Naruto: Cost
When they left the Yamanaka flower shop, Naruto and his Ame-nee following in the wake of a horde of laden-down Naruto clones, the blond genin remembered what he'd wanted to ask his nee-san in the first place.
"Ame-nee?"
"Hai, Naru-kun?"
"Could you make me a special bunshin like Hibana-nee? I'm worried about missions clashing with appointments," he explained carefully, keenly aware that they were out in public where anyone could overhear.
"I can help you make one Naruto-otouto, but it will cost you. Not money; cost you inside. Those bunshin are kinjutsu for a reason," Ame-nee said quietly, "but I do agree with you. It would solve your dilemma nicely."
"You'll help?" he asked hopefully.
"Hai," she said gravely, "now attend. For the shintai bunshin you need to find a person of the appropriate age and gender -in your case a woman of Benihime's age- who wants to die." Ame-nee paused as they approached the expanded Hatake clan grounds. "And you must get her to ask you to kill her and grant her wish." the night-eyed caramel blonde continued once they were safely inside the many privacy barriers embedded in the walls of the compound. "She must die willingly without coercion and agree to let you have her body to use as you wish after her death."
"Nee-san?" Naruto croaked, barely able to comprehend the horrific cost of the technique. I have to kill someone? An innocent, who never hurt anyone? I have to commit murder? Just for a jutsu to make my life easier?
"It is a forbidden technique for good reason, my Naru-chan," Ame-nee said gently, eyes mournful. "The willing gifting of the body in exchange for death is what makes the bunshin created so perfect. I can give you an appropriate blade and a scroll to transport the body in. That is, provided you still wish to proceed with your plan." She raised a hand to forestall a hasty reply. "Bare in mind that the for person you would be killing death would be a welcome mercy."
Naruto swallowed hard. This is what being a ninja is really about. Difficult choices. Thank-you, Genma-san, for the lesson you didn't even realise you were teaching me.
The jutsu will enable me to fulfil my obligations to my clients rather than neglect or abandon them to pursue my career. I am a geisha now as well as a ninja and I have a duty. My desires are irrelevant; the client's well-being is paramount.
"Hai, Ame-ka-, Ame-nee," Naruto whispered hoarsely, "I'll do it."
"Did you just nearly call me 'okaa-san', Naru-chan?"
"Gomen nasai Ame-nee! It's just, Hibana-bunshin was my nee-san but you're her original and you're sort of more than she was so that makes you sort of her kaa-san, so-"
Ame pounced, hugging him close. "I don't mind, Naru-chan. In fact, I'm honoured to be your kaa-san. Like I told Inoichi-san, you are a very special young man. You will make a wonderful onii-san to all my children, both the adopted ones and the babies."
"Ame-kaa-san," Naruto mumbled, almost dizzy with relief and hugging her back frantically.
"Shh, Shh, it's all just fine musuko mine. Kaa-san's here," the starry-eyed woman crooned, rocking from side to side and ruffling his hair gently. Once the short blond had calmed down again she sat down next to him on the steps leading to the side door nearest the kitchen, where the shadow clones had left the bags of plants before dispelling.
"Now, Naru-kun, are you going to find a shintai right away or go to the okiya early?"
"I..." Naruto didn't know. He really didn't.
"Or you could stay here for a while, help me plant some of my new purchases and unnerve Kakashi when he gets back," Ame-kaa-san suggested playfully.
That sounded like fun. Naruto smiled a little, his prankster side coming to the fore. "I'd like that, Kaa-san,"
Naruto was on his hands and knees planting lily corms under Ame-kaa-san's watchful eyes when Kakashi-sensei finally made an appearance. He shunshined in behind Ame -he's taken the time to change his clothing and have the superficial burns treated, Naruto noticed- wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck, making her squeak and giggle.
"Kashi! Stop that; we have a guest!"
"Hm?" Kakashi-sensei looked up and his eye zeroed in on Naruto, who had stopped planting corms to watch.
Ame-kaa-san really does like him and Sensei loves her back. Good.
"Naruto? What are you doing on my clan grounds?"
Naruto smiled sweetly, eyes squinted foxily. "I met Ame-kaa-san at the Yamanaka flower shop and offered to carry her bags," he said, oozing innocence and wickedly gleeful at the way his new sensei had twitched when he said 'Ame-kaa-san'. "Then I offered to help her plant her new flowers since she's kinda awkward at the moment being pregnant and well," he waved a grubby hand across the courtyard area flanked on three sides by the main house and two wings, drawing the journin's attention to the young plants in the flowerbeds, "here I am. Gardening is fun!"
"When did you meet my most energetic student, Ame-koi?" Kakashi-sensei asked cautiously.
"Nearly a month ago Kashi. He has one of the brightest souls I've ever seen; I couldn't not get to know him, koi."
"Ame-kaa-san is sooo cool!" Naruto bounced to his feet happily, his good cheer restored after an hour and a half of grubbing in the dirt. "She sent Inoichi-san into a tizzy when she bought half the flower shop! His eyes went all unfocused and sort-of crossed!"
"Really?" the journin looked mildly impressed. "'Ame-kaa-san', koi?"
"He's so cute and so caring, I couldn't say no," Ame-kaa-san admitted freely. "I first saw him in passing back when he was six and had my contact here keep an eye on him for me. Such a bright soul should be nurtured, not broken."
"Contact?" Kakashi-sensei sounded a tad suspicious, which probably meant he was contemplating how many national secrets the pregnant woman had stumbled into and how much trouble there would be once her involvement got out.
"I have business interests in Konoha, Kashi-kun. Financial investments. My contact ensured my money wasn't being wasted and looked out for Naru-chibi here when he was younger," Ame-kaa-san explained gently. Naruto was impressed by the skill with which his kaa-san danced around the truth, never once lying but not telling the whole story. I have got to learn to do that; it's much more effective than trying to lie convincingly.
"Hibana-nee was really nice," Naruto put in wistfully, doing his bit to reinforce the story, "I like geisha."
Kakashi-sensei looked bemused. "Your contact was a geisha?"
"Most of my contacts are. They are educated, independent women and are welcomed into all the major commercial centres in the elemental countries. You know perfectly well that I trained and practised myself before meeting you," Ame-kaa-san explained, playing absently with the journin's hand. Naruto couldn't read his sensei very well, but the slight hint of arousal he caught on the breeze told him that Kakashi was finding her soft caresses extremely distracting. I'm not staying to watch that.
"Ame-kaa-san? I have to go home now; I need to do laundry and stuff," the whisker-marked genin said, brushing dirt off the knees of his hakama.
"Thankyou for your help, Naru-kun; I'll see you again another day. Remember to eat a proper dinner!" she called after him.
"Hai, kaa-san!" Naruto shouted as he ran for the gates of the compound and let himself out. We so totally unnerved Kakashi-sensei! Now he just had to get to the okiya without getting caught by Hinata...
After his evening appointments were complete Naruto did not go to bed. Instead he meditated for an hour, changed into a fresh set of grey clothing and tucked the tanto and multi-compartmental storage scroll Ame-kaa-san had lent him into his obi. I need to get this out of the way as soon as possible. You never know when something will come up and Benihime needs to be firmly established as a completely separate person.
He climbed silently out of his window and carefully moved from roof to roof towards the bad part of town; not a long journey. I have a girl to find.
Hibana-nee had spent a good chunk of the previous three years teaching Naruto to suppress his own chakra and sense that of others, even civilians. He had no idea how his skills compared to other ninja, but the blonde was now competent enough to sense emotions through chakra and suicidal despair had a flavour all its own.
He found what he was looking for in a semi-illegal yakuza brothel operating out of a basement under a warehouse. Ten girls aged between nine and seventeen, all broken inside. The oldest was the oddity, the other nine all being fifteen years old or less. Naruto waited, patient as stone, until the last customer left a few hours before dawn and henged into a dove to fit between the bars on the window. What he was about to do sickened him, but at least in death the girls would be able to escape. They were all to far gone for anything less.
The girls stared at the dove incuriously from where they were chained to the walls, ankle manacles clinking softly as they shuffled on their pallets.
Naruto deliberately morphed his henge into an androgynous young man with white feathers for hair and wings sprouting from his shoulder blades. "you have prayed for death, Shoujo-sans. I can grant it to you, for a price," he murmured, his heart breaking into tiny, brittle pieces as every single face brightened eagerly.
"Please, Tenshi-san," the oldest pleaded hoarsely.
"Please, please," the younger ones chorused in muffled tones, clearly afraid of being overheard and having their chance stolen from them.
Naruto quietly went from girl to girl, starting from the youngest, and -once they promised him 'everything, anything'- severed their spines with his tanto: quick, clean and painless. He couldn't hold back the tears seeping from his eyes and down his cheeks, though. No nine year old should beg for death so earnestly; why are so many humans such monsters?
The oldest, the one he'd come here for, watched him with the serene detachment of the truly broken. "You weep for us," she commented.
"Nobody should suffer as you and your companions have," Naruto replied evenly, his voice a little husky from holding his grief inside.
"But now the pain is over, Tenshi-san. Anything of mine that you desire you make take once I am dead. Now please, free me."
Naruto sliced through her spinal cord in one clean swing, ending her life instantly. Then he hurriedly sealed all ten bodies into the scroll -grateful that Ame-kaa-san had seen fit to supply him with a large one- made his escape out of the window and hurried back to his apartment. Once safely home he flung the scroll under the sofa, dashed into his bedroom and sobbed bitterly into his pillow, wishing vainly that there had been something -anything at all- he could have done for those girls other than put them out of their misery.
Dawn came far too soon for Naruto. He showered, changed into a new set of clothes and threw himself into practicing kata while a shadow clone read more of the next Uzumaki fuuinjutsu book Ame-kaa-san had given him. After three hours of continuous practice Naruto ate as large a breakfast as he could stomach and set out for the training field. Even if his sensei was late Sasuke would probably be there and he doubted the other boy would object to a taijutsu spar.
Kakashi-sensei was less late than he could have been and chivvied team seven along to the missions office for their first D-rank mission. Naruto was quiet: the after-effects of his recent kills compounded on his lack of sleep made him miserable and distracted. His grief was even effecting the Kyuubi, making it -and subsequently his own chakra- unsettled and erratic. Sakura seemed to find his silence profoundly unnerving and kept glancing at him sideways as if she expected him to be someone else.
After the very quiet mission -weeding, where an inattentive Naruto had to be prevented from stripping the flowerbed bare- Kakashi-sensei took the three genin back to training ground seven and ordered Sakura and Sasuke to each do one hundred pushups and situps. Once the two started the exercises the journin firmly gripped Naruto's shoulder and dragged him out of earshot of his team-mates, over to the memorial stone.
"What's wrong, Naruto?" he asked simply.
"..." Naruto didn't know what to say. Can I trust him?
Kaa-san trusts him. She loves him.
I trust kaa-san.
"Sensei?" Naruto's voice sounded very small and distant in his own ears.
"Hai, Naruto-kun?" the journin responded gently, dropping his lanky frame so he was kneeling on the grass, lone eye level with Naruto's.
"Has, has anyone ever begged you to kill them? Really, truly begged because life has hurt them so badly they just wanted the pain to stop?" Naruto closed his eyes tightly as tears began to seep from them, hoping his kaa-san's trust was not misplaced.
Kakashi-sensei pulled him close, arms wrapping around him comfortingly. "What happened Naruto-kun?" he murmured softly.
"She, she was seventeen or maybe sixteen. I think she was a brothel girl, one of the yakuza ones who got taken really young. I live over on the edge of the bad side of town, see, and I practice my stealth down there between the warehouses and the crumbling buildings. I was in an alleyway and I saw her. She was so dead inside, really dead, even her chakra was dead and she saw me, saw I had a knife and her eyes just lit up and she begged-" Naruto ran out of words and self control. He latched onto Kakashi-sensei's journin vest and howled his grief into the man's shoulder, shaking like a sapling in a high wind.
"Shh, sh," the journin crooned, rubbing circles on the blond's back to comfort him. "I'm here, Naruto-kun. It's okay."
"No it's not, I killed her," Naruto managed to hiccup between sobs.
"You gave her freedom; granted her greatest wish. While incredibly difficult for you, I believe you did the right thing," Kakashi-sensei said quietly. "some wounds are too deep for even the most gifted medic-nin to heal. You ended her pain; she wouldn't want you to punish yourself for it."
"Still hurts," Naruto sniffed. It's okay. He didn't flip out or call me a monster. He thinks I did the right thing. He cares.
His sensei ruffled his hair. "The day killing people stops hurting is the day you cease to be human and the day you enjoy it is the day you become a monster. The pain will dull in time, though. I promise."
"I don't like killing people," Naruto said firmly, voice muffled by Kakashi's now rather damp journin vest. "It feels all wrong, like sour milk and mouldy bread in my stomach."
"I'm afraid that being a ninja involves quite a bit of killing, Naruto-kun," Kakashi-sensei said tiredly. Naruto glanced up at his teacher, taking in the distant look in his eye that was so like how Genma had looked those times he'd come to the okiya straight from the hospital. Memories of pain. Killing and seeing your comrades die. Benihime had soothed the pain that stare carried many times, but it seemed Naruto might now be developing a stare of his own.
"Then I'm going to be very, very efficient when I kill so those who die will do so swiftly and with as little pain as I can manage," Naruto said firmly, wiping his eyes on his sleeve and hoping his resolve would coax his sensei back into the present. He really hated that thousand-yard stare, especially on Sensei.
It worked. "That's the spirit; now you go catch up on those pushups and situps and afterwards I'll take a look at your kenjutsu."
Naruto managed a wobbly little smile. "Arigatou nasai, Kakashi-sensei."
"Maa, no problem," Kakashi said with an eyesmile that was somehow kind as he rose to his feet again, "I'm your sensei now; looking after you is part of that."
Naruto's next smile was just that bit wider as he hurried back towards Sasuke and Sakura to start his pushups, Kakashi ambling lazily after him.
Maybe. Maybe I can trust Kakashi-sensei after all. He actually does care about me.
I'm still not going to tell him about Benihime though; not now and probably not ever. Something tells me he wouldn't get it.
Words used
koi = lover
shoujo = girl
tenshi = angel
tanto = straight-bladed knife, generally between 6 and 12 inches long (15-30cm) in the blade.
A/N: Major angst in this chapter. On a brighter note, hello to my newest reviewer, Hellcleaner! You and Bad Habits both brighten my life!