A/N: Just moving this over from AO3
Fox Fire
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"Knowledge is Power." ~Francis Bacon
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Kitsune knew he was in trouble the moment he was outside the hospital doors.
Konoha was thriving, filled with life and motion and conversation. Civilians and Shinobi went about their daily lives and followed their usual routines. The sky was clear, the smell of summer in the air, the rustling of leaves a soothingly familiar background and the four great faces of the Hokage Mountain watched over them all, unmarred and whole.
It was peaceful and bright and filled with thriving life… And his vision doubled, memories overlapping the scene around him ruthlessly.
Konoha was nothing but a pile of scorched rubble. Bodies were strewn about, rotting under the unforgiving heat of the summer sun, crows feasting on their exposed entrails, stray dogs fighting over the dead. The taste of ashes was thick in the air, some piles of rubble still smoking, and the earth blackened and ruptured. The trees that were still standing were broken, gnarled things, bare of any greenery, looking like twisted, anguished souls reaching towards the unforgiving sky as if asking for mercy from an uncaring Kami. The silence was deafening, but for the mocking cries of the scavengers, and the echo of phantom screams that remained in the air…
"Kitsune-san?" came a voice, pulling him from the memory and locking him back in the here and now. Kitsune took a slow breath, and focused his eyes onto the Shinobi, recognizing Genma, who he'd last seen covered in blood and destroying a unit of enemy Shinobi with a hard glare, senbon clenched between his teeth as his Chakra erupted from him in a bright flash, the Suicide-Jutsu taking the seven enemy nin with him, protecting the Medic Tent that was desperately attempting to evacuate a group of seventeen children.
"…Hai," Kitsune responded quietly under those sharp eyes; Genma nodded slowly, and held out his hand.
"The name's Genma," he introduced himself, shifting the senbon in his mouth to the opposite side. "I'm going to be taking you to your apartment, and escorting you around the Village for the next few days, before someone else will take my place." Kitsune nodded slowly, and shook his hand lightly.
"Nice to meet you," he murmured, and then silently followed the other Shinobi as they walked, fighting off phantoms and memories and struggling to stop himself from cringing down into himself instead of walking upright. Focusing on the here and now, Kitsune ignored the vaguely concerned/suspicious looks Genma was shooting him from the corner of his eye, and instead spent the entire twenty minute walk (a walk that was much slower than it should have been, for a Shinobi, but he was still recovering and so they traveled as Civilians) trying to fight off the double-vision of his memories.
"The Hokage told me to tell you that you don't need to worry about doing mission for the next three months," Genma's calm voice interrupted Kitsune's thoughts, but also managed to lock him into the here-and-now, and Kitsune nodded his bandage-covered head to show he had heard. "Your living expenses will be paid for, and, when you're fit for duty again, you'll be starting on low-to-high C-Ranks and lower, all in-Village." Again, Kitsune nodded. It was a standard procedure for a Probationary period. Three months to get a feel for the Shinobi, two months of nothing but in-Village missions, and then a month of low-rank outside missions with strict observation.
A flash of yellow and orange had Kitsune's hand lashing out without a thought, catching the collar of the colorful blur in an instant and holding said captive off the ground as it squawked and wriggled as effectively as an angry kitten. He blinked down at the boy in his grip, and was rather stunned to find himself, young and innocent and untouched by the horrors of war, whiskered cheeks puffed out and large blue eyes scrunched closed in a scowl. For a minute, Kitsune felt light-headed, staring down at the scowling face he hadn't seen in the mirror in a decade.
"Come on, lemme go!" The boy complained, voice high and loud and whiny, and Kitsune tilted his head, abruptly nostalgic for the annoying little shit he had been as a child. He lifted the boy up and turned him so they were face-to-face, watching those bright blue eyes un-squint, and the indignant anger slowly fade to fascinated curiosity as they darted over his bandaged head and warped mask.
"Are you an ANBU?" The boy asked hopefully; Kitsune tilted his head further to the side.
"I was just released from that duty, Gaki," he informed his younger self, and didn't even blink with small, thin fingers, soft and lacking too many callouses, were suddenly on his mask, trailing the lines and warps and bubbles, the boys breath hitching softly as he felt where the mask melted into Kitsune's skin, and the edges of the horrible scars just under the bandages, blue eyes gleaming in fascination and sympathy and curiosity and awe.
"Ne, Nii-san!" The boy declared, face lighting up in a wide, bright grin, face shifting into a fox-like expression. "You're so cool!" Kitsune chuckled and set the boy on his feet, dragging one gloved hand lightly through the thick, blond spikes of hair his younger self sported, vastly amused by… Well, himself, really. His hand was snatched up by the younger boy, who couldn't be more than twelve, and probably getting ready for his final Academy Exam. "My name's Uzumaki Naruto, Nii-san, and I'm gonna be the next Hokage, dattebayo!" He grinned and wriggled in place like a puppy, and Kitsune chuckled again and nodded.
"Big dreams, for a little Gaki," he responded, amused. "If you want to get that far, you'll have to work hard, especially at things you don't like." Instantly, Naruto's face scrunched into a pout, cheeks puffed out in annoyance.
"Nani?! Why?!" Kitsune crouched, and barely spared any thought for the patiently waiting Genma, who was leaning against the nearby wall and absentmindedly chewing on his senbon while Naruto and Kitsune talked.
"Because, Gaki-chan," the ex-ANBU informed his younger self calmly, sincerely. "Hokage's do a lot of things they don't like. They spend a lot of their time stuck behind a desk, doing paperwork, assigning missions, and attending meetings. They rarely get to see battle, they don't get much free time, and they still have to make time for training and such, or else they get weak and compliant, and a lazy Shinobi tends to be a dead one… Well," he mused, smiling beneath his mask. "Unless you're a Nara, of course." Genma snorted and smirked around his senbon as Naruto frowned, forehead furrowing in thought.
"…I guess that's true, Nii-san," the boy finally, reluctantly admitted, eyes squinting shut in consideration, before his whole face lit with determination, blue eyes locking on the shadowed holes in Kitsune's mask, where his own blue eyes were hidden. "That just means I'll have to start training extra hard right away, Nii-san, and then I'll be the strongest ninja ever, and you'll have to start doing missions and stuff for me instead of Jiji! Dattebayo!" He grinned fiercely in challenge, and Kitsune felt abruptly, wistfully fond of his younger self, setting one thin, gloved hand gently on the boy's head with a small, approving hum.
"Prove it to me, Gaki-chan," he encouraged, and stood, stepping back and turning to Genma with a nod. "See ya, kit," he called over his shoulder and Naruto nodded, before blinking and scowling.
"Hey!" He called after the two Shinobi, who didn't stop walking, but obligingly glanced back. "You never told me your name!" The ex-ANBU smiled faintly.
"The name's Kitsune," he called back easily. "See you around, Gaki-chan." Naruto shouted farewell and then ran off, no doubt heading to a training ground or Iruka, or even the Hokage, to share his plans and demand Jutsu and the like. Kitsune shook his head fondly, and wondered how soft he'd gotten since that Suicide-Jutsu landed him in this Time…
"Cute kid," Genma said lazily; Kitsune hummed absently.
"His stealth is probably rather high when he concentrates, considering the outfit he's in, and how loud he seems," Kitsune remarked, flickers of memories from his own Stealth Missions and pranks coming to the forefront of his mind, making him breath out a sigh. Genma hummed in consideration, before nodding to a nearby apartment building and leading the ex-ANBU up the stairs to the top floor, a corner room. Kitsune looked around, and nodded silently in approval. Two windows, one door, only neighbor was on the living room side of the apartment so no one would be able to attack him from there. Looking out the windows found one facing out into an empty alley, and the other looking out onto the bare roof of the building next door. He would set down a few traps, some Seals, just in case.
Just because he was home didn't mean he was safe, after all.
"It is perfectly adequate," Kitsune informed Genma calmly, turning and giving the Tokubetsu Jounin a respectful bow, old habit kicking in. "Arigato, Genma-san." The Tokujo arched an eyebrow in surprise at the gesture, before shrugging and nodding back, hands slipping into his pockets to hide the nervous twitch in the digits.
"It was nothing," he replied idly, shrugging again. "An ANBU will be nearby, watching, so if you need anything, they'll accompany you until I catch up." Kitsune nodded his head silently, and watched the Tokujo nod before leaving. Moving around the apartment, he immediately began to set up traps, all of them non-lethal, as he was in a friendly zone. Not all of them were nice, of course, but they were made for capturing and distracting the enemy, and to alert him immediately.
Proximity Seals glowed with his Chakra before disappearing from view on the walls, windowsills, floor, door, door frame, and kitchen. Wire hid in shadows and crevices; tightly wound just enough to cut lightly but not deeply any who triggered them. Tags and other traps awaited victims, and, finally, Kitsune felt some tension ease from his shoulders, and made his way to the kitchen, where he checked all the food and water he'd been provided, making sure none of it was drugged or bugged. When it all came back clear, he swiftly made himself a fruit-and-vegetable smoothie, knowing that it would taste gross, but also knowing it was what his body needed most at the moment, and he was, as yet, unable to eat any meat, as per Medic's orders.
Settling down on the floor with his smoothie, thin straw slipping through the slit in his mask for his mouth, Kitsune set about organizing his fragmented memories to the best of his ability, and coaxing his badly depleted Chakra into slowly recovering.
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"Life is like riding a bicycle–in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving."
~Albert Einstein
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"How are you today, Kitsune-kun?" Sarutobi asked as he absently continued working on his paperwork, while the ex-ANBU stood before his desk with the rigid alertness of all practice ANBU.
"I am well, Hokage-Sama," the man replied, and Sarutobi hummed, finishing the page before he leaned back, steepling his fingers and watching the permanently masked Shinobi consideringly from beneath the edge of his hat. He could feel that the ex-ANBU's frankly absurd amount of Chakra had begun to replenish, and that any stiffness from his injuries a week before had faded away. From his men's reports, Kitsune had rarely left his apartment, excepting the few times he seemed too agitated to remain cooped up, and during those times he sped through the Village with his ANBU watchers, mapping the whole Village before dropping down to the streets in order to walk aimlessly about with Genma or Hayate, who had taken up the Mission when Genma was required for something else.
He was a quiet fellow, polite and well-trained, attentive and insightful.
It disturbed Sarutobi, how much of the man's personality had come from what had been, undoubtedly, a brutal behavioral modification and torturous training regimen. If the man hadn't been able to deal so well with Naruto on the three occasions the two had met, or with his fellow Shinobi, Sarutobi would think he as ANBU-Ne, but he was too human in a majority of his actions to have been that broken.
But he was damaged, and he didn't need Inoichi's report to see that himself.
"You are settling well?" He asked; Kitsune bowed his head in a silent affirmative. Sarutobi nodded slowly. "What do you think of young Naruto? I've been told that you and he have met several times now." Kitsune was silent for a moment, head tilting to the side in an unconscious action, something he did when he was considering something.
"…Gaki-chan has potential," he finally acknowledged, voice quiet and slow, thoughtful. "From what I've heard of his exploits and from what I've seen of him, he has a high degree of stealth when he wishes, and an aptitude for traps and intelligence gathering, as shown with his more elaborate pranks, during which he will study his target for a few weeks, if not longer. He has a high potential as an Assassin or Spy, and with his large Chakra reservoir, he has the ability to be a heavy-hitter and front liner. His control is shit, and his mentality is rather… Immature, at the moment," the ex-ANBU settled on delicately, before he shrugged. "However, his first mislabeled Mission should help with that, and a hands-on firm approach by whoever his Jounin Sensei will be would fix that quickly. So, yes, I see great potential in him." Sarutobi nodded slowly, honestly surprised by the rather positive endorsement of his favorite Shinobi-in-Training.
"That is good to hear," he said, carefully considering the man's words and agreeing with his points. "I hope you continue to encourage him to improve, then." Kitsune bowed his head calmly.
"Hai, Hokage-Sama," he agreed, and stood silent and still, waiting; Sarutobi bit back a sigh, and idly wondered what, exactly, the young man's trainers had done to get him to such a point.
"Dismissed, Kitsune-san," he ordered; the Shinobi bowed, fist-to-heart, and disappeared out the window, followed immediately by the blur of his watchers. Sarutobi allowed himself a sigh and a head shake, before returning to his paperwork.
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"If you want to know somebody's mind, listen to their words. If you want to learn somebody's heart, listen to their actions." ~Unknown
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