Chapter 9
Pre-Note: As an aside, I'm startled at how many of you simply took Neji's words as the honest-to-God-truth-thank-you-ma'am. I'm the author, I will never lie to you. But Neji, just like Hiashi, just like Naruto, is a character, and characters have a point-of-view. Hiashi has his as well, and I assure you it is very different from Neji's. (And I am certain that some will now distrust EVERYTHING Neji says... even Naruto's character will mislead you... that's something characters do.)
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"We have a situation," one of the shimmering figures stated without a hint of emotion. "Our former colleague seems to have created a problem that may affect our efforts with the Kyuubi."
"How is that?" a hunched figure asked.
"He has an irrational need to exact revenge, and the Kyuubi has an irrational need to prevent it." There was a pause as he waited to see if anyone would add anything. "This would not necessarily be a situation on its own, but he has gathered another. Itachi..."
"The avenger..." Itachi's icy voice didn't betray his feelings in the slightest. "He is not a problem."
"Even so, he was not part of our original calculations."
"There is no situation, I assure you," Itachi reaffirmed. The other figures were interested. Normally Itachi didn't assert himself this much. "Orochimaru is no problem on his own. He is weak, and lacks the discipline to cause any real issues. The avenger will not harm our aspirations. I can guarantee that."
"Oh? How can you say that?" The figures all stared at Itachi, waiting for his response.
"Because if he does, I will destroy him."
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Naruto was feeling a little out of sorts these last few weeks. His time with Sora had been about change, and discovery, and study. It had been about growth, and surprises, and arguments. But his time with Sora had mostly broken him from his need to seek attention however possible. There was a certain security in knowing that others would be there and care about what you felt whether or not you did something outrageous to make them notice.
The problem was that Naruto felt like he was a different person now that he'd returned to the village. He hadn't felt different when he'd been with Sora, even at the end... it was just how he was. But being back in Konoha was like a mirror into the past, and he could see himself doing the things he used to. Maybe the other's felt the same way. Maybe they all had grown up so quickly and not noticed the changed the others had gone through because they had been focusing on themselves so much. He'd ask Hinata later, and hopefully sort it all out.
It was definitely a strange feeling. He knew why he had done those things... a part of him felt like doing them now, simply because it was comforting. But coming back it was as if he felt compelled to show how different of a person he'd become. Yet at the same time he desperately wanted others to understand that he was the same Naruto that left... it was a frustrating paradox.
Naruto sighed and scanned the living room. He couldn't afford to forget something today; Hinata wouldn't be able to remind him if he forgot something. She was busy training for her match, and she'd said that this part of her training was so important she couldn't let him know about it. Well... whatever.
He walked out the front door, locking it behind him, a scroll in hand. There were three weeks left until Hinata's match, and while he was certain that she could do it, something was bothering him. Hiashi was not acting like Hiashi. Naruto turned and started walking towards the Academy, kicking a few stones as he went.
They had studied a lot of clans and politics with Sora, it had been an absolute requirement of hers, but Hiashi was not making any sense at all... he wasn't concerned about the clan as a whole it seemed, as he wasn't embracing what would make the clan stronger. The way he was treating Neji, the clans most promising prodigy, Hinata, the clans most prominent figurehead, and even Hanabi, the clans strongest Main Branch youth (or so he thought), was all wrong. He was taking an ideological stance, and the problem was that an ideological stance almost always hurt the clan so that another person could gain power, usually the person taking the ideological stance. It had been how the Lady of the Wind had gained power: ideology. The problem was that Hiashi already had absolute power within the clan.
Naruto sighed, trudging along, his thoughts breaking the silence of the morning that was punctuated only by a few birds chirping in the distance. All of this bothered him a great deal. The only real thing Hiashi gained by everything he was doing was to keep Hinata from being the heir. But why? It just didn't make any sense. If only Sora was here... she'd know what was going on.
Entering the Academy building, Naruto shook the feeling from himself, as if he were a dog shaking off water, and he promptly entered the classroom, a few minutes early. It wouldn't do if he started turning into Kakashi...
Setting the scroll on the desk and looking around the room, he saw that about half the class was already there. He was trying to remember all their names, but it was difficult. Sora had taught him a lot of patience and maturity, but he still was having trouble convincing his brain that remembering their names was worth the effort. Stupid brain always seemed to complain about something.
Naruto's eyes settled on an empty seat that was always filled. That's... Amenaka. Naruto squinted as he thought to himself. He always gets here before me. I wonder where he is? As if by cue, Daisuke careened through the door, jumping right into his seat. He looked up at Naruto with a sheepish look, like he'd been caught with a hand in the cookie jar.
"Sorry I'm late, Naruto-sensei." Naruto shook his head.
"It's alright, class hasn't even started yet, Amenaka-sam–" Naruto stopped abruptly. "Amenaka-san."
Amenaka-sama? Why would I... Naruto looked back at the boy with his brown hair and broader shoulders. Aha! That's where I know that name from! But... how? Naruto realized he was staring at the boy and quickly turned to the scroll on his desk, shuffling it around unpurposefully. Was he related? If so, how did he get here?
Naruto glanced around the room. Nearly all of the students were there now, and it struck him that they seemed so young in his eyes. It seemed like such a long time ago that he was in the classroom thinking about how great being a ninja would be, and now here he was, staring those same faces back from the other side of the desk.
He looked up at the clock, cleared his throat, and waited for the class to fall silent. It was something Iruka had told him after seeing one of his first classes. Naruto, as could be expected, was rather vocal about how and when the students should be quiet. Iruka explained however that the simple act of waiting for them to notice that you were ready to begin, then saying something only if they didn't notice or care, was more effective. He had explained that it established Naruto as a figure of authority in a more subtle and successful way because children don't respond well to others who demand authority outright.
Naruto wasn't completely sold on it, but after giving it a try once he'd had excellent results, and the students had seemed to pay him better attention. He didn't really care too much about the reason, Iruka's little trick worked and that's what mattered.
"Hinata-sensei won't be joining us today. She's busy with some other stuff." Naruto paused to collect his thoughts when a couple of giggles near the back got his attention. They seemed to be centered about the lone Hyuuga student in the classroom. Naruto clenched his jaw, willing himself to act like a teacher should... the students really gave him headaches sometimes...
"Hyuuga-san, please refrain from disrupting the class or I'll have a talk with Hiashi-sama." The Hyuuga boy looked at the same time fearful and disbelieving, as if he wasn't sure that Naruto would follow through on his threat.
"Now, today we're going to get out of the classroom. Everyone out to practice field two!" The students all immediately perked up, and animated discussion erupted amongst themselves as they filed out of the classroom. Naruto made sure that everyone had left, another hard lesson learned with help from Iruka, and grabbed the scroll off the desk before heading out himself.
When he approached the practice field Naruto saw his class milling about, no longer talking. He smiled.
"Hinata-sensei and me have talked before about the Kaze taijutsu form and how unique it is in comparison to other forms we see here in the East." The students seemed to be hanging on his every word. Naruto smirked. "Well today I'm going to demonstrate the Shina-Tsu-Hiko form for you, and later I'll teach you the basics."
He looked around and saw the excitement in everyone's eyes. Clearly that was something that they were happy to hear.
"Now, I want Amenaka-san to come into the practice ring with me." The boy looked startled, but soon smiled as he walked over toward Naruto. "Amenaka-san is very good at taijutsu, and so he is going to spar with me. I want all of you to pay attention to me as we're fighting, and take note of the things I do. Think about the style of the Kaze and try to see similarities." Naruto turned to the boy in front of him.
"You're going to try to touch my Hitai-ate. If you do that, you win." Daisuke nodded curtly, falling into a basic taijutsu stance. Naruto took in a deep breath, moved into a Tsu-Hiko opening stance and waited.
After a moment of stillness, Daisuke exploded towards him with a quick hook kick to the shoulders. Naruto dropped his rear foot back and threw his arms out, drawing his torso towards his front knee, and sent the kick harmlessly over his body.
Daisuke used the momentum of his missed kick to spin around for another, this time a low spinning crescent. Naruto pivoted his head away from the kick bringing his hand together on the boys ankle and pulled toward his stomach as he gave it a half twist. This leveraged Daisuke's body and completely spun his body around putting him into the splits.
Naruto back-flipped away and waited as Daisuke lost his balance and fell to the side, his groin aching somewhat at the strain from being thrown into the splits.
"Wow..." Naruto heard a breathless student utter from the crowd. He couldn't really blame them; the form looked like one fluid motion, not segmented like most martial arts. The squat and the counter had been two separate moves, but because of the way the conditioning went, the two movements looked as if he'd performed them as a single act.
Daisuke got back on his feet and looked over at Naruto again, this time more cautiously. Naruto-sensei had done something very strange... Daisuke readied himself and charged once more, this time faking a punch to the head and then trying for a leg sweep.
Naruto arched away from the punch until his palms rested on the ground, back bent smoothly. He quickly lifted his legs off the ground, using the momentum of his bending motion to pull his legs up into the air. Naruto's legs quickly wrapped around the outstretched arm, even as the sweep kick passed harmlessly underneath his legs.
Using his hands to move his body, Naruto quickly spun himself, flinging Daisuke around one and a half times by the arm before depositing him on his back, caught in an arm bar.
To the students, who were now utterly stunned, it had seemed as if Naruto had known the sweep kick was coming before anything had happened, and had started walking on his hand while he grappled with his feet in one fluid motion.
Naruto released Daisuke and climbed to his feet before dusting off and turning to the class.
"As you can see the Shina-Tsu-Hiko form is very fluid and beautiful, and yet very deadly. Amenaka-san is one of the best taijutsu fighters in your class. It takes a lot of hard work to be very good at it though, so you probably won't get down anything so amazing as what I used during this class. That doesn't mean it won't be useful though."
Naruto smiled, taking the class through the basics of the Shina forms. Teaching, he concluded, was indeed a lot of fun.
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"No, the movement is much more of a twisting action," Neji explained, demonstrating. Hinata paid close attention. "You bring the palm around while you bring it forward. It makes it much more difficult to block." He gestured for her to try.
Hinata had been very thankful when Neji had suggested that he helped train her in the Jyuuken form following their conversation in her room. The only problem was that in order to make the fight as legitimate as possible, no one could know that Neji was helping her. He was going to fight his best in the match of course, but it was just too big of a risk that someone might discredit his performance should she win.
Hinata fell into the stance, activated her Byakugan and performed the strike as Neji had explained. She could see what he meant... the strike had a much more harmful chakra pattern to it when she did it like he showed. Neji smiled in satisfaction.
"Very good, Hinata-sama." She looked at him wearily for a moment.
"I wish you wouldn't call me that, Neji." It was almost comical when she thought about it. Before she'd left, Neji had treated her very poorly, yet now she felt a little uncomfortable with the amount of respect he was showing her. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate it, it just made her self-conscious about herself. She wanted to earn people's respect, not demand it.
"You're much better with the Jyuuken than you think," Neji commented, as if he were estimating a weight or deciding the price of something. "The form you learned while away helped your execution of the Jyuuken, clearly."
"How is that possible?" Hinata asked, running through her practice sets again. "I didn't practice with the Jyuuken at all." Neji looked thoughtful for a moment.
"Well, it definitely helped your chakra and body control, which always helps with the Gentle Fist, but it vastly improved your strength and speed which both were your weakest areas before you left." Neji looked her in the eyes and smiled. "Besides perhaps your confidence."
Hinata blushed in embarrassment for a moment. Naruto had told her many times that she was better when she was confident, and that she should be confident more often. It wasn't as easy as it sounded.
But then, being a ninja wasn't supposed to be easy.
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Kakashi held a scroll in his hand, walking carefully through the trees, no sun shining through on account of the cloudy day. He'd been to the scene of Naruto's battle with Kisame and written his report, but now he was looking for Sora.
She's probably at Nanashi's house... Kakashi though idly. He'd had to go there a few times with messages or packages from the Fourth, but it had been a very long time, and he didn't remember the jutsu to get back in.
He was close to the cliff base, and looked up, wondering how he was going to get up. He knew about the wards... it didn't seem like there was much of a chance unless he got Sora's attention somehow.
Bingo.
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Sora looked out the kitchen window at Yasu and Miki in the grassy area at the front of the house. She'd come inside to make herself a snack, but they'd been training Miki hard the last few days. It seemed as if Yasu was past the grief stage and was beginning to fixate on revenge and strength. In the last four days she'd caught Yasu up past one in the morning researching something in library twice, and it was the feverish sort of research that she remembered from their times as the dGra Klesha... except more dark.
Shaking her head she looked back at her sandwich. Yasu wasn't moping anymore and that was a good thing. She took a bite as she looked up again. Miki was practicing her forms under her mother's watchful eye, and she was doing very well in Sora's opinion. Five year olds were pretty flexible though, and that would help Miki with the Shina form more than others.
Walking outside Yasu looked up and smiled, although it didn't seem as friendly as Sora remembered. Yasu seemed somewhat distant, even now. It was sobering when she thought about it. Sora had trouble grasping the love that Yasu had described with Nori, but she felt she could understand what that love had been better now that she saw the pain of loss.
"Alright Miki-chan, do it again but snap your arm more. The longer your arm is out the longer someone can grab it or hurt you. You can't block with an arm that is punching." Miki nodded in determination, mirroring her mother in so many ways. Yasu looked up at Sora and gave her another empty smile before looking back to her daughter.
Sora frowned. It was pretty sad that she could only understand love through loss it seemed, and not the funny kind of sad. She sighed, turning to look out at the valley, when her eyes caught a single white bird flying in a slow figure eight pattern. That was... strange.
Wait... no it can't be...
"I'll be right back," Sora told Yasu. The older woman barely nodded in acknowledgement. Sora sprinted towards the stairs and descended quickly, coming up to the base in minutes. She flashed through a few hand seals before pushing the rock wall out of the way, looking around. She didn't see him anywhere.
"Yo," a lazy voice called out from behind her. She whipped around and stared at Kakashi, completely still and silent for a few moments. Then, she erupted.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'YO'!? WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING ALL THIS TIME IN KONOHA WITH MY LITTLE BROTHER LETTING HIM GO ALL THIS TIME KNOWING NOTHING!" Sora stopped to catch a breath, allowing Kakashi enough time to wince. "AND THEN YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO COME HERE AND SEND THE SIGNAL YOU USED TO DELIVER MESSAGES TO NANASHI!"
They stared at each other for a few moments, Sora apparently deciding that she wanted to hear Kakashi speak.
"I'm sorry..." Kakashi started. Sora was admittedly a little surprised, but not at all deterred from her anger. "We all kind of made mistakes with him. I won't give you any excuses, I came by to thank you, Sora-chan." At this her eyebrows disappeared up into her hair.
"Thank me?!" Sora clenched her fists, readying them for the inevitable blow that she was going to deliver in only moments.
"For Naruto..." Kakashi looked up for a moment before continuing. "I was always a little afraid to be his teacher... because of his father... because of Minato-sensei... I always felt a little bit like if I couldn't replace his father then I wouldn't be doing well enough." Sora scoffed.
"Well that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" She glared at him. "So you were afraid of teaching him, and instead of even trying, you decided it was easier to just not teach him?!" Kakashi's eye fell from the sky to Sora's face before his gaze ended up on the ground. "You coward! Your faults are your own when they only affect you, but you put your fears ahead of my little brother's well-being!"
"It wasn't something I decided, it just happened." He paused and could hear Sora's foot tapping. "I guess I'm a coward when it comes to the past..." Kakashi trailed off, as if the was more to say, but seemed to have nothing else to offer.
Sora studied him for a moment, her calculating gaze measuring his body language. His hands weren't even in their pockets. He did look somewhat pathetic, she supposed. A sour look crossed her face before she finally sighed and settled on looking annoyed.
"Come on up and you can tell me more," she told him, as if it had just ruined her day. "Maybe you can even help me understand why you never told Naruto anything." Kakashi winced again as he tried to remember why he'd come in the first place.
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"So this is someone you know from your time with Nanashi?" Yasu asked mischievously. She of course knew the answer, she just liked making Sora squirm.
"Yes, Yasu. Kakashi-baka was a student of... someone we knew..." Sora didn't like feeding her glee in the least. She felt like Yasu kept implying something... fishy.
"So you were both students of two people who were friends with each other? And saw each other regularly?" Sora shot Yasu a very dangerous look, however Kakashi looked oblivious.
"This stew is excellent," he said smiling through his mask. Yasu had insisted on making dinner so that they could 'catch up with each other'.
As it turned out 'catching up' involved a lot of yelling. And a new lump on Kakashi's head.
"Yes," Sora said pointedly, looking at Yasu. "This stew is very good."
"Are you Sora's boyfriend?" Miki asked Kakashi brightly. Kakashi turned and grinned at the child.
"Well I think I'm done with dinner." Sora pushed her plate forward and stomped off.
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Author's Note: Hmmm... I'd like to thank everyone who sent me something about being an editor. All of them were fantastic, and it was tough to narrow it down to two. That's why I only narrowed it down to four. :)
On a separate note, I'm really excited about where I'm taking the story from here on out. I have one editor which I shared the entire plot with, (so that she could help me stay on track), and the response I got was... enthusiastic and positive. I'd just like to make sure everyone knows... I didn't start with DameWren's original three chapters because I felt I had to. I started with them because I had an excellent story that started with those three chapters.
Lastly, I wanted to let people in on something: I write like a book author, not a fanfiction author. This means that there's foreshadowing, there's a building action in the plot, there's a series of connected events, there's character growth... it also means that every chapter is not a shocker. A chapter is part of the larger story.
I write chapters like this and I often get the response "I really liked the chapter, even if it was just filler." I want people to understand that this isn't filler. This chapter, like most "filler" chapters, create a building action within the plot, they build character, they introduce loose ends, and the progress things. I look at chapters like these as parts of the whole. Yeah, there's chapters that have battles in them, and chapters that have earth-shattering conversation, but there's also the chapters that build the tension which leads to the earth-shattering conversation, or creates the bad-blood that makes for such a good fight.
This isn't really something that anyone has to understand or agree with, but I know a lot of readers aspire to write as well. Consider this a small piece of advice from me to you: as long as you consider chapters like this "filler", your stories will always lack that je ne sais quoi; that little something that makes it special. (Not that it will make ALL of your stories special, it's just a part.)
(This chapter was written to "Glósóli", "Sæglopúr" and "Hoppipolla" by Sigur Rós)
PS: My Birthday is January 31st! I'm 22! :) Yay me.
PPS: I know another author has started on another version of Twice Shy. No, I'm not upset. Yes, I wish them the best of luck. No, I'm not changing my story. Yes, I like what I'm doing with it. No, I don't wish I hadn't used the first three chapters. No, I don't think it will hurt either of our stories. Yes, I think it's great that someone else decided they would like to take a stab at it. And finally, no, I'm not going to stop writing mine.
So in short, yes I know someone else is doing it, but it doesn't upset me. In fact, I don't think it will affect me at all. ^_^ I don't think I'll be reading it either. At least, not until I'm finished with mine. I don't want to be accused of poaching ideas, or subconsciously do it.
PPPS: Yes, I know Kakashi was eating through his mask. How? He's a ninja... duh.