Chapter 8: Rebellion

.

.

.

"This feeling... it's that dream again, huh?"

She was floating. Groggily, she got up, only to notice that her surroundings resembled the Konoha sewers, that she had cleaned after a prank gone wrong, but without the nasty stuff. As usual, her nose couldn't detect a smell at all. Her half-lidded eyes noticed the familiar hallway, and she followed the pipes to the destination.

It was like a maze, but she knew where she was going. A minute or so later, she entered a room and found herself in front of a giant gate with '封印' (fuuin) kanji paper on the middle.

Darkness was what she could get out from it, yet she felt the powerful being, the emotion it radiated, the breath-stopping chakra and she just freeze on her spot like a scared little girl.

Her breath was taken away when all of sudden a giant, menacing red eye gazed directly at her.

"You!" The creature growled as he pointed an elongated, sharp nail at her. "Get out of here, you brat―"

A surge of a powerful blast of wind knocked her away, involuntarily made her close her eyes.

While it happens every time, the roar that was echoing throughout the dimly lit hallway, sent a chill down her spine.

The scenery rapidly changed and it took a few seconds for her to register.

"Oh, Naruto, you're awake?"

She blinked profusely, taking in the change. "Shisui?" It was the dream. Again, it felt so real she still felt the tremor that was caused by the powerful roar that was laced with the malicious, red chakra. "Is that you?" Looking at the hovering Shisui beside her futon with his sharingan on for a second, it reminded her of the giant, red one-eyed being that she kept seeing in her dreams for as long as she could remember. On an important note: she had yet managed to find out if the terrifying being was one-eyed or not.

"Yes, it's me." Shisui nodded, the corner of his eyes creased as his lips tugged upward. He watched as Naruto groaned and placed her hands on the futon to get up. Finding that Naruto didn't have problems getting up herself, he relaxed. "You okay?" he inquired.

"Ugh... I feel sore all over." She rubbed her eyes and clapped her cheeks to feel awake. "What happened?" Naruto looked around. She was at a traditional lodge; ryokan? Naruto let out a relieved sigh when her eyes spotted Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke, and Shikamaru, alive.

"You fainted after you healed Sasuke." Shisui let out a faint snort as he said lightly, "He said you're a moron, by the way."

"... hey, you just don't antagonize the one who healed you." Naruto glared weakly at nothing in particular. "I know you're there even if I don't see you, Sasuke." Her tone was biting, challenging the boy to insult her like always.

"Calm down, Naruto, I'm sure he didn't mean it," Shisui put up his hands and conciliated, a small smile formed on the corner of his lips. "Ready to go home?" He crinkled his nose. "Or do you want to bathe first?"

"Ng?" Naruto sniffed her short, orange sleeved yukata. She eyed the dried stain of blood on it. Must be Sasuke's. "Ugh, yeah, a bath it is." She tried to get up only to trip over her hair. With a thud, Naruto was lying down on the futon again. "Who the heck untied my hair?" she asked the people in the room while looking for her red hair tie.

Shisui shrugged and looked over his shoulder to the silver-haired man in the corner of the room. Kakashi, noticed the silent question, looked to Shikamaru, who in turn looked at Sasuke.

Sasuke hummed uncomfortably and elaborated.

"I thought it looked uncomfortable to sleep with your hair tied like that." At Naruto's raised eyebrow, he reluctantly added, "My brother used to sleep with tied hair whenever he's tired and I used to untie it for him."

"That's new," Naruto stated, her eye twitched, trying not to incredulously stare at her teammate for being so honest, for once. She successfully tied her hair into a high pony-tail and looked at Sasuke. "Oh yeah, Sasuke, how are your wounds?"

He turned his back on her. "It's fine."

Frowning, she didn't believe him a bit as she felt his ever-changing emotions, and went over to him. Not heeding his displeased grunts, Naruto checked him and marveled at how there was no wound on him at all. Her unknown ability to let one bite her skin to recover completely is a mystery that she needed to uncover as soon as she reached Konoha.

'Rathen than myself,' Naruto mused inwardly, 'Oba-san will probably be more excited about this discovery.'

Glancing at his students, Kakashi announced, "This warrants for Ichiraku Ramen." Naruto snapped her head to his direction. "Don't worry, I'll pay."

That was something to look forward into.

Shocked, Naruto's mouth was agape. "A civil war?" she repeated what had been told just now. "And there's a faction of rebel and that client was one of them?" Too occupied with her disbelief, she didn't watch what's in front of her and slipped on a wet, green moss.

Kakashi caught Naruto, who slipped, by the cuff of her yukata. Naruto sheepishly turned around and looked over her shoulder, thanking him.

Sasuke flickered his eyes toward Shisui. "That client is the leader's cousin?" At Shisui's nod, he commented, "No wonder he was targeted."

Naruto sharply glared at Sasuke for that comment, her mouth open. She didn't form the words for the reason that she didn't know what to say to that.

"They have been at it for years," Shisui sighed as he looked at a conflicted-looking Naruto, "We have only received the intel after Shimura Danzou's death."

"Then, Konoha knows about it for three years. I'll assume it's known only to the higher-ups," Shikamaru concluded. His posture unusually proper, his eyes focused. "After all, our country doesn't want to get involved with such controversial topic such as rebellion."

Sasuke's face hardened, his lips pressed together as he leaped to one tree to another. His eyes dimmed, seemingly deep in thought. Shisui, who was behind him, kept his eyes at Sasuke with a knowing look and shook his head.

While Shikamaru, who was also focused on something that made him look like he was constipated, narrowed his eyes at the gesture as brief suspicion glinted in his eyes for a second.

Kakashi noticed his team went quiet after the reveal. He himself wasn't surprised in the slightest. While knowing about it helped, he had gone through the Third Great Ninja War and had countless experiences witnessing gruesome scenes in the course of his 19 years of living as a shinobi, the reminder did put him in a slight shock. He didn't expect for his team's first C-rank to went like this. Although the mission could be stated as 'success', they had delivered the scrolls to the client, after all. Yet, it would be a 'failure' in the paper because the client couldn't send the payment to Konoha, as the client was, simply put, dead.

While knowing that she was fundamentally different than the other four people with her, she keenly felt out of place as she looked at them. Feeling each of her team members' chakra didn't help at all, as they were quite distraught with the information, sans Kakashi who she guessed did know about the rebellion. Shisui's chakra, on the other hand, indicated that he was anxious. Understandable, as they were still outside of Konoha. It meant that anything could happen on their way there.

Rebellion against an unjust government. Naruto heaved a sigh, couldn't imagine a Yondaime, from Kiri nonetheless, doing something like Bloodline Purge. It was a greater scale than what would happen if Danzo had gotten his hand on the Uchiha.

"What happened to the client?" Naruto continued on, albeit hesitantly, "He's dead, right?"

"Yes," Kakashi replied, his voice neutral. "Konoha will send the body to the rebel faction, along with the scrolls."

"In order to not antagonize them, huh," Shikamaru remarked. "Seems like Hi no Kuni is taking a neutral stance on their plight."

However, it went unsaid between them at how the client could buy supplies from Konoha, the only military village in Hi no Kuni, in the form of a C-ranked delivery mission.

'The body... huh?' Naruto bit her lips, trying her hardest to erase the man's smile―that seemed genuine―from her mind. She had only briefly interacted with him and yet how could she felt something about this wasn't right?

"Kakashi-sensei," she called out to the man behind her.

"Hmm?"

"Is it... is it common for missions to ended up like this?" she asked, trying to tread carefully with her question but feeling she couldn't, so she didn't even try to censor most of it, really. "That Oji-san didn't deserve it, right? He was just trying to get supplies to aid his comrades." She momentarily paused and added with a gulp, "He died a needless death."

Kakashi tilted his head at her, his one eye curled up. "I can't say that it's uncommon. But indeed, he died a needless death." A moment of silence passed and he said, "you know what, Naruto? I'll take all of you to my favorite place. There's something I need to teach you guys, after all."

Shisui glanced at his senior, noting his glazed eye. He grimly remembered that both of them had experienced war and a soldier of war at a very young age. His first visit to Kakashi's favorite place was when he was just about 7. Peacetime had made it possible, for shinobi under fifteen, to not stare at their friend's name on some stone.

The memorial stone is a place every war veteran has visited. Every time he remembered that he was glad that Naruto and her peers didn't have to experience war.

"Shikamaru!" He was on his way to his house from Ichiraku when he heard Chouji calling him from across the street.

"Oh, Chouji?" he eyed the backpack on his friend's back. "Back from a mission?"

"Uh-uh." Chouji smiled as he walked. "It's been almost a week since I last saw you!" Shikamaru nodded, as he matched Chouji's walking pace.

They processed to take a walk across the busy street.

"Do you want to meet my team?" Chouji reached to his backpack and took a bag of his favorite chips. Absently, he said, "Shiho-san is asking me to introduce her to you."

"Troublesome." Shikamaru sighed, knowing that it was unavoidable. "Next time, with my team."

"You're getting along with Naruto and Sasuke?" Chouji beamed at his friend. He was the one who encouraged the almost anti-social Shikamaru to interact with his teammates, after all.

Shikamaru's face scrunched up at that. "... maybe?" he scratched the back of his head. "I'll say yes, though."

"Glad to hear that," Chouji said while stuffing a bunch of chips to his mouth. "Do you remember Kiba? He's inviting us for Yakiniku Q whenever we're available."

Of course, he remembered. He and Kiba used to cut classes together before he moved up to Chouji's class. Shikamaru shrugged and told, "Fine, I'm free this weekend."

"I'll tell him that, then." Chouji was about to offer his chips to Shikamaru when he recalled the conversation he had with his sensei. "Is your team going to participate for the Chuunin Exams this year?"

Taken aback, all Shikamaru could say to that was; "It's the time for Chuunin Exams already?"

Author's Note/Rant: What have I been dreaming? Two chapters (chapter 7 and 8, omake not included) in a month before the Mid-term Exams of my Uni? I feel so happy and sad now.

I think if Naruto were female in the show, he would be a little more respectful. For the reason that, in Japan, people expect girls to be more polite in the way they're speaking and behaving. Naruto definitely won't be the same if his chromosomes were double x, because, face it, boys and girls are treated differently even in the first world. So because of that, I made Naruto use 'Oji-san' to call the OC client because it's politer. Do you guys also think so or not? If not, well... I'm curious about why you think otherwise.

And I have to confess that I'm currently majoring in Japanese Literature and is about to take the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) N1 in December this year. So I... kinda have to restrain my stressed-out 'Inner Japanese' from littering this story with Japanese characters all over the place. After all, if I do that, it would only confuse readers and make me look like a weaboo desperate to look like I know Japanese. Though I did put some Japanese characters in this story; hopefully, it wasn't excessive that it discourage you to read this fic.

Oh yeah, I write this without planning ahead and kinda have to imagine what the characters would say in Japanese first (ouch, even though English and Japanese aren't my native languages...). Yeah, I know it's bad, but I'm wired like this. That's why I'm updating at random, so I like to read the reviews you guys left in the comment section to motivate myself.

I'd appreciate it if you guys could give me any suggestions, ideas, references, heck, anything is better than nothing. In short; if you could, leave a review, please. Sometimes when I don't have any idea what to write, I re-read any good fanfics or listening to songs to get any kind of inspirations.

Well then, see you guys soon!

-Tonegawa Rie

Edited: November 3rd, 2018