, then blinked when Tsuna was nowhere to be found. He didn't need to know that Tsuna was Edging along in Between. He shrugged after a moment and went back to the center of the clearing, brought out a book with a bright orange cover, and began to read, giggling obscenely as he did.
Tsuna rolled his eyes and waited.
Sasuke broke first, sending a plethora of kunai and stars at the man, who seemed to be engrossed in his porn. The kid looked so triumphant until he saw the aftermath of the attack. Hatake had switched with a log. If nothing else it proved the kid had good aim, for the thing was studded with them. Sasuke was also bright enough to realize that his attack gave his position away, so he skittered off through the undergrowth to find a new place to hide.
Sakura, on the other hand, scurried backward to get out from under her bush and started running off toward where she thought the love of her life was, only to shriek when Hatake popped up behind her and placed her under a genjutsu, then scream and pass out.
Sasuke popped out of hiding to go on the attack again, testing his taijutsu and bukijutsu against the man, then his ninjutsu (a massive fireball), but the fact that he was breathing so hard said the boy had never gone up against anything approaching a real target. That, or the kid was woefully out of shape.
And, having made the mistake of pausing to admire his technique and making the assumption that he had hit with it, he was then pissed off when a hand came out of the ground and dragged him under until just his head was visible.
Hatake emerged and crouched down. "They say an exposed nail should be hammered down," he said, then looked to the side and vanished again.
Sakura came racing into view, saw Sasuke's head, and fainted dead away.
The scowl Sasuke made was magnificent.
Sakura came out of her swoon to see Sasuke had worked himself free, and dashed over to glomp him. "You're all right! Oh, Sasuke-kun!"
"Go away!" Sasuke growled, trying to push her off. "Don't hug me!" Once he got free he walked a few steps away and said, "It's nearly noon. I'm going to try again."
"…You're still going after a bell?"
"I already touched one. Next time I'll get one."
'Fat chance of that,' he thought as he snagged both bells from Hatake's belt and dropped an illusion in place.
"What!? …Ah, I see. You're incredible, Sasuke-kun," Sakura said shifting nervously. "You know, there isn't much time left, so … there's no need to push ourselves that hard. There's always next time…" She shrank back at the glare he sent her way.
"There's a man that only I can kill," Sasuke said, staring at the ground.
"Ah… What do you mean?"
Tsuna took a moment to wonder how it was that a girl who had lived in the village her whole life had no idea what the Uchiha might possibly be referring to. Gossip did get around, after all, and they were all eight at the time.
"I'm an avenger. I have to become stronger than him. So I can't just stay here and do nothing."
At which point the alarm went off, causing both of them to stiffen up and look back toward the stumps.
A minute later Hatake was seriously contemplating which person to tie to a stump, if not all of them. "Well, Sasuke at least tried, so he won't be tied up. Sakura didn't try at all, and neither did Naruto, which means—"
"Oh?" he said, dangling both bells from his finger so they tinkled quietly. The illusion he had placed was removed at the same time.
"Which means Sakura will be tied up and not get lunch," Hatake said smoothly, and had her in place before the girl knew what hit her. "By the way, something about the training… Well, there's no need for you guys to back to the academy."
Sasuke and Sakura looked foolishly hopeful.
"All three of you should quit as shinobi. All three of you are punks who don't deserve to be ninjas."
Sasuke flipped a mental table and launched himself forward, aiming to attack, and had his face in the dirt seconds later, his arms wrenched back.
"See? A punk," Hatake said, placing one foot on the kid's head and pressing down.
"No! Don't step on Sasuke-kun!" Sakura cried, struggling impotently.
"You guys don't get it, at all. Why do you think you were divided into teams and are doing this training?"
"Teamwork," Tsuna said with a sigh. "So it would have been nice if we'd had more time to get to that point."
"Yes, teamwork. The three of you working together might have gotten the bells … sooner than Naruto managed to."
"What do you even mean!?" Sakura said. "There's only two bells. Even if we had worked together, one of us would still fail! What teamwork? That just makes us fight each other."
"And yet if that's even true—which I doubt—two people would have passed," he said. "Three people working together, could have, if necessary, voted someone out after the bells were obtained. Of course, that means anyone who did pass, out of all the teams, would have to be reassigned, because all genin teams consist of three genin and one jōnin sensei. The math is wrong in any case, as we were told a sixty-sixty percent failure rate and this would mean thirty-three."
"Well what about you?" she said angrily. "You got them, but you're still going back to the academy."
Tsuna shrugged and tossed a bell at each of them. "Don't care. And I wouldn't go back. I'd rather not spend another year being sabotaged. I'd go into a trade of some kind in that event. I've heard the Land of Noodles is nice."
Sakura gawked.
"All of you did your own thing," Hatake said, trying to get back on track. "Sakura just wanted to be near Sasuke, Sasuke assumed you two would get in his way, and Naruto… Konoha duties are done by the team. Of course superior individual ability is important to a ninja. But what's even more important is teamwork. Individual actions that disrupt the team can put your comrades in danger, and even get you killed."
Hatake released Sasuke and wandered over to the stone a short distance behind the stumps. "Look at this, the numerous names carved on this stone. These are ninjas who are recognized as heroes of the village. But, they aren't just normal heroes. They're all heroes who died in the line of duty. This is a memorial. My best friend's name is carved here…"
Hatake looked back over his shoulder. "I'll give you guys one more chance. But after lunch, I'll make it even tougher to get the bells. Don't feed anything to Sakura, since she got tied up. If anyone gives her food they fail immediately. I am the rules here! Got it?" He vanished.
Tsuna could tell he was off behind a tree, so he had not gone far. After rolling his eyes he grabbed one of the two bentos Hatake had brought, opened it, and immediately offered to feed it to Sakura.
"…What? But that'd mean…"
"I said I don't care," he said. "If you plan to try again, you'll need food. You already look like a stiff breeze would blow you away. And besides, I ate earlier, thinking it was foolish to go into something called survival training without having eaten, no matter what he said, and especially if he ended up late again."
"Um…"
"He's right," Sasuke said. "You'll need the energy." He produced a kunai and cut through the ropes binding her.
A second later Hatake was back, looming over them in anger. "What is this!? You guys … pass!"
xXx
"That had to be the lamest thing ever," he said as he finished up making lunch.
"We'll have to think up some extra special nightmares for that lot," Daemon said. "My own test with Sin was far less of a bother. After all, two nameless orphans and a civilian girl—no one expected the team to pass in the first place."
"We could always set up haunts for them," Mukuro said.
He shrugged and started plating the food. "Maybe. Let's see how it goes for now. Uchiha seems to have gone off the deep end, so I'd rather not mess with his brain too much. Haruno is a definite maybe, as is Hatake. I expect them all to be a total drag to deal with."
"That serene smile of yours is going to get quite the workout," Sin said, dropping a kiss on his cheek before he sat down.
"Mm, there's an idea. Will one of you find out what Hatake's favorite things to eat are, please? I'm considering ruining him when it comes to those if he plans to always be late."
"Will do."
"I admit to being curious if the usual from you will make all three of them go bugnuts," Sin said.