Chapter Twelve – "Five Minutes to Midnight"
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Welcome back! After finally getting Chapter 5 of 'Rise of a Kitsune' published, I'm back to AMND. Right now we're at over 26k lifetime hits, 196 Favorites and 179 Alerts!
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*Two Years Ago*
The lime-green haired girl spun her kunai for flourish as she initiated a conversation with the blonde Yahiko had pointed out to her as being the former jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi while they had toured around Akatsuki's base. "So, you're Kyuubi's container, huh?"
"I was," he corrected. Although later on he would reveal to her the exact details of Kyuubi's detail with him that allowed the kitsune demon to reincarnate, he felt it wise to let her stay under the impression that the Kyuubi had recently departed to Makai. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto, of Konoha. And you are?" He asked, holding out his hand to shake. He had already been informed of the arrival of the Nanabi container, as well as shown her profile, but he felt it best to make proper introductions nonetheless.
Pupilless violet eyes leaned in and stared into cerulean blue, unnerving the owner of the latter pair, who was keenly reminded of the trademark light lavender eyes of the Hyuuga clan. The chocolate-skinned chunin seemed to like what she saw, as she shook his hand. "My name is Amane Fū, chunin of Taki." Something seemed to click in her thoughts, as her eyes widened. "Uzumaki? As in the Uzumaki Clan of Whirlpool?!"
"The very same," he nodded, not realising what he was setting himself up for. "My mother was Uzumaki Kushina, one of the few survivors from the Third Great Shinobi War, who immigrated to Konoha after the destruction of Whirlpool."
"Hmm..." she said, partly to herself, partly to herself, partly to him. "I'm afraid to ask...but what happened to her?"
Naruto wasn't sure whether or not she was being rude. On the one hand if she wasn't dense as a brick, something which her countenance hadn't yet lead to suggest, then his earlier tone would have lent itself to mean his mother was dead. On the other hand, she seemed to at least be trying to be polite in making conversation, even if it was in such a sensitive issue. "She's dead." Was all he had to say, before adding, "She died the night I was born, from labour stresses."
"Oh." The kunoichi from Taki didn't seem to know what to say for a few seconds, but got back into it quickly, deciding to empathise with her comrade. "I was born towards the tail end of the last war. My father was a shinobi , and the one who I took after in looks, while my mother was a civilian." Her eyelids drooped down, thinking about something that never was and never could be. "My father died a few months after I was born, shortly before the war ended. I was told that my mother had postpartum depression and after learning of her father's death, she...she..." Here she began to choke, her face turning red, as the sudden rush of what-could-have-beens threatened to overwhelm her.
A hand gripped her shoulder in comfort, prompting her to look back up at her new companion. "You're rather open, aren't you? I would have thought Taki would have trained their ninjas to hide their emotions better."
Red still dominated her face's coloring, but this time it was of a different cause, as her teeth grinded at the implied insult. "And I would have expected the invincible Konoha to teach its shinobi to have some tact!"
Naruto was definitely taken aback by that. He had seen angry kunoichi from his classes before, but none of them were quite like this. Flushing a red to match his companion's, he came back with the quickest thing he could think of. "Well technically I'm not a ninja quite yet, I'm still in the academy." As soon as the words spilled out, he realised it to be the wrong thing to say.
The lime-haired girl exploited her opportunity, as she hunched down slightly and pinched Naruto's cheek before he could swat her away. "Aww, , does poow little Nawuto need a diaper change?" It would have been quite bizarre to any observer just how quickly the conversation changed, from being dramatic, to outright hostility, to unfriendly teasing.
Having already made a misstep, Naruto was prone to making another one. "You only look a few years older than me! Unless you want me to call you old hag?" Seeing Fū stiffen in her position, he quickly decided to backtrack in his position, only to dig himself inside an even deeper hole. "Ah, or maybe I should just call you Fū-chan?"
For all his vaunted training that he had received from the elites of Amegakure, as well as his own self-training in Konoha, he barely saw it coming. A moment later, he was sprawled out on the ground. "Don't call me Fū-chan!" was all his attacker had to say before storming off.
Wow, Naruto thought to himself, rubbing his cheek where he had been punched, hard. She's just like that Sakura girl. Except actually competent and dangerous. Silently, he was grateful that the old fox was no longer around, or else the Kyuubi wouldn't have let him live this one down. He just hoped he wouldn't be so irrational when he came into full-blown puberty and had to deal with hormones.
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The man known as Tenzo, currently in public underneath his codename Yamato, looked over his genin team from above, perched on one of the trees that had been grown by the Shodai Hokage nearly a century ago. For what one might consider to be hand-offs, Team 7 was actually a very good team when they put their mind to it. Tenzo didn't baby them; he had told them the first day that he was there to train them, and if they didn't like the drills and exercises he laid out for them, they could go to the Hokage's office and resign.
That of course had been meant for the Haruno, whose file he had read up on from the Academy and from Kakashi-senpai's own reports and found that she was a clear-cut fangirl with potential. Uchiha Sasuke wouldn't quit, and Uzumaki Naruto couldn't quit, because nobody would let a 'weapon' stop being a weapon. Thankfully, the pinkette had stayed on; if he had to replace her with another genin, he would have to push them through new teamwork exercises to get them used to each other. Even if there were still problems with this team and the animosity each member held towards his or her two teammates, it was still better than having to start over again.
Eyeing the Uchiha clan heir, Tenzo had to admit that the boy was talented, but his psyche profile suggested that far too much of it was going to waste. Sasuke from what he gathered seemed too prone to letting his emotions get the best of him; he would be the type to charge in recklessly if provoked, and it seemed the very mention of his brother still managed to set him off. Tenzo had done what he could to correct the problem by focusing on self-discipline exercises, but it was still sufficient enough of a problem that the Mokuton-wielder was thinking about recommending Sasuke to a therapist.
Letting his eyes stray to his last student, the former ANBU narrowed his vision. Uzumaki Naruto was hard to keep track of. Tenzo could easily sympathize with Naruto, not knowing who his parents were, and having something horrible thrust upon him as an infant. However, he also knew that Naruto got the worse hand of the two; at least Tenzo had been a valued commodity, was raised in the ANBU system (as none outside of Konoha could know of the existence of another Mokuton user, including the man who had 'created' him), and had no prejudice to deal with. Naruto had practically been thrown to the wolves and scorned and hated since his birth.
Tenzo had been one of the few ANBU assigned to watch over Naruto during his early days, though it wasn't on a 24-hour basis. When Naruto was five years old, Tenzo felt an odd change in Naruto's chakra. Originally, he had chalked it up to the possibility of the seal that kept the Kyuubi locked away in the boy's stomach beginning to do its job of filtering (as in the early years the seal was operating at minimal capacity while it allowed Naruto's own personal chakra to develop before it would run counterpoint to the Kyuubi's poisonous yokai in greater amounts), and left it at that. The Hokage had similarly agreed to leave it alone for the time and adopt a wait-and-see approach. One year later, however, Naruto's chakra had again taken a turn for the unusual, and the quality of the chakra began to change; while the intensity of it remained the same, the chaos that had been naturally inherent in the odd mixture of yokai and chakra had begun to lessen. Where it could previously be likened to a hurricane, now, it could be compared only to a weaker storm.
From then on, the Sandaime had decided to increase surveillance on the young Uzumaki, and had even arranged for a mind probe by Yamanaka Inoichi. Inoichi had reported being unable to gain entry to the jinchuuriki's mind, as the barriers that were up were too great for him to pass. It was an odd phenomenon, but it most likely was a result of being the Kyuubi jinchuuriki; Konoha knew very little about jinchuuriki, never having had one before now, and the Kyuubi never having been contained before the Yondaime sealed him away by summoning the Shinigami. Suna certainly wouldn't hand over any of their research on the jinchuurikis of the Ichibi, either.
Regardless of past events, the Hokage had ordered him, Tenzo, to rigorously train both Naruto and Sasuke; neither would back down from a challenge, and they would both prosper from it. The Sandaime apparently wanted Team 7 to be the trump card team during the Chunin Exams, the team that would show off and present the talent of Konoha's next generation.
He was ANBU, even if he was currently out of the program. He would stirve to meet his objective, and he would do it without letting any obstacles prevent him.
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Mikoto let out a sigh as she reflected over the last few months. First, her second son Sasuke had become a genin, under the Copycat Nin Kakashi. It hadn't been easy weaning him off of his revenge kick, and, truth be told, he still wanted to kill Itachi. That had left Mikoto stuck in between a rock and a hard place; it was only recently that she had realized her eldest's master plan, that Itachi wanted Sasuke to kill him, to 'avenge' those clan members who had lost their lives to the elder brother, but she was afraid that the moment it occurred, Sasuke would be set down on a dark path he would be unable to turn from. Itachi might have been good at planning but his awareness of the potential consequences was shit.
She had high hopes that Sasuke's new jonin instructor would be able to set him straight. From what she had heard, this 'Yamato' was a serious, all-business shinobi, who had been taken straight out of the ANBU to replace Kakashi as Team 7's jonin-sensei. She had high hopes that he would be able to continue to teach Sasuke a diverse set of skills, while at the same time enforcing discipline. Sasuke had other duties to live up to as the clan heir, and if he was to be the clan head, he could not go gallivanting off at the slightest mention of Itachi or hint of the raven summoner's presence.
Speaking of Kakashi, that man had recently come down to her with a request from the Hokage's office. Due to her status as the widow of the former Uchiha clan head, she was the de facto head until Sasuke took over; without the clan elders who had worked with Fugaku around, she was the sole decision-maker for politics in the clan. Unwittingly, she had come to many of the same conclusions as the Sandaime Hokage had; Hatake Kakashi had done more to advance the reputation of the Sharingan than any dozen of the rank-and-file Uchiha ever had. Keeping his reputation as the 'Copycat Ninja' and not 'Hatake Kakashi' was imperative for the Uchiha bloodline to continue to be feared up until the newest generation of Uchiha could redeem themselves for the attempted coup and strike fear into the hearts of the enemies of Konoha.
That said, she had given him the left Sharingan eye of Shisui Uchiha, and later today would stop off by the hospital to give notes on the bloodline to the surgeon who would transplant the eye so Kakashi could turn his new Sharingan eye on and off with ease. Kakashi would have to figure out what unique abilities Shisui's Sharingan had on his own; Shisui had never documented anything about it besides that he had achieved the three-tomoed state, but she had heard in passing that he once mentioned something about being able to influence people's minds. She wasn't sure about that at all, but if it was true, Hatake would hopefully be able to put it to use in battles, but not in the political arena.
Still, something had been bothering her about that. After the Massacre was over, the remaining Uchiha adults staked their claim to the Sharingan eyes that had been left around. All of the eyes were accounted except for one; Shisui's right eye. That troubled her. It couldn't have been taken out in the river, because they had retrieved Shisui's body between his 'suicide' and the killings, and at that time Shisui had both eyes still. She wasn't sure if the Hokage knew about it or not; if he did, then confronting him was most certainly not a smart idea. She understood well enough that the remaining third of the Uchiha had been left alive as a warning and act of mercy in one, and trying to push him over an eye he might have appropriated was not a good idea.
For now, Mikoto would stay low, and wheedle her way back into good graces of others. She wasn't a very prideful person, or somebody who particularly desired power, but she had her dignity. The 'act of mercy' doubtlessly was because the elders still wanted to be able to wield the Uchihas as one of the many weapons Konoha held. The Uchiha would never again do something so foolish as to plan another coup d'etat, but the Sandaime and his cronies, or their successors would learn that a weapon could turn on its wielder.
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*Two Months, Two Weeks Later*
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"Gather around, Team," Yamato said to his trio of genin after another rigorous day of training; this day in particular was focused on applications for ninja wire, a nifty tool that often got glossed over by most shinobi and shinobi-in-training, but could be lethal when used properly in trap-making thanks in part to its inherent near-invisibility.
He was pleased with the results over the last few months. Sakura had taken some work, including a few drastic moments, but he had gotten far with her; the first time he had overheard her mentioning skipping breakfast, he had held her down and forcefed her rations, insisting that she eat properly. After that she had begun to eat her breakfasts and eat after training and eat dinners without fail, wary of letting a similar embarrassing incident occur while her self-proclaimed crush was nearby. She was still a fangirl, but Yamato used her ideal of Sasuke as motivation to get her to take her training seriously.
Of course, while he took pride in his work on Sakura, he knew that it would be Sasuke's and Naruto's results that the Sandaime would be interested in. He doubted that the Uchiha would unlock the third tomoe in each Sharingan eye for at least a few years, unless he was thrown into a harrowing life-or-death combat situation before that, but Sasuke was making due progress in developing his skills nonetheless. Yamato had worked on improving his body first, making him more agile, nimble on his feet, and his body more flexible, before puberty inevitably began to harden his body. He strayed away from teaching elemental jutsus for the time, figuring that somebody more experienced in Katon and, surprisingly, Raiton jutsus would need to help the black-haired young teenager out. He had also drilled Sasuke in battle tactics, giving him multiple scenarios for him to come up with solutions to emerging relatively unscathed from.
It was Naruto that was a slight problem. He had been puzzled for a while when the Yondaime's legacy seemed to show up in the morning, and tire out quicker than his male teammate, despite multiple reports to the contrary of his legendary stamina. It had taken him a few weeks before, embarrassed, he came to the solution that it had been his own presence and the natural factor of the Mokuton that was causing it. After thinking it over, he decided that the best solution was to stick with the situation, while thinking up of several half-truths to give the boy if he ever asked his sensei if he knew anything about his sluggishness. That way, Naruto would eventually get used to the sluggishness, and when he was freed of this restriction on his energy, he would hopefully be the better for it.
He just hoped that the compensation the jinchuuriki got would help him through the chunin exams.
"What's up, sensei?" Naruto seemed to had run himself ragged during the day, if the various dirt smears across his face and clothes, as well as the the sweat dripping from his forehead, were any suggestion. His two teammates came in behind him, ready to hear what the team's instructor had to say.
Yamato took out three green tickets in his hand and waved them about in a flourish to show their importance. "As you may have heard, the Chunin Exams are coming to Konoha. These are your nomination forms to enter." Surprisingly, Naruto didn't jump around with a wild 'Yatta!' or anything o the sort, instead opting to stiffen his body a bit, his face taking on a more serious expression. Good, that helped affirm his peace of mind over entering Team 7 in an exam that was potentially more fatal than usual. Still, he felt he needed to give some due warning.
"However," he said, passing a form out to each of his three students. "I should warn you: for whatever reason, Iwagakure accepted Konoha's invitation this year and is sending three teams to the chunin exams." He narrowed his eyes and gave them a stern expression that he had accidentally created while developing his infamous spook face. While it was unintentional, it still worked wonders in getting its victims to pay attention. "The exam is always divided into three different portions. I cannot tell you about the first two, but the last will always be an elimination tournament, and the participants can kill with diplomatic immunity. If either of the first two exams happen to be a survival test, then people can also kill during the duration of the exam." There. He skirted the rules imposed upon instructors enough to give them the information they needed, but not enough to outright violate any of them. "Sasuke, I don't think I need to tell you that you are a target."
He got a "Hnn" for an answer, but he wasn't done yet. "Also, Konoha's exam requires teams of three to enter it. That means if you want to enter, then all three of you need to be at Room 301 at the Ninja Academy in a week's time at nine hundred hours, as your form will tell you." If he had been Kakashi, doubtlessly he would not have mentioned that first piece of info, hoping instead to let teamwork carry the day, but he was not Kakashi. He had drilled them hard enough that they had finally made their own bonds through similar experiences of exhausting training and perseverance, so he knew Sakura would go along quite easily.
"Any questions?" The genetic descent of the Shodai asked. Looking around, he observed his female protégé chewing on her lip, and decided to ask, "What do you think, Sakura?"
"Uh, sensei," The pinkette responded in a nervous tone of voice, "Do you know if any of our classmates are entering the exam as well?"
Yamato nodded his head to affirm his knowledge. "Teams Eight and Ten have both been nominated by their respective senseis, but whether they enter is up to them or not." Looking around again, he asked once more, "Any more questions?" Meeting with silence from the trio, he concluded the meeting. "Very well then, if you have no more questions, then be here for practice at 5am tomorrow." With that, he walked off, leaving the trio behind.
"Who all did pass from our class, anyways?" Naruto asked, genuinely curious. He had been far too busy with planning for the invasion to pay much attention to the other recent graduates, something he was reprimanding himself for – even the most insignificant piece of information could prove to be useful, and who graduated and on what team formulas was more than insignificant. Having had little interaction with his former classmates in the past eight months, he hadn't kept track of who had passed and who had failed.
Sakura came to the rescue, as she started numbering off the teams that had passed. "Team One, with Ami, Ken and Masashi passed. Team Two, Minato, Yukari and Junpei passed. Team Three failed. There was no Team Four assigned, for whatever reason. Team Five, Soji, Yosuke and Chie passed. Team Six, Kanji, Rise and Naoto passed. Then there's us. Team Eight, Hinata, Shino and Kiba passed. Team Nine is an experimental all-kunoichi team with Yukiko, Fuuka and that strange girl Aegis, and they were passed automatically. Finally there's Team Ten, with Shikamaru, Choji and that Ino-bunta!"
Sasuke seemed not to care much for the information, as he left shortly thereafter, stranding Sakura with Naruto. Naruto quickly scanned through the list of classmates in his head. The Hyuuga Clan was the big one there, with the heiress graduating this year (inwardly he scowled, before brightening up at the thought that Hinata had less time to stalk him), but the Inuzuka Clan was also on the large side, and the second-in-line had graduated as well. The next generation of the Ina-Shika-Cho was also on there, probably as a CIA team, while the blue-haired kid he first took a notice to because he shared the same first name as the Yondaime had passed; that kid was definitely worth looking at, as he was an excellent jack-of-all-trades, who would do well in bolstering what looked to be a general assault team.
He was surprised Naoto had gone onto a team as well: he had presumed she would go into one of the R&D departments, or join the Military Police Force right out of the academy as an intern. Team 6 possessed flair; if their instructor could temper their personalities, they could be a decent fit for an undercover team. There were also several Families present, such as Yosuke Hanataro, whose Family owned several businesses in town under the Juno chain, while Yukiko Amagi's Family owned the Amagi Inn, one of Konoha's most esteemed inns, famous for its hot springs. Truly a year of graduates to look out for.
He made some small talk with Sakura, determined to at least continue thawing the ice that had built up between them over four years of the academy (it was never good to have enemies that you could turn neutral), before excusing himself from the conversation to walk back to his apartment, forgoing the possibility of heading down to the bunker. He only had a couple of weeks to refine his plans for the chunin exams, after all.
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My apologies for taking so long in getting back into the groove. That said, I decided to write out a large part of the next couple chapters out beforehand so that you will not have to wait another few weeks for the next chapter, but I would like for a beta to pre-read the next couple of chapters. Not that it's bad English or anything, but I'm fairly sure some of my paragraphs will be hard to follow and understand, and some of my characters seem to be OOC (this chapter needs some editing too, especially the Fū scene, which I'll be doing in the next couple of days). I've been doing history and political science classes for the last little while, and I can easily adjust from a more casual form of writing like in here to a formal tone of writing (no contractions, dry, essay-writing) but it's difficult to go the opposite way, so my choices of language is probably a bit screwy, as well as some of the plot progression; again, particularly the scene at the beginning. Fū is supposed to be temperamental, but their interaction seems to be a bit forced and her a bit too emotional. I'm no Kishi, I actually like to have my female characters not be clichéd tsunderes.
Also, for anyone who's cared to read my profile and look at the summaries of plot bunnies I'm throwing around, you'll be glad to know I've got the first two chapters of 'Flame and Vortex' mostly done.
I was a bit on the fence on how to write Mikoto's character, but I think it turned out well. She won't be going against Konoha itself, she's loyal to the Hidden Leaf, but when she goes into the political realm she'll be making constant trouble for the Sandaime and co.
In regards to the last section: I've always believed Kakashi was just trying to put the pressure on Team 7 when he said the genin exam had a 66% failure rate. It's just not viable to fail two thirds of your potential ninja (or even more if you think Gai's team was the only team to graduate from the year above), and a 'teamwork' test is absolute bull since you just threw three people together who might not have had much interaction beforehand.
For those wondering what 'Families' are, families are just that; families. Specifically, they are extended families with some ninja background, who usually have somewhere five to thirty ninjas in the family lifetime, and two to fifteen ninjas active at any time. Not quite large or prestigious enough (or possessing a bloodline) to be considered a Clan, but still important enough to be given some status. Some clans have the same number of ninjas as many families would, but they either have lots of money, political influence, some really strong ninja or a bloodline. Hatake and Gekko would both be considered Families in my stories, as Sakumo likely had ninja parents and possibly aunts, uncles or siblings , enough shinobi relatives in any case along with his own prestige to make it a Family.
Also, some people may have picked up on the cameos from the extraneous teams :O
Hmm, I don't have much to rant about this time. That said, I'm curious about something, and wish to ask something of Naruto/harem writers. If you are the kind of person who writes it so that a clan in Konoha consists only of the on-screen characters and spouses so that Shikamaru and Choji are the 'only children' of their clan, if you justify Naruto having a harem because of a clan restoration act or whatever, why don't Shika and Choji get one :P?