I just want to go ahead and say thank you for all the wonderful reviews. They're very encouraging, and I'm glad you enjoy the story so far. Don't be afraid to slap me around in them a bit, if necessary. I can take it.
Yes, this is Life; and everywhere we meet,
Not victor crowns, but wailings of defeat;
Yet faint thou not, thou dost apply a test,
That shall incite thee onward, upward still,
The present can not sate or e'er thy spirit fill.
-from The Unattained by Elizabeth Oakes Smith
July 2, 104 A.F., 10:00 a.m.
It was winter again in Konoha. Snow was falling, lakes had frozen over, and everyone bundled up with whatever they could find. And, of course, it was July.
"Gah! I hate the snow!" a snow-flake covered person snapped. "Hate it, hate it, hate it!" He began to dance around as he chanted the same phrase over and over and over. It was the first time in...he honestly couldn't say how long, but it had been awhile since it had last gotten so cold. Even when he focused, all he could recall was a vague feeling of unease that he associated with the freezing temperatures. And he hated being afraid or uneasy. Therefore, he was dead serious when he said he hated the snow.
However, he also just plain loved annoying the teenager standing next to him. It was sort of a...pet project of his, and it was working wonderfully.
"As do we all," his partner snapped back, "but must you whine about it every second of the day?"
He paused in his dancing and chanting as he thought about that for a moment. The older boy did have a point. "You know, you're right."
"Hn."
"It is rather frustrating."
"Hn."
"Sometimes, complaining for so long is bad for you."
"Hn!"
"Right! So I should let it out all at once! And so should you!"
"...Hn...?"
Naruto didn't let that deter him. "That's right, my friend! You shouldn't hold in your emotions all day any more than I should constantly express a single one! Both options are bad for your health!"
All he received in response this time was a glare.
But the younger boy would take what he could get and decided to translate it into some form of agreement. "Oh, yes! You see, you've been bottling it all up inside, poor guy. It'd probably make you feel a lot better to get it out of your system, just like going pee after drinking a gallon of water all at once! After all, it—GAK!"
The ninja who now had his hands strangling his partner's throat slammed the boy up against the village gates they'd been assigned to guard. "Be silent!" He abruptly let the boy go and settled back against the wall, ignoring his fellow ANBU member.
Naruto, however, rubbed his throat unconcernedly and was only able to hide his smirk thanks to his blank, white mask. He felt no sorrow and rather enjoyed the fact that he, Naruto Uzumaki, had gotten under "the prodigy" Itachi Uchiha's skin and made the little jerk finally show some form of humanity, even if it was only anger. The blonde hated that flat, unemotional stare that practically seeped from the ANBU captain. He didn't just wear a mask; he was a mask! Most days, the older boy's chakra didn't even flicker with a hint of emotion, and he would know! At seven years old, Naruto was already the best sensor the village had, not that it was acknowledged publicly, as only a handful of people knew.
Presently, the Hokage, Ibiki, Kakashi, Idate, Rin, and a handful of ANBU, including Tiger and the Commander, were aware of his abilities, and he found himself very grateful for that. It allowed him to look underneath the underneath so very easily because it was difficult to hide things from him. Naruto had found he liked that; he liked knowing what people were thinking very much.
But still, this unemotional block of ice surprised him. Itachi had recently been promoted to captain, and the seven-year-old just happened to be the genius's first trainee. After he'd shown himself capable of leadership and gotten used to his role for a few months—it'd only been two and a half so far—the Commander would add on another member or two. No matter how skilled, the Uchiha was still just barely a teen and needed time to grow into his own.
So, Naruto was the black-haired teen's first teammate/partner/trainee. Needless to say, one of them was distinctly unhappy about it, and it wasn't the blonde. However, he refused to work with an emotionless, self-destructive drone,as he was well aware that it wasn't healthy for Itachi to be that way. And thus, his self-appointed mission: annoy the fire out of the Uchiha.
It was so far proving to be immensely successful. Naruto found himself snickering at the sight of the somewhat embarrassed teenager standing next to him. He could easily sense the chakra arching slightly. Spikes, he'd learned through experience, indicated things like sharp or quick emotions. Arches were more subtle, longer-lasting, and typically represented emotions that were less intense. It meant that Itachi was embarrassed, but not quite enough to suit the seven-year-old.
Time to up the ante.
Naruto kept snickering.
"Shut up," Itachi growled through a clenched jaw.
But the blonde wasn't fooled. "You feel better now, don't you, 'Tachi-chan?" he teased. Really, any other ANBU member would've shut up before that point. Angering captains was highly inadvisable, after all. But Naruto had long since learned the art of B.S. and its ninja offshoot, the Puppy-dog Eyes jutsu.
The very powerful Uchiha's hands tightened considerably, but he couldn't deny what the blonde boy—his partner—had said. "I'd feel even better if you let me strangle you a little longer."
"Eh. Maybe later." And maybe he should tread just a little more lightly if his, well, boss was already giving death threats.
The captain ground his teeth rather audibly. "I find myself eternally grateful that my brother's not like this."
"Not like what?" Naruto noticed a very slight spike of chakra and blinked in confusion for a moment at the emotion that particular one represented: fear. 'That's odd, but...it's not the first time that's happened. Why?' It had been going on for several weeks, in fact, and it always seemed to resolve around the thirteen-year-old's family. 'Why?' Naruto asked himself again. He had yet to find a reason and it was driving him nuts!
Itachi snorted. "Annoying like you. Now, be silent. This is a mission, Trainee Uzumaki."
Naruto rolled his eyes and promptly forgot about the spike he'd felt. Just like that, Itachi's emotionless facade was back up. "Sure thing, Captain Bastard," he muttered. Oooh, how he hated that deep, arrogant voice the young teen had! It was so wrong! Sure, he was only seven, but still, why did his have to be so...squeaky in comparison?
Then, the blonde Uzumaki thought about it for a moment and realized something Perhaps the question wasn't why his voice was squeaky but why Itachi's voice wasn't. After all, shouldn't his captain have been going through puberty? Naruto wondered...
"Hey, 'Tachi-chan?"
The older male sighed. "What," he deadpanned.
"Do you take steroids?"
12:20 p.m.
Sarutobi swirled water around in a glass as he read over the reports his ANBU Commander had sent him. The information in them was making him rather uncomfortable. For several months after the Kyuubi attack, he'd stationed ANBU teams nearby the Uchiha in order to keep a close eye on that clan. That had been his first mistake. After finding nothing amiss, he'd eventually dropped most of the surveillance. That had been his second mistake.
The facts didn't lie. An Uchiha had been controlling the Kyuubi that night; they'd all seen its eyes and the same thing had already happened once before, so there was no point in denying it. Had the Uchiha been a missing-nin? Not likely, as all were supposed to be accounted for, but it was a possibility nonetheless. However, even if it had been an enemy, that would not have obliterated the second cold, hard fact: only a very few had even known of Kushina's jinchuuriki status, let alone the fact that she'd been so close to giving birth, and Mikoto Uchiha had been one of them.
The fact that her clan was now planning a coup made her the prime suspect.
Only one thing was saving them all from being killed: Danzo had also known. And it was Danzo who had contacts in foreign lands and was already suspected of high treason in multiple areas. If he'd had any hard evidence, Sarutobi would definitely have had his head on a pike by now. Without it, however, there was little he could do. He couldn't even take ROOT completely away from him for the simple fact that they still needed the shadowy organization to keep their enemies as few as possible. Besides that, the Fire Daimyo liked the cripple, though only the heavens knew why.
All things considered, politically, economically, militarily, and realistically, Danzo was yet untouchable. But as soon as the village had built up enough strength, his old rival would lose his ROOT program and perhaps even his head, if he could get just a little bit of evidence.
The Hokage sighed in irritation. He never should have made those concessions all those years ago.
"Hiruzen, I've got a new training program I'd like to try. Just give me six months with your worst three Genin and I guarantee they'll improve three-fold when I'm through with them!"
And they'd improved drastically, alright, just as Danzo had promised. And they'd even shown none of the brainwashing of his later trainees. No, the lack of emotions had come later, after his old rival had lost his son and started losing his mind slowly but surely as a result. By then, it had been too late; he'd already given Danzo his own ANBU division to train and even send on missions as he saw fit. ROOT always had answered to him and him alone.
At the time, the young Hokage had felt he'd owed it to his friend for taking his dream of being the Third Fire Shadow. They were mostly equal in terms of power even now, and it just hadn't seemed right. Besides, the reasoning had been that Danzo was completely loyal to the village, so what harm could possibly come of it? As it turned out, the answer was "quite a lot." It might very well have been the Third's most foolish mistake of his entire career. In a military, there should never be more than one supreme commander. Sarutobi's mistake...had it already come back to bite him?
Or would it be his mistake of trusting the Uchiha that would destroy them all? The Third got the very uncomfortable feeling that he would find out very soon one way or another.
July 8, 3:16
Kakashi sighed and wiped the sweat from his brow. He was tired, very tired, and with good reason. Ever since Naruto had first come into his life as a toddler, he'd come to realize that he'd been relying on Obito's eye far too much. The training his sensei had beaten into his head as a child had been abandoned as he, the legendary Copy-nin, had let his skills get rusty.
The porn addiction probably hadn't helped, either.
So, there he was, in the middle of "winter," working on his fire jutsu. Practically everyone in the Hidden Leaf Village could use at least one fire attack, but not many had the control to sustain or properly power the techniques. Kakashi did, however, and had decided to take it a step further: shape manipulation.
When he'd created Chidori, he'd had in mind two things. Number one was power. The second was speed. He had wanted a fast and deadly attack—wish granted—but if there was one thing his brilliant mind hadn't counted on, it was the fact that it was so loud. It was an assassination jutsu in the sense that it was a one-hit kill. However, how the heck was he supposed to sneak up on anyone with a jutsu that practically shrieked its existence to the world? To be fair, he wasn't the only assassin with such a problem; noiseless techniques were pretty rare, and those that did exist were typically much weaker, anyway.
Kakashi wasn't giving up, though, just because so many others had failed. If Naruto had taught him anything, it was that it paid to be stubborn. Besides, he wasn't building a move from scratch. No, the last Hatake figured he could simply...recreate it using a quieter element.
First up had been water; it was, after all, the element most commonly used for stealth. But a problem presented itself almost immediately. Water flowed. He needed something that could pierce, and he doubted it could ever be made sharp or sturdy enough. The element was just too flexible. In the end, Kakashi had not recreated the Chidori, although his newly-formed Water Whip was pretty impressive.
Next, he'd tried earth. Dirt was pretty quiet, not to mention easy to mold. Out of all the elements, in fact, more things could be made from the earth element than anything else. Kakashi figured he might as well try it and...got a crude spear made out of compacted ground. Useful? Yes. What he was looking for? No.
Since the Jounin couldn't use wind-based jutsu, his last hope was fire. But that element was notoriously hard to control. It was the reason most people just stayed with giant fireballs and streams of flame; "aim and shoot" was about all the element was good for. But still, Kakashi persisted. Surely, he could salvage something out of his old Chidori.
So far, he'd been getting what amounted to a hand-held torch of sorts. Kakashi wasn't disappointed, though, since most fire jutsu required the user to breathe out the flames and he was literally holding them. Also, he had yet to see if it could pierce, like it was meant to. He'd have to get right to that.
But first...he was pooped.
Time for an Icha Icha break!
And just as he sat down against a tree with very little snow under it and pulled out his trusty reading material, an old friend decided to pop up.
A set of green spandex-covered legs with orange legwarmers came into view right on the edge of his vision. "Kakashi! My Eternal Rival! How goes this fine day for you?"
He sighed and hung his head dejectedly. He hadn't even read the first paragraph... "Hey, Gai. Day was going just fine."
Gai struck a pose and the sunlight glinted off his impossibly white teeth. "That is wonderful, Eternal Rival! And do I detect a bit of glorious, glistening sweat on your forehead?"
Kakashi wanted to cry. "Yes, Gai. I was training-"
"TRAINING! My youthful Rival, how could you train and not invite me? Are we not bosom buddies?"
That sent a massive shiver up Kakashi's spine. "Uh, Gai, please don't ever say that about me again. I'm your friend, but we are not 'bosom' anything." He shuddered. "Geez, do you go out of your way to sound like a homosexual...?"
Gai blinked. "Uh...I am afraid I do not understand you, my Eternal Rival. But perhaps you could make up for your oversight by showing me how you have improved, and then I can show you the new taijutsu style I have been studying!"
"...I'm taking a break right now. How about we have a competition to see who can be quietest longest?"
His friend's eyes brightened. "What a youthful idea! I will be silent for thirty minutes! And if I cannot do that, I will-"
"Starting now!" Kakashi hurriedly interrupted.
Gai was immediately silent and sat down next to the Copy-nin and stared at him for the next half hour with a gigantic, eye-searing grin splitting his face the entire time. It seriously freaked out the slightly more normal Jounin, who did his best to ignore it and concentrate on his smut. Soon, he found himself coming up to his favorite part in the book—the scene after Junko found out his lover was a spy. Kakashi found himself squealing in glee as he read.
"Oh, Junko," she moaned as he gently stroked her face, "I-"
"Shh, my love."
Gai shifted and coughed. The Copy-nin twitched.
"If it is only to be for tonight, I want you to know that-"
"No, this is for tonight and the rest of your life. Until death separates us, I am yours and you are mine," he told her softly. He loved her, even though he knew her to be a traitor and that she would not wake in the morning. This would be their last—in fact, their only night together. It was the only gift he could give her, and it was no small thing for a man to give his heart and break it in the same moment.
"Ahem."
"What," he deadpanned. He wasn't finished with the scene yet! Just a little longer...!
"It has been thirty minutes, my Eternal Rival."
"So?"
"It is time to show each other how our youth has increased! The day is still young! The sun is still bright! My friend, how can you spend such a wondrous day doing nothing?"
"...Been working since 4:00 a.m. without breakfast." He paused. "And I'm reading. I'm...feeding my mind," Kakashi replied vaguely. He was just about to get to the best part of the story, and no spandex-wearing, ADHD poster boy was going to distract him!
And then, Gai did the one thing that could always make Kakashi break down—and not in a good way. It was the Puppy Dog Eyes.
"Gai...no, don't! S-stop it! You're scaring me! GAI!"
The taijutsu specialist's bottom lip quivered and moisture gathered at the corners of his eyes, making them glittler and thoroughly creep out his fellow Jounin. "But, Eternal Rival! You gave me your Sacred Word!"
"Hey! I did no such thing and you know it!" He was panicking now. That face-! It always made him shudder.
"Yes, you did! Years ago, you swore that you would always see our contests through to the end no matter what they were!"
'Oh, no...he's bringing that up? Why meeeeeee?' Seeing no way out of it, Kakashi finally, reluctantly, said, "Okaaaaay. Just stop with the face, please!"
Suddenly, Gai grinned (partially blinding his friend in the process) and stood, dragging the reluctant reader to his feet at the same time. "Right! You show me yours first, and then I shall show you mine!"
"...Are you sure you're not gay?"
Gai's smile never left his face as he simply replied, "Yes!"
Kakashi mumbled a few choice phrases before he put his precious literature back in his bag. "Alright, I suppose I can show you these, since they're pretty much impossible for even me to copy, anyway—not that you'd try. For several months, I've been trying to recreate the Chidori. As anyone who's seen and heard it can tell you, it's a great jutsu, but it definitely has its flaws."
The green-clothed man nodded in understanding.
"So, I thought I'd try it out with a different element to see if I could make the darn thing quieter so it'd be a real assassination jutsu. I wasn't exactly successful, but...well, just watch."
Kakashi held his right hand out and focused until he'd managed to draw enough water out of the air to form a ball a little bit larger than his palm. With his left hand, he quickly formed a single seal meant to do only one thing: help him concentrate. Within a few seconds, the ball of water began to lengthen and draped over his wrist like a limp rope until it was four feet long.
Gai stared at the thin line of water in a mixture of confusion and awe. "Er, that is impressive, Eternal Rival, but what does it do?"
"This!" Kakashi snapped his wrist and deftly flicked it toward Gai, who suddenly found himself short one orange legwarmer.
The Green Beast stared at his ankle for a full ten seconds before looking back up at the Copy-nin and proclaiming, "What a youthful technique, Eternal Rival! And you say this is Chidori's replacement?"
"Thanks, Gai, but no. This doesn't have the stabbing power necessary to replace Chidori. It's a jutsu all on its own, and I doubt I'll use it much, besides."
"Oh? And why is that, my friend?"
"It's sort of...girly to have a whip. It...clashes with my manly youthfulness," he said, trying to state it in a way his friend would understand. But that didn't stop him from cringing and wanting to barf at his own words.
"Ah, I see, Eternal Rival! You worry for your reputation with the ladies! But fear not! For I have heard that some enjoy being whipped!"
'Dear God, I did NOT need to hear that!' "MOVING ON! When that failed, I decided to try using earth instead of water. I got a useful technique out of it, but it's still not what I was looking for."
Kakashi knelt and placed both hands on the ground, one on top of the other. When he pulled them back up, his right hand was clutching a long, dirt-colored rod with a sharp point on one end.
Gai's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You...created a weapon out of naught but dirt! What a fantastic jutsu, Kakashi!"
"Yeah, I guess, but a spear's all I can make so far. Maybe if I work with the shape manipulation a bit more, I can come up with something more complicated, but this is all I've got right now."
"But that is fantastic! If you can do that, then you will never be short of weapons so long as you have chakra!"
"And that's the problem; I need my chakra for other things. It'll be useful only in emergencies because I'll have no need for it, otherwise. Just like the Water Whip, I don't think I'll be using this much..."
"Why? It seems to be an appropriate assassination technique."
"Hmm?"
"It is very quiet and creates a useable weapon that you can dissolve as soon as its job is over. There will be nothing to trace, except a pile of bloody dirt. Perhaps it is not something you will use in battle, but it was not intended for that in the first place. It is silent, convenient, and untraceable; what else is necessary for an assassin?"
Kakashi's one visible eye went wide. Gai had a point there. It was pretty convenient when seen from that perspective. But still, couldn't a kunai or any other weapon do the job just as well, if that were the case? He thought about it and realized that no, it wouldn't. Dogs and various hunter-nin would be able to track his scent if he kept a weapon with the target's blood on it, or even if he left it behind. An untraceable weapon was hard to come by and highly sought after for those reasons alone.
Also, most jutsu tended to leave a trace, typically in the form of what shape the wound took. Almost anyone who had ever seen Kakashi use Chidori knew that a giant, charred hole in the victim's flesh meant he'd been there.
Perhaps this new jutsu (which he hadn't even named yet) just might come in handy, after all. He'd need to field-test it to be sure.
"You have a point there, Gai. I didn't think of that, but I'm thinking the fire jutsu I came up with may be even better. It hasn't been tested or anything, so I don't know for sure, but...well, you'll see."
With that, Kakashi began manipulating the chakra in his hand to interact with and ignite the air around it. In order to do so, he literally had to imagine his chakra burning up the air around it—something that was not only difficult but considered next to impossible. Still, it was the only way to get that particular element without breathing it out, since imagining oneself breathing fire was considerably easier than imagining the air itself combusting. The limitations literally lay within each shinobi's mind, something that very few could overcome. And yet, he could and had done it.
When the fire around his hand was strong enough (and hot enough! Ouch!), he began to shape it as slowly and gently as he could without losing the flame entirely. After all, he had to make sure he brought in enough oxygen to keep it alive the whole time. Kakashi was brilliant, but even his mind had trouble concentrating on so many different things at once. The upside was the fact that, once he'd gotten to a certain point, it would be all but self-sustaining.
It took a grand total of five seconds—an eternity in shinobi battles—until he finally had his white-hot spike of flame. He chose a random tree and fiercely charged it, jutsu in hand. "Haa!" he cried as his hand slammed into its trunk and his technique hit home. To the Copy-nin's surprise and joy, the flame had gone in easily and was still active. But as he pulled his hand away, he saw that, while it could be considered an assassination technique, it would be precision-based if anything.
The Chidori was a one-hit kill for a very good reason: even a giant of a man could not easily recover from a foot-wide hole being blasted into his body. This...Flame Spike (he'd have to change the name later; it was so lame!) left a hole approximately three inches wide. It would work, of course, since three-inch holes were nothing to sneeze at, but he wisely decided to train with it for awhile before using it on a mission.
Actually, the fact that it was less destructive might even be a good thing. It'd leave a little less to clean up. Kakashi might be a killer, but he at least tried to be considerate when possible. All things considered, he was very pleased with his technique.
And then, Gai spoke. "What an excellent jutsu, my friend! It is completely silent and powerful! But it takes so long to prepare...training would help, of course. And the light it casts would make it difficult to hide in dark places, much like Chidori...still, Eternal Rival, I believe you have accomplished your personal challenge and created a silent sister to your prized technique! I am proud of you, my youthful friend!"
Kakashi found himself smiling behind his mask "Maybe, but it'll never amount to the Raikiri. Still...yeah, I guess I did." He found himself content with that for the moment and figured he could take a much-needed vacation now.
But fate (which was clad in spandex at that moment) intervened. "Excellent, my Rival! Now, it is my turn to show you my new technique!"
He groaned. Every time the eccentric Jounin had a new attack to show him, he always insisted on a participant. That meant pain. Kakashi didn't like pain. He liked reading. He liked relaxing. He liked them both combined, and preferably not while lying in a hospital after training with Gai.
"Come! Arise, Eternal Rival! I must show you my youth!"
So, said Eternal Rival subsequently found himself being thrown into the air, tied up like a mummy, and then almost slammed headfirst into the ground. Gai had graciously stopped his descent before breaking his best friend's neck. Kakashi was very grateful, but he had some suggestions to make.
"Er, very...terrifying, Gai."
"Thank you!"
"But how about adding a spin to it? It'd add a lot more force to the fall."
Gai's eyes widened. "That is an excellent idea, my friend! I knew you were the right one to come to for advice on the matter! I shall go and practice at once! Then, I shall return once I have it mastered!"
"...That's nice, Gai, but I actually have a mission I'm scheduled to leave for tomorrow morning. I need to rest for awhile." He hadn't been kidding when he'd called the move terrifying. The famed Jounin had almost wet his pants! And he really did have a mission; it was only a B-rank, but it'd be nice to have all his parts still working when he left for it. In fact...why hadn't he thought of using that as an excuse before?
"Ah! So, you were honing your skills for a super-dangerous mission! What a wonderful idea!"
"Yeah, sure. Uh, how about you go and get yourself one so that you can train for it, too? Say...how about a mission that lasts a month or two?" Kakashi's would only last a couple of days; however, he could use the break from green spandex nightmares. Just to increase the odds of it happening, he added, "You know, to increase your...youthfulness."
That did it. Moments later, the decidedly odd Jounin was running off towards the village, proclaiming something about running one hundred laps on his pinkies. He might also have mentioned something about being nude, but surely not! After last year's fiasco, there was no way that even Gai would pull a stunt like that twice in a row.
...Right?
He rubbed his forehead tiredly. Maybe it would be better if he stopped thinking about it.
.
.
.
July 9, 5:00 a.m.
Kakashi groaned as he sat up in bed. Like many soldiers, he needed no alarm clock. He simply told his body when to wake up and he was up right on time every time. Sometimes, though, the Copy-nin would've loved to oversleep. It'd be a good and—for once—honest excuse for being late.
But it never happened. So, he dragged himself out of bed and reached for his mask first thing. It wouldn't do to forget that. No one had seen his face since age five, and he wanted to keep it that way. Hatake tradition had a part to play in it, but more than anything, it simply helped hide his emotions.
Once he was finished getting dressed, wrinkled Jounin pants and all, he headed into his kitchen. Along the way, he made sure to watch where he was going. Never again would he make that mistake, October 10 or not. However, he did so without flipping on his lights. It wasn't necessary; the Hatake clan, while it wasn't considered a bloodline, did have the peculiar ability to see in the dark far better than most people.
Rumor had it that there was some Hyuuga in his family's veins, but Kakashi seriously doubted it, as there wasn't one scrap of evidence to support the claim. Of course, that hadn't stopped the Hyuuga leader of one hundred and five years ago from trying to put the curse seal on one of their men. Interestingly enough, the subsequent death of that leader...along with half his clan in the feud that had followed...was what had prompted them to seek asylum in the newly-built Konohagakure. The Hatake had joined a generation later, and no one had dared to touch them since.
...until Naruto, but the less said about that, the better.
Kakashi cooked himself a little bit of rice and steamed some seaweed and fish. Despite the cookbooks he'd read, he still wasn't great at cooking, but this he could pull off. He wrapped the seaweed around most of the rice and packed the small balls into a container for lunch, tossed the fish and the rest of the rice onto a plate, and grabbed some soy sauce. It wasn't fancy, but it was food.
After spending his usual hour (or two) at the Memorial Stone, he headed out the gate with his pack and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Rin was also leaving on a mission later that day. It was her first A-rank since Konohamaru's birth, and even though she was going purely as support for her team, it still made the Jounin nervous and jumpy. She'd been a target since the Third War simply for being a student of the Fourth and teammate of the legendary Copy-nin.
However, the Third had managed to conceal her for several years, so it was also likely that no one would recognize her immediately. It was her distinctive tattoos that could expose her. There were none others like them in the world, even among the Inuzuka. Rin had had them ever since anyone could remember and still wasn't sure where they'd come from or their meaning. Being an orphan with no memory of her parents, she had no one to ask. Thankfully, she'd learned the value of using makeup ever since returning to duty.
The whole thing still made Kakashi very uneasy. If he could, he'd take his only living teammate and put her in bubble wrap for the rest of her life. He'd gladly marry her right then and there if it meant keeping her away from all sharp and pointy objects, but they both knew that was still a long ways away. While Rin's feelings were at last reciprocated, they'd agreed that they were still too young and the feelings too intense to allow their jobs to get in the way.
So, they carefully kept in contact even as they kept their distance, and not once had they ever gone beyond a simple kiss on the cheek.
But maybe it was time for that to change. They were both adults now, so perhaps moving beyond simple friendship would be alright. It'd have to wait for the end of both their missions, of course, so, with that in mind, Kakashi took a leap into the thick, icy trees to begin his journey...and quickly fell off when a shout surprised him.
"Kaka!"
"Whoa!"
THUD.
"Er...Kaka? You ok?"
The Jounin groaned. "Y-yeah, Naruto. I'm ok."
"Oh, good!"
"What'd you want?"
"Um...just wanted to say hi...Hi!"
Kakashi growled under his breath. "Hi." He stood, checked to see if anything happened to be broken—there wasn't—and turned to glare at his sort-of student. "Now, if you don't mind, I've got a mission. Bye." He prepared to leap back into the trees, but a small voice stopped him.
"But..."
"But what?" Kakashi had to sigh. The boy, while far more talkative than he'd been at age two, was still hesitant to discuss anything that was bothering him.
"I-it's my teammate."
"What about him?"
"Well, he's...been acting strange lately."
The genius of the Uchiha clan was being odd? Kakashi couldn't tell whether that was a good thing or not. "Strange in what ways?"
"Itachi's always been kinda numb—like the guy with all the bandaids, ya know?—but his chakra's gotten really scared lately. I mean, it's still numb most of the time, but it's like he's making it that way, not like he's just following training. Most people probably wouldn't even notice the little spikes; I wouldn't have noticed, except Itachi's my partner and I understand him a little and it's not right because he's never been like that before and it's scaring me a little and I don't know whom else I can talk to about this except you and Ikki but Ikki will have him examined so I can't do that and I'm worried he's going crazy and-"
"Whoa, whoa! Slow down, Naruto. One thing at a time. You said he's scared?"
Naruto nodded.
"Do you know why or what he's afraid of?"
The boy's face scrunched up for a moment. "I dunno. The first time I noticed it was about a few weeks ago. It was just with little things, ya know? I thought it was just stress. But the other day, it started getting worse."
"Do you remember what happened that day? Can you think of what might have made it worse?"
"Uh, yeah, sorta. It was pretty cold, like it is now, and Itachi and I were watching the gate—the one behind us, actually. I...think I said something that ticked him off..." Naruto drifted off in thought for a few seconds before continuing. "Oh! I remember! He grabbed me by my neck and started strangling me!" he concluded with a smile.
Kakashi's hands tightened. "He did, did he?" He'd have to have a little talk with Itachi.
"Yup! It's one of my best breakthroughs yet! Do you have any idea just how irritating it is to talk to a rock all day?" The blonde shook his head. "He stands there like a statue and doesn't move the whole time. I saw a bird poop on his head once and Itachi didn't even blink! Seriously!"
Kakashi noted that as being typical Uchiha behavior and brushed it off. "Ok, ok, so he was strangling you. What else happened?"
"He said something, something that made his chakra spike a lot more than usual—well, a lot for him, anyway. I-I think he mentioned his brother..."
"His brother, hmm? Odd...didn't even know he has one."
"Yeah, I think his name's Sasuke."
Kakashi felt his head jerk slightly at that. The name of his now-dead friend still caused him to flinch even now, especially since the repercussions were still being felt by those who were left behind. Asuma still hadn't returned; he'd gotten an indefinite extension on his contract, probably in some immature effort to make his father feel bad. He probably still had no idea Satomi was dead, much less that he had a young nephew in the village. If only Sasuke Sarutobi hadn't died...! But this wasn't the Hokage's dead son. This was Itachi's living brother. The Copy-nin sighed slightly and brought himself back to the present. "Sasuke, huh? What about him?"
Naruto shrugged. "Beats me. He just mentioned him."
"So...Itachi Uchiha's scared of—no, that doesn't make sense. He must be scared for his brother. I wonder why..." The Jounin thought for a minute. 'Considering his training, the fact that there's any emotion coming from him at all hints at a big problem, but what? Danzo was his instructor for two years, and he's not known for letting people go easily. Is he pulling strings from the shadows...again?' "Naruto," he said out loud, "I have to complete a mission, but I'll be back in a few days. Until then, I want you to keep an eye on Itachi. Use your sensor abilities to track him and anyone with whom he comes into contact, and do it from a distance so you don't get caught. When I come back, tell me what you've found out and we'll go from there. Don't tell anyone else until then unless lives are immediately at stake, and then only tell Ibiki. He'll know what to do if I'm not around, ok?"
Naruto nodded reluctantly. Kakashi could tell he didn't like it but would listen to his instructions, anyway. Then, they hugged—a rarity for the last Namikaze these days, as the young child was beginning to see it as "unmanly" or something of that nature—and the Jounin hopped into the trees and to his mission.
The only thought on his mind as he sped away was, 'I wonder if this will be a good chance to try out one of those new jutsu...'
Naruto watched as his brother left before heading to the training grounds. It was early, and he still had to meet Itachi for training. With any luck, they'd be getting a new teammate pretty soon, so there was that to prepare for. Plus, his captain always insisted on him learning something new every time they met up. It was very likely they'd have a long day.
And they did. Naruto learned a new stance involving tonfa, of all things. The style kind of suited him, since he was generally a close-range fighter, but he still preferred fists over using his arms. Perhaps they'd grow on him...
But as he left the training field later that night—about an hour later than Itachi, as he'd wanted to get some extra practice in— Naruto couldn't help but remember the strain his trainer had been under the whole time, and it worried him more than ever. He hadn't been kidding about Itachi. Any sign of emotion the human statue made had to be taken seriously, in his mind, especially if it involved the teen's clan. 'His folks, huh? Yeah...I definitely have to check this out! I wonder where Itachi's at right now...' He headed home to prepare for his spying session.
.
.
.
6:00 p.m.
Once he'd locked himself inside the bathroom, he allowed his eyes to stop focusing for a brief moment while he concentrated on the chakra around him, and the world turned an indistinct black-and-grey blob with various blue flames with figures in their center dotting the landscape.
His brother, Idate, was in their shared room and doing something...suspicious. Though Naruto couldn't see what it was, exactly (he wasn't a Hyuuga, after all!), he did note the fear-excitement revving up Idate's energy in random, trembling spikes. 'He's probably reading Icha Icha. Kaka's gonna be ticked that he swiped it again...'
Just outside the small cabin, he could sense two powerful ninja, probably their assigned ANBU guards, one of whom typically followed him around everywhere he went. One was hiding within a tree trunk—literally—while the other was sitting on the roof. If Naruto focused really, really hard, sometimes he could make out their masks, since they were a stark white and stood out against the darker world around them; why, he didn't know, as only chakra was supposed to stand out. But doing that all the time required an attention span he just plain didn't have. It was much easier to focus on their real faces, since the blue-colored energy flowed through every pore of the human body. Naruto could literally tell that the ANBU sitting on the roof had shaved his legs that morning, just as most in the black ops did to cut down on air resistance while running, jumping, and killing. No ninja outside of the elite bothered, however. The blonde often found it amusing that Rin's legs were almost always harrier than Ibiki's.
But he had other things to focus on at that moment, so he turned his attention away from the two guards and started gradually pushing his "sight" outwards, towards the other side of the village, where he knew the majority of the Uchiha stayed. The first thing he noticed was that something was off—very off.
With a gasp, Naruto stopped focusing on chakra and blinked, immediately coming back to the real world with a jolt of terror lacing his blood. He jumped down off the counter, jerked open the bathroom door, and raced out of the cabin so fast that he plumb forgot his shoes. 'Itachi...what have you done?'
And, oh, was Kakashi going to kill him when he came back from his mission! But there just wasn't time to tell Ibiki! And his ANBU guard was tailing him, anyway, so he'd be ok, right? He peeked over his shoulder just to make sure and saw the cat-masked Tenzou leaping through the trees behind him as they entered the village. "Hey, Mr. ANBU!" he called out as he raced towards his captain.
The ANBU didn't answer, of course, though he did speed up and land on the roof beside him.
"You're probably wondering why I ran out of the house like that, right?"
"..."
"Well..." he began as he flew over an alley, "just be prepared for a bit of a fight."
At this, the silent ninja finally spoke. "What, exactly, do you intend to attack?"
Naruto sniffed as he leapt down from the final building and began racing towards the Uchiha compound. "Attack? Nothing. Protect?" They passed the gates and the smell of blood hit both of their noses. "Anyone who's still alive," he said grimly.
He sensed Tenzou's shock and horror, but all the teenager did was nod his head and pass the blonde by in a burst of effort to find and eliminate the attacker, whomever it turned out to be.
Naruto waited until the ANBU was a few meters in front of him before bringing his hands together in a cross-shaped seal that Itachi himself had taught him just a few days earlier (after calmly informing the Sandaime that the regular clone was useless and that the Uzumaki had more than enough chakra for the Shadow Clones) and created five corporeal bodies. They ran off, already knowing what was expected of them.
He just continued straight, as he was able to sense the other attacker and knew he had to act quickly—not to beat him, of course, but to distract the living daylights out of him. However, Itachi he'd leave to Tenzou, because no one could disrupt plans like Naruto.
'One...two...three...there! The fifth house on the right! That's where he is...' And where he was about to kill someone very small, probably a child. 'What kinda sicko is he?' Naruto abruptly stopped in front of the house and screamed, "AHHHH! HE'S NAKED!" and smirked as he "saw" the figure in the house stop the descent of his kunai.
It was exactly the opening he'd been looking for, and one of his clones, having already transformed, quickly Replaced itself with the child. Another clone standing by snatched him up and ran like the wind for the Hokage Tower. Not surprisingly, the enemy didn't notice the chakra being used; after all, that was the real beauty of the basics—they were notoriously difficult to pinpoint because it took so little energy to perform them.
The figure shrugged and turned back to the Uchiha toddler before him as he once again raised his knife. He brought it down and grinned maliciously as it entered the tiny body and-
POP!
Naruto, having hidden himself in the ground (he'd conned Kakashi out of it in exchange for prank immunity for his eighth birthday), snickered at the "sight" of shock on the man's face just before he began abruptly turning around in circles as he looked for the missing child in confusion. Anger quickly took over the shock, however, and the kunai left his hand in a fit of childish rage and flew through the front door and all the way across the street to a small store that had once sold fresh fruits and vegetables. It landed smack dab in the middle of a juicy, ripe tomato.
The blonde seven-year-old found himself holding back a chuckle.
And then, something prickled his senses. Someone was walking into the Uchiha compound.
For the first time in a long time, fear paralyzed Naruto, but only for a moment, because he was moving underground in the next. It only took him a few seconds to reach and drag the unsuspecting Uchiha underground with him, and only a moment after that to knock him unconscious. After that, he hurried away from the compound and found a nice, comfy dumpster in an alley for the boy to sleep in while he and Tenzou finished business.
He began running back towards the compound and staggered suddenly as another dispatched clone's memories came back to him. Apparently, the enemy Naruto had interrupted had high-tailed it out of there in the belief that he had been set up. "Itachi...you'll pay for this betrayal," the man had muttered before disappearing.
So, the only one left to deal with was his captain. Naruto wasn't stupid; he knew Tenzou would only be able to hold his own for so long, meaning he'd need backup. Maybe he'd even get to play that prank he'd been saving up on Itachi. No way would the emotionally-stunted man be able to keep a straight face! And then...it'd be time to say good-bye.
He found Itachi in what appeared to be a training dojo of some kind. Two bodies were behind him and Tenzou was being held by the throat. The moment the Uchiha saw him, he tossed the ANBU to the side (Naruto noted with relief that his guard was still breathing) and stared blankly.
"Naruto."
"'Tachi."
"What are you doing here?"
"Stopping you."
Itachi's eyes narrowed and his chakra spiked ever so slightly. "Do you have any idea how foolish you are?"
Naruto shrugged. "I'm sure you'll tell me. You wouldn't be a good captain if you didn't."
He huffed lightly. "I could kill you in a mere moment. It would be...easy."
The blonde felt the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up. That last word had been spoken behind him! He turned his head a tiny bit and saw a kunai at his neck and a hand (with black fingernail polish, no less) holding it. Then, he focused his blue eyes back on the Itachi in front of him, only to see him no longer there.
How had Itachi done that without him—a highly-trained sensor!-knowing about it? A Replacement? No, there was nothing behind him to Replace with. It had to be the Body Flicker. It was a B-ranked move specifically for the high chakra control required, but if done correctly, it was almost completely undetectable (Naruto made a note to learn it as fast as possible!). Kakashi had scared him half-to-death at least a dozen times with his use of it. But even the Copy-nin couldn't do it that flawlessly!
"Whoa...you really have been taking steroids, eh, 'Tachi-chan?"
Itachi didn't even blink. "They were going to try to kill him, you know."
"Who?"
"The Sandaime."
"W-what?"
"Not that they would have succeeded, but it would have been so...inconvenient." With that, the blade at his throat vanished and Itachi appeared before him once again.
"You...you killed your own family because they were 'inconvenient'?"
Itachi didn't answer and just stared.
"What about your brother? Were you gonna kill him, too? Were you!"
"No. He will be...the redemption of this clan."
Naruto just blinked. What in the world was his obviously insane captain talking about?
"Will you watch over him?"
"HUH? Dude, you just went from killin' your relatives to askin' me to-"
"Will you protect him and train him as I have trained you these last two months? Teach him what it means to be a shinobi, what it means for a ninja to have honor, and even how to feel joy...please."
The seven-year-old was shaken to the bone. This wasn't right. Something was so very wrong about the entire situation, but his brain wasn't nearly focused enough to get it. "Wh-what's going on, Itachi?"
"You are a strange one, Naruto. There are enemies within and without, but you are always at peace. Did you know that?"
"I don't understand...what is it you want from me?"
Then, the Uchiha smiled, and though it was somewhat garish because of the blood splatter all over his clothes, it made the young Uzumaki's mouth gape. "For him to be like you," he whispered. And then, he vanished in a swirl of black crows.
As a dozen ANBU began landing around him, Naruto's mind was stuck on one thing and one thing only: nothing was as it seemed. Nothing.
.
.
.
In the end, thanks to his interference, twenty Uchihas had survived. All of them were children under the age of three, except for Sasuke. Apparently, the stranger Naruto had interrupted had been saving the infants for last. Evidence proved that Itachi had, at the very least, had nothing to do with their deaths.
The dead adults were another story. The differences in weapons used, the height of the attackers, and even the wounds themselves all pointed to two distinct killers. One had been quick, clean, and methodical while the other had been nothing short of vicious. It made Naruto shudder just thinking about it.
After he'd sent his clones out, one had gone to gather ANBU, others had rushed to help survivors, and the last one had taken the toddler straight to the Hokage, who, at that moment, had been in an apparently important meeting with three rather old-looking people.
The meeting had quickly descended into chaos, with the Third screaming at the three before him. Naruto had quickly figured out exactly what Itachi had been referring to and how unsanctioned the whole thing truly was. The man imitating a mummy had been demoted on the spot while the other two would be "dealt with later." It was debatable whether or not Hiruzen had been referring to execution, and that possibility left Homura and Koharu shaken as they left his office.
After getting that memory, the real Naruto had promptly thrown up, but that had happened long after Itachi had left.
Now, he was sitting outside the Hokage's office as he waited to give his official report to the man he saw as his grandfather. It wasn't even 10:00 p.m. and the blonde was afraid of just what else could possibly go wrong.
And then, Ibiki showed up.
His fears were so far proving to be well-founded...
Author's Corner:
First of all, if you don't know what the initials B.S. stand for, then congratulations. You are one of the few in this world that has not come across such vulgar language, which I personally hate using and reading. Use a search engine if you're curious about what it means. Speaking of that, I actually once read a review (in a different story) that criticized an author for not explaining what "p.o.'ed" referred to. Really? He couldn't figure it out himself? Sad. Very, very sad.
And I have bone to pick with schools in this country.
"Possible" rhymes with "pimple." "Possibly" rhymes with "tree."
It's "an apple," not "a apple."
"Woman" is singular. "Women" is plural.
Why is it that people in their 20s haven't been properly taught the very basics? Literacy in America is sharply plummeting. Pretty soon, people won't be able to spell their own names or list the alphabet. We might as well be a third-world country where most people never go to school at all and live in abject poverty and even slavery. Anyone else noticing this rather embarrassing trend?
Aaaanyway, I meant to get this chapter out...quite awhile ago. That clearly didn't happen, but I didn't give a time estimate, so...*shrugs*
I hope you liked what I had Kakashi go through. Personally, I just have a hard time seeing the screeching, loud Chidori as an assassination technique. While you might sneak up on a deaf man, there is no way you're going to sneak up on anyone else. Ever. It makes sense to find a quieter solution, and really, even a howitzer would probably be better sound-wise.
As for the Uchiha, Itachi was trained by Danzo for awhile. That's all you really need to know about that. And I never agreed with the whole "We must kill the entire clan!" mindset. Seriously, someone as militant as Danzo would've wanted to preserve at least the children as future tools. It was "Madara" who messed all that up, in my opinion. But Naruto got in the way this time and made the wrinkly Uchiha back off. And Sasuke didn't even have to get mind-raped! Isn't that great? That means he'll be less traumatized and not nearly so emo...right? Hehehe...we'll see, my little friends. We'll see.
By the way, that comment about hairy legs...just use your imagination. Personally, I thought it was a nice touch :) And just admit it; you've always wondered about Itachi's steroid use, too.
Anyway, enjoy! And I so won that $20! Yay!
