(I don't own Naruto or Dexter…I mean, I do own Dexter season 1 on DVD, but that's not quite the same thing)
The day following my ritual is always so …slow. Exactly why, I can't say, could be that I've used so much adrenaline last night, or it could just be that the voice has been sated for now. I don't worry, it'll come back soon enough; I'm never alone for long. Today I'm supposed to be getting my team assignments and for once I'm almost…anxious? Teamwork is something that I understand, quite well in fact. If the Hokage hadn't been helping me for so long, I might not get it, but working together, the pack mentality if you will, is something that has been drilled into me from a young age.
I've just been lying in bed for the past half an hour or so, doing nothing in particular. Just watching the sun creep across the ceiling; telling me that it's time to start my day.
My mornings are as normal as anyone else's. Shower, eat…maybe do some stretches, nothing that you haven't seen before…I water my plants every day. Is that odd? I find it quite ironic that I have such a green thumb, don't you? Maybe it's because I take lives that I have such a gift of cultivating it. This morning I appear to be working on my newest project, I bought it the other day at the Yamanaka flower shop, a pretty large flower pot, probably three or four gallons large. I plan on growing a nice fern, something big and leafy. As I dig out a shallow area for my young fern, I slip a little something extra in with it…last night's trophy…or trophies if you're going to be technical about it, three bones in every index finger, two per body. These six will sit right underneath my newest decoration and never see the light of day again.
That's another area where I differ from my peers. Often, there is a need to hold or see the trophies of our work afterwards…sometimes weeks, months…sometimes years later, but not for me. By using them as fertilizer, not only can I keep them around, but I can view them whenever I want, and no one will ever know about it. Every plant in my apartment has a story behind it…and underneath it. Mizuki was number eight in my collection. Numbers two through seven are under various other flowers, mostly perennials so that I don't have to replant every year. Number one…well, he's in a very special place, at least to me.
I notice that I have to be at the Academy in twenty minutes for my team assignments and I quickly grab my jacket and leave, taking one last look at my newest addition. He'll fit in well with the others I think.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
We're waiting, my team and I that is…it's boring. I'm not entirely sure what to think about them, as ninja that is. Uchiha Sasuke is the rookie of the year, but frankly he's physically weaker than me and his only advantage is his ninjutsu, which I don't care a whole lot about. Then there's Haruno Sakura, my 'crush'. It's such an ugly word, why do people use it to denounce love? Is love like being crushed underneath a boulder? If so, maybe its better I don't know what it is…it sounds painful. They both think that the teams were put together because of our grades…that they are the two strongest and I'm the weakest, the dead last of our year. I don't see how that's possible, since our grades are public record and I was clearly in the lower quartile, but not near the bottom.
No, grades had bupkis to do with our team assignments…heh…funny word, bupkis…every time I hear it used, I think about squash…I wonder why? Anyway, back to the team…Sasuke is on the team because the old man sees what I see in him…a slightly less messed up me. When his clan was massacred he changed…from what I'm told, for the worse, though frankly, I thought he was kinda self-centered before too. He's damaged, like me, but not empty…not like I am. He makes himself this way, trying to erase his emotions, be the perfect shinobi…for rookie of the year; he's not doing so well. I've seen the tears in his eyes when ever he thinks too long.
Sakura is on the team, solely for my benefit. She's more or less worthless as a kunoichi as she is now, but that's not to say there isn't potential and talent. However, first academically and last athletically make you only a mediocre ninja, so how come Iruka told her she was top of the class? It was the Hokage's idea, you see, there is one thing that makes Sakura perfect as my love interest…she more stubborn than any other person in Konoha. She will never ever stop fawning over Sasuke which is good for me, because if she ever decided to take me up on one of my now infamous date offers, I'd be clueless as how to proceed, and that's not good for me or my mask. It's perfect, don't you see, she'll continue to reject me until the end of time and I can appear to be a normal teenager who is foolishly holding out for the girl of his dreams.
It's been nearly an hour and our instructor still hasn't shown up and outside, I'm seething at the outrage…of course, that what they'll see, they don't know how calm and at ease I am right now…I'm back with my plants and neither of my teammates know it.
Fifteen minutes later he enters. Our sensei has as much grey hair as the old man and wears a mask over his mouth like he's a doctor about to go into surgery. His left eye is covered with his protector, and his left is an uninteresting shade of black that is very boring…just like his attitude. In his hand is an orange bound book, roughly the same hue as the jacket and pants I'm wearing. Icha Icha Paradise…so he reads those does he? I wonder if he'll see it then? How all of my mannerisms and emotions are taken directly from that book? We even have the same wardrobe. It's true, that book has taught me almost as much about emotion as the Hokage has taught me, and it had the added bonus of saving the old man from giving me 'The talk'. Since I don't get sex, at least why people would want to have sex, and it does have the most accurate depiction of human emotion, at least according to Sarutobi, he allowed me to read it. I just skipped over the boring parts (boring to me, not to sensei apparently) and viola! Instant emotional tutor!
"Well, my first impression of you guys…" He speaks! "…I don't like you." He seems to smile with his eyes, just another thing that puzzles me, both what is there to smile about, and how you can do it with your eyes, when he tells us to meet on the roof in five minutes. Interesting choice of meeting place, outside, easy escape…too exposed. My mind slips into analyzing what could be going on in that salt and pepper head of our instructor, only to give up in boredom.
We all get to the roof to find our sensei sitting on the railing, book in hand. For a minute we sit there, waiting for the other party to make the first move.
"What are we doing here, sensei?" Sakura asked…and people say my mask has no patience.
"Well, it's a nice day out, so I figured we could all do with some fresh air while we introduced ourselves, you know, team stuff."
That's just it, I don't know 'team stuff', that's why I'm here, that's what you have to teach me.
"What do you mean, maybe you should introduce yourself first, sensei, you can show us how it's done." She pressed on.
"Well, my name is Hatake Kakashi…I have certain things that I like and dislike…as for hobbies…I think I've got a few of those…I have a dream for the future as well…or was that just a dream I had last night? Can't remember those things for the life of me." He paused and grabbed his chin in thought. "You're up next, Pinky."
Sakura bristled at her nickname, but pushed it aside and began her own less than helpful introduction. "Well, my name is Haruno Sakura, I like… (She looked over at Sasuke) My hobbies include… (Again…Sasuke) My dreams for the future… (Now, here she got a glassy look in her eye and I could have sworn I saw her body convulse)…and I dislike Ino-pig and Naruto!" She finished adamantly.
"Aww, Sakura-chan, you don't mean that!" I insist…even if it's just for posterity.
"You in the blue, you're next." Kakashi instructs without lifting his gaze from his book.
"Hmph, my name is Uchiha Sasuke, I don't have anything I like or dislike. My only hobby is training, and my dream for the future…my ambition is to revive my clan and kill a certain man." Sakura squeals something about how cool he is and not for the first time I wonder if she's playing with a full deck of cards…I know what he means by 'reviving his clan' and it sound rather unappealing to me, I mean, if falling in love is getting crushed, than what's having sex like? Ripping an arm off?
"Okay, you, the one dressed like my book." So he did notice it…leave it to a man with a mask on to see through mine…maybe not completely, but at least through the first layer.
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" I beam. "I like ramen, (which is true, you try finding a food that gives you near a full day's serving of protein, vegetables and carbohydrates in one go) training and people who keep their promises. I dislike those who think they are above others and those who would harm this village. My hobbies are gardening and tasting every kind of ramen I can find…My dream for the future…to be Hokage of course...and then Sakura-chan will fall in love with me!"
"NOT IN YOUR DREAMS, NARUTO!" She screams at me, I think it might have ruptured my ear drum…
"All right, well I think that's enough for today, tomorrow we'll meet at seven o'clock for our first mission." Kakashi actually put his book away when he spoke up.
"What kind of mission sensei?" Sakura asked and even Sasuke seemed interested.
"Survival training." Is his reply and I already know where this is heading. The bell test…shit. I don't know if we can work together and overcome the fact that Sasuke won't accept help, Sakura can't help herself, and I have no way of helping either of them realize that they need to help each other…without paying attention, I accept the proffered information that Kakashi has handed out and stop strategizing until I feel him leave and my teammates stand up to go their separate (yeah right, not if Sakura had anything to say about it) ways. I remain sitting until the heat becomes even more intense and the atmosphere too oppressive to my mind. I can't think like this…can't think here. I decide to head home and see if I can't find some solace in my plants.
Thirty minutes later, no luck…twenty minutes to walk back and another five before the air feels too heavy to even breathe anymore…in times like this, there's only one place that I can go and even hope to get some peace…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
It's the last place in Konoha that you'd expect to find any kind of flora, but the head of the Yondaime is surprisingly green with moss and there's even a thin layer of grass on the wooden beams of the emergency shelter built a little higher up on the monument. That's not why I'm here though, but it is a clue. It is up here that I've hidden my number one…that first trophy. There's a small space I cut into one of those support beams as soon as I could reach them on my own, just a tiny thing, but large enough to hide my secret and allow me to get to them should I ever need or want to. I know that I said that I didn't do that kind of thing, but the first kill…it's just so special, that to bury it away underneath some plant…it's demeaning to the memory of that first, perfect moment.
It's too light out, so I dare not retrieve what is mine, but being in such close proximity is enough for now, I can feel a kind of calm inside my head, much less oppressive than at the academy or even in my apartment. I close my eyes and sit down atop the head of the youngest Hokage in our history…the man who sealed the Kyuubi inside of me…the man who gave me my gift…my father. You'd think that I might hate him, for the Kyuubi, or for making me the way I am…but then again, I can't even bring myself to think of him as my father…The Sandaime is my father, he's the one who has taught me the way of the ninja, taught me about the will of fire, taught me how to channel myself, to become what I am.
I lay on my back and watch the clouds move in the sky. Shikamaru is always saying that it's relaxing…it's slow. I hate slow, now watching blood squirt out from a severed artery, that's both fast, and relaxing. Now, I seriously doubt that Shikamaru would find release in my type of fun, and I know that everyone has their own tastes, but cloud watching? Really? I've watched some kids play this game…where they watch the clouds and try and say what they look like. To me they all look like clouds. White, boring, slow…fucking clouds! I can't take it anymore, so I close my eyes and just listen to the noise rise over the afternoon village. Feel the wind coming in from my right side and swirling against the other heads that line the cliff to my left. The stone below me is nice and warm after being heated by the sun all day and for the first time since Kakashi announced our task tomorrow, I feel myself return to normal…to nothing.
I understand the symbolism in my choice of locale. I am trying to get inside his head, to figure him out. From what the old man tells me, he's just like me after all. The Hokage told me all about him, how he created the Hiraishin to indulge in his addiction to speed. What a glorious technique that must have been! I've often though about what it would be like; to know the secrets to the Flying Thunder God, but…I almost prefer to keep that a fantasy…almost. The Hokage told me everything about my family, my father in explicit detail, about his childhood, his time in the academy and then about the war. He told me about why Iwagakure hated him, why they would undoubtedly transfer that to me if they knew who I was. I think it's the first time that I've felt human. They would be afraid of me because of who I was, not what I was. They fear that I have inherited not only my father's genius, but his love of speed and death.
They'd be correct.
You see, the Hokage explained that the reason they hated my father, wasn't because he killed so many of their ninja, but because of how he dispatched of them. See, under normal circumstances, in war a ninja will kill more than once. The most notorious will obviously do it way more than that, but they are the only ones who know it, there is no clue as to who murdered who on a battle field.
Except for my father. He had a truly distinct way of dealing death that was easily recognized. One cut, across the neck. Just one, but with that tri bladed kunai of his, one cut got him through the carotid artery, the jugular, the windpipe and even the spine. The body would be found with the head connected to the body only by the barest flap of skin at the back of the neck. It was fast, almost too fast for my tastes, but at the same time it was beautiful. No one survives decapitation, not ever.
The sun has sunk below the horizon by the time I am fully at ease with the day's events. Everything is…normal. Normally empty.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The next morning, the day of our test is just like yesterday and will probably be the same as tomorrow. I know that Kakashi won't be on time, but I have appearances to keep up, so I can only afford to show up a little late. Both my teammates are already there, Sakura got here first no doubt. Now there is nothing to do but play the waiting game…I'm already loosing.
He doesn't show up for another two hours. Not until nine and even though I know that it's part of the test, I can't help but feel a little anger in his tardiness. Sakura yells something about how he should respect our time and show up when he says he will, but we all ignore her, even Sasuke.
"But Sakura," He says in an admonishing tone of voice. "I was here a while ago, you just didn't notice me. You were talking at Sasuke and blushing too much to notice me." It's true, he did arrive at around eight thirty actually; he just stayed hidden and watched us. I notice that Sakura's face flush in embarrassment…isn't that redundant? She was blushing about blushing? I shake my head free from that strange thought in time to hear Kakashi claim that to get a bell from him we'll need to come at him with the "intent to kill."
I doubt he talked with the Hokage; otherwise he might have worded that little differently. By the time he actually says 'GO', I've already slipped into my routine usually reserved for the underbelly of our world. All three of us hide in the surrounding woods with varying degrees of success. I can see Sakura all the way at the far end of the woods; her red dress and pink hair stick out from the green and brown foliage like a welcome mat. Sasuke is in the tree almost directly above her. He's hidden better, but he's got a long way to go if he wants to come close to my level, even with the orange. I watch Kakashi just stand in the same spot we left him, his book still in his hands, eyes swinging from side to side as he reads. At least, that what he wants us to think. He's already spotted the other two, probably before he finished the first line of whatever page he's on, so why is he still fake reading, why is he still looking?
Shit. It's me, I've hidden myself too well, he can't find me, and it's frightened him. Or at least cause for him to take a closer look, something I should have avoided at all possible. I'm supposed to be terrible at this, what with my loud voice and nature, not to mention that I'm dressed about as stealthily as an Akimichi at a dieter's convention. Yet I've managed to drop off his radar completely. He'll find me eventually, I'm not that good, not yet, but still, he'll be suspicious and I can't have that.
I decide to 'ambush' him, knowing full well that it won't work, but it will make my frontal attack much easier to believe later on. My first pair of shuriken fly at his head and as expected he simply ducks them, which is why my second pair are aimed at where his head will be, except these are connected by a good length of ninja wire and are meant to act more as bolas than shuriken. Normally he would have tried to just back up or stand up, but I've buried another throwing star right behind his feet in the ground, and if he takes that step he'll impale his own foot. Not surprisingly, he uses a replacement at the last minute which gives me about five seconds to get into the clearing and give away my position.
Now I'm the one out in the open and waiting for an attack, thankfully Kakashi has decided not to make me wait now that I'm not posing an interesting challenge for him. He's charging me from the front, arm cocked back for a punch, telegraphing his every move to me…shouldn't I be the one doing that? He must be trying to test my taijutsu, at least I hope that's what I hope he's doing, because if it's not, than I seriously might question his abilities. I don't have a taijutsu style per say, you don't need one when all you have to do is stun your opponent long enough to cut some tendons before spilling their blood everywhere, which is what makes tackling and grappling moves perfect. Mine are moves that make your opponent think 'what the hell?' in the middle of a battle, which means that they aren't concentrating on me.
I use my coiled legs to launch myself at Kakashi's midsection and tackle him to the ground, only to tackle a shadow clone that disappears upon being hit. I decide to show off a little and make a score of shadow clones as well, to make a tiny perimeter around myself and wait for Kakashi's next move. It isn't what I expect. Apparently he's gotten everything he wants from me, at least for now, because I can feel him over by Sakura and Sasuke, he's already taken care of Sakura and is waiting for Sasuke to realize what has happened. I am barely able to see him in the shadows of the trees. He's standing right next to where Sakura was, I can only assume she's on the ground, hidden beneath the lower layer of bush that I can't penetrate with my gaze. Sasuke is in the tree directly above him, oblivious to the goings on right underneath him, and I loose almost all hope that we'll pass this test. While my remaining teammate and damaged brother are ignorant of our teacher, I am not, and I notice as he looks at me from his position and give me that eye smile of his.
This isn't a team test anymore…it's my test. That masked son of a bitch is testing me. Hm…maybe he talked with the old man after all. He knows what I knew and what the Hokage knew long ago…Uchiha Sasuke is an ok ninja, but he is too damaged to be great. Too damaged to even understand the big picture…too damaged to be useful to the village. Unless I can reach him…unless I can somehow turn back the clock on his life, stop him from torturing himself into what I was born. I hear Sasuke's limp body fall from the tree, he too is unconscious, probably for some time. It's just him and me now, no one to make me hold back, no one who can gleam any insight into my life except the one person who needs to know. This team is as much mine to teach as it is his, if I'm reading the hidden message that the old man is leaving me and if I'm right about this test, than I, and by proxy they, have an excellent chance of passing this test. It's all on me right now and the single kunai that has buried itself next to my feet is the sign I've been waiting for. Kakashi is calling me to action, to let loose all my inhibitions, to be what I am, not what I am forced to pretend to be. He's asking me to play, and of course I accept.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Three hours later and my teammates awaken, sore, disoriented and tied to stumps at the end of the training field. After figuring out that they had failed their faces fell, which my mask interpreted as the cue to brighten their day.
"Hey guys!" I yell. "You're up!"
"Naruto!" Sakura yelled, shocked that she was tied up and I was free and only slightly dirty. "How come you aren't tied up? No way you're better than Sasuke-kun!" She badgered…god I love how stubborn she can be, it fits my needs so well.
"Naruto isn't tied up because he actually tried to attack me." Kakashi decided to come over from the fallen hero's monument he had been absorbed with for the past half an hour. I don't know how to feel about him right now, he wasn't as observant as I had been told. Before our little scrimmage I had thought that he might have gleamed inside me, into what I was. In reality, my mask is too good. He was able to see through the first flimsy layer. He saw that my emotions were manufactured; he knows that I fake my interest in Sakura and that I am not the easily excitable blond I have made myself out to be. He knew that I was holding back beforehand, I guess I did do too good a job at hiding my presence.
What he doesn't know and didn't figure out, is that I fake a lot more than just my interest in my female teammate. He didn't even begin to glimpse the emptiness inside me, and he certainly has no clue that I have a tendency to murder bad people and amputate their index fingers.
"I'm disappointed in you three, but the two of you especially." I hear Kakashi-sensei begin the rehearsed speech we had gone over for this. He's told me that my performance has assured our passage on this test, but we have to trick Sasuke and Sakura into thinking that they have actually accomplished something other than being caught flat footed. I tune out his condescending speech for now, I'm going through the motions of the shocked teammate and I'm not even consciously trying…maybe my mask is too good.
"I'll give you guy's one last chance after lunch, but Naruto is going to be in charge of deciding who gets to eat anything." I must have zoned out a bit, because I missed his little overly dramatic explanation about teamwork and its importance to our test. I look over at my teammates…I see a bit of regret in Sakura's eyes, now that I hold her lunch hostage she is regretting ever saying whatever mean things she's said about me recently…like I care, mean words can't affect those with no feelings to hurt.
Because it's expected of me, I release her from her bonds and offer a portion of the food I've been granted to Sakura without even pausing, not enough for her to give it to Sasuke, that would be too easy, but enough for her to continue to buy the lie that she means something to me. Sasuke I act as if the thought of helping him disgusts me, I must be doing an alright job, because I see a bit of worry creep into Sakura's eyes. Sasuke of course betrays no emotion, or tries not to; I can just read the barest hint of uncertainty that begins to gnaw at the front of his thoughts. I know I'm supposed to act like I'm seriously considering not feeding him, but just for a moment I consider withholding his portion until he swears upon his parents graves that he'll help us, but I know we'd be here until we're old and gray if I do. So I walk over and get in his face.
"Sasuke, I don't know what the hell has crawled into your pants and died, but if you don't help Sakura-chan and I, than not only won't I give you any food, but we'll get those bells without your help, and then you'll be the one going back to the academy." It's exactly the thing that my mask would say, despite that it's almost exactly the thing I would actually do if I could. Of course it's a pass or fail situation, no way that only two of us pass, but if he doesn't believe it, he'll never agree to my offer.
He doesn't actually say it, but his eyes give it away if his slumped body didn't. He's in, maybe just for now, and definitely only to save his own hide, but he's in. I cut him loose and while he's rubbing circulation back into his wrists I feel Kakashi appear behind me, bearing good news.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
In a dungy underground bunker in Rice country, a red headed scientist was investigating a scroll that had shown up just a little while ago. It came from Konoha which wouldn't raise any red flags normally, but this one contained the personal seal of the Sandaime Hokage, so Karin had every right to be interested. As expected, when the seal was broken a puff of smoke appeared, designating that this was a storage scroll, and it wasn't until the smoke cleared that she got a look at what had been sent by her master's former teacher.
Mizuki's severed head wasn't an unexpected surprise, he was a poor spy and an even worse ninja…heck, he wasn't even the only spy in Konoha, so it's not like he would be missed, but something caught the fledgling scientist/medic's eye. First off was the cut. Technically it was cuts, since it had taken who ever had done this three strokes of whatever blade, probably a kunai, to behead the spy, yet there were no signs of hesitation, which meant that the multiple cuts were due to necessity, not nerves. The second was the amount of blood that accompanied the head. There wasn't enough. She began to smile at the thought. Whoever had killed this useless pawn had bled quite a bit of blood from his body. In her seventeen years of life, never had she seen Konoha ANBU drain the blood from an interrogation victim. The smile continued to spread across her lips until it seemed to reach from ear to ear. This person had a fascination with blood eh? There were only two possible explanations as to why a body is returned with such a noticeable lack of blood. Either the killer liked the stuff, or they knew that Karin did, and they were taunting her. Since she was a well guarded secret, even to other ninja in Otogakure, it had to be the former. Her smile was permanent now. Somewhere out there, probably tucked within the walls of Konoha, there was someone else like her out there, someone who enjoyed the finer things in life. Like seeing your victim squirm and writhe against their bonds as a kunai relieved them of their precious liquids…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
(A/N: Well, considering that every single review I received for the first chapter called for more, I decided to acquiesce to your request and indulge myself a little bit. This is a bit longer than chapter 1, so I hope you like it just as much, I don't normally like writing in first person…but come on! It's just so much cooler this way!
As always, please read, review, and hopefully in doing that you'll stroke my ego enough to make me rush some new stuff out sooner rather than later.)