Gender Bender Naruto: The Series
By: KioKat
Summary: We all know Naruto, the #1 knucklehead, loudmouth ninja, right? Well, what if He had been a She? What if the whole Naruto world had been flipped around? The kunoichi now shinobi and vice versa? Join us on the adventure of a lifetime with Uzumaki Nariko, Konoha's #1, knuckleheaded Kunoichi!
xox
Chapter 11: The Honorable Granddaughter!
(Completed: 05-09-10 )
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Sunday:
"Come on!"
Monday:
"I can do it!"
Tuesday:
"Really, Old Man! I know I can!"
Wednesday:
"Just let me try..."
Thursday:
"Urgh! If you'd just give me a chance..."
Friday:
"...Please?"
Saturday:
"Please, please, please?"
Sunday:
"Pretty please?..."
Monday:
"...Pretty please with sugar on top and ice cream? And those chocolate things Izumi-sensei bought me one time from that sweet shop down the street, and maybe some pocky too while we're at it? Ooh! And some pork ramen all steamy and hot, with the noodles and the broth and the meat and-"
Sarutobi hid a grin as he allowed the blonde to ramble on about the soup she had grown to love so much and had suddenly permitted herself to become distracted by.
With a vague sense of curiosity, he wondered where the rest of her team was.
The thought had crossed his mind several times in the week that Nariko had begun to show up in his office, demanding a step up from the dull and painfully simple D-rank they had been assigned thus far—in less eloquent terms, of course. It appeared, though, that the other members to her squad had yet to learn of her antics, as he was certain that they would have come to drag her away by that point had they known.
Well, perhaps such actions would better refer to Kairi or the young male genin, Seiichi. Somehow, the Third couldn't quite picture the Uchiha bothering with such an action. Then, come to think of it, shouldn't her team have been in the middle of a mission? In fact, hadn't they had missions during the periods of time Nariko had come to make her "visits?"...
"Or prunes?"
The Sandaime slowly blinked and glanced up from the papers he had been signing to regard the orange-clad girl before him with an exasperated fondness.
"...Prunes, Nariko?" he inquired, one bushy eyebrow lightly quirked.
The blonde nodded once, her expression serious. "Yes. Old people like prunes, so that would make it a good topper, right?"
The elderly Hokage couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his throat.
"I'm afraid, Nariko," Sarutobi responded, dark eyes laughing from within his wrinkled face, "that not even a please with–" He chuckled again. "–prunes on top is going to make you eligible for a C-rank."
Nariko's rare, solemn expression immediately warped into a more-familiar, childish pout.
"Why not?" she whined. "I'm a kunoichi now..."
"Be that as it may," said the Hokage," neither you nor your teammates are ready." He smiled wryly to himself. "Maybe next time."
With an over-exaggerated sigh, Nariko swiftly turned on her heel. "Fine," she grumbled, "but I'll be back tomorrow!"
Sarutobi's lips quirked up further as he returned to the mess of work scattered on his desk. "Oh, I don't doubt that..." he muttered softly.
The blonde, seeming not to have heard, quickly opened the door to his office and slid outside in preparation to race back to her teammates, who were likely not only wondering over her disappearance, but were annoyed by it was well.
However, as she made her way out of the room, Nariko collided hard into a solid object. With an exclamation of shock, the blonde flew back against the ground with only a little less force than the figure before her. The new genin groaned in pain, her head having collided with the wooden floor during her landing, and pushed herself up, rubbing the back of her skull.
"Hey!" Nariko growled. "Watch where you're going!" She slipped an eye open to find a small girl glaring at her.
The brunette was obviously younger than her, perhaps no more than seven or eight, as her face still held its childish roundness and baby fat softened her limbs. Her dark eyes were larger on her face and the kind of innocence only one of her age could have lurked within the depths, even as anger and embarrassment manifested upon her features. Her brown bangs stuck out in all directions in contrast to her hair, which lay smooth until it reached her shoulders where it curved up and spiked outwards, leaving the impression that she had begun to brush the unruly locks, but due to some distraction or other, had forgotten to finish.
The rumpled yellow t-shirt and crinkled tan shorts only added to the "distraction" theory, as did the long blue scarf that had flung itself over her head during the fall. The wrinkles in the shirt not quite but nearly disguised the too-large Konoha leaf symbol printed there, distinctly and boldly proclaiming the brunette's just a bit over-the-top and naïve sense of Leaf village pride.
Tiny fists clenched beside the smaller girl's bended knees as a pink flush blotted the younger's cheeks.
"Me?" she exclaimed. "Why don't you watch where you're going, stupid!"
Nariko bristled, face turning red with fury. Grabbing the front of the girl's shirt, she pulled both herself and the child to their feet. Shock flashed across the brunette's face, indicating her surprise at the sudden and rough treatment.
"Who're you calling stupid!" the blonde fumed.
The small girl's shock vanished in an instant. "You, stupid!" she replied defiantly.
Nariko tensed angrily, and one hand removed itself from where it had grabbed the yellow cloth with the ridiculously-sized leaf symbol and rose to shake just a little too close to the girl's face. "You little brat! I oughta give you a piece of my–!"
"Kokoro, is that you?"
The blonde blinked and glanced back in to the room she had exited from moments ago. The Hokage eyed the two with amusement, his gaze falling on the child being manhandled by Konoha's very own loud-mouthed prankster.
Kokoro's face fell into a scowl. "Oh, now look what you did!" she grumbled. "How am I supposed to sneak up on him now?" Lips forming a pout, the girl crossed her arms and glared at her captor.
Nariko drew her eyebrows down in confusion as she turned her attention to the Hokage, tugging the brunette with her. She pointed at the girl, expression twisted with disbelief. "You know her, Old Man?"
Sarutobi smiled, removing his pipe to blow smoke from his lips and tapping the object on his desk. "I should think so," he replied, replacing it. "She is my granddaughter, after all."
"Eh? Granddaughter?" the blonde responded, twisting her head to eye the girl incredulously.
Kokoro paid no mind to Nariko's dubious stare, instead choosing to narrow her eyes and crinkle her nose at the smoke slipping from her grandfather's lips.
"Mom says you shouldn't do that," she stated plainly, wrinkling her nose further. "It's bad for you." She grimaced slightly. "Aunt Asami, too."
The Sandaime's lips quirked around the stem of his pipe as he removed it once more to speak.
"And right she is," he said in answer to the girl's simple declaration. "Don't get in the habit of it when you're older, alright?"
The small brunette made a face. "Why would I want to? It smells."
The Third merely laughed at that. "By the way, I meant to ask," he spoke with a chuckle. "Where is Emiko-san?"
Kokoro's features scrunched up as she glanced towards the ceiling in thought. "Somewhere... I don't know. I think I lost her near that barbeque place."
Sarutobi looked faintly exasperated at that, even as amusement colored his features. "Kokoro..."
"Hey!" Nariko finally cried, waving her free hand impatiently. "I'm still here, you know!" Having made herself known, the blonde pointed at the girl still held in her grasp. "Now, what do you mean, she's your granddaughter?"
"What else?" Kokoro interjected. "It means I'm his granddaughter, stupid!"
The genin glared at the small brunette, bristling for a second time that day, and lifted her fist once more. "Why you..."
Kokoro simply grinned smugly, as if unafraid of the blonde's threatening gesture. "You can't hurt me!" she proclaimed boldly. "I'm the Hokage's granddaughter, remember?"
Nariko paused for a moment and merely stared at her.
The Sandaime watched on, curiosity playing in his eyes though his pose remained relaxed. What was this? Was Nariko really developing a sense of propriety? He wouldn't have thought her to ever do as such. Well, at least not until she was much older and had learned that she could not always get away without such a thing, but now, when the girl was only twelve and ignorant of that knowledge, hesitation seemed strangely out of place and character for her. It was certainly not something he would have ever expected from her. In fact, he would have foreseen her doing something more like...
THWACK!
"Oooooooowwwwwwww!"
...hitting his granddaughter across the head.
oxoxo
Step. Step. Sneak. Sneak. Step. Step. Sneak. Sneak. Step. Step. Sneak—Halt.
Dark eyes carefully peered past the leaves to observe the figure, who had suddenly halted in its step, before them with bated breath. After a short moment, said figure resumed its pace and the small shoulders relaxed before their owner proceeded with her task once more.
The child's gaze remained firmly locked on the orange-clad back as her eyebrows drew down into a puzzled stare.
Honorable granddaughter, honorable granddaughter; that was who she had always been. Not Kokoro, not Kokoro-chan, not even an unneeded Kokoro-sama or Kokoro-san; just honorable granddaughter and that was it. Because of that, people had always seemed to treat her so... delicately.
Mustn't hurt the Hokage's granddaughter. Mustn't allow her to be harmed. Mustn't even touch her because—heaven forbid!—she might break and the Hokage's favor be turned. After all, everyone knows that the Hokage's granddaughter is no better than a china doll.
Kokoro's cheeks flushed with embarrassment and anger as the words resounded in her mind, and her eyes shone unhappily. Gaze shifting slightly, the dark orbs came to rest on her current target, and the unhappiness faded somewhat.
But this girl... she had hit her. Not once had anyone ever raised a hand to Kokoro, excluding family, and this loud, stupid blonde had actually lifted her fist and thumped her across the head. She hadn't taken the crap Kokoro had been spouting at her or cared that the brunette was the Hokage's granddaughter or had even worried that the Sandaime had been right there, observing the entire exchange! She had just done it, completely unconcerned about who she was hitting or any possible consequences.
'She just... did it.'
And that was precisely why Kokoro had chosen to follow the blonde. She was... interesting and the brunette had become curious. What was so different about this girl that she had disregarded everything and had simply treated Kokoro like anyone else? Like any other annoying little kid who was acting a bit too big for their own good? Of course, Kokoro would never dub herself as annoying or arrogant, but the comparison remained.
Just what was it?...
Suddenly, Nariko turned around and jabbed a finger at the girl. Kokoro froze.
"Hey," the blonde said in an aggravated tone. "Why are you following me?"
The small girl sat stunned for a brief moment until her body and mind finally kicked in.
"What!" Kokoro gasped in shock, leaping to her feet. "That's incredible! How did you see through my brilliant disguise?"
Nariko's jaw dropped in shock. "B-brilliant?" she sputtered, thrusting her finger again at the shorter girl. "It's a tree branch! A dead tree branch!"
Indeed, the wooden limb held in the girl's palm was no more than a scraggly mess of branches with but a brown, crackly leaf or two to decorate and miserably fail at concealing the bareness of its current home. The large gaps between the branches made any figure who happened to choose to reside behind them clearly visible; so much so, in fact, that even a child should have been able to easily see through the pitiful disguise.
However, Kokoro seemed oblivious to the matter as she merely tossed the not-so-leafy limb aside and nodded thoughtfully.
"Such strong powers of perception," the brunette spoke aloud, rubbing her chin. "So, this is what it means to be a kunoichi. Impressive..."
Nariko regarded the younger warily, uncertain whether the girl was truly serious or simply mocking her. Yet another glance at Kokoro's expression and the blonde feared that the former was true.
Narrowing her eyes, Nariko placed her hands firmly on her hips, unknowing that in doing so, she greatly resembled her dark-haired rival. Still ignorant of that fact, the orange-clad genin eyed her little stalker carefully. However, after a moment or so, she shrugged, giving in to the girl's childish sense of awe and choosing to revel in it while she could.
Thus, Nariko grinned broadly at the brunette and tapped her headband. "Well, of course! This isn't just for show, you know." The orange-clad girl then lowered her hand and slid into a, perhaps just a bit over-exaggerated, defensive pose.
"I'm a true shinobi and a real kunoichi!" she continued, playfully punching at an imaginary enemy. She nodded once, resuming her upright stance and crossing her arms proudly, as if she had beaten the nonexistent foe, which she may very well have done in her mind.
"I'm the real deal!" she proclaimed loudly. "Of course I saw through your silly, little disguise!" The blonde nodded again, confident in her words. "I'm a genin, after all. It's what we do."
Kokoro's eyes grew wide with wonder as she gazed up at the girl in amazement. "Wow..." she whispered. Then, she blinked suddenly and her expression grew firm. Whipping out a hand, she pointed at the blonde sternly.
"Teach me!" the child demanded. "I'm gonna be your disciple and you'll be my mentor, okay? So, teach me how to be a real kunoichi!"
Nariko copied the brunette and blinked, repeating the action a few times. She finally frowned and glared at the younger girl.
"Hey, now!" the blonde growled out in annoyance. "Who do you think you are bossing me around like that! What if I don't wanna, huh?"
"But you have to!" Kokoro exclaimed, fists desperately clenched before her chest. "I'm not learning anything from Emiko-sensei!" The girl pouted angrily. "She's a jounin and she won't teach me any cool jutsu, so it has to be you! You're a kunoichi too, so I bet I could learn tons more if you taught me!"
The whiskered girl, who'd had several irritated retorts prepared, perked up on hearing the shorter's words. What was this? She, Uzumaki Nariko, was being preferred over a jounin? A grin stretched across her cheeks and her chest swelled.
'So, I'm better than a jounin, huh? Ha!' Nariko thought gleefully. 'Ooh, wait 'til Sakaye-gaki hears about this! I bet she's never been told that!'
The genin lifted her chin happily, blue eyes sparkling with excitement. "You know what, kid? You got it!"
Kokoro grinned and shouted, "Alright! When do we get started, Boss Lady?"
Nariko smirked at the new title, taking a strange liking to it. "Well, I do have this one jutsu. It's really cool and way top-secret. It took a lot of work for me to get a hold of it."
"Well, come on, what is is?" the brunette asked impatiently.
The blonde grinned broadly as she placed her fingers in a familiar hand sign. "It's just a little jutsu I like to call-"
Several Narikos poofed into existence, much to Kokoro's surprise, and the whiskered girl's grin only widened at the younger's stunned expression.
"-Kage Bunshin no jutsu."
"Whoa..." Kokoro whispered. "There's so many..."
Cautiously, she prodded one in the arm, only to jump back when her hand didn't go through.
"H-hey!" she exclaimed, whipping her head towards Nariko. "They're solid!"
The genin rolled her eyes. "Well, of course they are! That's why they're called Kage Bunshin and not just Bunshin."
"Emiko-sensei's done them before, but never this many..." Kokoro suddenly wrinkled her nose. "She only does like one, if ever..."
Such a comment puffed Nariko's chest a little further, and her cheeks stretched so that nearly all her teeth shone through at the young girl. "Of course! That's why you chose me to teach you instead, right?"
The shorter female nodded seriously. "Right." Then, Kokoro placed her hands on her hips and glared at the genin. "So, are you going to teach me or what?"
Nariko rolled her eyes a second time in annoyance. "Yeah, yeah. I'm getting to that." Standing beside the brunette, she lifted her fingers into the hand sign once more. "Okay, here's what you've gotta do..."
oxoxo
A few hours later, Nariko regretted ever agreeing to the useless training.
"No, no, no!" the aforementioned girl cried. "You're not doing it right!"
Kokoro jerked her head towards her hand-picked mentor and spared her a foul look, gritting her teeth in frustration. "I'm trying!"
"Obviously, you're not trying hard enough!" Nariko snapped, placing her hands together once more. "I'll show you again. You have to focus your chakra like this..."
The steadily growing crowd of Nariko clones watched from afar and sighed as yet another group joined their bored numbers. Many of the newer ones eyed the ongoing training session listlessly, but most of the older doppelgangers that had been created somewhere in the middle had somehow acquired a few packs of playing cards and were currently engrossed in a rather uneventful game of Go Fish.
"Got any eights?" one of them inquired dully.
The one being questioned snarled angrily. "For the last time, no! Stop asking!"
A bunshin beside her grimaced and placed a finger in her ear. "Tone it done, would you? I can barely hear myself think..."
"Think about what?" the first retorted. "How you're going to ask for yet another two to match the one we know you're trying to get rid of?"
The clone flushed in response and glared, pulling her cards closer to her chest. "Oh, shut up..." she mumbled.
The oldest copies, which included the ones created towards the beginning of the session, had been there long enough to grow tired of the game and chose instead to just sleep the rest of the training away. Some of the braver ones even forced themselves to poof out of existence to escape the monotonous and mind-numbing wait lest they go insane with boredom.
The newest members gawked when one such bunshin, who had been tossing a rock around, allowed the stone to collide with her pigtailed head on its descent, finally bringing herself to disperse in a poof of smoke.
"That'll be you in a few hours," one clone splayed on a large boulder spoke up in response to the horrified stares.
Several of the newbies simply gulped and glanced back at their original and her pupil nervously.
Oblivious to the state of her clones and the misery she had placed them in by forgetting to release them, Nariko growled, shoving her hands back in her hair. "Why aren't you doing it? It's not that hard! I mean, geez! I had it long before now when I was learning it!"
Of course, "long before now" simply meant five minutes or so, but in her frustration, the blonde disregarded such details.
Kokoro's cheeks turned red and her fists clenched. "Well, maybe if you were a better teacher, I'd know it by now!" the small child bit out.
The blonde snapped her gaze towards the girl and fumed. "You little... ungrateful brat!" Nariko snatched the younger by the front of her shirt for the second time that day and shook her a little. "I am doing you a favor here! You asked for me, not the other way around, you hear? So, don't you dare go criticizing me when you're the one who can't. Do it. Right!" She punctuated the last few words with a shake in-between.
The brunette curled her lip, unimpressed by the girl's actions or words. "You're the one who can't do it right, stupid!" She tossed her head and tilted her chin pompously. "I should've just stuck with Emiko-sensei."
Nariko bristled at the girl's sudden and snobby attitude. "You- You- How dare you, you little brat! Don't you stick up your nose at me, unless you want me to–!"
"You there! What do you think you're doing!"
The orange-clad genin halted and shifted her aggravated gaze to examine the new arrival residing on a tree branch above them.
The woman was of average height and clad in the standard shinobi garb, minus the vest, but she wore her headband in a bandanna-like style on her head so that no bangs concealed her forehead. Her long, dark hair slid through beneath the triangle of cloth that topped her skull and over the knot that held the ends of her headband in place. A stern expression drew her eyebrows together over black sunglasses and her lips into a firm line. One arm lifted to push the glasses further up her nose, revealing that, like the blonde's former teacher, the woman's sleeves had been pushed to her elbows.
However, even with the dark-haired kunoichi's eyes hidden as they were, Nariko had the distinct impression that she was being glowered at.
"Do you have any idea exactly who you are holding in such a manner?" the woman called out, straightening into a stand and placing her hands on her hips. Without waiting for a response, she continued, frown deepening. "That is the Hokage's granddaughter, so unhand her now!"
The blonde narrowed her eyes, ignoring the woman's command. "And who are you supposed to be?"
The older kunoichi's expression tightened as she observed the girl who had taken her student captive with distaste. 'I can't believe it. It's her, that child...' Her lip curled at the thought.
Nariko tensed at the change in expression and her eyes darkened. 'Oh, great. It's that look, that god-awful look...'
Ignorant to either of the other female's thoughts, Kokoro groaned. "Oh no, it's Emiko-sensei..."
Emiko came to at that and jerked her gaze towards her student. "Honorable Granddaughter," she scolded, "I have been looking everywhere for you! What were you thinking, running off like that?"
"Trying to get away from you?..." the girl muttered under her breath.
Somehow the dark-haired kunoichi heard her student's quiet mutter and she sputtered momentarily. "H-Honorable Granddaughter! To say such a thing!" She shot a dark look and a sneer at Nariko as if it were the blonde's fault her student had said it.
Nariko scowled in return.
Emiko simply leapt down and grabbed Kokoro's scarf, tugging the girl along as she spoke. "Now, Honorable granddaughter, it's time we were getting back. You have much to learn and much training to get through." The woman paid no mind to her student's struggles as she continued. "It won't do for the Hokage's granddaughter to slack off like this."
"I wasn't slacking!" Kokoro cried in defense, jerking on the scarf around her neck and attempting to pull it out of her mentor's grasp. "I've been training with Nariko all day! See, look what she taught me!"
The brunette released her grip on the blue cloth and placed her hands together in the hand sign she had been taught. "Kage bunshin no jutsu!"
Emiko jolted in surprise at the cry and poof of smoke. 'N-No way! There's no possible way that she could have already learned that at her age, especially not from the Kyuubi child!'
But then the cloud cleared, revealing Kokoro and one pitiful, pale copy of herself that seemed barely able to stand on its own—which seemed strangely reminiscent of a certain blonde's attempts at normal Bunshin in her Academy days...
The brunette's face warped with despair. "Aw, man! Not again!"
The dark-haired woman relaxed and smirked to herself. 'Just as I thought. There's no way that girl could have taught her such a thing...'
Nariko spied the smirk on Emiko's face and, as it directed itself towards her, seemed to understand the gist behind it. She flushed angrily and furiously placed her hands together in another seal. 'You–you bitch! I'll show you...'
"Bishounen no jutsu!" the blonde cried.
The large crowd of Nariko clones perked up at this. The card players' heads whipped in the original's direction, and one bunshin that held a stone in her hand, prepared to follow her predecessor, dropped the object instantly and regarded the scene before her with new interest.
The smoke cleared, and the blonde audience let out several loud cries of approval and excitement.
"Oh, yeah! Take it off!"
"Now that's what I call a bishie!"
"Woohoo! Show her girl, er, boy!"
"Get it on!"
Perfect lips curled into a smile at the response, and the beautiful male raised a hand placatingly. "Ladies, ladies," he crooned. "There's more than enough to go around."
The exceptionally-large cluster of bunshin laughed in response and continued with their over-exaggerated screams.
Emiko clicked her jaw shut, as it had dropped open at the jutsu's initiation, and blushed deeply as she stuttered.
"Th-that's–" she said, flustered. "Wh-what a silly... vulgar jutsu! T-to have such a thing–" She shoved her glasses up her nose a little harder than necessary. "R-ridiculous! Simply... ridiculous!"
The mob of Narikos released sounds of disbelief and protest at the jounin's words.
"What? No way!"
"Are you kidding?"
"Are you insane?"
"Are you blind?"
"Must be those damn glasses..."
Kokoro scowled at Nariko and crossed her arms. "Hey..." she complained. "Why didn't you teach me that instead of stupid Kage Bunshin?..."
The now male blond paid no mind to the small brunette and simply eyed the woman before him carefully.
Flushed cheeks, sweaty palms, painfully-obvious stutter; yeah, she was definitely affected, but just not enough...
He smirked. "Better turn it up a little then." The criminally-attractive man turned towards the crowd of orange-clad genin behind him. "Alright, girls, let's go to that technique!" He grinned at the overwhelming response he got in return.
"You got it, Boss!" they giggled, placing their hands in a familiar sign.
The male spun back around and placed his hands on his hips. "Now!" he cried, voice synchronizing with the clones behind him. "Special technique: Bishie Overload!"
Emiko's eyes grew round behind her sunglasses as a bare-chested male appeared in the place of every preteen girl. She gaped, mouth opening and closing silently, and stood unmoving as they clustered towards her.
"Oh, Emiko-chan..." one crooned softly, brushing her cheek with a hand.
"Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?" another whispered in her ear, lightly massaging her shoulder with his fingers and twirling a lock of her hair.
The dark-haired woman only released an odd sound in response.
"Let's get rid of this silly bandanna," a third one near her back said huskily, untying it and slipping the headband gently from her head. He ran his fingers through her black locks as he went.
Yet another before her grinned charmingly and slid the glasses from her face. "And these silly sunglasses too, so we can see those gorgeous eyes."
Emiko's breathing increased at the unexpected ministrations from the beautiful men, and her cheeks darkened further with blood, her heart pounding a quick, unsteady rhythm within her chest.
The original Nariko bishounen smirked as he watched from a little farther back. 'Not much longer now...'
And he was right, for not but a few seconds later it all became too much, and poor Emiko dropped into a dead faint, a trickle of blood beginning to dribble from her nose.
Now grinning, Nariko released not only her henge, but the rest of her clones as well. The blonde frowned in confusion when she heard numerous cries of "Finally!" but shrugging it off, she turned back to Kokoro to find the brunette glaring at her.
The genin narrowed her eyes and furrowed her eyebrows. "What?"
The smaller girl huffed angrily. "Why didn't you teach me that? That Bishounen no jutsu thing? It definitely worked a lot better on Emiko-sensei..."
Nariko scowled slightly. "Hey, it only worked because I used it with Kage Bunshin, and the only reason your Kage Bunshin didn't work was because you suck at it." She then shut her eyes and crossed her arms. "Besides, why the hell would I teach you my special technique?"
Kokoro gritted her teeth and, without thinking, spouted off the only reason anyone else had ever needed. "Because I'm the Hokage's granddaughter!" she spat out bitterly.
However, to the brunette's shock, Nariko merely snorted. "Oh, yeah? You think just because you're the Old Man's grand kid, I'm going to change my mind? Please, like I'd want to teach some annoying, ungrateful brat my special technique!" The blonde crossed her arms and stuck her nose in the air, eyes sliding shut. "Especially when you ask like that..."
However, Kokoro was no longer listening. Instead, she gaped at the blonde as the orange-clad girl's words echoed in her mind.
"You think just because you're the Old Man's grandkid-?"
"-some annoying, ungrateful brat-!"
The brunette stared wordlessly at her chosen mentor in a stunned silence.
Curious by the sudden quiet, the whiskered girl blinked and glanced at the Hokage's granddaughter curiously. "Eh? What's with you? Got nothing else to say?"
"You..."
Nariko furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head to one side, confused by the girl's wide-eyed expression. "Yeah?..."
Disbelief and wonder shone in Kokoro's eyes. "You really don't care. You really don't care that I'm the Hokage's granddaughter..."
The blonde frowned deeply. "Well, of course not." She then glared slightly. "Who you're related to doesn't make you special or who you are, so I'm not giving you any special treatment just because you're family to the Old Man." She crossed her arms and shut her eyes again. "You're just a stuck-up, bratty little girl. That's all."
"You don't care..." Kokoro murmured. "You don't care..."
Nariko reopened her eyes, startled to note tears collecting in the brunette's dark ones.
"H-hey!" the whiskered kunoichi cried. "What's with the water works all of a sudden? I mean... Come on..." She held out her hands in a placating gesture. "Knock it off... I guess, I mean– I didn't mean that I didn't care at all... I guess. Er..."
The smaller girl sniffed and rubbed her eyes, shaking her head. "It's not that," she choked. "I'm-I'm happy. No one... I mean, I..." She inhaled shakily. "I've always been the Hokage's granddaughter. Whenever people talk about me, that's what they call me. They just refer to me as the Hokage's granddaughter or something like that."
Using her scarf to wipe her eyes, Kokoro continued. "When I was born, Gramps wanted to name me Konohako—you know, after the village and all—but my mom wouldn't let him because she didn't like the way it sounded." Her lips quirked up for a moment. "So, instead he offered up Kokoro, or Heart, like I'm the heart of the village. That's what he calls me sometimes actually. He says it's in the kids of my generation that the good things of the village—its heart, its innocence, its future—are and I'm, well, my name is supposed to be a representation of all that."
Then, the girl's face wrinkled miserably, red blotches forming on her cheeks. "But even though I have that name and all, no one ever uses it. I'm just the Hokage's granddaughter or Honorable Granddaughter, or– or–" She sniffled helplessly, fingers twisting in her scarf. "I'm not Kokoro; I'm never Kokoro. I'm just his granddaughter. That's it. I'm never me... Not to anyone..."
Despite her thick tone, Kokoro's head jerked up suddenly and her eyes shone strangely as they locked on the blonde.
"But you..." she began. "You don't care. You don't care at all. No one else would ever think to do or say the things you've done to me, the Hokage's granddaughter, but you did. You did. I'm not the Honorable Granddaughter or anything like that to you. I'm just like any other kid. You..."
The girl paused for a moment. "...You're the only one who's ever treated me like... well... me."
Nariko observed the girl quietly for a long minute or so—long enough that Kokoro began to grow uncomfortable with the elder's stare. The brunette flushed and flicked her gaze down somewhere at the genin's feet, wiping her nose with the already-quite-wet scarf.
The blonde frowned slightly. 'Treated based on someone or something else...'
The dark, hate-filled eyes of the villagers and the recent sneer from Emiko materialized within her mind's eye. A hand subconsciously slipped to her stomach and her fingers clutched the dark cloth of her tank, knowing what resided beneath. 'Yeah... I know that pretty well...'
However, a smile manifested itself upon the kunoichi's lips. "You know... you may suck at Kage Bunshin," she said lightly, "but..." She flitted her cerulean orbs to Kokoro's wide, still wet, dark ones. "I think I actually do kinda like you... a little bit..."
Nariko then grinned unexpectedly and beamed at the girl, eyes falling shut. "...Kokoro."
The younger girl's breath caught in her throat as she gawked at the blonde. 'My... My name... She said my name... Kokoro...' The corners of the brunette's lips slowly stretched on her cheeks until her smile nearly matched Nariko's own trademark grin.
"What? Not Brat? Not Kid?" Kokoro inquired playfully, though it could in no way mask the exuberance in her voice.
Nariko's grin merely widened. "Nah... You're still both of those, but I dunno. Kokoro has a certain... ring to it." She winked at the girl as she said this.
The girl in question giggled. "Yeah..." Visage softening, she smiled at the genin. "Thank you, Nariko."
The blonde simply laughed and waved a hand dismissively. "Hey, don't mention it, alright?"
Kokoro's eyes gleamed happily. "Okay."
oxoxo
Nariko grinned as she waved at the young girl and her new-found friend as Kokoro took off down the street, claiming a need to get home to dinner. The blonde slipped a hand down to rub her own growling stomach.
"Man, I'm starved," she grumbled, glancing around. She perked up on spotting the well-loved Ichiraku noodle shop.
"Ah, perfect!" she squealed, bounding over and promptly ordering a bowl of pork ramen.
She hummed pleasantly as she slurped at the slippery pasta, smacking happily once she had swallowed. "Delicious!" the orange-clad girl exclaimed.
The Ichiraku woman, Terumi, smiled at her. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," she said. "You are my best customer, after all." The older woman laughed lightly at this.
Nariko giggled in reply. "Of course! Your noodles are the best I've ever tasted!"
Terumi grinned and Akio, her son, stepped out of the kitchen to refill the jar of chopsticks kept on the counter for customer convenience and to replace the genin's empty bowl with another helping. The blonde shoved the ramen into her mouth eagerly.
"Hey, by the way," Akio questioned on his return with a curious grin, bracing his elbows on the high counter top, "how was your mission today?"
Nariko blinked in confusion and swallowed, frowning. "Mission? What mission?"
"You know," the male replied, "the mission you were complaining about this morning?" He smiled patiently at Nariko's blank stare. "The D-rank with your team?"
"You said you were going to try and get Hokage-sama to change it," Terumi added, looking slightly amused.
The orange-clad genin's eyes slowly widened, her mouth dropped open, and the chopsticks slid from her fingers to clatter on the counter top.
"The mission!" she squeaked. "My team, they'll-"
She cut off on sensing the murderous aura that instantly leadened the air. Swallowing hard and terror flashing across her face, she reluctantly turned frightened blue eyes to her teammates.
Seiichi cracked his knuckles threateningly, shoulders tense and face gone red with anger. Sakaye regarded Nariko with a dark, evil glare, expression tight.
Simply put, they were pissed.
A quick glance at Kairi revealed the jounin to be reading her red book mutely, though if her unusually tight grip on the novel and the displeased glint to her eye meant anything, she was not happy either.
Nariko lifted her hands in an attempt to calm the rest of her squad. "H-hey, I can explain! You see, I was with the Old Man and there was this little girl–!"
"You ditched us," Seiichi cut in, "to play with some kid?" His voice rose until he hit the last word with a furious yell that would have likely been an unholy shriek had he been female.
Nariko shrunk back. "Wh-what? No, no, it's not like that! I mean, I was coming back, but I lost track of time and—hey, guys... Guys? Seiichi-kun, wh-what are you doing?..."
The pinket cracked his knuckles once more, face spelling certain doom for the blonde. "You know..." he hissed. "I'm really not in the habit of hitting girls, but I think I can make an exception... Just this once."
CRACK!
"Ooooooooooowwwww!"
"Oh, shut up, Ditz," Sakaye bit out venomously.
"...Or I could let Sakaye-chan do it."
Kairi giggled, having returned to her book fully now that the situation had been handled. "You go, Yuri-kun..."
Seiichi merely sighed.
oxoxo
A tan hand slipped through the strap of its owner's bag and jerked it up on to the sturdy shoulder, tugging once on the pack's dark cloth. A pair of lips frowned as it gave slightly, the threads creaking with displeasure. The figure sighed and slid his gaze to the two before him.
"I'm off," he said simply.
The other male nodded at him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Be careful," the second said firmly.
The original man nodded in reply and bent down to bid the small child by the other farewell. He pulled the smaller into a hug, frowning into the dark hair when he received only the barest of responses.
"I'll be back as soon as I can, okay?" he murmured.
The child didn't respond, and the man reluctantly relinquished his hold. He then stood once more and gave one last word of parting before turning to begin his very long journey.
End Arc 2
o
o
Fun Facts:
– Yet another original title. Yay. Laughs.
– This is my longest chapter to date at about 6500 words.
– This is the first time Nariko has used her Bishounen no jutsu since Chapter 1 when she did so to escape Izumi.
– This chapter was actually written after what originally had been Chapter 13 and is now Chapter 14 because of the insertion of this chapter. I realized that I had completely forgotten about Kokoro and that, if I wanted to have her later, I needed some way to introduce her now since the point in which Kokoro appears again will be the Chunin Exams arc, where a lot of introductions will be made. I didn't need to add another description and introduction to the mix, so I wrote this.
– This was also going to be labeled as an Omake chapter, but with the help of my best friend, I realized that some people might get the impression that they could just skip over it if they wished or they might feel it annoyingly-long for just an Omake. I wanted people to read the chapter, especially the final, foreshadowing scene, so I removed the "Omake" from the tittle and made it a normal chapter. Somehow that one word manages to alter the perspective in a way I now see and did not realize.
– I originally considered introducing Kokoro in Chapter 6, after Nariko's return of the scroll and meeting with Kairi, but decided to stick with what I had and insert it here to switch it up a bit from the original Canon. I had that same reasoning when deciding to have Nariko teach Kokoro Kage Bunshin as opposed to Bishounen no Jutsu.
– Kairi's mention of "Yuri-kun" as she reads her novel references Sasuke's English Voice Actor. Grins. Expect to see more of these.
– Asami, or our Female Asuma, is the fourth character thus far, after Seiichi, Ikuo, and Okimi, to have her name mentioned in a chapter before and separate from when we actually meet her in the story.
– Terumi, the Ichiraku woman, first made her appearance in Chapter 3, where she is briefly mentioned as Izumi and Nariko are eating there. However, this is Akio's first appearance, excluding a small mention regarding the Ichiraku woman's son in the same chapter.