I do not own Naruto as a game, Manga, Anime series or a character. All original characters are mine though :P

Hi no Ishi (The will of Fire) - Five Ninja Academy Students

It's been a week since the Ninja-tag games. Class is back in full swing. However, it seems that certain students are holding back some painful secrets. What are they hiding? And why?

All underlined terms are explained at the end of the chapter.

~Flashback Chapter~

~Hikaru's POV~

Mid Autumn. What is it about this time of year that seems to toss all of Konoha into chaos and anarchy? Women are eternally on the verge of tears; men taking up residence in bars. Everyone over the age of fifteen seems to be perpetually on edge. No one smiles. 'What is up with everyone?'

"Tou-san, why is everyone so up tight?" My curiosity is usually piqued this time of year, but this is the first time I've actually asked.

"You are too young to remember, musuko."

"I'm old enough to be sent to the academy, but too young to understand?" I baited him. I knew what he said, but this way I was more likely to hear what he was not saying yet.

"A know-it-all daughter, and now a smart-Alec son. What did I do to be so blessed?" He wondered out loud, smiling at me the whole time. He took a few minutes to think about what he was going to say; his smile fading with each passing second.

"What does October 10th mean to you?" He finally asked.

"The celebration of the defeat of the Kyuubi. A day we celebrate surviving the brutal attack of the king of the Bijuu." Daikoku-sensei made a big deal about it only two days ago, though even he seemed edgy while talking.

"That is true, but not the whole story." He tried to smile at me; obviously proud that I was soaking up the information like a sponge, but still something was draining the life from his face. "To those that were there, it is a time of mourning, because we could not save Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage. He died protecting our village, and a part of Konoha went with him."

I studied Tou-san for a moment, trying to understand what he meant, not just what he said. "Yondaime-sama meant a lot to you... ne, Tou-san?"

"Minato-kun and I are best friends. So what do you think?" Not 'were', not 'had been', not 'used to be'... Are. Currently, still, at this very moment. He is stating a fact: 'we are best friends'. He hasn't gotten over his death.

"Yondaime-sama was the strongest and most beloved of all the Hokage. The only one to scare people by simply mentioning his name." Tou-san had a faraway look in his eyes; I knew without asking that he was walking down memory lane. "He would take the most dangerous missions himself, even after becoming Hokage. Simply saying that he could not risk his family for something he could easily do himself. Who could argue with that?"

Tou-san was quiet for a long time. I took the chance to look around at all people that surrounded us in that crowded bar. Everyone's eyes were mournful; their body language, defeated. No one was crying openly, but you could see they were crying on the inside. The older the person, the more intense and obvious it became.

I slowly take a sip of my orange juice. Logically, I shouldn't be allowed in a bar, but who would ever refuse Yukikami Tatsuhi? He's the type of man that you simply acquiesce to his every whim, whether you want to or not.

"It's all that youko-gaki's fault!" Someone - a faceless drunk as far as I could tell - called out in a drunken stupor. No one made any move to agree, but their eyes hardened slightly at the thought: their mourning found a target, their anger a vent. They found a way to ease their pain by offering it ten times over to someone else.

"If anyone wants to work out their frustration. I am right here!" Tou-san shouted so loud that I'm sure patrons of the bars across town heard him.

"Yukikami-sama, don't tell me you don't want to avenge your team mate?" One person - an elder kunoichi- asked.

"Gladly! I would love to get my hands on the people responsible, but you confuse the offender with the victim! Who here thinks the Uzumaki boy asked for his fate?" Uzumaki? As in Uzumaki Naruto? I didn't know the boy that well, but he was in my class.

The bar went silent. All eyes softened to their mournful, and lost, state. The tension in the room fizzed out like a candle in a storm. "If you want to get back for us losing our friend, then find out who did it! Do not take it out on someone who can't even defend himself!" Tou-san slammed some money on the counter of the bar and left. I stayed behind for a few seconds, almost immediately seeing sparks of hope blossom in a few pairs of eyes.

The next day at school, Naruto didn't show up. I asked Daikoku-sensei what happened to him, but a happy smile was all I got. And trust me when I say, what ever happened, that man was happy about it.

I noticed a lot of smiles in the Academy that day. Almost every Academy instructor was smiling. It was as if an enormous burden had been lifted from everyone. Seeing that it was October tenth, I can't seem to understand what they were suddenly so happy about.

So I did the only thing I could think about: I cornered Nee-chan during one of the breaks.

"Naruto's missing, everyone's smiling. What the hell is going on?" I asked her blatantly.

"Naruto's missing?" Her eyes went wide with shock with what she was hearing. I could almost see her brain kick into overdrive as she processed that.

"Yuuna's missing too, and did you notice that Kenta-san hasn't shown up to practice in a while?" She added. I was hoping to get some real answers for once, but the look on her face didn't comfort me in the least. It was as if she had seen a ghost.

"Karu, we are ditching school. Let's go." She said plainly. Well it wasn't like I was interested in staying anyway.

"Where we going?"

"You are going to the hospital to look for Naruto, try to get any information you can. I am going to the Kitsunaga compound to look for Yuuna. Meet me by the Hokage Tower in one hour." Without another word, we went our separate ways.

'The hospital? Kami-sama, if she's right then I know there'll be hell to pay.'

"What brings you two here?" Sarutobi Hiruzen asked. I had never been in the same room with the legend himself, at least not without hundreds of others vying for his attention.

"I'll get straight to the point, Hiruzen. I am pissed off at every living being in this damnable village." Fuck. She just had to start pissing on my happy moment. "And frankly, you are not excluded from that statement."

"What happened?" He asked cautiously. If I didn't know any better, I would think that he was carefully choosing his words. Jeez, who the hell is Senju Tatsuko really?

"I have just found out that Uzumaki Naruto is in a coma, seemingly beaten to death by over thirty citizens of Konoha."

"I see." He stated blandly, obviously being aware of that already.

"What's worse-" Nee-chan continued, seemingly unaffected. Though her eyes did narrow as she focused more intently on the Hokage, malice burning in her gaze. I was starting to wish that I hadn't told her anything at all, "is that no one seems to care. The Konoha Military Police Corps are actually refusing to look into it, no ANBU have been dispatched and I confirmed no care has been offered to the boy in the least. If Hikaru had not personally talked to Kenichi-sensei, I'm not sure if Naruto would still be alive."

There was a long pause. Almost too long for my now frazzled nerves. "And it seems that no one thought of announcing that there are bodies strewn about in the Kitsunaga Compound." To say that the room was below freezing point would be an understatement. I could actually see moisture condensing on the windows! Somehow though, her voice seemed colder still; like her voice box was dipped in liquid nitrogen and everything that touched it would freeze too. "But then, what's one more clan massacre to a village with so many clans to replace it?"

'I think I'll just not move for a while. I wonder if I can hold my breath that long too.' It's not that I wasn't pissed off too. It's not that I wasn't afraid for Yuuna, who had become something of a sister to me. Nothing like that. I just simply had never seen Nee-chan this upset before. Ever. The fact that the door to the Hokage's office was laying in splinters behind me didn't really help much.

'You'd think that the ANBU would be more alert than that, but seeing everything that is going on today...'

Sandaime's chakra flared menacingly, and within seconds the room was filled with ANBU. "Anyone with medical skills are to report to the hospital, you are to monitor Uzumaki Naruto until I say otherwise. The rest of you are to head to the Kitsunaga Compound and find out what the hell is going on!" With that, they all disappeared as swiftly as they had appeared. No smoke, no leaves, just pure speed.

"Now, Tatsuko, tell me everything you know." The sudden steely edge in the Hokage's eyes and voice seemed to match Nee-chan's.

"You are losing your village, and those who are taking it are doing so by force." Before Nee-chan could even decide to continue, I heard laboured footsteps dragging through the splinters that littered the floor. I turned around to see who was coming in, only to have my blood freeze in my veins. I'm still not sure if it was because of my reaction, or Nee-chan's.

"Otou-sama-" A strained voice began, "sends... his apologies... for failing you... Ho-ka-ge... sa-ma." Blood was flowing down a few nicks on her face, as well as the few places that her bones were coming out of her left forearm. Combined with the collection of kunai sticking out of her back - which became visible as she started falling to the ground - it's not surprising they thought she was dead.

Three days, three nights, staring at three students. If I didn't know any better, I would think that Nee-chan's fetish with the number three was coming back to haunt me.

Hokage-sama confined us - Naruto, who was still in a coma, Yuuna, who was wrapped up like a mummy but physically fine otherwise, Nee-chan, who looked like she would kill anything that walked into the room and I - to a rather small hospital room.

For the first time in my life, I can honestly say that I am pissed off at the people of Konoha. Naruto, though something of a prankster, would never hurt a fly. Yet a group of people came damn close to brutally murdering him. He had more broken bones than I knew were possible, and the ANBU we constantly taking turns to help heal what they could.

No words were exchanged. No one muttered anything. No uncalled for noises were heard. Nothing. It was eerily similar to living in a library - once you got used to, and therefore block out, the constant peeps from the equipment attached to Naruto - only, you could still smell the disinfectants the hospital staff used to clean. Three days of near absolute silence was starting to work on my already fading sanity.

I say fading, because I spent the entire time trying - and failing - to understand what the hell was going on! Having spent my life studying every single mystery offered by either Tou-san or Nee-chan, it was a new experience for me. One I instantly decided I hated.

Yuuna seemed to be doing even worse; she had yet to stop crying. Her wounds healed up quickly, but the broken bones were - understandably - taking a bit longer. Still, every time I looked at her, I could only see her haunted, puffy eyes. She was a wreck.

At first I tried to talking to the carrot top. I tried everything I could think of, from the dolls she liked to play with, to the puppy she wanted to adopt. Nothing. I can't even honestly say I'm sure she heard me.

Though somehow, Nee-chan seemed to be taking all this the worst. I don't know what was going through her head, I usually don't, but she was still livid. I could tell that she was plotting something, and - judging from the almost stifling killing intent rolling off her - it wasn't hard to tell what: someone was going to die slowly and painfully for this.

Which leads to another thing that has been slowly driving me up a wall: these three have never been able to sit still long, especially Naruto. So seeing them motionless for three days was simply too much to take.

Tou-san came by a few times, but even he couldn't take the oppressive aura the room seemed to radiate.

/"I have some news." Tou-san announced, neither receiving nor expecting any greeting. "Yuuna is the only survivor we've found." No one looked surprised, but there was no response. Well, unless you count the slow but steady increase of fire burning in Tatsuko-nee's eyes.

"So I have petitioned the Hokage for Yuuna to stay with us after she is released." Tou-san informed us. Still nothing. I wanted to ask about Naruto, seeing that he already had nowhere to go, but there was no telling if he would ever wake up.

'Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.'/

That was yesterday.

'I truly don't know how to react to any of this. How can someone react to finding out that another clan was wiped out for no obvious reason?' I remember Nee-chan telling me about the Senju clan, how they were slaughtered the same night as the Kyuubi attack. Everyone thought it was suspicious, but there was never any conclusive evidence.

I remember how tense Nee-chan became whenever someone brought up the family she would never know. In fact, the only thing she would ever learn about them, was written in scrolls she had inherited. Those scrolls were worth more than life itself to her; as such, she never let them out of her sight. Tou-san taught her how to store them into a specially made scroll, and how to retrieve them, so she could always have them close to her. She started wearing baggy clothes just to hide that one scroll - which she nicknamed seimei no minamoto... The essence of life.

'I hope Nee-chan can help Yuuna deal with this.' One look at the two girls told me that nothing would ever be the same. Yuuna would never smile the way she used to. It would probably take her years to even learn to smile again. 'Who would do something like this?' Questions kept pouring into my already agitated mind, but the answers wouldn't follow.

Two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred thirty-six hours. The longest sentence of my life, even though I was just shy of eight years old. Two whole weeks passed in an overbearing silence, before we were allowed to leave that blasted room. I ran out like they told me the hospital was going to explode any second; knowing I was the only one leaving.

Even though Yuuna's wounds were all healed, the cast wouldn't be taken off for another few weeks. And nothing anyone did could keep her from zoning out. She was officially living in her own world now, and no one knew how to get through to her.

Naruto's condition showed no improvement as far as I could tell. Nee-chan would help stretch his muscles twice a day, replicating the exact motions the ANBU had shown her only once. The remainder of her time was spent sitting quietly in a corner, with Yuuna curled up in her lap.

Still, I ran. I had no idea where I was going, but my feet seemed to know the way. I just kept running, and running; hoping and praying that it was all just some elaborate joke. Still, seeing what Nee-chan had been through, I was not naive enough to think it was impossible.

All around me, in the centre of Konoha's shinobi district, there were smiling faces. People were laughing, shouting out 'kanpai' in the bars, sharing happy congratulations with each other. They all disgusted me.

The more I ran, the colder my fury became. The colder my fury, the faster I ran. It was a vicious cycle that never seemed to end.

"Did they finally let you out, sweety?" Kaa-san asked, happily embracing me. I still don't know where I am, but I guess I'm home. "How are you? Are you all right? Did you want something to eat, or to drink?" She was fussing over me with every fibre in her being; constantly clearing the hair out of my face, or affectionately squeezing my cheeks.

Somehow I couldn't bring myself to speak. I just stared in front of me, trusting my feet would lead me to wherever it was I was going.

"Tou-san told me that you were looking a bit pale from being locked up so long, I see he was right." Kaa-san was in the habit of referring to her husband as Tou-san whenever she spoke to me, strangely I can't remember her ever calling him anything other than Yukikami-sama to Nee-chan though. "I don't know why he started training that girl in hyouton. Everyone knows that overexposure robs you off the vitamin D needed to have healthy looking skin and hair. Come here, let me rub some cacoa butter on you."

I don't remember if I ate anything, or even if I sat at the table. Can't really say I remember much of anything those first days I was home.

Eventually Nee-chan came home too, with the still mute Yuuna dragging her feet behind her. It was odd, yet remotely comfortable, that we simply fell into a pattern of training around the clock. Words were rarely spoken, facial expressions always hovered between indifferent and exhausted.

School become nothing more than a chore. A full month, and still no sign from Uzumaki.

Funeno-sensei continuously kept reminding me to call him Daikoku-sensei, but nothing he did could ever erase that smiling face from my memory. The day that changed everything for me, was the day that he seemed happiest about. Every time I looked at him, I could still see the outlines of that smile on his face. His face, and the faces of everyone I passed on the streets. They all disgusted me.

No one had stopped smiling since that day. People who were well known to be sour, were now smiling like they had won the lottery. People who were well known to be cold, were now warm as a summer's day. Everyone seemed to catch the happy insanity fever that was spreading like wild fire.

Everyone but Tou-san, Yuuna, Nee-chan and I. Even Kaa-san seemed a little less tense than she usually was, though that only lasted while Nee-chan and Yuuna were not home. I don't know how it started, but slowly I found myself frowning more and more at that woman. Or just frowning in general.

'What's there to smile about?'

"You should show your Kaa-san more respect than that!" She would shout at me, but never once did I reply to her. I simply deferred to Nee-chan. That was how I dealt with everything: 'Nee-chan, sick 'em.'

Six months were gone before I could even blink. Uzumaki was back in school, and the sickeningly sweet smiles had died the instant they saw him. Somehow he was unfazed by his life, like it was normal to him. That realization only made me angrier, colder. He tried to talk to me a few times, which I can honestly say I conversed warmly. Other than that, I was always quiet.

Tou-san seemed to mimic me perfectly, never really saying much any more. His genin team was disbanded, since Kenta was dead and Uchiwa-teme was invited into, and therefore part of ANBU-root. Yasei was given a position in the Hokage's personal ANBU, a team Sarutobi selected and trained himself.

That meant that Tou-san had more time to train his new trio: Tatsuko, Yuuna and I.

"Hikaru-chan, I'm going to the market. Make sure you stay out of trouble, okay?" Yukikami-san announced. I can't even remember any more when she stopped being my Kaa-san, but I no longer held any respect for her. In fact, Tou-san was the only adult I respected at all.

When Yukikami-san looked at me expectantly, I nodded and watched her walk out the front door.

"She deserves more respect than you give her." Nee-chan whispered calmly. Her eyes were not focused on anything I could discern, but I figured it didn't matter.

"Maybe." I answered evenly. "Anyway, we need to get to our training. Did Tou-san say where he wanted us to go this time?"

"Hai, training ground fourty-four. He said we're camping there for a week, and that Yukikami-san was already informed. He expects us to meet him at entrance eighteen." Her voice almost reminded me of the ANBU-root operatives that came to collect Uchiwa-teme that day. Words, nothing more. Not cold, not warm, no emotion at all. Just words.

I packed my things quickly - but not overly rushed - then met Nee-chan and Yuuna at the front door. I remember not even sparing a glance at the house as I left. I'm not even sure I would change that if I could.

"Focus. Maintain the steady flow of chakra. Once you three have mastered this, we will move on to the next phase." Tou-san explained.

'Next phase? What next phase?'

We had spent the first day jumping trees while not making a sound. Nee-chan was even told to activated her doujutsu to make sure we were doing it perfectly before he started on his next phase: 'trip the seitou'.

Basically the same as moving soundlessly, but now you have to worry about an elite jounin trying to trip you as you jumped from tree to tree... in the middle of flesh eating plants, leeches the size of wild boars, tigers that had something to prove... Not the healthiest place to train. And that was just phase two...

After we proved we were not easy to trip - meaning we each had to force him to actually try - he bumped us up another notch!

"I like to call this lobster training." He explained, after having us dig a whole three metres long, three metres wide... and two metres deep. He filled it with a suiton jutsu, then used a katon jutsu to heat it up! There was actually steam rising from the newly created pond. "Now, this is just like tree climbing, except now you have to do it on water." I half expected Yuuna to call him nuts, but wasn't too surprised when she just followed orders.

Well, it only took a few seconds to realise why he called it lobster training, because once we all fell in - which was half the freaking point - we had to claw our way out of the pond! We were all red as lobsters and - if my guess was right - half cooked.

Every time we fell in, which happened A LOT, we were told to cool off and rub a salve on any place that hurt. Then after a few minutes, we were to try again.

The only good thing that came out of it was that Yuuna would scream the dirtiest profanities you can imagine every time she climbed out of the pond. At first she was so embarrassed that she started crying.

/ "If you are in that much pain, then you should quit now." Tou-san told her calmly. Her eyes were the size of dinner plates from shock. "I'm serious, things will only get harder after this."

"You're not mad at me?" Her voice was so soft that it was hard to understand what she said.

"I designed these training methods to be as brutal as possible. So why should I get upset if you aren't pleased?" He joked. Cruel sense of humour, those Yukikami.

There was a long pause, like Yuuna was deciding whether or not to re-explore the gift of speech. "Otou-sama would tan my hide if he ever heard me say something so unladylike."

Tou-san just laughed. Good, long, hard, belly rolling, cheeks burning, out of breath laughing. It was contagious too. No one really understood what was going on, but we were all laughing alongside our insane leader.

"The next time... you see... a lady lobster... tell... tell her that... BWAHAHAHA" He puffed out between bouts of chuckles and trying to breathe. /

I can still hear Yuuna's embarrassed laughter after she pieced together what he told her. But more importantly, I remember that laughter slowly give way to something warmer, something more wholesome. Her eyes slowly started thawing out, slowly warming up; they went from a chilly December morning, to a warm May afternoon.

When her hand shot up in front of her mouth as she laughed, Tou-san only seemed to laugh harder.

Poor Yuuna couldn't make any sense out of that, and seeing that it was the first time we had actually seen her laugh we didn't know to forewarn her. "The Yukikami girls aren't quite as... sophisticated." Nee-chan tried to explain her.

"Huh?" Okay, that didn't help.

"They don't give a flying f-"

"Hi-ka-ruuuu!" Came Nee-chan's warning.

I huffed and shrugged exasperatedly, knowing better than to get on Nee-chan's bad side. "Yukikami girls don't care about what people think. They are who they are, how they are, when they are... they just live their lives. If anyone has a problem with that, they can sod off." I tried to say it as nicely as I could, but I knew if she really started hanging around the girls of the clan they would not be as... censored.

At any rate, we got Yuuna to talk again, so it wasn't a waste of effort.

"What does that have to do with-" She indicated her hand, wondering how it all tied together.

"Putting your hand in front your mouth when you laugh is a sign of a lady, a well behaved, properly brought up, accepting her role in the world, lady." I told her blandly. Tou-san just nodded, trying to catch his breath. "Our girls are nothing like that."

Yuuna shrugged, clearly not convinced.

"In fact," Tou-san eventually continued. "only the females of the Yukikami main house are expected to have any real manners at all." He indicated Nee-chan in that. I don't think I'd ever seen a pair of eyes go half as wide as Yuuna's did. "We don't discourage manners, but they aren't exactly required."

"Which is a nice way of saying that most Yukikami would make great ANBU, but lousy diplomats." Nee-chan explained light heartedly.

It was at that point that two ANBU made their presence known. They explained evenly and without preamble that there had been another massacre - the Yukikami clan - no known survivors. I don't know how I know, but I felt that it had actually taken place about the time that Yukimaki-sanmade it back from the market.

"One step foreward, tens steps back." Tou-san mumbled, rubbing the arch of his nose between his thumb and his index finger. "Thank you for informing us. Please leave now." Tou-san instructed them coldly. For a brief moment, the thought crossed my mind that Tou-san had done it. I certainly wouldn't blame him for it, but I couldn't convince myself it was him either. It didn't matter, at any rate. They were dead. No coming back for them.

I discarded that train of though and began focusing on the water walking training we were sidetracked from, completely blocking out everything around me.

"It's all right to cry, you know." Nee-chan said after the others had gone to sleep. We had first watch, and since Tou-san wasn't the type to take chances, we were told to stay really close to the camp to avoid setting off the perimeter traps.

"Wow, there was actual warmth there. How do you do it?" I asked sarcastically.

"Stop kidding around, Karu. I know things haven't been normal the last few months-" She was defending them? Well, it was honourable of her, but totally unnecessary.

"Try six months, Nee-chan. Six months, and not one of them offered Yuuna so much as a warm glance after learning that her clan was killed. Why should I give them any better than they gave her?" My voice was coldly neutral, I knew. It was just easier this way for me.

"Because you deserve that kind of respect." That brought me up short. I deserved mourning them? "The memories of you playing with your cousins, the memories of how happy you used to be, the person you used to be. You deserve being able to mourn that."

"And the memories of how horribly they treated you and Yuuna?" I nonplussed.

"Not everything revolves around us. This is your family, your flesh and blood. You deserve the chance to mourn them, to let go of all the pain regarding them." Her eyes were full of warmth now, not just her words. It is the softest I had seen her eyes in months. Maybe she was just getting better at hiding that warmth, before people knew to swoop in and ousted it.

I knew she was right, but I still couldn't bring myself to cry. Even after recalling every happy memory, even after thinking about all the good times I had with them. I felt no pity for them.

The next morning we left training ground forty-four and returned to our house. Nothing was done to clean it up, obviously. Chalk outlines of bodies were everywhere and blood stained the ground where they were mortally wounded.

Right on our front porch, I saw the outline of a slight framed individual. To that person's right was the obvious gash that they bled to death from. To their left was an odd mix of sweet sake, ginger and orange juice.

"She was going to cook your favourite breakfast when we got back." Nee-chan whispered. Somehow that caused a chain reaction in me, tears were streaming down my face before I could even realise they were there.

And the long, drawn out sobs I heard echoing off the front of the house... Were coming from me.

End Chapter 14

A/N: Kiravu, I love you! Once again, my beta saves me from the worst of my mistakes. So any left behind are my bad :P
At any rate, this chapter came out quite a bit darker than it was intended, but I think it explains what it needs to. I'm sure you can all understand the main trio of my story much better because of what happened to them, and why Hikaru is who he is.

Well, next time, we are going to take a closer look at Yuuna. Not my personal favourite to write, but needed. You'll understand when you read it. Once again, to all my dedicated readers, thank you and keep the reviews coming. Tell me what you think, okay?

Musuko - Son.

Youko-gaki -Fox brat.

Seitou -Student.

Kanpai - Cheers.