Chapter 5: Dead of Night
It was getting too cold. The wind had gradually abated, the leaves giving up their erratic dance to lie upon the crumbling forest soil, as if the depth of night had gradually put nature itself to bed. But the chill lingered in the air and thickened as the darkness drew on. A mother bird perched in her nest shifted to cover her chicks with her down feathers. The slumbering shrew down beneath the tree bough unconsciously nudged her pale, wriggling infants closer beneath her belly.
Chakra thrummed gently through the two dark figures seated against the tree roots, noticeably bringing the air around them up a few degrees.
Takeshi peered into the gloom. Naruto made soft whistling snores at his side.
His eyes caught each individual leaf as it fluttered, disturbed by an errant breeze, and he could trace their path with a finger. From where he leaned against the tree, he could make out only a few stars piercing through the shifting foliage, but in turn enjoyed the dappled moonlight that swayed and shifted and turned the darkness of the forest into the mysterious currents of the sea.
He felt sort of dull. And happy.
He'd been to plenty of places untouched by human traces. Tall, white peaks a few hundred miles above the nearest settlement, with crags that extended out into the edge of the world. The ruins of an old temple reclaimed by the saplings and the flowing grass, its hard, stone edges rubbed soft with time. He'd seen enough to fill the notebooks of a thousand poets and the songs of a hundred bards, but sitting here in the dark, with Naruto, he felt more at peace and more one with nature than he'd been in years.
So maybe settling down wasn't so bad. He'd build a house out here near the far edges of Konoha, maybe cultivate a small garden plot in his spare time. Long walks in the forest. Hell, an attractive, dependable girl to spend the rest of his life with. Naruto would need a mother figure, and he'd be damned if he couldn't provide the sexiest, and the hands down most deviant… that is to say… devoted woman in the whole of Fire country.
When he wasn't out killing people for Sarutobi, maybe he'd have time for that.
"The past is gone, Take. What's done is done. And I could go on all night listing out every wise saying I know about letting go, but I think you get the point."
He tried to ignore the voice. It was on the wrong track, but the grim, sardonic tone resonated with his mood. For a while, the only sound came from the smooth whispers of the forest.
"I'm not asking you to take up your old job." A hesitation, one that wouldn't have been there before. "I hope I won't need to. The scope of your duties is nowhere near as broad as that required during the war. That is all I can promise."
Takeshi gave the silhouette a level stare. It shifted on the branches above him and dropped silently down to the roots of the tree.
The Hokage leaned back against the soft growth between the roots. In the starlit wash, his movements seemed a bit heavier. A little less agile than Takeshi remembered.
He could sympathize. Each successive morning offered one less reason to wake up, when the watery warmth of the sun stewed the body into convulsive pains, and vibrant colors drained away into dull prints. It became progressively harder to find the energy. Lips drooped at the edges, not just from the slackening of skin, but because it was so difficult to be carefree, so hard to laugh in pure mirth. Everyone was getting old.
"So how do you do it?"
"Hmmm?"
"How do you manipulate the lives of people in ways you'll never really understand and still sleep soundly at night?"
Sarutobi was silent for a few moments. He was out of his formal robes, a deep green flak vest instead making him apart of the shadowy landscape. It was a reminder, perhaps, that he too had given much for Konoha, for the village and its people, with the blood and sweat wrung from his own body. So Takeshi would give him a chance to indulge in histrionics.
"I take walks." He was looking at his hands, curled in his lap as he sat leaning against the tree.
"I do that too, sometimes. Helps with indigestion."
"I take a walk around the village," Sarutobi continued as if he did not hear. Perhaps he really didn't. His eyes were far away. "And I see a city that has not been overrun by enemies bent on slaughter and pillage. I see people not overwhelmed by disease or hunger, a populace that is not prostrate from the burden of poverty." He lifted his head.
"We may lie, cheat, and steal. We may send the best of us to die for the worst. But we do so to secure the safety of our home, so that for each sapling that may be cut down, the will of fire, the Will of Konoha will burn stronger."
A howling sound in the distance. A wolf, crying his joy to the moon.
Takeshi laughed, and rubbed slowly at his eyes. "Fuck. I needed a good laugh tonight. Thanks, Sarutobi."
The Hokage had a faint smile lingering around his lips. It faded slowly. "Make of it what you will. Like you said, it is what lasts me through the nights."
They stared up through the canopy at the faint starlight awhile, neither willing to break the silence. Naruto murmured softly, and turned around in his sleep.
"Caused a bit of trouble tonight?"
Takeshi shot him a sidelong glance. "Just a little. Gonna take care of it for me?"
"I have to go through all the motions, since, technically, you don't exist. Official story is an attempted assassination of the Uchiha Fugaku. Naruto stumbled along, flipped the alarm on the intruders. Intruders fled, took Naruto with them. I save the day. Or someone I trust, who can lie about this properly."
Takeshi blinked. "What about me?"
"Well, after the fact, I decide to entrust Naruto to a civilian family for the first time in a long time. You're the one with the best qualifications." They shared a laugh. "Somehow. I'll get the paperwork for that done in the morning."
"And the Inuzuka's?"
"Not an issue. I've ordered assassinations to be carried out within the week."
Takeshi whirled around, slamming his fist into the tree beside the Hokage's head. No chakra. There was a small explosion of splinters, and a cracking of bone and split flesh as his knuckles cracked apart. Blood trailed down in small rivulets following the depressions within the bark.
"Your jokes aren't very funny, Sarutobi."
No flinch marred the Hokage's stony features. "That isn't part of the job requirement."
The stare this time was fanned from both sides, neither giving inches to the raw emotions in the other's eyes. Neither could hold the moral high ground, and neither would sully themselves by pretending to do so. It was a struggle of wills, a meaningless tug of war.
"Nii-san? Jii-san?" A sleepy voice came from the side.
Takeshi was the first the break the stare. He twisted, and scooped up Naruto into a gentle cuddle in his lap.
"It's alright. We were having a small scuffle."
"A scwuffle?"
"It means disagreement, Naruto," The Hokage gently ruffled the boy's hair. "Neither of us meant anything by it."
As close to an apology as he was ever going to get, then. Takeshi took it in stride.
"Yeah, happens all the time between friends. Go back to sleep. It's late."
"Okay. G'night nii-san, jii-san." He squirmed into a more comfortable position with his head tucked into the crook of Takeshi's arm. Soft snores filled the silence before long.
Takeshi unfolded himself from his perch on the roots, ignoring the numbing prickles in his leg as blood rushed back.
"A healthy tree doesn't have bad roots, Sarutobi." His lips twisted into a snarl. "Maybe that's why you frame your ideology in terms of fire. Flames aren't picky, are they? They consume everything you throw at it, wipe away all the little, uncomfortable things no one wants to talk about. Try finding a better analogy."
He disappeared into the gloom without looking back. The moonlight softly limned the pale silver hair of the small bundle cradled in his arms, before it too was consumed by darkness.
()()()()()()()
Breaking out of the Uchiha Police Headquarters was harder than it sounded, even for the Uchiha.
Especially when the station was cordoned off by Anbu.
Anbus? Anbuses? Anba?
Lots of people in masks.
"So, how are we doing this, again?"
Itachi looked sideways at his senior partner. In crime, this time.
"We wrap up our faces, charge out, throw around a few destructive attacks, and run before they know what hit them."
"Right."
Itachi nodded in confirmation. The plan was perfect.
"Mind telling me again how this is better than simply checking out with the guy at the front door?"
Itachi paused to collect his thoughts. Shisui leaned back against the wall of the second story corridor to give him space, and to avoid the worst of the draft sweeping down through the ragged hole in the ceiling of Fugaku's office. Luckily, the boss had been home early tonight, mumbling something about surprising his wife. He'd been called back within minutes of the attack, of course, and had paced through the station at the head of the lockdown deployment despite the pleas of his subordinates and several Anbu for him to stay in the relative safety of the main hall. Armed with naught but controlled and righteous fury, Uchiha Fugaku made an impressive sight in the chaos of the aftermath, reminding everyone exactly why he was head of the clan and the chief of the Konoha police force.
And if Shisui was any judge, the sour expression lacing the boss's fury just might been prime symptoms of sexual frustration. His condolences to Mikoto as well.
Itachi's words broke through his wandering thoughts. "Going through the front door means having our movements logged. Any further trouble that happens tonight can be traced right back to us, so we'll have to limit the extent of our actions to compensate. This can be the difference between life and death." His eyes grew flinty.
Shisui nodded. "An alibi, right."
"And freedom of movement. You're the acting officer on site now that father's been drawn into the Anbu investigation. Leaving now will draw all kinds of unwanted attention- we may very well be followed, if not openly denied exit at the door."
"Ok, I admit, all very logical, 'tachi. But now try explaining the destructive attacks part." Shisui waited patiently for an answer, his back against the wall. Itachi had moved to lean against the opposite wall during his reasoning.
Cold silence.
Itachi didn't squirm. But his cloak fluttered helplessly around his frame before gradually rippling into stillness. "… I…"
"Hmm?"
The words were slow and deliberate, and for the first time that night, very characteristic of the boy.
"My logic may be compromised by anger from my… my impotency."
"Heh, you said impotent."
Itachi gave a rueful smile. "That was presumptuous, and a dangerous flaw on my part, senpai. Please accept my apologies."
"Happens to the best of us." Shisui kicked off the wall. "Now try memorizing this sequence of seals."
His hands twisted around a seal chain, paused for a moment, and went through the motions again.
"Element is water."
Shisui paused to let his words sink in, and repeated the seals one more time.
"Shape is dispersed," He continued.
"I'll explain later exactly what this does, but for now, just remember that it's an extension of the basic invisibility scheme they teach you in the academy."
Itachi frowned. "Will it be enough to fool Anbu?"
"It's dark, and there's only a token perimeter guard." Shisui shrugged. "And they're mostly expecting to keep people out anyway. We could probably flip our cloak over our heads and still make it past them unseen." Seeing Itachi's blank stare, he added, "cause, our cloaks are black, you know. And it's nighttime outside."
Itachi hesitated for a moment, deciding to say something, but then thinking better of it. He nodded firmly towards his senpai, and made to move toward the end of the corridor where it formed a T-junction with the records hall. Shishui followed on his heels, but paused mid-step when Itachi came to an abrupt stop.
"That," Itachi took a deep breath, "that was a joke, right?" It came out tentative.
"Yeah. Well, kind of a joke."
A deep, shuddering breath.
"Um, you really shouldn't judge them by my standards… I tell pretty bad ones." Shisui finished lamely.
Itachi was silent for a moment. Narrowing his eyes, he enunciated in precise syllables.
"Ha. Ha."
He glanced sharply towards Shisui and gave him a significant nod.
Shisui blinked.
The snap of black fabric broke into his reverie as Itachi set down the hall at a brisk pace.
Shisui stared for a moment.
Then he snorted.
He'd suggested on the first day Itachi was entrusted to him that the boy loosen up a bit and learn to laugh at his jokes. He'd been greeted then by a stern, if not slightly incredulous ,'yes, sir', but today, Itachi had laughed, albeit mechanically. He was a little proud.
The intersection held a black vase lined with silver clouds, with stork's heads that poked out each one at odd angles. A dull scrapping, as Itachi slowly slid the vase off the table. Once the ceramic monstrosity was lowered carefully to the floor, Shisui pulled himself up onto the table, bracing his feet at the opposite corners. The added height put his fingertips within reach of the vent on the ceiling masked by a dusty bronze lattice. It was part of the building's ventilation system that dove through the roof and eventually zigzagged its way outside. It was also big enough for any shinobi worth his salt to crawl through. Some called it a security risk. Others praised it as safe infrastructural planning and money well spent on a decent architect. Shisui paused.
"Hey, 'tachi, move back a sec."
Itachi retreated two steps. He took the opportunity to run through the brief string of seals, starting with snake and ending eventually in rat. How it resembled a rat was beyond him. Maybe if he squinted a little and twisted his hand at an angle to his head, he could make out the tail bit and the ears as his pinky?
"Catch."
Itachi's hand immediately swiped through the air, palm flat towards the floor. It bisected the path between the ceiling and the falling grate, and blurred down to follow as the rest of his body fell into a crouch. Fingers grasped around the abraded lattice a few inches before it hit the carpet. The dust remained undisturbed on the metal surface.
Shisui grunted. "Ok, get the jutsu going. I'm first at bat." The upper half of his body disappeared as he pulled himself up the vent, legs eventually tucking against the sides and scraping down to propel himself upwards.
Itachi finished the seals and centered the slick stillness of water into his consciousness. His body shimmered, rippling in uneven waves as chakra bled slowly out of his pores.
A dull hiss of metal on metal, before the vase carefully levitated itself off the floor and set down gently on the table. There was a following clink as the grate shifted itself back into the concrete grooves.
()()()()()()()()()
It was around three in the morning. Takeshi knew this somewhere in his bones, where maybe the sinew kept time against the raw red muscles of his frame.
He was a bit tired. Naruto weighed hardly enough to be much of a burden, but the kid had been sleeping in his arms for a long time. He was getting a bit sore.
No light stole through the windows or under the doors, and the starlight washed over a city frozen in slumber. There were people out, even at this hour, but most were engaged in the kind of business in which it was a rule of thumb to maintain absolute silence.
Takeshi himself kept to the shadows, turning down strange streets and venturing through foreign alleys with only the intention of avoiding light. His feet, trusty old companions, yes, his feet were one of the few comrades who never betrayed him, they lead him unwittingly to the Inuzuka compound. It was dark inside as well. Maybe Tsume was still mad at him?
He stopped at the large doors blocking his path. Smooth, red wood all the way up in a giant arch over the adjacent walls. He thought about knocking, but it was late, and he didn't want to be any trouble. So he leaned his side against the wood, and pulsed chakra through his right hand extended toward the door. It came out at first in dribbles.
He frowned. Snapped his fingers to ride them of the night chill, and splayed them out again. The relentless ebb and flow of water rushed down the nerves of his arm, eating away at the door through the bright blue flicker of his chakra twining around the individual grains of rotting wood.
In a few moments, a perfect circle was set into the formidable double doors. He ducked down his head and stepped inside the compound, careful to shield Naruto's head from the jagged splinters jutting out the wood.
A howl, long and shrill.
Dull unease resonated with the sound, and Takeshi paused on his way toward the first row of wooden houses set on short stilts. Maybe he should hide in the bushes, figure out what that noise meant.
Lights flickered on in a half circle around him, pooling faintly through the thick screen doors in an off white luminance. His instincts fairly screamed at the hazy thoughts trailing absently through his head, so he appeased the voices by diving headfirst into the row of potted shrubbery along the left side of the path. He twisted into half roll that should have landed him back on his knees, but instead sent him tumbling further into grass patch, into the slight space between the wooden floor of the house and the packed ground underneath. Naruto stirred in his arms.
"Owww," Takeshi had his body draped over the boy. He pressed his index finger against Naruto's lips.
"Try not to talk."
Naruto squirmed out from under him, half-heartedly trying to suppress a yawn. "What're we doing, nii-chan?"
And all of a sudden, Takeshi was awake.
Crap.
What was he doing?
Naruto peered at his face curiously, but whipped back around toward the commanding voice that rang through the darkness.
"I want whichever fuckfaces that made the fucking hole in my door, to literally zip down their pants right now and fuck themselves in the face."
A moment of silence, during which Takeshi wracked his brain for answers. The boy's eyes went wide, and small fists clutched the side of his leather jacket. Takeshi absently ruffled the pale golden fluff of hair beside him.
The voice found a calmer pitch. "You have disturbed the peace, threatened the safety, and trespassed on the property of the Inuzuka clan. You will be lucky to leave this place with all your limbs screwed on properly. Kuromaru, if you would."
"I would." A grim, low growl.
Howls broke the chill and echoed under the wooden slats, where Takeshi wrapped his arms tighter around the boy. Dogs, he thought, dogs pick up scents, but Inuzuka dogs can track scents and center in on traces of chakra.
The patch of shrubbery rustled in front of him as something heavy tried to push its way through.
So in order to hide, he'd have to mask both of their scents and disperse the traces of their chakra.
He spared a glance toward Naruto huddling beside him. The boy was quiet- understandable in the situation- but it was not out of fear. If anything, the gleam in Naruto's eyes and the predatory smirk dragging up his lips suggested he was used to these kinds of things, and felt considerable excitement from the possibility of danger and violence. Takeshi felt his hands grow clammy in response. He was reacting as much from the perceived risk of his surroundings as from the boy humming happily beside him.
He was combat ready.
He couldn't afford to blanket Naruto's chakra- he'd have to externalize his own, and the dogs were on the prowl already.
But if what he saw from Tsume earlier that night meant anything, he didn't have to.
He tapped Naruto on the shoulder to catch the his attention, gave his head one last, reassuring pat, and watched alarm bloom on the boy's face as he was scooped up and thrown at—Holy god, was that a horse?
The wolf dog hybrid shrank back from the body hurtling toward her, not from any fear of the flailing limbs, but because the boy was masked in the scent of one Kuromaru had always charged her to treat with respect. She lowered her body so that her belly brushed against the low ferns, and braced her legs against the shock of impact as Naruto landed neatly on her back. Then his weight was gone.
Takeshi cackled as the boy in his arms repeated word for word all the obscenities he'd spewed earlier in the forest. He made a mad dash through the potted plants and dived right through the hole in the large double doors, tumbling and raising dust and finally landing a good ways into the street on his back.
He panted for air, clutching Naruto to his chest like a safety cushion.
Naruto socked him in the stomach. His strained breaths momentarily turned to wheezing, but gradually fell silent as he drew in oxygen-heavy chakra through his pores.
A pattering of footsteps drew along either side of them. Dogs and shinobi, circling and waiting.
A more distinct tread gradually made its way from the compound to a spot left of his head. Takeshi squinted up and made out the fierce features of Inuzuka Tsume. He saw recognition register in her eyes, then the beeline they made for the boy clutched in his arms, soft worry. Anger. At him. Low rumbling grew to pitched growls, and the household of the Inuzuka clan readied for massacre as the dormant mothering instincts of their clan head crashed to sudden wakefulness.
"Kill him. Have care with the boy."
He tried to talk, but ended up making hoarse rasping sounds through his throat. He turned his head to the left, trying to clear out the spit, and dribbled pathetically over the shinobi sandals nearly level with his nose.
"I-" Cough, cough. Dribble, dribble. "I tried to stop them, Tsume, I really did."
Silence, even through the restless shifting of dogs and men.
A foot placed itself upon his throat, and he was gently divested of the fleshy bundle riding on his chest. The girl who led Naruto away by the hand met his eyes and challenged Takeshi with a silent snarl. Naruto was strangely silent.
Then, rough leather ground into his throat.
"Explain."
He gurgled for a while.
A sigh. The pressure eased off his throat.
"The two black clad people who busted out the door." His words came out in gasps. "They ran that way" He waved vaguely with his right arm. He saw Tsume's brow knit in the dark space above his head, and a few low growls emitted from her pursed lips. A weight settled on his stomach, and effectively pinned down his arms.
"Black clad figures."
Takeshi tried to nod, but Tsume's sandaled foot reintroduced his head to the dirt. From the corner of his eye, he saw Naruto's head snap up and his eyes widen.
"I-arsh cuhh, cuhh, cuhhh" Dry heaving "cuhhh…I overheard, whiny bastards the lot of them, I overhead them discussing a plot to assassinate the Hokage."
The dark figures circling the two of them had fallen still. Naruto fidgeted, and seemed to want to approach, but the arms encircling the boy's waist were implacable. And feminine. Deliciously feminine.
Takeshi shook the thoughts out of his head. Fuck arms. He had a delightful view up the leg of Tsume's trousers, after all.
Said woman leaned her weight forward, and for a while, too much blood swarmed into his head for Takeshi to enjoy it properly.
"So, let me get this straight." Tsume growled, lowering her head so that their noses were almost touching. Her sandaled foot ground further into his throat. Gods, that woman was limber. "Assassins conspiring to kill the Hokage in the Inuzuka clan compound broke out the door, trampled over you, who, by some strange quirk of chance, was standing conveniently inside, and left you alive to inform me of the plot?"
"I also overheard their names."
Takeshi was dimly aware of Naruto straining eagerly forward against the girl's murmured pleas and shapely arms. They were the only pair that seemed to take an interest in the proceedings. The dogs had settled down on their haunches and their human companions were rubbing them down, evidently dismissive of him as a threat. Takeshi felt vaguely offended.
He also felt saliva trail down the right side of his chin. Not his own. He was drooling out of the corner of his mouth from the choking pressure on his throat, but the thin string of spit on his chin dangled from the bared fangs looming horribly within his vision.
"You heard." She. It. It paused. "Their names."
He nodded furiously. "The first guy called the other one 'Parental Inexperience'."
She blinked. A strange hitch in the air, as the quiet growls and whining of clan conversation suddenly halted to examine this new curiosity.
"And, and, the other guy named the first one 'Nohouse nomoney'."
She blinked again. Then the weight came off, and he was able to inhale properly once again.
Glowing brown eyes studied him in the darkness. He risked a peek toward his left and saw Naruto scrunching up his nose, trying to puzzle out the strange names of the phantom assassins.
Brown eyes softened.
Tsume snorted, grabbed a limp arm and dragged him bodily off the ground.
"Fucking Iwa nin, right? You should have said." She nodded toward Naruto. "You're lucky, brat. Those assassins might have hurt you if Takeshi-san here wasn't around." Low snickers, and a few guffaws as his little scheme came to light.
Takeshi ignored them. He had a place to stay in for the night. Maybe a free dinner if he was lucky.
A weight tackled him in the lower back, almost driving him back into the dirt. It clambered up his waist and settled comfortably on his shoulders, nuzzling him as it tried to find a snug position.
It whispered softly into his ear. "Thanks, nii-chan."
And Naruto still thought he was awesome.
Tsume had a strange look on her face, but turned aside before she met his eyes. "Hana, bring him in, will you? Get him settled in one of the spare rooms. Or stick him with Kiba. Probably awake by now."
...
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AN:/ Admittedly, that last scene wasn't all that well-written. Mostly because I hastily tacked it on to make this chapter longer than the other ones, in order to attract more reader reviews. I know, shameless, huh. According to fellow fanfic-ers, they usually won't touch anything with less than 10k words per chapter. In order to beef up my work count while hopefully improving the quality of the writing, while keeping the patchwork plot intact, I took bit longer this time before updating.
Holler.