Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Beta: Give a round of applause to Duesal10, my unbelievably wonderful beta.
A/N: This chapter was supposed to be posted earlier in the week, but there was a massive power shortage that lasted four days in the city. Nonetheless, enjoy.
Swinging Pendulum
Chapter Three: Movement
Orochimaru's hands stung as they impacted with the rough gravel. He crouched low on the ground, breathing out in short gasps, his ponytail trailing behind him as a frigid gust swept through the courtyard. Saffron eyes glinting, the pale boy directed his stare at the towering brick wall of the orphanage.
His chakra capacity, although large for his age, paled drastically in the face of his fellow peers (it was more or less in the genetic makeup, there were clan children… and Naruto). His control was better than Jiraiya's and Naruto's combined yes, but tree climbing had managed to quadruple his reserves with minimum effort, besides, it was good practice.
All four of them had easily advanced to third year of the ninja academy during the three months of school. Orochimaru and Tsunade a little faster than Naruto and Jiraiya, but that might be because the former had been pranking teachers and skipping classes while the latter more often than not dosed off during lessons. The academy homework was easy, tedious maybe, but still uncomplicated and relatively effortless.
The random exercises the group made up on a whim were not.
They had mastered tree climbing as a whole in two weeks, (with an extravagant amount of profane language—some of which Orochimaru didn't believe existed in the elemental nations before this). Water walking had been polished up and knocked off the to-do list after another two weeks, and somehow, (Orochimaru didn't want to know) Tsunade had managed to smuggle some of her grandmother's basic fuuinjutsu equipment (brushes, chakra infused ink, paper, a thick, blue rimmed scroll on the foundations of seal work) out of Mito-sama's office and into Naruto's apartment.
The blond in question had managed exactly three seals—two types of explosives and one storage scroll with almost fake ease before giving up on seals altogether, claiming that the random kanji and squiggly lines gave him a never ending migraine. When Jiraiya tried to create a seal (he had the nicest hand writing out the four), and activated it in the middle of Naruto's rickety little table, the-should-have-been-storage scroll exploded spectacularly in Jiraiya's face. It gouged out a good portion of the table too.
To Orochimaru's severely disintegrating mental health, they still insisted to practice seal work even after that incident.
But Orochimaru couldn't deny he was intrigued. Seal work was very, very interesting; with danger's feathery touch constantly hovering above the art like a katana. His own attempts at making a seal ended up backfiring on him in explosions, nearly giving him a panic attack as it was. Naruto seemed perfectly immune to this, he and Tsunade seemed to have the demented philosophy that either involved "set it on fire", "blow it up" or both at once. Orochimaru figured it was a blond thing.
At their insistence, he had helped clear out several of the rooms next to Naruto's. He then hauled up some scrounged furniture which wouldn't have been missed by anyone if Jiraiya managed to make them detonate in his experimentation, and gently resigned himself to their shenanigans.
Orochimaru prided himself to be logical and rational, and anything that translated back to sensible, especially amongst the quartet of decidedly not sane people he hung out with. He wasn't sure why or how he was friends with those weirdoes, but they had grown on him like fungus, and he had done his best to direct them away from troublesome situations.
For all he knew, Naruto might have scampered off into the forest with three meter long centipedes (it was the Forest of Death or something) looking for something to do, or maybe it was Jiraiya because he was trying to prove his parents wrong (again), or Tsunade because she was bored out of her mind. Naruto had insisted out of the blue last week they explore the place, to which Orochimaru froze, nearly having a miniature heart attack, then desperately turned the conversation into safer areas. It was as if they didn't have a single bone of sense in their entire bodies, and he was the only anchor to keep them from trying to fake an assassination on the Hokage by night, and getting themselves skewered in the process.
It was maddening. They were maddening. Orochimaru found it hard not to join the madness despite the large part of his brain screeching denial.
Humans were liked that, he supposed, human children—the younger ones even more so. they were naïve, gullible and unbelievably adaptable to their surroundings.
Orochimaru figured that he had been lucky to chance upon a group of friends with high intellectual abilities. Granted, they didn't seem particularly intelligent at first glance… or second… or third, but they had moments where they demonstrated a surprising amount of depth in their choices. He just wished these gifts translated into other areas, like an actual sense of danger.
He had encountered Jiraiya one gloomy day nearly a year ago. Orochimaru had quite literally tripped over the tanned weirdo curled up behind one of the orphanage's many evergreen shrubs after Jiraiya had fallen down in an expedition to climb a tree.
Naruto was a different story altogether, it was the first day of the academy, and the Hokage had been in the middle of pronouncing the official speech to the freshly minted ninja-wannabes before the first bell. Naruto had taken one glance at Orochimaru, deemed him "really, really sad" and dragged him by the arm away from "the stupid talking" as the older boy had eloquently put it.
Naruto had been oddly wary of him at first, despite being the one who incorporated Orochimaru into the group. Though that might have been because he was a tad friendlier with Tsunade and Jiraiya (fellow enthusiastic maniacs) and Orochimaru was over thinking about the circumstances surrounding his idiots.
Orochimaru suspected that Tsunade had already known about Jiraiya's questionable habits and priorities (Naruto definitely knew). She hadn't been raised in a family of Kage-level shinobi for nothing, out of all of them; Orochimaru estimated it was Tsunade who had the most experience. Naruto came next; he had an expert eye and wicked intelligence under that stupid façade… probably. Orochimaru was never really sure when it came to Naruto. One moment he could be all sage-like and wise, and the next he played the stereotype "blonds are dumb" up to eleven.
Tsunade was like that too, she was just a little more subtle about it. Orochimaru didn't even refer to Tsunade and Naruto as two people these days. The two were practically conjoined at the hip, whether it was because of hair colour or Uzumaki genes. It wasn't Tsunade and Naruto or Naruto and Tsunade, no it when they were together; it was NarutoandTsunade, one and the same. He suspected that they were long, lost twins, or siblings at the very least. They certainly acted similarly enough.
Orochimaru just wished he could catch onto their peculiar, disjointed conversations.
The first rays of sunlight reflected off the shards of stained-glass windows decorating the orphanage, painting the compact dirt ground with a mired of colours. Orochimaru squinted through the sudden display of light, straightened, and grudgingly called it a morning.
Naruto grinned, holding up a bucket full of paint. "So should we—"
Tsunade snickered. "They'll never—"
"Then we'll—"
"No, no—" Tsunade shook her head.
Naruto licked his lips. "Then… "
"After that," Tsunade stated matter of factly.
"Half—"
"Entire."
Naruto tapped his chin with the striped pencil resting in his free hand. "'Kay-ttebayo."
Sitting cross legged on the top of the Nidaime's head Jiraiya glared irritably at the two blonds before he threw up his hands in defeated resignation. "I give up," he grumbled. "What're they talking about?"
Orochimaru looked up from his scroll (he always seemed to have one at hand, no matter the situation) and inspected the duo talking noisily beside them, their conversation punctuated with the occasional snicker. Naruto had changed from his usual clothes to that of a blindingly orange, black trimmed eyesore of a jumpsuit. Tsunade wasn't much better, with her equally orange track pants and woolly sweater vest. Orochimaru dearly hoped they weren't going to rope him and Jiraiya into their next fashion expedition; orange was so not his colour.
"Perhaps they are talking about their next prank," Orochimaru deduced, turning back to Jiraiya.
Jiraiya growled sourly. "I know that! What prank?!" He crossed his arms and let out a small huff.
"Whatever it is…" Orochimaru muttered as Tsunade whipped out a can of bright pink spray paint from who knows where.
"If anyone asks…" Jiraiya continued.
"We know nothing," they chorused together.
They blinked, looked at each other with a new sense of respect in their eyes… until Jiraiya's brain promptly caught up with his actions. "OI!" he yelped. "Don't copy me!"
Orochimaru looked at Jiraiya, turned his gaze to the blonds, and glanced back at Jiraiya. He made a half strangled noise from the back of his throat, idly wondered if throwing himself off the cliff would lead to a quick and painless death, and allowed the heel of his palm to connect with his forehead.
The very next morning, as the sun rose from the horizon and painted the Hokage monument a brilliant orange, two figures quickly darted from one stone head to the other, armed with spray paints and buckets. By the time the majority of the population had risen, finished their morning routines, and glanced out the window, they were faced with the astonishing discovery of what had become of their beloved Hokage Monument. Tobirama's head now sported glow-in-the-dark green hair, with a fat moustache, purple eye shadow, painted lips and a black eye. Hashirama's had been turned into a pretty geisha woman who bore no physical resemblance to the Shodai Hokage, with a bad case of sideburns.
Inside the Hokage's tower, the real Nidaime rubbed his temples at little Tsunade's insistent cackling as she flew out the window and down the tower (he didn't know how she learned tree walking) and stared owlishly at the vandalized rock faces of him and his brother.
Ten seconds later, when the image had finally registered and he was convinced his mental facilities were not malfunctioning, Tobirama valiantly resisted the tenacious urge to bang his head against the hard wood of his desk.
He settled for swearing violently instead, fishing into an open drawer of his desk for the curved jug of his emergency sake supply.
The wind whistled past the training ground, rustling the thin blades of grass. Naruto stared at his hands intently, slowly forcing out his chakra into a spiralling pattern. In front of him, placing one hand onto top of a half-formed rasengan, was a distinctly female kage bunshin. Naruko gave the miniaturized version of a bijuudama a raised eyebrow in critique. The ball of chakra flared once, twice, and fizzled away, leaving only the sharp tang of stifling ozone and chakra in the air.
Naruto gave the empty space a blank stare. "Oh come on," he groaned. "Ya kidding me? All that hard work… gone…"
Naruko snorted. "You should have expected this sweetie," she flounced, and elegantly dropped her sixteen year old body down onto a tree stump, pointing a perfectly manicured nail in Naruto's direction. "Your chakra control's even worse than usual."
From up on the tree behind Naruko, the genin-clone with the ninja wire Naruto had deemed Kaito smiled thinly. "And considering that you never had much control in the first place, that's an impressive feat," Kaito drawled.
"Wasn't tree climbing supposed to help me with that?" Naruto frowned.
"Yes and no. Tree climbing regulates the amount of chakra you use, but it only requires one to hold it outside the body in a steady stream for a certain amount of time. Rasengan's mechanics are different," Kaito remarked, idly checking his ninja wire. Naruto really wondered just how on hell he'd gotten his hands on it, but he figured it came with the jutsu. The specifics of a good majority of his personal projects were a little fuzzy.
"Your lack of intelligence doesn't really help," Naruko tacked on helpfully, propping her chin on her hands.
The original sent a withering look at his clones. "You people are supposed to be encouraging me here," Naruto ground out.
They paused, Naruko tapping her chin with her finger nail and Kaito twirling his wire into shapes reminiscent of Konoha nin, his silver framed glasses glinting in the light, as if thinking it over.
"Don't wanna," Naruko finally yawned.
"Exactly," Kaito agreed languidly.
"Why you-you bastards!" Naruto cried, automatically forming another rasengan in his hands. Like its precursors, it swirled ominously before vanishing.
Naruko rolled her eyes in an exaggerated motion. "You realize you're insulting yourself, right?"
"No…" Naruto bit his lip," if me insulting you means I'm insulting myself, then isn't it the same way around?"
"One," Naruko held up a finger. "That didn't make any sense. And two, we're figments of your conscious—subconscious, whatever, that and your imagination. We're technically not you, just certain attributes of you."
"That's not fair!" Naruto protested.
"It's never been fair. Deal with it."
"He listened to me before," Naruto pointed at the genin, trying to gain some leeway against Naruko.
Naruko lolled her shoulders into a shrug. "Same difference," she stated, looking as if she didn't give a damn.
"What the hell!" Naruto demanded. "And just what parts of my subconcious are you anyway?" What type of subconscious acted like Sasuke-teme in their genin days?
Naruko spayed a hand across her chest. "Sweetie," she drawled. "I am the epic princess—"
"The shameless bitch—" Kaito chimed in, a sweet undertone of deviousness marking his words.
Naruko flipped him the bird, a decidedly un-lady-like gesture, one hand going under the skin of her eye to mock an imitation of a raspberry. "And he," she jerked a thumb to point at Kaito. "Is the asshole," she declared.
"The smart one," Kaito deadpanned.
"You, on the other hand, are the moronic boss, and despite your prowess on the battlefield, we do not listen to you outside of it," Naruko gave her counterpart a wicked grin. "But you managed to make the fox-with-a-stick-up-his-ass listen to you, so that counts for points." She idly inspected her fingernails.
"Hey I did, didn't I?" Naruto said proudly, puffing up his chest, "And—wait a minute, what'd you mean? You're me!" He furrowed his brow in confusion.
"I thought we went over this, like ten seconds ago," Naruko snarked. "We are not you," she pronounced each word carefully with a roll of her pretty blue eyes. "We're reflections. Fragments. Reflections of you. Konotaru no jutsu uses that, we're who you might me, who you could have been, and who you have the potential to be." She tilted her head to the side. "That and the random personalities you copy off people or make at a whim," she admitted. "It's like when you act, you take on a different role, and you are the different role. That is what we are. We may have your memories, but the outcome of it is very different. Actually for some of us, it's less of we have your memories and more of we know of them, like we're watching the events of your life play out from a screen. We are you, but not," Naruko sharpened her gaze at Naruto. "How can you not know this?"
"Uh, I sorta-kinda knew about some of it," Naruto confessed. Ero-sennin had drilled the basics of the jutsu into his mind. "But how do you know?!" he cried in perturbed frustration. Well, actually, they had his memories so they should know. Naruko had added parts he had no knowledge of in her explanation though.
"We can think differently," Kaito interjected from up on his tree.
"… Huh?" Naruto wondered.
"The same way you think differently from Sakura or Sasuke, our train of logic, depending on just which character we are, may goes down different routes," he stared flatly at Naruto, as if it was obvious.
Naruto opened his mouth to protest, blinked twice and closed his mouth again.
"Moriko's done her shift…" he muttered.
"About time too," Kaito said in reply, not that Naruto was really expecting one.
Moriko was a cheerful, voluptuous woman with a slight tendency to be forgetful who worked part-time in one of the bars in the outer rings of the red-light district. She was also another one of Naruto's Kotonaru no bunshin. She, along with an apprentice baker by the name of Sori Kousuke made money for Naruto when he was too busy graduating from the academy (and keeping an eye of the future sennin) to find a job of his own. Naruto hadn't been lying when he told the chibis about his "odd jobs," in the eyes of other people; they just weren't technically done by him.
"Delightful," Naruko hummed. "Now can we get back on topic?"
"What topic?"
"Rasengan. Your lack of flashy, overpowered moves that are oxymorons when combined with the word ninja," Kaito intoned, lips twitching upwards with unconcealed amusement.
Naruto scowled, crossing his arms over his chest in a defiant gesture. "Go to hell you bastard!"
"Unlikely," Kaito drawled.
"Damn you," the blond cursed.
Naruko heaved a sigh and bent over. She delicately selected a small pebble from the ground. The female Kotonaru bunshin flipped it through the air several times, testing its weight, than hurled it through towards Naruto with one smooth stretch of her arm. The rock skipped through the air at an incredible velocity and collided solidly with the original's forehead, he was too busy arguing with Kaito to notice what Naruko had been planning.
"OOOW!" Naruto whined, hands automatically going up to touch the throbbing red imprint created by the stone. "What was that for?!"
"Focus on the task," Naruko reminded.
"He started it!" Naruto pointed one chubby, accusing finger at Kaito. The genin simply rolled his eyes.
"So?" Naruko deadpanned.
"Why me and not him?!"
"He's behind me. And I'm too lazy to turn around," Naruko admitted rather shamelessly, waving one hand in dismissal. For his part, the former jinchuuriki was red-faced and ready to blow up in agitation. The commencement of a screaming fest didn't seem too unlikely, even though Naruto was the one who would be doing the actual yelling, peppered vulgar language. Naruko and Kaito would sit, roll their eyes, and reply with a snarky answer every once in a while.
Kotonaru no bunshin was primarily made of possibilities, an insight into the theory of nature versus nurture along with the occasional copy-right of another person's personality, mixed with a different set of physical attributes that suits their characteristics. It was amazing to see how different the two bunshin were from the original.
"Training," Kaito reminded Naruto, for what seemed like the umpteenth time in an hour.
"Why did I choose to summon you two again?" Naruto grumbled, plopping down on the ground, his red colouring faded as he took deep breaths.
"Dunno. Well, you're stuck with us now," Naruko chirped with near sadistic glee.
In, out, inhale, exhale, ignore, ignore, ignore. Just like what Sakura-chan taught me. There was a stab of pain and deep-set longing in his chest. Naruto swallowed thickly. He had refrained from thinking about his friends and precious people during his waking hours, preferring to drown out the thoughts into the deepest recesses with Tsunade's schemes, Jiraiya's plans for improvement and hell, even Orochimaru-bastard— no, not yet, not a bastard yet, hasn't done anything—chibi's weary resignation to pull them out of their messes. The nightmares had dulled in his time here, the terrors had faded into the background, and Sakura-chan's face no longer flashed in front of him deaddeaddead.
He missed his friends. Dear Kami he missed them. This time though, everything would turn out all right, it was a promise. And Uzumaki Naruto never went back on his word.
Another rock bounced off his forehead threateningly. Naruto zoned back into reality, catching Naruko's unamused features in his line of vision.
"You can daydream later, dearie," Naruko said. "Now hurry up."
"Okay, okay," Naruto grumbled, forming familiar handseals, and in a split second, the training field was flooded with his signature technique. His limit with his new reserves was fifteen kage-bunshin at a time, a far cry from his usual hundreds, and he didn't really want to use sage mode without any precautions set up. There were sensors in Konoha. "Back to the water balloon," he told them grumpily, pointing at the bag sitting beside the little stream running several yards away. He had hauled the bag to the training ground just in case, and at Naruko's boisterous insistence. The horde of Narutos gave their boss a professional salute and dumped the rubber toys onto the grass, methodically filling the balloons with water.
"Now," Kaito kicked off his tree, adding power to the leap with a deft twist of chakra. The branch he had sat on quivered a bit from the force. He summersaulted over Naruko's head and skidded to a halt in front of her male counterpart with a grin. "We need to find a solution to your other problem."
Meanwhile, at the local orphanage:
Orochimaru snipped off the end of the string with a pair of scissors. He held his newest project up to the watery yellow light common within the orphanage, inspecting the meticulously embroidered patchwork of flowers on the blue sundress. Orochimaru had decided to follow Naruto's example of working in his spare time to make a bit of money. But instead of buying a heart stopping supply of ramen, he used his earnings on quality ninja tools and scraps of cheap, plain cloth and coloured thread for clothing. Orphanage children rarely ever got anything but hand me downs, and recycled objects.
It took him a month and a honest dislike for needles before he got the hang of sewing, but with time came with experience. Orochimaru wasn't a genius for nothing, after all. His newest pastime was a birthday gift meant for a girl younger than him by a year.
Orochimaru chewed on his lower lip, staring cross-eyed at the dress. Slowly, he rolled his needle between his thumb and index finger in thought, picking out a slight, irregular dip in his work, an error. Ignoring the tiny voice—which, oddly enough, sounded like Jiraiya—swearing at him for his perfectionism, Orochimaru began to undo a row of slightly lopsided stitches.
Patience, he told himself, as the Jiraiya like voice got indefinitely louder. God knows he would need it in the future.
Kaito gnawed on the stem of a flower and pressed a thin brush onto a roll of parchment situated in the middle of a triangle made by two bunshin and the Naruto. "Dogs?" he asked Naruto, letting the liquid ink drip onto the page in black splatters. "You certainly are loyal enough to your village."
"But that Kakashi-sensei's!" Naruto countered. His lack of a summon was worrying, as his former animal companions made up a large part of his fighting style. Unfortunately, ero-chibi had yet to discover the toad's secret mountain, and thus their summoning scroll was still with the frog elders. Naruto didn't particularly memorize just where that blasted place was located.
"Hatake Kakashi has yet to be born in this era."
"I don't have the dog summon contract!"
"Then steal it," Kaito remarked easily, as if they were talking about yesterday's lunch or something. As if stealing a prized summon contract wasn't a crime punishable by death and other gruesome consequences. Naruto often wondered about his clones, and just which part of his personality, which path they might have taken to end up this way. He wondered if somehow, in another, upside down, crazed world he might have ended up like them: sadistic, cold Kaito and arrogant Naruko. Naruto did what he had to do, and stealing a summoning contract wasn't a necessarily.
"It's Kakashi sensei's!" Naruto insisted, stubbornly voicing his thoughts.
"You are a ninja, act like one."
"In orange," Naruko sing-songed.
"Yes, what Naruko said, a ninja in orange," Kaito deadpanned. He twirled the lithe little brush in his fingers like kunai, dipped the tip into the smooth curve of the inkwell beside the sheet of parchment and dabbed the excess ink off the sides of the diminutive jar. With a flourish, Kaito gracefully crossed the Kanji for dog off the paper.
"Damn you."
"Cats?" Naruto didn't like cats. Long, gruelling missions involving a lazy Kakashi and Tora had eliminated any love he might have had for the feline creatures.
"They're way too proud to be with you, sweetie," Naruko crooned. Personally, she reminded Naruto of a cat, proud and deadly.
"I knew I should have sticked with toads…" he murmured.
"You don't have the natural affinity, and Jiraiya-darling isn't going to be getting their contract anytime soon. There's a reason why only people with insane reserves have a specialized contract," Naruko said, winking at Naruto.
The blond got the hint. "You mean… like me?"
"Who else would I be talking about here?"
"Yatta! Awesome!."
Kaito interjected in a distinctly ass-hole like voice. "Hmm… what do you think of the boar, it compliments his single-mindedness perfectly," he commented, absently tapping the tip of his brush on the corner of the ink jar.
"Did I model you off Sai?! Cause you're even more of a bastard than Sai and Sasuke-teme put together-ttebayo"
"Glad to be here."
"Soo… a pegasus?" Naruto said excitedly, dutifully ignoring Kaito's comment. "Those are pretty cool. Or maybe a phoenix! Or a dragon! What'd ya think?"
"Those are mythological creatures."
"Dude, we have Bijuu running around," Naruto stated logically.
"You don't know where to receive the actual contract," Kaito deadpanned.
Naruko threw up her hands. "Foxes, you dimwits! Foxes!"
Kaito wrinkled his brow, and turned to Naruko, giving her a dry look. "Foxes are epitome of cunning, intelligence and stealth, bar Kurama, only because he's far too big for that. Those three words and Naruto don't belong on the same planet."
"I'm plenty stealthful! I got past the ANBU!"
"They'll balance out his natural attributes," Naruko supposed. "And he already tamed the biggest one of all. A summoning should be a piece of cake compared to the kyuubi.
"Well, he certainly looks enough like one…" Kaito trailed off.
"Don't talk as if I'm not here!"
"Come on! It'll be real fun! I told her 'bout you guys lots of times!" Tsunade insisted vividly to the three boys situated on top of Naruto's dining table. Orochimaru and Jiraiya glanced at her with uncertain eyes. Naruto had a half-hopeful, half… something kind of expression on his face. Tsunade squinted at it, but the flash of emotion was lost to her. Out of all of them, Tsunade was the only one with decent family relationships, or even a family at all in the long run. Her parents often ran missions outside of the village, but she always had Granny Mito and Great Uncle 'Rama for company. Orochimaru had a sort of sketchy family with his fellow orphans. Naruto… she didn't exactly know about Naruto, and Jiraiya's parents were just dense.
In turn, Orochimaru's social skills were debatable (retarded even) at best. Naruto was the exact opposite of him, charming and rambunctious, if a little annoying and Jiraiya hovered somewhere in the middle.
Tsunade liked her boys, she wished them the best. And Tsunade would knock them out, dump them all into a potato sack she had stashed in her storage scroll (a birthday present from Mito), and haul them to Granny Mito's house to meet her family if it came down to that.
The blonde pouted, waving her arms in exaggerated motions. "It'll be awesome! Granny has a lot of cool stuff at her place!"
Naruto picked at a speck of dirt. "Do—"
"Uh huh, Pork, miso and all that."
"What 'bout—"
"Ruuuutoooooo!" Tsunade whined. "Have it, have it!"
"How 'bout a sexy jutsu?" Naruto questioned, seeming a little too hopeful for Tsunade's liking.
"Yeah—I mean… wait, WHAT?!"
Naruto reaffirmed, "The sexy—"
"Gone past Anbu," Tsunade huffed. "Don't need it…"
Naruto gave a long, dramatic moan in complaint. "But it's epic!"
"Naruto!"
"Okay, okay…" he muttered crossly.
She narrowed her eyes and placed her hands on her hips. "Come on! Granny Mito's real nice too. She'll show you awesome ninja tricks! And maybe sealing!" The promise of something "super awesome" did the trick, as their wary expressions gave way to interest and glee. Tsunade nodded her head, inwardly cackling with delight, "Let's go!" she hooted.
The house was traditional, with steep, ornamental ceilings and muted cherry wood. A thin stalk of ivy crept up its side, and thick curtains concealed the interior from prying eyes. It was one of those ancient buildings you would expect the rich and famous to dwell in. From a certain angle, Mito could be pinned as both of these things.
Naruto shifted nervously from one foot to another, sneaking glances at the door. Tsunade's family's loaded! Meh… she is Senju heir, and… actually… just where in hell did all the Senjus disappear off to in my time period? They were as big as the Uchiha clan.
Tsuanade tapped her foot impatiently, she was practically bouncing on the spot, "GRANNY!" she called at the door. "OPEN THE DOOR!"
A brief scuffling sound occurred from the other side, and the door swung open. A woman poked her head out, glancing down at the children.
Granny Mito looked prominently younger than what Naruto had imagined, but every one of Naruto's envisioned images of her eventually ended up as a wrinkled old woman with thinning hair and heavy wrinkles much like Hokage-jiji, so that wasn't saying much. She had smooth skin untainted by the hurricane known as age and long red hair pinned up with expensive hair ornaments. The woman barely looked as if she were in her thirties, definitely not old enough to be Tsunade's grandmother.
Naruto plastered a wide grin to his face, craning his neck up and up to drink in the visage of a fellow clan member. Kurama's first Jinchuuriki, he recalled mentally. He wasn't usually one for cunning or strategy when he was Naruto, nonetheless, it wasn't as if he could just offhandedly mention something about Kurama to Mito. It would most definitely end up with him careened to Torture and Interrogation in a one way trip, never to come back out. He had a niggling feeling Kurama had been his usual ass of a self and told something to Mito.
"Come," Mito smiled, herding them in with a sweep of her arm, the elegant embroidery in her kimono catching in the light, all bright silk and heavy layers. It looked absurdly expensive.
Hesitantly, apart from Tsunade who bounced into the house with familiarity, they edged through the doorway. Mito closed the door silently and gestured them to the dining room.
They scurried through the halls, ending up in a large room with a rounded table in the middle. Tsunade happily swung her legs from atop wooden chair and blew at her mug of hot tea. She motioned for them to take a seat. Mito glided—because that was the only word fit to describe how she moved—across the room and distributed fancy cups as the children eased themselves into the chairs.
"How is school?" Mito asked conversationally, shifting her robes slightly so that she was comfortable in her own seat. She stared poured the hot, fragrant liquid into their cups and glanced at Naruto and friends with blatant encouragement.
"It's real fun!" Naruto grinned, subtly elbowing Jiraiya in the ribs to make him continue. He sniffed at his own mug, and downed a gulp of tea. It was good, nutty and easy on the throat with a touch of jasmine. Jiraiya gave a half-choking, half-spluttering sound as the tea travelled down the wrong tube, and kicked Naruto underneath the table in vengeance.
"The instructors are real funny," he replied enthusiastically, before ducking his head to stare at the interesting patterns on the wooden table. Naruto thought that the academy instructors were more boring than funny. And overly paranoid, but that might have been the results of one prank too many.
"It's boring," Tsunade rolled her eyes. "They talk for a long, long time but don't really give us anything to do," she pursed her lips, to convey some message across. "Other stuff's a lot more fun."
"And they yell at us for pranks," Naruto tacked on helpfully.
"Yeah!" Tsunade continued. "And they shouldn't yell when they couldn't even dodge it! 'Ruto and I made up lots of good ones."
Mito looked at them long and hard, an accusing glint in her eye. "… Were you responsible for the incident with the Hokage Monument?" Mito hummed.
Tsunade frowned, and revolved her head to glare at a spot on the ceiling. "Maybe…" she said petulantly.
"It was all the bear's fault!" Naruto declared, saving his fellow partner in crime from a near fatal pit-trap. "The Bear" was the codename Tsunade had developed for an arrogant, fat, idiot in sixth year who kept picking on Orochimaru called Tadashi Daiki. He had started it ever since they had advanced to sixth year a month ago (so that they could graduate by the end of the semester, which was in two months' time.)
"Exactly," Tsunade confirmed, quickly catching on. "Cause he was all like 'I'm better than you' and stuff," her forehead dipped and twisted at the unscrupulous memory. "We did a prank, stuck his pants down to his seat like that one time with Sensei. He went crying home to his mommy," she said triumphantly.
Strategies for undercover missions number 8: misdirect the opponent. Steer them onto another topic of interest, make them confused and keep them on that topic.
Mito flashed a smile that told Naruto she knew exactly what they were trying to do, she just wasn't commenting on it. "Of course," she agreed readily. "What else?"
"We had a trip last week!" Tsunade crowed. "We went to a center place-thing! Like the ones Grandpa Rama used to take me to! These people were playing with cards and it looked kinda fun and I tried to join and—"
"Gambling…?" Mito gaze sharpened. "Damn Hashirama…" she whispered under her breath. "Gambling, gambling of all things." Mito's smile froze, her brow twitching with hidden anger at her late husband as the grip on her cup tightened.
Senju Hashirama had died a mere seven months before Naruto had managed to land in this particular time period. How he had died, Naruto didn't really know the specifics of, what he did know marked the event as one of those things in life that made little sense. The guy could fight on par with a Kurama armoured Madara! How in hell did he fall to some shinobi near Iwa?
Having not heard her, Tsunade continued enthusiastically, "And I played like how gramps taught me, but I lost…" Her features morphed into a sulk. "Those big meanies."
Naruto inwardly grimaced as Tsunade jabbered on about her losses (children were competitive), and Mito's knuckles grew whiter with each conspicuous word. Tsunade-obaa-chan's debt in the future was titanic. The Uzumakis had the devil's luck; so to speak, Tsunade obviously couldn't have inherited her absurd luck from her grandmother's side. Hashirama was another story altogether.
"And sealing," Jiraiya interjected quietly, eyeing Mito's bone white knuckles with caution.
That, apparently, wasn't quite the right thing to say.
"Sealing," Mito repeated slowly, pronouncing the word with obvious bewilderment. "Where, child, did you learn sealing."
"Um… er… the librairy?" he squeaked, suddenly very conscious of the dark, shadowed expression that flitted over Mito's face. Orochimaru, Tsunade and Naruto kept their mouths firmly shut, not wanting to risk an angry Uzumaki.
The corner of Mito's mouth twitched.
"Did you know, that the reason sealing is such a seldom seen art, is because the majority of the practisers are dead?" Her tone was icy.
Jiraiya suddenly grew very, very pale. "… No?"
Jiraiya didn't know, but Naruto did. At least, he kind of did. His attempts at sealing were disasters in themselves, but ero-sennin had always been there when anything went haywire, or blew up. Naruto had long since given up sealing. Meh, life was full of danger anyways.
Mito pinched the bridge of her nose, releasing her death grip on her cup before it could shatter. "Very well, what's done is done. Although I'm glad you're still alive at this point in time, never, ever practice sealing without expert supervision. Not until you are proficient enough," she paused, before adding: "if you manage to get to that point without dying."
Jiraiya gulped.
"I however, will constantly be here if you do need supervision. You are welcome to visit."
Slowly, with the speed of a snail, Jiraiya's brain clicked back into action. "Wait. You-you'll tutor me? You know sealing?" He nearly jumped onto the table.
Mito could have rolled her eyes. "The Uzumaki clan are renowned for their ability of sealing as much as the Uchiha and Hyuuga are for their dojutsus."
"Really?" he stared at her with wide eyes.
"… Yes."
"However, I am reconsidering on the activity I had thought I could give to you." Mito gave a small, decidedly fake sigh. She was playing with them.
"Granny! You promised" Tsunade slung an arm around Naruto's shoulder and another around Orochimaru's. "They want to do it too! So does Raiya."
Mito grinned mischievously, "And you'll be good?"
"Of course!" Jiraiya answered, the others chorusing in mutual agreement.
"Now, Tsunade told me you have been practising chakra control and related exercises?" Mito slipped three pieces of paper from her sleeve and laid them across the table. It was chakra paper, Naruto noted. "This," Mito tapped the sheet closest to her with the tip of her fingernail, "is called chakra paper. Channel your chakra into it, it will tell you your elemental nature. If it becomes wet, your affinity is water, if it burns, than fire, if it rips, it is wind, if it wrinkles, then it's lightning, and if it is earth, the chakra will crumble to dirt."
To demonstrate, Mito pulled out another slice of paper out of her sleeve. She held it carefully in between her pointer finger and her thumb, almost instantly, as if jolted by some invisible voice Naruto knew was chakra, the paper wrinkled visibly, and promptly dampened seconds afterwards.
Dual water and lightning. Naruto assessed. COOL! To be frank, he should have been a little more worried on why the possibly senile woman was giving a trio of six-year-olds and a seven-year-old chakra testing paper. The possibilities for unnatural accidents were off the charts.
"Sometimes," Mito quirked an eyebrow at their astonished faces, "if you have more than one affinity, the paper will meet both of those expectations. In my case, I have a lightning nature that is balanced by a secondary water nature."
Orochimaru, ever the scholar, raised his hand. "Wait," he frowned at the paper, contemplating something, "if you have a particular nature, does that mean you can only use that nature? Or perhaps you can use other natures but not to the level of your first affinity?"
Mito blinked. "You can use other chakra natures, but it takes much more time to become a master of all five elements. For example, if someone has a water nature, and they try to produce a fire jutsu, the fire jutsu will be horribly uncontrolled."
"I see…"
"Dibs!" Jiraiya scrambled across the table for a piece of paper, nearly ramming into Orochimaru. "I bet I'm gonna get a super awesome affinity!" he gloated.
Naruto gingerly shuffled the paper around in his palms. He knew what his chakra nature was, and wind was the absolute best chakra nature to ever grace Elemental Nations, if he said so himself. The chibis however, well, by the time he had met the sennin, they had already mastered so many different elemental affinities and super-powered jutsu that Naruto had never really been able to discover their original chakra nature.
Chakra nature was usually determined by heritage and personality, the former more so than the latter. That was the reason why the majority of nin in Hidden Mist had water natures, while the ones in Leaf had fire oriented affinities. There wasn't really a personality quota for each nature, as two different people could be as different as Kakashi and Gai and still have the exact same chakra nature.
He watched on with interest as Tsunade went first, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration as her chakra spiked. There was a moment of prudent silence and baited breath that Naruto wasn't aware he was holding, before her paper finally wrinkled in her small hands. "Lightning!" she giggled happily, turning to her friends with sparkling eyes. "I'm just like you Granny!" Tsunade proclaimed.
Jiraiya scowled, unable to receive a result. "… How is this supposed to work again?" he asked, waving the sheet around in the air.
"Pretend your chakra is an extension of yourself, and let it flow into the paper," Orochimaru suggested lightly, carefully inspecting his own sheet which had been neatly cleaved in half, seconds before. "Mine is wind."
Jiraiya bit on his lower lip and channelled chakra into the page, slowly but surely, the page sparked and ignited. "Fire," he whispered, awed as thin bursts of flickering flames danced red-hot a mere inch above his palms with soothing reds and oranges. Cautiously mounting it to eyelevel, he glanced down as the last bits faded away to slight embers, dissipating into the air.
"Beautiful..." Tsunade gazed at Jiraiya with wide eyes, her hands clasped just underneath her chin in revered amazement at the sudden light show. "That's awesome Jiraiya-chan!" Even Orochimaru looked impressed, his eyes still fixated on that spot where the fire twirled.
Jiraiya scratched the back of his head in a sheepish motion, but his grin was ear-splitting and filled to the brim with pride.
"Yatta!" Naruto cradled his sheet to the white light flooding the room, and squinted. "My turn! Bet my affinity's gonna be better than yours!" He declared childishly. As was expected, the moment his chakra entered the paper, it was sliced into two, much like Orochimaru's in his previous turn.
"Lightning!" Tsunade yelled, planting her hands onto the desk.
"Wind!" Naruto defended.
"LIGHTNING!"
"WIND"
"LIGHT—"
"WIND!" They bantered, completely ignoring the single adult in the room that they might have made a not so good (or humorous) impression on. Jiraiya and Orochimaru simply shrugged and continued to watch the show with familiar ease; it was a common occurrence.
"LIGHTWIND!"
"That's enough children," Mito placed a soothing hand on each of their shoulders. "You are inside, use quieter voices." Releasing her hold on the blonds, she studied Naruto with a piercing violet gaze. A gaze that had seen war upon war, death upon death and faced the decision of sealing a monster of absurd destruction within herself and gone along with it, standing head strong. This wasn't the kind, grandmotherly Mito Naruto had enjoyed for the premier of this visit. No, this was Uzumaki Mito, the wife of the Shodai, jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi; a strong, strong woman with a will of steel and a heart of fire.
Naruto gulped unconsciously. There was going to be some interrogation, he just knew it! Backup plans had been obediently prearranged (at the insistence of Naruko and Kaito) if anything like this chose to happen, they weren't good backup plans per say, but he had some resemblance of a story.
"Tell, me Naruto-kun," Mito started, all pleasant and professional. "Do you remember your parents?"
"I… um… I don't remember my old man," which was true, he didn't really remember his father. "But I remember my mother… she died a long time ago…" in the future, so theoretically speaking it was a long time, just not in the past. "She looked like you."Meticulously, Naruto recreated the slight glimpse of his mother he had seen in that one immortal moment, red haired and fiery tempered—a classic Uzumaki. "But she said I took after my dad," again the truth, with a sprinkling of misdirection to maintain the facade.
"Was your mother's last name Uzumaki?" Mito tilted her head in question.
"Uh huh, I never knew my old man, but I owe mom, so I took her maiden name," he said softly. Truth, kind of, it wasn't false per say, but it wasn't totally true either.
"Hmm... and when did your mother die?"
Naruto inwardly despaired. I'm dead I'm dead I'm so screwed. No—wait. Keep calm, what would Sakura-chan do in this situation? Er… "I, I don't remember. I remember her, but I don't remember when she… was… gone." Yes, act like Hinata, Naruto. Be shy, un-threatening, like a bunny rabbit… or something. He swallowed thickly; the image of Hokage-jiji came to mind, old and dead. "I remember her hair, and she liked ramen too… and she was a lot… like me. I think. But that's it… I've been wandering the streets ever since."
Play on the opponent's sympathy; act like a lost, desolate little street boy.
Mito didn't seem very convinced. Of course she wouldn't be convinced; Mito hadn't been a ninja for nothing. But he had certain aces on her, he was a Uzumaki and the Uzumaki protected fellow clan members—family at all costs. Uzumakis were loyalty and fiery tempers, vitality and sympathy, It was like an engraved bloodline trait.
The woman poured herself another cup of tea and conveniently changed the subject.
Naruto breathed a small sigh in relief.
The first bullet had been dodged.
"Bye bye!" Tsunade chirped merrily from atop the stairs, waving goodbye to her friends for the day. Naruto grinned in return, and Jiraiya fired back what seemed like a good natured salute. Orochimaru was still playing around with his chakra paper.
Mito stood placidly by Tsunade, watching the trio of boys leave with an odd expression, before turning back to her granddaughter.
"Tsunade," Mito said, her hands snaking around Tsunade's wrist when the girl tried to scamper away into the yard.
Tsunade laughed, a tad bit nervous. "What is it Granny?" The blonde really, really hoped she hadn't figured it out.
Mito's brow twitched. Uh oh. Tsunade thought. That mean's she's really angry at something.
"Where did my scrolls on sealing go?" Mito asked.
"Ehehehe…" Tsunade's expression was like a little kid who had tried to sneak an extra cookie from a jar. "Ooops?"
"TSUNADE!"
They weren't what she had expected, Mito recollected as she sipped her tea. They were intelligent, very intelligent, but that was only to be expected of Tsunade's peers.
The first was a black haired boy with gold eyes and a calm deposition. An orphan, he had pale scars across his fingers, perhaps from an interest in sewing and callouses from the use of kunai. His quick wit and cunning was frightening for someone so young, but he was nervous, cautious right now, unable to deal with other students and people in a general sense.
Her first glimpse of the white haired child was a crude and scowling face, but he had at least tried to be polite. Family issues, Mito had deduced, a fear for failure, constantly overshadowed by another, an older sibling more likely than not. And, Mito had realized with growing amusement, a little crush on Tsunade.
The third was a boy with a mop of blond hair and smudged cheeks. Uzumaki Naruto, the words rolled off her tongue like fine chocolate. It was powerful name, and the boy was Uzumaki through and through despite the differentiating colouring. The little piece of paper she had slipped to him specifically had an invisible seal placed on it, ordered to react only in contact for her Uzumaki kin.
However, some of his attributes were rather worrisome, his cheeks, whiskered like a fox's brought back that unpleasant conversation. Coincidence, or not, she would need to keep a close eye on him.
The potential in the group was overwhelming. Four geniuses in a single generation, Mito deduced that Tsunade would be placed on a team with the former two. Age differences and all, not that one year was that much of a gap… but the Uzumaki, one of the only Uzumakis she had seen ever since leaving her homeland… his situation would be a little different.
As they say, keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
The air was buzzing and filled with excitement outside of the academy. Students conjugated into clusters, marvelling at their new forehead protectors and high from the future revelations of their genin teams.
Naruto fingered his brand new forehead protector, running his hands over the smooth metal in nostalgic remembrance. The first time he had sort of made genin, it was with a flurry of events and revelations so astounding; the thought of graduation paled would have in comparison for others.
This time around, the tests were harder, oddly enough, but in the future, the leaf had still been suffering from the brainwashed-Kyuubi attack twelve years ago. From what ero-sennin had said, the genin exams used to have much more obstacles than just a basic exam to prevent pre-teens from going out and getting themselves killed in the process. The jounin instructors were there to help, but there were certain tests to make sure you were fit, both physically and mentally. Actually the academy in this time period was just harder in general, but peace times in the future made things laxed, not to mention Konoha needed shinobi after Madara's stunt a mere decade before.
Naruto watched as Jiraiya deftly secured his headband around his right arm, the steel glinting metallic in the light. Then he untied it and wrapped it around his forehead, fumbling with the slight knot at the back. "How do I look?" he asked giddily, practically bouncing off the ground from sheer adrenaline.
"Ridiculous," Orochimaru deadpanned as Jiraiya's hitai-ate drooped down over his eyes after a moment of obedience. The white-haired boy muffled a curse underneath his breath and shoved the piece of metal up a little above his eye brows.
The average Konoha hitai-ate came only in one size for all ninja (you would wear it from genin to jounin) unless you specially send in an order for it to be customised, and that was much too troublesome. Orochimaru dexterously unzipped a small pouch on his thigh, quickly picking out a thin bamboo tube from amongst a clutter of other objects. Unscrewing the lid, he fished out a sewing needle and a roll of black thread, and began to stitch his newly received hitai-ate into a strip of long black cloth.
"… When in hell did you learn to sew?!" Jiraiya subtly poked the needle with the tip of his finger, quickly retracting it when Orochimaru shot him a glare.
The pale boy expertly looped a knot at the end and slit the string with a freshly sharpened kunai before turning back to Jiraiya. "When you weren't looking," Orochimaru replied smoothly.
"Enough about you!" Tsunade slipped behind their backs with practiced ease and sent a kick into Jiraiya's thigh. Twisting his entire body to the right, Orochimaru was nearly parallel to the ground when Tsunade hooked an uppercut to his chin. He back flipped in the air to evade it, curling into a little ball as Tsunade flicked a kunai in his direction. Orochimaru palmed his own kunai and deflected Tsunade's with a clang… only to have the kunai switch directions and rocket back towards him.
Naruto squinted … the hell?
Orochimaru ducked the kunai, and landed, a look of comprehension dawned on his face just as Naruto caught the almost invisible glint of ninja wire attached to the weapon.
There was a faint pop, a flash of white, and the area was flooded in smoke.
Explosions sounded to his right, rocking the terrain, Naruto grinned, steadying himself and opening his other senses as smoke blinded his vision. It seemed that Jiraiya was back into the game. Through the thin whiteness he could see Orochimaru flying through hand seals, Orochimaru jumped into midair once again and took a deep breath in, an enormous gust of wind whistled through and dissolved the remaining smoke a split second later.
Naruto ducked low as the sight of an explosive tag-kunai duo (courtesy of Jiraiya) careened his way. There was a pop to his front, a twist of chakra and a log was blown into unrecognizable pieces when Orochimaru substituted to escape the other seal-kunai.
The substitution had brought have far away from the main fight, and closer to Naruto.
Naruto flicked a rock into the bush at Orochimaru's right, smiling when he tensed slightly. Several meters away, Tsunade and Jiraiya were trading blows and explosives at a terrifying rate.
Flick.
The bush shuddered again.
Deciding to put Orochimaru out of his misery, Naruto quickly formed a squad of kage-bunshin to ambush Tsunade and Jiraiya, quickly substituting with a pebble behind the bush. He grimaced when a kunai nearly sheered of an inch of hair from the top of the head, before popping his head out and holding his hands up in peace.
Orochimaru relaxed the hold on his weapon, but his eyes never left Naruto's hands.
Smart.
Naruto moved to Orochimaru side, the one opposite of the kunai. "Beating each other up again?" Naruto chirped, petting the younger boy's hair.
Orochimaru rolled his eyes. "We're fighting in an authorized and civilized minor," he stressed, whacking Naruto's hand off his head.
"Same thing."
They both winced as Tsunade missed Jiraiya's face by about an inch and her fist connected with the ground instead. There was a tremor and then a CRACK-THUMP—the ground cratered.
Jiraiya gaped.
Orochimaru rubbed his eyes in perturbed astonishment.
Taking the opening, Tsunade brought her hand down on Jiraiya's head with a thump and a furious war cry. Jiraiya collapsed almost instantaneously onto the ground, his hands clutching at his poor head in pain. Orochimaru, wisely deciding to stay out of the way, edged a few steps away, just in case he became Tsunade's next victim. Naruto stood his ground.
Just like old times.
It was familiar, the genin exams, and these scenes playing out in front of him. So, achingly familiar it hurt.
Naruto's breath hitched.
Because suddenly it wasn't the chibi trio anymore, bickering and shouting and complaining in too high voices, it was them, team seven, his team seven. The visage of Tsunade dissipated into twelve year old Sakura's long, pink hair and then there was teme, leaning non-chalantly onto a tree trunk, Kakashi sensei sat high up on a branch, one eye curved and the distinct cover of his porn held in front of his mask. This was team seven, laughing, crying team seven that should have been his, could have been his team seven, before that bastard not-Orochimaru, before the catastrophe of events that broke them and split their friendship into a million shattered fragments.
No, he mouthed. Taking a step back as the scenery shifted once again. He had been trying to avoid something like this!
There was a blur of colour and another image wavered into place. Sakura, older sixteen year old Sakura stood in the middle of a battle field, head held up high and defiant. Sasuke and Kakashi kept their ground on both sides, and then Obito—that fucking bastard waved his hand and there was death and destruction and they were dead and he wasn't there and they were gonegonegone. There was a pin prick of something wet trailing down his cheeks and his throat was dry and parched. No. They were alive, in the future, maybe not now but they will be alive. They had to be alive.
What do you know? A tiny, niggling voice echoed through his mind, childish and giggling. Maybe they're already dead and gone and you're here doing nothing but playing around. Maybe the jutsu sent you somewhere else and they died in the war? What do you know? It crooned.
"'Ruto?" Tsunade's hesitant whisper made the world spin back into reality, she was right in front of him, out the corner of his vision, he could see Jiraiya hobbling awkwardly towards him. He blinked, and shakily lifted one hand to his eyes, rubbing the sleeve of his sweater desperately over the tears. "Why are you crying?"
"Nuthin'," he sniffed. "Something-something just got into my eye." The excuse sounded fake even to his own ears. Tsunade took an unsure step towards him, and once again when he peeled open crusty eyelids, Tsunade wasn't there anymore.
Sakura, one giant hole through her stomach and a jagged, wound still slippery with blood looked at him with kind eyes, her hands glowing green with medical chakra. Why didn't you heal yourself? He wanted to ask. But this wasn't real and he needed to stop hallucinating and why were his dreams coming to reality? Kakashi sensei gave him an eye smile with torn clothing and no visible injury, but chakra exaushtion didn't leave visible marks and sensei was always overexerting himself. Teme was the worst because teme was stubborn and the sharigan made him a bigger target. A gruesome scar ran down his face to his chest and he had no eyes, just empty gaping sockets. They were all looking at him kindly, even though teme's expression was still a little hard. Why? He croaked mentally. I failed you guys, failedfailedfailed.
This was not happening now. Not in front of Tsunade-chibi, Raiya and Orochimaru-chibi. This was not happening, he told himself firmly, rooted to the spot. The hallucination-zombies advanced with careful steps towards him, one arm out like one would do to a startled animal.
A beat.
Naruto turned and ran, unheeding of the startled cries behind him.
That night, he pressed his cheek against the cool gray rock of the memorial stone. Beams of silky moonlight filtered through the clearing and shed light on the names incised expertly into the rock. At the back of his mind, the voice reared its ugly head. Through his mind's eye, he could see a figure, small, with large eyes as blue as his own. Who are you? He asked sullenly, even though he already knew the answer.
Emotions. Regret. Defense mechanisms. Instinctive genjutsu.
The figure tilted back its head and laughed. It laughed and laughed like a broken, shattered, version of Naruto gone mad with grief and anger. It laughed until its thin shrieks cracked and slowly morphed into half-hearted sobs and hiccups. "I'm you of course," it whispered, crying, even though both of them knew. "Just another reflection of you."
A/N: Thank you to all my dear reviewers and shadow readers, and an extra thank you to Dorcyy, for recommending my amateur-ish story on her "Chance for a Prophecy."
Mito kind of tutoring Jiraiya- It's less of tutoring and more of making sure that he doesn't accidentally kill himself in an explosion. Additionally, some pieces of this might seem a little AU, as the amount of plot chasms in this era easily goes into the double digits. Or it might not seem very AU. It will depends on how hard you look.
Mito's age- She's a Uzumaki, a pure blood one at that, she's supposed to look young. But when Kushina comes in like a decade she's an old croon? Well, let's just say that with nearing of the end of his jailer's life, Kurama decided to but some extra effort into getting out, thus causing her aged appearance.
Leave a review on your way out please!