Sakiko

"Gennosuke, wait for me!" the girl with the long, white hair called to the small, slender child who walked down the well-worn path bounded by scrub forest that lead out from the village. Under a cloudless sky of blazing blue she raced to catch up with him, her sandaled feet rustling through the dry grass.

The lusterless, curly lavender-haired boy shrank a little as she fell in beside him. "Hi, Sakiko," he muttered in a distant voice.

The girl caught her breath and winced slightly from the sudden exertion. Though ninja-trained and naturally quite strong from her Kaguya heritage, she'd been up since before dawn toiling in the fields and tending to the livestock that helped feed their communal enclave – work enough to tire just about anyone.

"You ok?" asked Gennosuke who noticed with an upward glance -- a veritable outpouring of compassion coming from him.

"Yes, just a bit sore from practice, that's all."

The boy really wasn't fit for much in the way of hard labor and thus had been excused from farm duties. He wasn't very strong, tired easily and almost melted beneath the rays of the tiny island's unrelenting sun. Sakiko didn't want to remind him of that though she suspected that Gennosuke could see through her well-intentioned lie. For a little kid, he was uncommonly perspicacious.

"So where is it you're going?" she inquired with a casual lilt.

"The bluffs."

"You like that place, don't you. I've seen you up there from time to time, looking out over the ocean."

"Mmm-hmmm, it helps me think."

The Kaguya scion cast him a wry look. "You think too much," she put forth half-teasingly, "you ought to spend more time training."

"I know," answered Gennosuke, shifting with discomfort, "but I'm no good at it."

Sakiko's pale brows rose at her fellow ninja aspirant's surprising candor, and couldn't help but feel a little impressed by it.

"It takes time," she mused in sympathy then made an effort to be helpful: "Besides, tai-jutsu is only one facet of the shinobi's art. There're nin and gen-jutsu too which Tohma-sensei says you have a natural aptitude for. And don't forget your Serizawa bloodline. Once that manifests fully --."

"I don't think it's that kind of gift," Gennosuke broke in glumly, "one that's any good."

The girl frowned, saddened by her younger companion's hasty conclusion.

Since Gennosuke had come to the enclave, steered by Tohma-sensei's factors scattered throughout Water Country, Sakiko had presumed that there was little more to the boy's personality than the little-kid petulance that usually poured from him like steam from a roiling kettle. Only now that they'd started communicating on a level slightly more advanced than a habitual swapping of insults did she find that he too bore the scars that came from having grown up under hard circumstances.

"I don't know," Sakiko offered wistfully, "I think being able to project your consciousness sounds, well…delightful."

The boy's withering sideways glance made her feel like she'd said something unpardonably stupid. "I'd trade YOU any day," said Gennosuke, whose rust-colored eyes swiveled back to stare straight ahead.

As cormorants circled above them, drifting in the hot, coastal wind, Sakiko expressed a sigh. "Being descended from the Kaguya is not without its difficulties."

The girl left it at that, not wanting to say too much more for her own sake more than his. She remembered all too well sensei's sober discussion with her of a future fraught with potential medical difficulties arising from her genetic heritage…perhaps even madness. Tensai, if anything, was proof enough of that.

No, Gennosuke, thought Sakiko, you would not want to trade with me no matter how great and terrible you think my shikotsumyaku powers of bone manipulation are; not for anything in the world.

"Have you," she added, changing the subject, "have you told Tohma-sensei about your dreams yet?"

"Uhn-uh," Gennosuke answered at which Sakiko shot him a look.

"Why ever not?"

The boy with the pale, purple hair shrugged.

"Gennosuke," she advised insistently, "you really should. Being who you are, it could be important."

A sour grimace crossed his young face.

"Lord Tsujita will be leaving for Kirigakure soon. You'll HAVE to tell sensei before then," she explained and added firmly: "If YOU don't, I will!"

"NO!" yelped Gennosuke defensively, jumping like a startled cat. He then reigned himself back and offered in quiet frustration, "Don't do that, Sakiko. Sensei has his heart set on this and besides, it was only a dumb dream."

"But you don't really know, do you." Sakiko shook her head in admonition. "Don't tell me you've forgotten why we're all living together, trapped on this barely habitable little scrap of an island, descendants of the Tsujita, Kaguya, Nikai and you, a Serizawa?" The girl looked off into the forest of short, gnarled trees whose stubborn, fan-like roots clutched the rocky terrain like flexed fingers. Just the bleak sight of them, so familiar she could have painted the scene blindfolded, made her cringe inside and yearn for a bigger, more beautiful world. "You of all people," Sakiko continued, "should appreciate how real and potent all our abilities are, so much so that an entire country hated us enough to hunt us down just for having them.

"Well?" she added emphatically when her younger companion didn't answer.

Sakiko looked down at Gennosuke, her expression cross, but he wasn't paying attention. The boy had suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, mouth agape and reddish-brown eyes wide with shock.

The girl quickly turned to follow her classmate's frozen gaze then shrieked at the sight of the ghastly, man-like monster that had emerged from the winding, rugged path before them.

Matted, grey hair hung in creeper-like draperies over a haunted and hollow pale face from which bloodshot eyes blazed. The apparition's back was hunched; it's skin sallow and clinging to a skeletal frame. Portions of its flesh – its hands, feet, ears and nose were blackened with leprous rot, decayed enough here and there to let through harrowing glimpses of glistening, white bone.

The girl quaked, paralyzed with fright, before her training and the fierceness of her bloodline asserted itself and she dropped into a fighting stance. Daggers of bone, razor-edged and stronger than steel, sprang from the heels of her hands – all this an instant before she recognized just who this ghastly visitor was.

"T-Tensai?" Sakiko stammered in disbelief, blinked then stared for long moments as time itself seemed to crawl to a stop. The girl's weapons retreated back beneath her pale skin then she staggered forward a step. "Brother!?"

Gennosuke glanced frantically back and forth between the two of them then launched himself at Sakiko in an attempted tackle but misjudged. His face thudded off the girl's waist and hips and the boy ended up on the ground clutching tightly around her leg.

"Gennosuke!" snapped Sakiko as she squirmed in his unimpressive grip. "What are you doing?!"

"Stay away from him! Your brother's bat sh-t crazy; he could KILL you!" the boy screeched in a voice pitched with emotion.

Sakiko shoved him off then glared, thrusting a hostile finger at him. "I'm GOING! And don't you dare try to stop me!" she declared angrily, stalked away then went to her brother.

The white-haired girl slowed as she drew closer to the unexpected visitor, her resolve fading into apprehension before her sibling's gruesome visage coupled with Gennosuke's warning.

It's…it's been months! she remembered vividly, and that even then her elder's sanity had hung by a very thin thread.

Just the sight of him was enough to bring a lump to her throat – that this…this creature, this chilling vision could be her own brother!

"Tensai?" Sakiko greeted with quiet, tentative hope, forced herself to look closer into that once familiar and beloved face and was at last rewarded with a blessed glimmer of recognition.

"Tensai," she sang softly then took him in her arms and cried into his boney chest: "Heaven and Earth! LOOK at you. Just LOOK at you! What have you DONE to yourself?"

The figure, her brother, slowly encircled her in his arms and Sakiko could feel just how weak he had become despite his frightening appearance. "Sister," he whispered in a croaking voice that sounded every bit as sepulchral as he looked. "I'm so sorry for making you worry for me. But please, you must take me at once to Tohma-sensei. I…I've done something terrible."

The girl shuddered, not wanting to let her imagination roam where a cryptic statement like that might lead, not wanting to do with any truth that would spoil this reunion. She clutched him even closer.

"Sakiko, listen," said Tensai with a quiet intensity that made her listen, "I've discovered something – the Aramata clan…has a living heir!"


Haku

Not having much experience at all in entertaining friends, Haku did the best he could and took Naruto on a tour of the Land of Waves which had undergone an almost unimaginable transformation since the leaf-genin had been here last.

The construction that fanned out from the bridge that carried the blond leaf-ninja's name was impressive as an attraction in its own right, employing thousands of workers throughout dozens of trades. The old hovels, derelict squats and abandoned buildings of sun-baked wooden planks and sheet metal roofs splotched with rust had all been cleared away. Taking their stead stood prouder structures of reinforced masonry, pre-cast or aerated concrete panels clad with handsome brick and stone. Some few were much bolder architectural expressions with steel frames that reached up and out like sculptors' fantasies, expansive glass walls, or tantalizingly heroic spans that would, when complete, be roofed by hyperbolically-curved canopies of thin-shelled concrete.

Naruto looked around in awe. He'd never seen so much activity anywhere, or so much equipment -- entire fleets of growling, smoke-gusting dump trucks, flatbeds and concrete mixers to loaders, graders and back-hoes, all of which were regulated to near non-existence within the borders of Fire Country…or anywhere else he'd visited for that matter!

Haku guided his guest into a cage-framed elevator that whirled them up to the top of one of the tower cranes which afforded a breathtaking view of the new city taking shape below. From there, they toured the more interesting and scenic parts of the island – the forests and rocky high grounds, to an old factory complex which lay broken apart and eerily half-submerged into the earth as the result of a mist-ANBU assault.

After that, Haku took Naruto snorkeling in the semi-tropical island's clear, warm waters that were home to vast varieties of colorful fish and fanciful corals, where they spent most of the day.

As the sun set, and at Naruto's loud and insistent urging, the two then hit the amusement halls – hasty and temporary things of gaudily-painted plywood and canvas where crowds gathered, lights flashed and music blared. The two ninjas played pachinko and foosball. Though Haku succeeded in steering his hyperactive guest away from the dice games and three-card Monte dealers, they got hustled badly at billiards but then more than made up the losses with a few games of darts. After winning several rounds and dispensing easily with all challengers, Haku ended up drawing quite an audience with a few captivating trick shots: blindfolded; over-the-shoulder-behind-the-back; from a two-fingered handstand; then, with his back to the target, tossing the dart over his head before kicking it with the sole of his foot and sending the missile spinning into the bulls-eye, dead center.

For whatever reason, Naruto was desperate that they stay a little later for a few rounds of karaoke where Haku's flat contralto did absolutely nothing to improve Naruto's gravelly tenor – two bad singing voices made worse by the attempt at harmony. The pair got booed out of the building.


Getting on into well after dark, Haku and Naruto walked down the thinning Wave Country streets. The taller ninja appeared thoughtful while his blond companion grinned ear to ear, holding in both hands his gama-chan money pouch which was so fat from the night's winnings that the poor little frog couldn't even close its wide mouth anymore.

"Hehehe!" exulted Naruto with an ear-to-ear grin; pleased to the point of bursting. "That was FUN!" he gushed then quickly added: "but is there anyplace to eat around here, I'm STARVING. See?" The blond yanked up his cream-colored t-shirt to show ribs.

Haku chuckled with surprise at his companion's quirky, inimitable expressiveness then cast a look around. It was only the middle part of the evening but already things were closing up.

"What's WITH this place?" asked Naruto in annoyance, piercing blue eyes narrowing critically. "Konoha isn't exactly a party town either, but even IT stays open later than this!"

"Shhh," Haku cautioned him gently. "Be careful. There's no reason leaf-ninja can't be here but you still don't want to announce it with so many irritable mist-ninja around."

"Oh! Right," agreed the blond in a secretive tone.

"Anyway, to answer your question, most of the work crews start before dawn so the restaurants don't stay open very late. Oh," the black-haired teenager's face lit, "I do know one place we could try as a last resort."

Haku lead his hungry guest around the edge of the new construction, through an angular maze of temporary 'safety corridors' hammered together from plywood and orange fencing, to a old waterfront warehouse from which savory cooking aromas wafted.

Though it hardly seemed inviting, the former Demon's Apprentice guided a puzzled Naruto through a loading dock, along aisle-ways stockpiled with dry beans, rice and canned goods stored in palettes stacked two stories high, then followed the scents to an expansive commercial kitchen located in the back corner partitioned by sheet plastic.

After a few words with one of the staff, Haku took Naruto up some wooden stairs to a mezzanine where a few small, rough-cut tables and folding chairs used apparently by employees during their breaks sat.

"O…kay," the blond began uncertainly as he settled in, looking around curiously at the thick-membered wooden trusses above then the sacks of dry goods and sundry personal possessions, "so what's THIS place?"

Haku nodded, understanding the young leaf-ninja's misgivings. "The Double Harmony Noodle Franchise prepares all its food here," he reported diligently. "At lunch time and after work around the construction sites you can't turn around without running into one of their carts; it's quite an enterprise. Anyway, they close late and there's almost always somebody here."

Naruto's nose wrinkled. "Do they really serve people here too?"

"Um, no," his host admitted awkwardly. "They're not supposed to but the chefs make a special case for me because they know I'm a constable. I shouldn't take advantage like that, I know."

The genin nodded immediately in comprehension then shot him a mischievous, conspiratorial grin. "Why not? Every job's got to have some special perks, right?"

Haku smiled back but shook his head. "No, Naruto, it's still an abuse of power. Though it's a small service, the people who work here might conclude that because they've done ME a favor that I owe them one. Or, just as easily, they might assume that if they denied me then I would use my powers as a constable to make trouble for them.

"In any case, I should be much more careful about such matters," he observed as a man came up the stairs carrying a tray atop which rested two huge, piping bowls. "Oh, I hope you like ramen," offered Haku in an apologetic tone, "It's all they have."


"This is great!" laughed Naruto after his third bowl. "I can hardly believe it, just a few DAYS ago I thought you were dead and now we're friends and everything!"

Haku gave the blond a fond smile at the summation and nodded. "Life's funny like that, I suppose," he replied then raised an eyebrow. "I have to say I was quite worried and thought you might be dead too after I'd learned that Konohagakure had been invaded."

"Hmm, yeah," said Naruto whose yellow brow knitted at the recent memory. "That was right during the chunin exams. Nobody saw it coming either." A somber expression crept over his whisker-marked face. "That's when the Third Hokage died."

The taller ninja nodded in appreciation, reading from his visitor's tone and the stillness in his sapphire eyes how dear the previous ninja-lord must have been to him. From Naruto's friendly, self-assured demeanor and the loyalty of his friends, Kakashi, Sakura and Sasuke, it had been easy to imagine the leaf-ninja's life as being near carefree.

Perhaps, Haku reconsidered, that was only wishful thinking.

"It was hard for you," asked Naruto, though it wasn't really a question, in a surprisingly subdued and thoughtful voice, "wasn't it."

Haku looked up from his thoughts, knowing what the blond meant – the sum of the last eight months since they'd met last, recovering from his near-death at the hands of Kakashi, the death of his master Zabuza then finding a new path in life. He supposed Naruto might have gone through something similar following Lord Sarutobi's passage.

"Yes," Haku answered simply. "My Master Zabuza was my whole world. Following him, helping him fulfill his dreams, being a weapon at his side was all I knew. And that was greatly fulfilling to me." The teenager looked off. This was still a hard story to tell, but he was grateful to have in his new-found friend a receptive and understanding ear. "When Mari told me he was dead, I didn't know what I would do for a long time. Although, in retrospect," he went on, "I didn't have much of a choice BUT to persevere. To give in to my injuries or the let ANBU kill me," Haku's brow narrowed, "that's not how Zabuza trained me…although I'm not at all sure he would approve of what I've chosen to do with my life instead either."

The boy sitting across the table from him nodded with awkward sympathy.

"But what about you?" offered Haku, who was bound and determined NOT to go on and on and talk Naruto into a coma as he had last time. Not that he had a very good understanding about what friends usually talked to each other about, but the teenager didn't want to push the limits. Besides all that, Haku WAS genuinely curious. "I can't even imagine what kinds of trouble you must have gotten into."

"Well it hasn't been easy!" Naruto declared eagerly, an honest assessment delivered with a confident grin, and Haku could tell from the look on the smaller ninja's face that he should get ready for an earful -- the floodgates were about to open!


Between greedy chews and slurps of his ramen, Naruto poured out a series of adventures told as an almost continuous stream of consciousness: the chunin exams, the Forest of Death, then a strange new mentor named Jiraiya who'd taught Naruto how to balance his chakra and summon giant toads (!?). There were one-on-one combats where Naruto had managed to defeat Kiba…and then Neji! There was the Sound and Sand's invasion, and the almost overwhelmingly malevolent presence of a sand-shinobi named Gaara whose father, the fourth Kazekage, had sealed inside the young red-head the powerful sand-spirit, Ichibi no Shukaku.

The young ninja's narrative crested intensely as he described saving his partner, Sakura and very probably the entire Hidden Leaf Village from Gaara's wrath in a truly horrific battle that flattened the forested landscape and left both warriors spent but Naruto victorious. In the end, though Konoha had suffered great loss of life including Lord Sarutobi's, the village had prevailed.

Haku sat back and rubbed his delicate chin, grey eyes wide. As astonishingly epic and unexpected a tale as Naruto had just related, the teenager was quite taken too with the completely novel idea that Konoha's Third Hokage had been as much the wise and kindly grandfather, a friend and mentor, as he'd been a ninja lord, and had actually given his life to protect those of his people. That was a far cry from Kiri's Lord Oku, the Fourth Mizukage who'd fled before Master Zabuza's onslaught, willing enough to let his ninja praetorian fall under the decapitating, whirlwind sweeps of the Demon of the Hidden Mist's blood-drenched zanbato.

Naruto, meanwhile, launched with barely a pause into his encounters with the notorious snake-sannin, Orochimaru -- a missing leaf-ninja who'd descended to evil's most narcissistic depths, the kage of the Village Hidden in the Sound and architect of the invasion of Konoha as well as, Haku had no doubt, his former village's forbidden eugenics program.

As the energetic young ninja continued, with hands flying this way and that for emphasis when they weren't drawing up broth-steeped morsels of pork or shrimp or lengths of draping noodles from his bowl, Haku couldn't help but be a little troubled by the continuing back-story of Naruto and Sasuke's increasingly bitter relationship. It cut across what he'd always assumed about their friendship since the first battle at the bridge where the two genin had been willing to give their very lives for one another.

But, the black-haired teenager realized, things weren't always what they seemed, and feelings, he knew, not just love, could flare up or die out for a thousand reasons or for no reason at all.

He of course remembered from his chance conversation with Sakura that Sasuke, shockingly, had left the village to become Orochimaru's disciple.

Haku listened intently, hanging on every word, as Naruto told him in a grave, more intense voice about a fight he'd had with Sasuke on a Konoha rooftop where things had seemingly come to a head -- a fierce battle that ended without conclusion only due to Kakashi-sensei's intervention.

People who care for each other DO fight, Haku considered after the initial shock.

After all, he and Mari fought, well, argued, fairly frequently. And she and all her brothers fought in the very literal sense almost constantly – some day-to-day bickering here, some harsh words, a push, pinch or shove there which sometimes erupted into screaming, shouting, red-in-the-face, furniture-breaking, plaster-shattering, clothes-tearing, dishes flying, punching, kicking, biting and hair-pulling all-out brawls.

As puzzling as these interactions were to someone who'd grown up alone, Haku had come to conclude from what he'd experienced in his new roles as boyfriend, sensei, brother and constable that disputes were inherent to any kind of relationship; and that it was the boundaries of those disputes shaped by compassion, regard, humility and respect that formed the real demarcation between love and hate, compromise and selfishness. As savagely as Mari and/or her brothers went at each other from time to time they ALWAYS stopped when blood was drawn or tears flowed…or they broke something that could not easily be concealed from their mom and dad.

As Naruto was describing Sasuke though, it sounded like the odds of the Uchiha crossing that line were all but certain.

When the blue-eyed leaf-ninja reached the part where his partner left the Hidden Leaf Village in the company of the snake-sannin's minions, it came as no surprise. What Haku hadn't expected though was that Naruto and most of his class of genin had then been sent, not to kill Sasuke, but to bring him back!

Haku blinked at that, not really understanding what Lady Tsunade planned to DO with the renegade once back in her custody though he thought the idea seemed noble considering everything Sasuke and his Uchiha clan had endured.

Haku listened breathlessly then as Naruto went on to recount his and his friends' terrible contests against Orochimaru's 'Sound Four,' and startled at the blond genin's battle with their leader -- a deadly and capable Kaguya descendant named Kimimaro.

Another Kaguya!? Zabuza's disciple marveled as the idea struck him that there really could be more from Water Country's blood-gifted clans who survived the massacres than he'd thought.

As bizarre as the story had become between where Naruto had started and where he finally caught up with Sasuke at the Valley at the End, Haku didn't know what to expect but was more than a little glad that Naruto was right there sitting across from him as proof positive that he'd survived.

Haku grimaced as the climactic moment to Naruto's tale swept him in – with Sasuke shoving a blazing chidori through the genin's chest, the blond actually managing to recover then grabbing the Uchiha by the ankles and 'cracking the whip' with him clear across the valley where they fought into a cliff face using a chain formed by a few hundred shadow clones! But the raven-haired fugitive, far from being defeated, morphed into some sort of kabuki-haired, black-eyed, black-lipped monster with an ebony tattoo marking in the middle of his face and giant hands for wings! The real battle had only begun!

When Naruto finished, Haku could only stare at him in amazement. The former Demon's Apprentice blew out a breath then tried a bite of his remaining ramen but it had grown cold. How sad. If it was too hot, he could easily cool it…but too cold – there wasn't much he could do about that.

"Wow," muttered Haku with a dumb look, "I…I really don't know what to say."

He looked again at Naruto who, after so much excited talking and reliving in some ways his victories and defeats, had fallen into an uneasy silence. The older ninja wondered why for a moment before it dawned on him – all those times throughout Naruto's story where he'd suddenly and inexplicably erupted with power, enough to defeat Neji, or Gaara, or fight Sasuke armed with his sharingan, not to mention the power of his new master's cursed seal. That there was another story behind just how he'd been able to do all those things was hard to talk around, though Naruto had tried.

Or perhaps that WAS Naruto's way of broaching the subject: by not talking about it, realizing that Haku was sure to notice and fill in the gaps himself.

That 'other' chakra inside him, Haku remembered vividly as a frown settled over his face.

Back during that first battle at the bridge, faced with certain defeat and agonized over Sasuke's apparent death, Naruto had suddenly become possessed with a chakra unlike any Haku ever could have imagined – red and savage, dark, elemental and nearly limitless in its power. The more than a dozen puncture wounds the boy had sustained evaporated almost instantly in a surge of energy that enabled him to avoid Haku's blows, resist his senbon, surpass his speed then seize his masked enemy and shatter the Demon's Apprentice's Crystal Ice Mirrors like they were nothing.

All of that, Haku had no doubt, was only the merest expression of what the young leaf-genin's monstrous energies were capable of. The black-haired ninja had thought about that from time to time and was fairly sure of what the preternatural source of that power had to be. Within the realm of possibilities, there simply weren't that many explanations.

Leveling grey eyes at Naruto, the young ninja half-expected to see in Naruto a tiny glimpse of that terrible power sequestered inside him once again -- what might be the Hidden Leaf Village's ultimate weapon, the Nine-Tailed Fox!

But the boy across the table from him only sat, caged in sad silence, his chopsticks stirring idly at what little remained at the bottom of his bowl. Beneath Naruto's crown of wild, yellow hair, his sapphire eyes stared downcast, unable to look at Haku in fear of what they might see in his face.

Haku's lips fell open as he blinked; guilt lancing him. "Naruto," the taller ninja stammered at once, swallowed then said, meaning every word: "I don't care how you survived and did all those things…only that you're here now."

The blond looked up as if rescued, the depth of the relief he felt evident in his expression. He gave a quick, grateful smile then moved on to what he must have wanted to ask someone for a long time: "Why did Sasuke leave like that? Throw us all aside like we were nothing, like we were garbage," he rasped bitterly in a cracking voice, "to join up with that, that snake-faced creep!"

Haku frowned and shook his head. "I'd only be guessing, Naruto. My clan was killed too, but I never knew them so I don't feel the hurt of their absence like Sasuke must have." The teenager went on, knowing he related nothing Naruto didn't already know, but that 'knowing' and 'accepting' were two entirely different things. Maybe, Haku thought, hearing it from someone else might help him bridge that gap. "Then there's his brother who is not only still at liberty after committing such atrocities but seems to be making it a point to goad his little brother into seeking vengeance."

Naruto frowned, understanding the explanation in his head but still refusing it in his heart.

"Being an Uchiha too," Haku added in a speculative tone, "must carry a weight – the weight of that clan's history, the expectations of having to live up to the name, how some people fear the mysterious powers of their sharingan while others seek to exploit it. It could never have been easy for him, no matter how talented Sasuke is. And then --," he began but abruptly let the words trail off.

Thankfully, Naruto didn't notice.

And then, Haku continued to himself, any clan that has a kekkei-genkai developed it by manipulating its own bloodlines. It stands to reason that their members might turn out to have… The ninja toyed with any number of ways to put it but settled with the almost-misleadingly innocuous phrase: unintended idiosyncrasies.

The older ninja hummed thoughtfully, remembering that he too held secrets too uncomfortable to divulge outright even to a friend.

"At any rate," Haku concluded in a lighter tone, feeling a little guilty that he was about to distract his friend so inelegantly, "that was quite a battle you described. All the training you've done, jutsu you've mastered and progress you've made. I'm very, very impressed!"

Naruto grinned sheepishly. "Yeah," he agreed but only to a point, "even though I lost the fight I wanted to win the most."

"You can't win all the time," said Haku with a gentle shake of his head,

"Mmm-hmm, and that really was, like, my toughest fight ever." Naruto shivered then rubbed the side of his chest reflexively as he remembered. "Man," he blurted as a sour look came over his face, "that chidori really, really hurt!"

"Really?" gasped Haku in feigned shock, "tell me about it."

"Well, YEAH – the heat, the bright flash and then there's the – OH!" yelped Naruto, eyes wide. "Sorry," the boy amended in a panic, "I FORGOT!"

Haku stared for a moment as if insulted but then laughed, "you FORGOT?" letting Naruto know he didn't hold it against him. The teenager, who'd been Zabuza Momochi's sole disciple, wondered at how different things seemed in hindsight…and the things he could now find humor in.

"Hey! I've been talking non-stop!" Naruto grumbled light-heartedly then rocked forward over the table to give his host a shove. "YOU'RE the one who's supposed to be dead; what have YOU been up to all this time?!"

Haku went blank at the question. "Uh," he muttered awkwardly. "Not…not that much, really. It's just that --. It all seems kind of, well," he was forced to admit, "a bit boring compared to everything you've done."

Naruto frowned and waved off his host's reservations. "It's not boring to ME," he piped vigorously then coaxed: "Come on, TELL me!" The blond leaned forward, rested his chin in both hands, grinned like a Cheshire cat then added: "tellme-tellme-tellme-tellme-tellme!"

Haku couldn't help but brighten at his friend's silliness. "Alright," he agreed reluctantly as it became Naruto's turn to settle in to listen. "I guess it begins just after our fight…with a girl and an undertaker's cart."