A/N: I'm honestly a little bit blown away by the amount of support I got from some of you last chapter. Thank you so much for that. I'll try to keep a schedule for you all.
Also, to address the wave arc: I KNOW that we're all sick of the wave arc. We've all read it a thousand times, we've all seen in a thousand times. Thing is, for the sake of Naruto and Satsuki's development, I NEED to write it. But, I'm going to make a compromise.
Rather than writing out everything that the characters do (the tree training, helping Inari, etc.), I'll just be covering it in past tense through exposition. The scenes themselves will be character interactions that I feel need to happen. I *will* be writing out the bridge scene for obvious reasons.
Time for Chapter 10
Enjoy!
Kakashi raised his eyes up from the pages of his orange-backed novel as the sound of footsteps resonated through the room he was sitting in. His ability to remain upright under his own power was a fairly recent development, but a welcome one. His strength was returning to him, if only slightly. As such, he was able to fully turn his body to face the entrance from which the sound of creaking floorboards had drawn his attention. Somewhat in contrast to his expectations, the person who stood staring at him was Satsuki.
"I thought you were out practicing." the Jonin said as a lead. The genin shook her head and made her way around the room to stand directly in front of him rather than forcing him to keep a twisted posture.
"That eye under your forehead protector. Where and how?" she asked bluntly. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at her complete disregard for etiquette or conversational formalities such as transitional phrases or greetings.
"You could have approached that question a bit less rudely, you know." he pointed out calmly. Satsuki remained unfazed and pulled up a chair from the corner of the living room and sat herself down across from him.
"Fine. Could you please tell me how you got yourself a Sharingan despite not being related to us in any way at all? That eye is a relic." she asked with a twinge of sarcasm in her voice. The silver-haired Jonin sighed at her continued lack of manners, but opted to let it slide for the sake of his sanity.
"It's a long story that I don't really feel like telling you. Maybe another time." he replied. The Uchiha girl stubbornly remained in her seat with her eyes fixed on Kakashi's covered iris.
"I think I've got the right to know. Unless you want me to make assumptions about how you got it, I'd suggest speaking up." she pressed. Kakashi laughed out loud and leaned his posture forward.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, kid. What you think of me or what I've experienced means just about nothing. But since you're being so persistent, I'll tell you some of it." he began, his tone making it clear that he held absolutely no apprehension about Satsuki or her opinions toward him. A darker look then crossed over his features as he brought himself back to memories that he both held fast too, and dreaded returning to.
"Let's just say that...I got it as a gift. A gift that meant a hell of a lot to me. It still does." he said vaguely, drawing a look of skepticism from Satsuki. The girl seemed to consider what she had been told for a few moments, but when she spoke, she was as firm as she had been before, if not more so.
"We don't give away our Sharingan as a birthday present or a gesture of friendship. And for people outside of the clan, they come at a serious price." she said. Kakashi kept his expression calm, but a long sigh escaped him.
"It came at a brutal price. One that never would have had to have been paid if I'd just kept my head on my shoulders at the right time. If you're suspecting that I stole this eye, then let me assure you, I didn't. I didn't want this eye. I took it out of respect when it was offered to me." he said. Satsuki studied him for a time, visibly unsure of what to think of what she was being told. Eventually, she spoke.
"What did it feel like when you first used it? It had to have been a new feeling." she asked. The silver-haired Jonin pondered the question carefully, as he had long grown accustomed to the sensations and alterations to his senses incurred by the Sharingan he so often hid beneath his forehead protector.
"I was high on adrenaline already, and I was seeing red, so I don't remember much. I do remember how...destructive I felt. That level of perception, even with just one eye, it was so far beyond what I'd been capable of before." he recalled. He then eyed his student wryly.
"Are you asking because yours haven't awakened yet, Satsuki?" he asked, drawing a reluctant nod from the Uchiha girl. She then leaned back in her chair and relaxed a tad.
"It's frustrating. I'm sixteen, and I still can't use them for anything. Most Uchiha have theirs by the time they're thirteen or fourteen. It sucks." she admitted. Kakashi stroked his chin and considered his response for a few moments.
"From what I've heard, it usually requires something shocking to happen to you. Trauma of some kind. Things have been slow in the past few years, so it makes some sense that yours haven't manifested yet." he reasoned. Satsuki then closed her eyes and held them shut. When they remained closed for a touch too long, Kakashi began to speak again. Before he could, the girl's eyes snapped open again. They were red, with the pupils rimmed by a single tomoe. They nearly immediately reverted back to their basic black color.
"I can...force it sometimes, actually…" she revealed between labored intakes of oxygen. Kakashi shook his head and touched his own covered eye.
"There's no point in that. It's impressive that you can do it, but like you said, you can't use them for anything. You awakened your eyes for less than ten seconds, and you're breathing like you just ran a mile. Give it time. You'll gain access to them naturally in time. When you do, I'll do what I can to teach you how to use them." he said. Satsuki stood back up and stretched her back, which cracked several times.
"Learning from somebody who isn't even an Uchiha sounds weird, but beggars can't be choosers, I guess." she said with a shrug. Sensing that she was preparing to leave, Kakashi shifted back into a more relaxed posture and opened his book back to the page he had been reading prior to her arrival.
"How are you all doing with tree-scaling? I'm probably fresh enough to help you guys if you need it." he asked. Satsuki shrugged her shoulders and waved a dismissive hand.
"We've mostly got it down at this point. We're almost at the top of the tree. Shikamaru hasn't been around much, though. He's been taking walks a bunch." she revealed. Kakashi looked up from his book.
"Three days, and you're already near the top? Not bad at all, kid. As for Shikamaru, one or both of you should go and check on him one of these times. We're in a dangerous country right now." he said. The Uchiha girl nodded and turned to leave. Just before she could exit the room, she stopped.
"That eye of yours. It was a parting gift, wasn't it?" she asked with her back still turned to him. Kakashi remained silent for a moment.
"That's one way to put it." he replied after a time. Satsuki gave a slight nod and glanced back over her shoulder at her teacher.
"A friend of yours, I'm guessing?" she inquired curiously. The silver-haired Jonin let a melancholy smile form on his face beneath his ever-present mask.
"The bravest I've ever had."
Naruto absently knocked his heel against the bark of the tree on top of which he was sitting. The shape of the tree was odd, as the very peak of it possessed no branches and had a flat top. It made for a solid perch to settle upon. It was fairly late, just a few minutes past seven in the evening, and he had reached the very top of the tree roughly twenty minutes prior. Satsuki, whom he had been silently working alongside, had left to take care of some sort of business an hour beforehand.
Though there was definite danger in climbing the trees on his own, he had trusted himself enough to try, and it had paid off. He had effectively conquered the task. He was even able to jog up the tree if need be. Though they had said very little, the competition between himself and Satsuki had been intense and fast-paced. Each time one of them reached a new milestone, the other redoubled their efforts to exceed it. The competition had served as an excellent motivator.
'Shikamaru probably still whips us both on the trees, but oh well. At least we can do it now.' the blonde thought to himself. The Nara had largely been absent throughout the past three days, though he had occasionally returned to commune with his teammates. What he did for the majority of the day, out on his own, Naruto knew not.
'Knowing him, he's probably just sleeping somewhere. It'd explain why he takes so long to get home some days.' Naruto mused within his mind. He then let his mind begin to wander to more mundane things, such as what he planned to do upon their return to Konoha. There were bills to be paid, groceries to buy, and a sleeping schedule to amend. Though it wasn't exactly exorbitant, the pay the blonde received from completing missions had practically doubled his monthly income. He was now able to buy a survivable amount of food weekly, and he had even bought himself a new shirt. Old habits tended to die hard, however. He still ate quite conservatively, and he still tended to wear his clothes in two day increments, with washes between each day.
Before he could truly immerse himself in the fascinating train of thought regarding what exactly he planned to do about the leaking pipe in his kitchen, the sound of footsteps on a tree near to him caught his attention. Slowly but surely, the person scaling the nearby tree came into view.
"You made it all the way up here, huh? Not too shabby." came the voice of Satsuki, who carefully perched herself atop her own tree roughly six feet from Naruto. The blonde eyed her carefully. Though they had yet to explode at one another since, the incident several nights ago still loomed over every brief exchange of words. Sensing little, if any animosity from her, Naruto allowed himself to calm.
"It took a while, but yeah. Gotta say, though. It gets cold up here without the trees to block the wind." he replied, silently regretting the shortness of his shirt sleeves as he spoke. Satsuki cracked a smile and did something odd. She reached behind her back and took hold of some of her hair. She then tossed it over the top of her shoulders on either side, thus covering her arms with her dark hair.
"I hate how long it is right now, but it can come in handy." she joked. Naruto laughed a bit and rested his head on his bent right knee.
"You'd better cut it pretty short. Somebody might light it on fire one of these days. Could be the end of you." he said in response. Satsuki blew a strand of hair out of her face and shifted in place to improve her balance atop the tree.
"Try it, and I'll break your neck five different ways." she said haughtily as the first of many winds came blowing across the treetops. Naruto put up his hands in a show of faux concession.
"Never said it'd be me. Just pointing out what might happen." he replied. The pair then lapsed into a fairly immediate silence that lasted a fair amount of time, with each simply observing the dimming sky just above their heads.
"So, what'd you leave to do?" the blonde asked to finally end the void. Satsuki glanced at him out of her periphery and gathered herself to respond.
"I went to ask Kakashi about his Sharingan. Those eyes are exclusive to my family, and anybody else having them is cause for some questioning." she said. Naruto's interest was immediately piqued, as similar questions had been cycling through his own mind since the brutal encounter with Zabuza.
"What'd you find out? I was honestly wondering the same thing." he pressed. Satsuki drew her knees up to her chin and chewed on her lower lip absently.
"He got the eye as a gift from a friend. From what I pieced together, it was a dying gift. Probably some time during the third world war, if I had to guess. He's around that age, I think." she said, drawing a nod from her teammate.
"That makes some sense. Giving away an eye is a little weird, but I guess it would be meaningful in that sorta situation." Naruto said. The raven-haired girl shook her head and rotated on her tree to face him more directly.
"You don't get it. A sharingan is the greatest gift an Uchiha can give. It's like...giving away a piece of our identity. A piece of who we are. That's why it's not a thing that happens very often. We've always…we were a close-knit clan. Most of our friends were our own flesh and blood." she began, settling into a cross-legged position as she spoke.
"The fact that he was even close with an Uchiha is a little surprising to begin with, and that Uchiha being willing to give up a sharingan to him is just...baffling. It's not my place to judge, since I wasn't there, but I think you can understand why I felt like asking questions." she concluded. Naruto took his time processing the information being presented to him, as there was a considerable volume of it to be reviewed.
"You really miss them, don't you?" he asked after a time. Satsuki's eyes drifted away from him and to the rapidly setting sun on the horizon.
"Of course I do. They were my family. What kind of person wouldn't understand tha-" she started, cutting herself off midway through to give him another uncomfortable look.
"Oh, yeah. I always forget with you." she muttered. Naruto let out a hollow chuckle and scratched the back of his head a tad awkwardly.
"Maybe we should avoid talking about family stuff from here on out. Doesn't seem to do either of us any good when we do." he suggested. Satsuki nodded in agreement and shrugged her shoulders back to return her hair behind her back.
"Or, we could just talk less in general. We always end up at each other's throats." she said with a shrug. Much to the surprise of both of them, Naruto shook his head.
"No, that sounds boring. I like to talk, even if it means having to put up with you." he said. Satsuki raised an eyebrow and folded one of her legs underneath herself to form a makeshift cushion.
"Shikamaru does exist, you know. You're both boys. You probably have more in common." she pointed out. Naruto rolled one of his shoulders to relieve some of the stiffness that had begun to develop in it over time.
"I get a kick out of him when he's in the mood to joke, but he's usually just dry and matter of fact. Sorta boring, if you ask me." he said simply. The Uchiha girl eyed him strangely.
"So, you'd rather take verbal beatings and let me get under your skin than deal with somebody being boring, huh?" she asked. Naruto laughed a bit.
"Yeah, I guess so." he said honestly. Satsuki sighed and stood up to stretch her legs and back, which had both grown sore from remaining seated.
"Well, whatever you're into." she said casually. Though it took him a moment to realize what the comment implied, when he did, Naruto reddened and shot to his feet.
"We both know I didn't mean it like that." he grumbled. In a rare moment of girlishness, Satsuki covered her mouth and giggled at his discomfort.
"Yeah, sure. Tell me if you ever want to be insulted some more. I can scratch that itch any time you want." she joked suggestively, drawing an embarrassed scowl from her teammate.
"You suck." he murmured under his breath as he recomposed herself. The sun then fully passed behind the horizon, leaving the pair in the dead of night atop the forest itself. Both took ample time to admire the finally-visible stars overhead.
"Hey, Naruto." Satsuki said out of the blue after the splendor of the sky had worn away some. The blonde looked back at her for the first time in several minutes.
"What's up? Got another one-liner ready?" he asked only half-jokingly. The Uchiha girl paid his quip no heed and met his eyes reluctantly.
"I'm...sorry for getting rough with you the other night. I still don't like that you went mouth-to-mouth with me, but...you were doing what you thought was necessary. I shouldn't have gotten so nasty about it." she apologized, clearly hating every moment of it as she choked the words out one at a time. Taken aback by her self-awareness, Naruto blinked several times.
"Oh, uh, don't worry about it. It's fine. People have been worse to me before." he said dismissively. Eager to change the topic, the Uchiha girl gestured downward to the far-off forest floor.
"Dinner's probably on soon. We should head back." she said. Seemingly on cue, Naruto's stomach growled, prompting the pair to scale back down to the earth below.
They then returned home in only somewhat uncomfortable silence.
Haku rubbed a bit of sleep out of her eyes as she trekked along through the heavily thicketed forest. The night was dark in general, but the trees blocking out the moon certainly didn't aid in her campaign to traverse the trees without breaking her nose in the bark. An inability to sleep consistently had small benefits if one knew how to optimize the ailment, but at present, the pseudo-insomnia served as nothing more than a nuisance to the girl.
'If days weren't so horribly dull, then maybe I'd be tired enough to pass out.' she silently complained. Spending her days in the barracks of Gato's men was far from ideal, and as such, she took as many chances as she could to wander the nearby forest. The men stared, what few women there were paid her no heed, and the entire facility reeked of blood and alcohol.
'The pigs stare even when I wear my mask. Predators, the lot of them.' she thought to herself as she hopped over a fallen log reflexively. She had no particular plans in mind in terms of directionality. All she wished to do was walk. As she did so, she allowed her mind to wander back to the objective of hers and Zabuza's presence in the Land of Waves.
'The moment negotiations end between Zabuza-sama and that tiny wretch, we get to work. I still find it odd that such a powerful man would go to such lengths to eliminate a single bridge builder, but it matters little.' she pondered, ducking under a branch as the thoughts bounced around in her mind.
'That team of genin has nothing for us. Though, Kakashi Hatake certainly poses a threat. I wonder, could the children be leveraged against him?' she wondered to herself. As she recalled the team she had momentarily glimpsed during the encounter, her mind returned to another scenario entirely from three days prior.
'To think that a trained Shinobi would sleep unguarded in foreign territory is beyond me. I could have slit his throat eight different ways by the time he noticed me.' she mused. Despite her bafflement at the boy she'd encountered's lack of concern, she found herself chuckling at the memory.
'He was fun to tease. Very quick triggers. Quite a sharp boy, too.' she thought to herself. She had very much enjoyed her brief encounter with the Ninja named Shikamaru, much in contrast to her better judgement. A darker look then eliminated her small laughs and smiles.
'...and he'll be dead within a week. A friend made, an obituary written.' she thought to herself with a long sigh. It was bleak in and of itself that a single, not particularly warm conversation with another person even remotely close to her age had registered as a friendship in Haku's mind, and she knew it. With a shake of her head, she continued on with her aimless walk. As time went on, the presence of a light in the distance ahead of her grew more and more potent.
The closer she drew to it, the more of where and what it was she could make out. Slowly but surely, she deduced that the light was streaming out from the window of a house just outside the reach of the forest. Suddenly feeling quite intrigued, Haku picked up the pace at which she was walking. Within two minutes, she emerged from the forest onto the edge of a clearing, where the house sat in the center. She then focused her eyes on what laid within the dwelling.
When she identified the contents of the house, her eyes widened just a tad. Sitting around what seemed to be a dinner table was the exact same team of Ninja she had encountered at the river, alongside the bridge builder they had so fiercely defended.
'So...this is where they went. I figured they had to be nearby.' she thought to herself with assessing eyes. The longer she looked, the more she came to realize just how golden an opportunity she had stumbled upon purely by chance.
'I could clean this up right here and now. It would only take a few moments.' she thought to herself. There was a simple, clear line of sight at the bridge builder's neck, and the window was a crack open. She possessed a level of accuracy well beyond what would have been required to make the shot count. Reaching into a small pocket on the side of her sundress, Haku produced a pair of senbon needles.
"Sit still, would you." she muttered as the old man shifted around in his seat while speaking to the others at the table. Eventually, the bridge builder settled into place with his neck still easily exposed.
"Checkmate…" Haku whispered, rearing her arm back to complete the task that had randomly fallen into her lap. Just as she began to perform the killing motion to throw the senbon, however, a familiar face, and neck, obstructed her target. Shikamaru had leaned across the table to retrieve something. His sudden appearance in her line of sight caused Haku to flinch. As such, when she threw the first needle, her aim was jerkish and altered.
With a surprisingly loud clicking sound, her senbon bounced off the window, instantly drawing the attention of those within the house. Luckily for her, Haku still dwelled just within the shadow of the forest, thus rendering her effectively invisible from such a distance.
'There goes my chance.' she thought to herself as the Ninja within the house blindly stared in her direction. Well aware that it would be known to her only, Haku locked eyes with Shikamaru, who had been responsible for ruining her aim.
'Troublesome boy. Of all the times.' she grumbled within her mind, though she couldn't find it within herself to conjure up any real disdain. With a shake of her head, Haku turned her back to the house and slinked back into the forest once again.
Unbeknownst to her, while all the rest had returned to their dinner, Shikamaru's eyes were still firmly locked in her direction as she walked away.
A/N: I'm really sorry for the extended wait on this chapter. I tried to build a little bit of tension near the end, and I enjoyed writing a friendly-ish scene between Naruto and Satsuki
Not long till the bridge. Tell me what you thought of this chapter in a review :)
See you next chapter! Read and Review!
