DISCLAIMER: This is purely a work of fanfiction based on the works of Masashi Kishimoto.
This fanfiction author is (still horribly pathetic at writing but) hoping she will one day find her literary wings.
(I HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO CALL THIS CHAPTER SO BEAR WITH ME)
Once I had a Sister
Chapter 12
Two years later
Iruka's shoes beat a constant rhythm on the dirt track as he jogged slowly, all the while fixing his eyes on the russet and burnt orange leaves that floated on the breeze before joining the pile of their fallen brethren on the ground. The seasons were shifting, and there had been many a farm that the chuunin instructor had passed hard at work harvesting the fruits of a long summer. As a child of shinobi, Iruka's parents had often sent him over to visit relatives who lived in the countryside when they were away on long missions, so he had his fair share of harvest-time memories and storing ripe vegetables in large pantries before the first winter frosts. How time flew. When he had passed by last month the air had been thick and heavy with flowers and honey. Now the air was cooler, breezes promising winter.
As he followed the turn of the path, his thoughts turned to his two ex-students Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto, who he was excited to see again (and dare he say it, their dark haired kunoichi teacher most of all). Haruna had only been allowed to take the two boys out of the village and under her wing on the condition that regular, monthly correspondence was given to the village. And, through the powers of fate and Haruna's debating prowess, the position as link between Konohagakure and the three had fallen to him. (He would be lying if he said he didn't jump for joy at the arrangement.) That being said, the young teacher was given only three days to meet up with them and then report to the village per visit - usually his weekends, as he was still a teacher at the Academy and still had the children of the shinobi villagers under his educational wing - and since Haruna preferred teaching her boys in remote areas, the travel time length allowed but a short visit.
He saw -or rather, heard Naruto first, followed soon after by Sasuke. They were fishing by the river (at least Sasuke was, Naruto had a hook on his shirt and was yelling at Sasuke that he was going to land the biggest catch) when Iruka saw them. The two boys quickly dropped what they were doing when they saw their ex-homeroom teacher and said hello. The sunny-haired Uzumaki immediately bounded over to his favourite sensei and dragged him over to admire the two small fish in his basket.
"Ne, ne, what took you so long, Iruka-sensei?" Naruto piped, tugging Iruka's dark sleeve. "I've been waiting since this morning for you to come."
"Shut it, dobe, "Sasuke admonished, having taken the role as the eldest of the two and therefore the authoritative voice of reason. "He had to walk the whole way here."
"Yeah but it's nearly dinnertime!" Naruto retorted, elbowing his raven-haired classmate in revenge. "If sensei had come sooner then maybe Haru-ne would have let us off practice this morning. Think about it, stupid-head."
"We're supposed to practice every single morning. We still had to do it on your birthday, for instance."
"And for instance, what's your point?"
Sasuke raised and dropped his fishing rod, irritated, at his whiskered challenger. "My point is: it wouldn't have made a difference if Sensei came then!"
"Hey, can you stop talking already, Sasuke - 'cause you're scaring away the fish just by being here. No wonder you haven't caught anything yet."
"YOU'RE THE ONE SCARING THE FISH, DOBE."
"My, my," Iruka said easily, tactfully moving in between the two boys and dismissing the tension. The man had three years of practice minimising conflicts in the classroom and he was good at it. "What a lovely day to go fishing. And Sasuke, you've grown quite a bit haven't you? That's wonderful to see."
Sasuke had his face in a scowl since Naruto had called him stupid-head but because Iruka was one of the only people who he could tolerate and even like being around, his mouth soon spread into a small smile as Iruka patted him affectionately on the head. "Sensei, Runa-senpai asked us to catch the fish for dinner but since you're here already, we should head back now. I've caught enough for us," he told him, tilting his head to his basket, which, unlike Naruto's, was half full.
"That's a good idea." Iruka agreed. Naruto, perking up at the mention of dinner, began to pack his fishing tools away as Iruka helped him. The teacher carried the baskets of fish and took Sasuke's hand, and they set off. Naruto led the way as he chattered loudly.
"How's your teacher?" Iruka inquired. Sasuke, who was holding the fishing rods and bucket of bait, told him that all was well and that nothing big had happened since he last came, before Naruto came back to the two of them and began his retelling of the past month. Because Sasuke, he explained, was the absolute worst at telling people anything.
"So first of all, after you left last time, Haru-ne started to teach us how to set traps (and I was already pretty good at it so it was all lots of fun) and so every day we have to set up a trap and the person who falls for them is the one who does the dishes. An' you know, Haru-ne never does the dishes after dinner because it's usually Sasuke-"
At this point Sasuke rolled his eyes and assured Iruka that Naruto did the dishes after dinner just as much as he did and that most of the time it was because of Runa-senpai's traps anyway. Iruka only chuckled and told Naruto to continue.
"-so now we don't follow that roster that she drew up for dishes anymore. But when we stay at other places we all do our own dishes, ya know? Last week we went up a mountain and practiced meditating but I just fell asleep so it's really quite boring. I actually don't really know what the point of it is - so I was happy when we came back and did fighting practice-"
"It's taijutsu, dobe. Taijutsu practice."
"- it means fighting practice, can you shush? - and as usual I won every single fight (YES I DID SASUKE AND ANYWAY I'M THE ONE TALKING) so we've been learning lots of new moves because there's always lots of new moves to learn. Haru-ne said she wants to teach us how to fight to protect someone else instead of just ourselves once we get really good. Oh, oh and listen to this - we found someone who grows the BIGGEST watermelons in the world and once we all went and did some weeding in the gardens for AN ENTIRE DAY and then the guy, he gave us TWO of the gigantic watermelons and it lasted us like, four days! It was sooooo good I didn't want to have ramen for breakfast but watermelon instead! So I didn't feel so bad about having to weed the huge garden after that. Ne, ne, Iruka-sensei, do you grow watermelons?" Naruto asked, and Iruka, who was listening steadily to the fast-flowing rush of news had to the think for a second before answering.
"No, there isn't much space to grow anything where I stay." The chuunin instructor informed his listening audience. Sasuke suddenly sidestepped to avoid a root on the dirt track, accidentally bumping Iruka's arm and for a moment the basket swayed dangerously in his grasp. With a nimble twirl the chuunin regained his balance and went on, helpfully, "But, I do grow flowers. And an herb garden. My mint leaves are doing very well."
"What's this about an herb garden?" a new voice asked from the patch of forest beside the dirt road. The three of them looked to see Haruna emerge from the trees with a basket of vegetables on the crook of her arm. She was chewing a blade of grass, but when she saw that her two students were not alone she promptly spat it out and straightened respectfully.
"Oh, Iruka! About time you showed up! And Sasuke, look what I got," she held out the basket in her hands for them to look at the hard-won fruits of her labour, cocking her head at the cherry tomatoes nestled in a bed of komatsuna leaves.
"It's a pleasure to see again, Haruna-san," Iruka replied graciously, bowing quickly as he said so. Beside him he felt Sasuke perk up excitedly, then immediately pretend he did not. Haruna beamed at the chivalrous gesture, and ignored Naruto's toothy, rapid-eyebrow-raising grin from beside him. Iruka was dressed in his usual chuunin gear, neat as always, contrasting with her own dusty shirt from a day in the fields. For the past year Haruna and the boys were country folk. They stayed in a house at the end of this village, just one of many small countryside villages on the outskirts of Konohagakure. Luckily it had been an easy year, unlike the last in which the kunoichi had packed things up and moved with her students no less than five times for their own safety.
That their current home was a temporary accommodation was wordlessly understood by all four of them. Iruka had already secured their next two houses. Nevertheless it was a chattering group that made its way down past a few other homesteads till they reached a familiar grove of trees where a small, simple house was hidden and guarded by their long, overhanging boughs.
Naruto exhibited his inexhaustible store of energy by immediately jumping onto the front porch and dashing inside to get things ready for Iruka-sensei. Sasuke followed him quietly, and walked up the three stairs carefully as he carried the baskets of fish and vegetables dutifully inside. Haruna stood back with Iruka outside the little cottage.
"How have you been?" the kunoichi asked, since Iruka was never one to talk about his own situation without being prompted to first. There was no way to accurately explain how glad Haruna was that the two boys were with her, and how thankful she was to Iruka for his part in bringing it about. She had already got the feeling that with his involvement with pulling Naruto and Sasuke out of Academy education, the man had forfeited any chance of going up any higher in the shinobi world.
As always, Iruka answered with a smile: "The same as always. I've probably been looking forward to coming here more than usual since it's exam time right now. But other than that I've been fine. Have you all missed me?" he asked jestily, and a little hopefully.
"Maybe a little." Haruna grinned. The arrival of the chuunin instructor and his backpack of study material and news from Konoha had become something a little like a holiday at the end of the month. "Come see what the boys have learnt since you left. We've all been busy."
They sat outside the house on the grass, looking up at the stars through the foliage.
"I wouldn't say it's hard," Haruna was saying as she opened the packet of cookies from the bag of Konoha treats that her chuunin partner never failed to bring with him every month. (It was Naruto who had given Iruka the idea. During one of his visits, Naruto had conspiratorially beckoned his old homeroom teacher over and suggested that his fine, beautiful big sister would dearly appreciate a few of the treats in Konoha that were hard to be found anywhere else. Regardless of the satifisfied looks from Naruto and the knowing –and judging- looks from Sasuke – oh children were dangerous, dangerous things sometimes – Iruka had followed through. The expression on the kunoichi's face every time he did would promptly make him forget his embarassment at the hands of his ex-students.) The cookies had an effect similar to the mood between shinobi at a bar after missions.
"It's all very adventurous, when you think about it." She ruminated between bites of chewy goodness. "We're on an adventure right now. You've got to have a few bad guys and some fights or else it isn't as fun. It's that way in all the classic manga stories and if not they're all boring tales of useful people doing useless things. Which reminds me," she said, turning her head to look the chuunin teacher in the eye, "would you be as kind as to send us a few story books? What if one of them decides to be an author when they grow up? How are they supposed to be normal if they don't know the literary classics?"
"I sent some for New Years – what happened to those?"
"We finished them in a week, and then had to leave them behind when we moved places."
"Oh." He wondered briefly if Haruna ever had to deal with the boys complaining about their nomadic lifestyle. "Alright, I'll send some more. It's a beautiful night, isn't it?" He turned is eyes back to the stars which shone brightly in the ring of open sky surrounded by the encircling tree tops. "The skies aren't as open in big towns. You feel as if you are dreaming just by looking at them, don't you?
"I know what you mean," Haruna replied, gazing the lights of Cassiopeia as she folded her arms into her stomach. It was autumn and the nights had begun to feel cold. "I used to star-gaze when surveillance watches got boring. You get a good view, standing on rooftops. Holy Kami, these cookies are good."
Iruka said nothing, pleased to the tips of his sandalled toes that he'd made sure to buy something extra special. It was, after all, two years since they'd started the whole project and there was due cause to celebrate. Even the Hokage had to admit that taking Naruto and Sasuke out of the village and under the ANBU Wolf's training and protection was the best idea since standard ninja team trios. The chuunin had informed the grandfather-figure of Konohagakure that the last Uchiha had lost the pent-up, war-child look he had been wearing in the wake of his clan's massacre. The Yondaime's son had learnt enough taijutsu to make his loud boasts contain at least a grain of truth.
"Most of us average shinobi wonder what ANBU nin are like underneath their masks, Haruna-san, but I don't think we ever had an idea that ANBU nin ate cookies."
"And some of us crochet, but you'll never know and you're not supposed to know that so I'm going to have to kill you now that I told you. But since you gave me these cookies, Iruka-chan, I've decided to be merciful and spare your life."
Iruka placed a hand on his heart and grinned, "I am eternally grateful".
He rubbed his shoulder and hid his grimace when Haruna punched his shoulder playfully.
"You know," Haruna mused, twisting grass through her fingertips as she said so. Over the past two years, their conversations had begun to ease more into more profound, untested waters since both of them had an unspoken but present trust in the other. "I never thought I'd be here, doing this, when I was in the ANBU. I didn't think I'd ever have the chance to do something so... good. It's a lot nicer though."
"What did you do in the ANBU?" Iruka asked. It was the first time since they'd come out here that the kunoichi had mentioned the ANBU and he was interested, if not inwardly trying to comprehend that he had increased in Haruna's trust of him. Haruna was talkative, but when one was around her long enough they noticed that her past was never one of the topics that she put forth in conversations.
"I did missions." Haruna said the words slowly, let them ferment in the stillness. "Most of them were surveillance ones or delivering news from other places. It involved a lot of travelling." Perhaps it was the fact that she hadn't really talked to anyone for so long, or something about the forest at night that induced deep meaningful conversations, or that Iruka was one of those rare people who you could talk to without feeling like you'd taken down your defences. Perhaps it was because there wasn't any point in keeping the past a secret.
"Sometimes I had to get rid of people." She shuddered involuntarily and her hands suddenly seemed heavy in her lap but Haruna shook her head quickly and went on, "and the funny thing was, we weren't meant to keep an eye out for the other ANBU beside us. If any of us fell, we were supposed to leave them in favour of the mission. There was never much room for camaraderie or any of those watching-each-others-backs ideas that you would expect. It was a lonely job, even if you were working in a team. I mean, I had Itachi, but -" she stopped as the inky strokes on her tongue began to heat ever so slightly. That damn Danzou and his Root seal. "-but some things are better off forgetting."
"… I see." He opened his mouth to ask something else, but thought the better about it and didn't. Iruka didn't know how he would have coped if one of his own teammates was responsible for the massacre of their own kin and didn't want to ask. Haruna had probably been close with Uchiha Itachi when she was in the ANBU. Two years hadn't lessened the horror of the deed and Iruka had only to think about the empty Uchiha compound to remember that there were worse things in the world than being a beleaguered, low-ranking homeroom teacher.
At least Iruka's quiet, sincere demeanour had given him a bearing that always invited faith – people could trust him. It was no surprise then that he had people open up to him every week. Not all his cases were serious but he had dealt with those who would divulge their heart-truths and unspoken fears before breaking down into tears.
He'd always carried a handkerchief for moments like this. Iruka held one out to her.
Haruna just looked at him as though he'd spoken Swahili. "What? I'm not crying or anything."
"Just take it." Iruka said easily. "You might want it some time."
Give a handkerchief to any grown ninja, and they'd probably think you were mocking them. But there was no jest in the chuunin's expression so in the end Haruna rolled her eyes but accepted the offering, even if there was no chance she would ever need it. The last time the kunoichi had shed a tear was when she was eight. "Right… " she said, then chuckled as she put it in her pocket. Kami only knew how long it would be till she used it to wipe the tears from one of her boys after a particularly harrowing nightmare. "You're a good person, Iruka-senpai. Hey that reminds me, have I told you about how Naruto had to teach Sasuke had to do the dishes? It's a pretty funny story."
"No," Iruka replied, laying down on his stomach on the grass. "But please, go ahead."
The door creaks as it opens, following a white arc on the wooden floor that betrays the years that the building had been in use. Haruna eyes the thin film on dust on the floor, the windowless curtains, and the apparent absence of furniture - and nods satisfactorily. From under Haruna's arms on the doorframe, Naruto and Sasuke scan their new lodging and then turn questioning eyes back to their guardian. Their new base is a small apartment on top of the only laundromat in the town they'd arrived in, with only one bedroom that also served as a living room. Surprise and perhaps a little disappointment clouds over their expressions.
The kunoichi's laugh echoes from the walls as she opens the windows and lets the dusk air in. It is the last place anyone would expect to find Konoha's jinchuuriki and the last of the Uchiha bloodline.
"We'll make this simple at the beginning. My word is the law from this moment on - but rest assured that I will never make you do anything you aren't prepared to do. Also, any food that anyone has is shared between us all. No hoarding allowed. Glum faces are also strictly prohibited." she adds.
The first thing Haruna gets them to do is unpack their bags and roll out their sleeping bags. She, on the other hand, starts the home décor (which basically means home security measures on every vantage point and exit in the premises) .
Sasuke immediately takes his bag over the corner of the living room and unpacks his bed roll next to the wall. After unpacking his night clothes, toiletry bag and a book on ninja techniques beside his pillow, he promptly zips his bag closed again. There are things in the bag he is not yet prepared to let show.
Naruto unrolls his bed roll as close as he can to Sasuke's without having him shoot a cold glare (which isn't very close in the end, only half the entire the room away). Unlike his fellow student who is done within minutes, Naruto takes the time to meticulously unpack every item beside his pillow. There is a lot of what looks like nonsense to Sasuke - a painted mask, a map of the Konoha village, an Ichiraku Ramen poster, a few candy wrappers and such - but each item is treated with the same reverence and care as Naruto arranges them on the floor. Sasuke watches the entire affair silently from the corner.
As a house-warming present, Haruna presents them both a teddy bear each, in case of nightmares and anything else that might trouble seven years old boys far from home. She was a deep sleeper as well, she explains when Sasuke raises an eyebrow at the unexpected gift, so if they ever did wake up in the middle of the night, their teddy bears would save them.
That night they go to bed late, too tired from a momentous day to see the full moon and the silhouette of a watching wolf behind the window.
.
.
.
Their training starts as soon as they wake up the next morning. After the bowls of ramen are cleared away, their teacher orders them to push everything in the living room against the wall to make room.
"Welcome to your first training session," the two Haruna's standing in the middle of the room announce, smiling. "From here on out, it's one on one."
In the living-room-turned-dojo, Haruna and her clone take both boys through different types of kicks, punches and blocks. Every day after breakfast, both Harunas demonstrate and then fine-tuned Naruto's and Sasuke's stances. Lifting an elbow here, straightening a leg there, practicing over and over.
At first, Naruto is all awkward elbows and feet facing the wrong way yet he absorbs the lessons like a sponge, all the while making sound effects that ring off the walls as he punches and kicks.
The lessons bring on a wave of nostalgia for Sasuke as the touch of Haruna's hand to straighten his arm or bring his knee up higher reminds him of Itachi doing the same, but if it makes him sad he never admits it, and continues to wordlessly follow the polished movements of the kunoichi teaching them.
As the weeks turn into months, the former ANBU ninja introduced combinations and drilled them into the boys to the point of instinct. She also makes a habit of pretending to die loudly and painfully every time they perfected a move.
In the afternoons, Naruto and Sasuke are staggering, sweating lumps of aching muscles so that is the time that Haruna would switch to the world of academia. The townspeople become used to seeing a dark-haired young woman with two boys in tow walking through the streets on fine afternoons. On tops of buildings or under trees she takes them through a textbook or two, reading aloud while Sasuke copies the words down and Naruto listens with his hands behind his head. Iruka makes sure they have a regular supply of intellectual material and Haruna makes sure the lessons stick. It is decidedly more difficult in Naruto's case, but he gets there, eventually.
They stay at that place for only three months. Rumours of the last Uchiha's whereabouts catch the ear of many unsavoury groups and Haruna responds without delay. In the hours before dawn, Haruna carries a sleepy Naruto while an equally sleepy Sasuke holds her hand tightly as she leads the way out of the village through the mist.
As soon as a new home is secured, their training routine only picks up where it left off and continues.
Naruto hated reading. Anything that didn't involve pictures or short, five-word-long sentences bored him. The latest monstrosity – a book with only a picture at the front and what looked to be more than ten pages – that Sasuke seemed to be engrossed in reading looked about as entertaining as a limp carrot stick. In other words, he hated it. And he hated how his dark-haired classmate had lasted for nearly an hour in silence, able to understand the words on the pages that he on the other hand did not have the patience to uncode.
"This book sucks! The hell is this kanji supposed to mean?!" Naruto bellowed beside Sasuke's ear for the fourth time in the last ten minutes. Sasuke was too interested in the adventure story to punch him for being so irritatingly loud. Which annoyed him, because he wanted nothing more than to do something fun and exhilarating while they were outdoors instead of lying on stomachs and trying to make sense of a book that Haruna had professed that they would enjoy. Why was Sasuke the only one who seemed to be enjoying the story?
"OI, SASUKE, DID YOU HEAR ME? The book sucks!"
"Shut up, I'm getting to a good part." Sasuke replied, rolling over lazily to dodge the pinecone Naruto had launched from a makeshift catapult. It had long since been established that of the two, it was Naruto who hated bookwork with a vengeance. He'd only sit still and be quiet when their kunoichi teacher would read aloud, and then the boisterous blonde would sit, face in hands, staring dreamily ahead. As it was, it was only the two of them, and the little Uchiha did not yet have the patience to read aloud and dramatise the story with sound effects and funny voices like their teacher would often do for them.
"Go practice your katas again but let me finish this." Sasuke yawned.
"Teme we're supposed to read that together – not let you hog it." He didn't get an answer – Sasuke just turned another page – so the boy stomped over to his classmate and squatted behind him, eyeing the open book from behind the Uchiha's shoulders. He recognised some of the words and could make sense out of a few sentences but the rest of the letters stared mockingly back at him. What on earth could be so good about the book when the day was so perfect and they were outside?
"You take forever to read." Sasuke explained bluntly, after a long moment of silence. "Let me finish this first, then I'll tell you what happens to the samurai."
"But you suck at telling stories though!"
"Dobe do you want to know what happens or not-"
"At least tell me what that kanji says. The one that looks like a chicken, right there, what's that?"
"None of them look like a chicken, urusatonkachi." He ducked again just in time to avoid another pinecone but wouldn't look up from the samurai who was about to fight his greatest enemy and save the princess...
Naruto stuck his tongue out at him defiantly. The gesture hadn't grown out of him yet. "You're the usuratonkachi - you tomato-loving buttface! CAN WE PLAY NOW OR WHAT?"
Sasuke was just about to launch a much-practiced counter attack on Naruto when they both heard a splash and a shrill scream.
"Uhhhh… Did you just-?"
"Yeah."
Blue eyes locked onto obsidian, willing the other to say something.
"S-sasuke-?" Naruto asked uncertainly, suddenly unsure of what to do first: call for help or check the problem out. He wished that Haruna was here to tell them what to do.
"Come on!" The Uchiha snapped, taking charge as they ditched the books for afternoon study and high-tailed it to the river. Standing at the edge of the riverbank showed them that the scream had come from a little girl clinging desperately to a floating raft. Her bare foot slipped dangerously when she tried to clamber on top of the raft again and the wooden frame bobbed, losing balance on the water's surface. Reeds, rocks and soft mud lined the riverbank, and were no bystanders save for the two boys. Sasuke read desperation on the little girl's face as the raft swayed with the flow of the water.
"WAIT THERE LITTLE GIRL WITH THE SHORT HAIR!" Naruto hollered through cupped hands. "I'LL SAVE YOUUUU!"
Sasuke reached out a hand through the clods of riverbank Naruto was letting fly and grabbed the back of the boy's t-shirt, yanking him back before he did something stupid. The girl was far from the shore and he was not going to let his classmate risk drowning trying to get there.
"Idiot, I'll go in after her. You go for the dock."
He could barely make out a small, sun-tanned face. And bobbed hair. Her kimono was faded, was she one of the village children? Sasuke held his breath and dived into the river. He winced and grit his teeth as the icy river swallowed him. Ignore the cold, just reach the girl. She was losing strength, her legs moving like they were treading through syrup instead of river water. He put his arm around the girl's waist while his left arm chopped the water.
It was only a matter of getting her onto the raft. It wasn't as simple as it had seemed from the riverbank. The water seemed to have arms, pulling both him and the girl down every time she tried to get on.
Then Sasuke noticed the water felt heavier, jostling him as though the river had lurched.
A whimper escaped the little girl and Sasuke brought his arm up higher, closer to his chest as her head suddenly lolled back, consciousness lost, he did his best to keep her head from falling under the water. He fought to keep his hold on the raft and the other around the girl's waist. His hair was getting in the way. From the corners of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of black rocks before he heard a crunching sound and a bolt of electricity lanced up his left arm. The limb hung immobile as wooden shards floated precariously around him and were carried down by the current.
They'd lost the raft. Cursing, Sasuke kicked out against the rock, aiming to stay in the middle of the rapids. The river was calmer further downstream. If he could only ride the current long enough… A throb and a faint sting somewhere on his calf was enough to know that he'd gashed himself on the rocks.
Broken raft, unconscious girl, injured leg. Kuso. Where was Naruto?
The blonde-haired fireball had sprinted through brush and large rocks, nearly tripping on the uneven planks when he reached the dock. He scanned the river anxiously. Where was Sasuke again? He had jumped after her near the rapids right? That brought him dangerously close to the rocks near that foamy bit. Amidst the white froth and dark water, he noticed two heads bobbing and disappearing. Gotcha.
"I'LL SAVE YOU GUYS!"
Should he jump in? He hated to admit it, but Sasuke always had the upper hand when it came to swimming. He could use a branch right? But the pine trees were too high. A rope? Nope.
"KUSO!" Naruto was about to tear his hair out when he noticed a black bundle on the edge of the dock. A fishing net. It'd have to do. He tied one end as tightly as he could before grabbing as much of the netted tangle as his little fists could hold. The dock was right on the surface of the water, that wasn't too far to jump right? Naruto gulped, screwed his eyes shut, and leapt into the water.
C-COLD!
Sasuke felt boneless, limbs leaden and his vision going hazy. He'd nearly forgotten he was holding the girl, his fist still gripping the fabric of her dress. Everything was disoriented and glassy and the only sounds he could register were his laboured gasps mixing with sounds of the river. He glimpsed an orange sleeve and something thin and black.
"-KEH! SASUKEH! WAKE UP TEME!". He opened his eyes to find a shivering, blubbering Naruto, kicking Sasuke's shins and clutching a limp, but breathing girl. He could feel the grooves of the wooden dock on his back and for a second all he could do was stare mutely at Naruto who continued to pepper him with questions and yells to answer him now before he thought he was a ghost -
"I leave you two alone for a few minutes and look what happens?"
Sasuke whipped his head around to see Haruna with a hand on her hip and a bulging knapsack on the other. Relief seeped into his sore muscles, warming the chill. Thank God she came back. Naruto on the other hand, was near inconsolable.
"HARU-NE where were you?! The-little-girl-with-the-short-hair-fell-and-then-Sasuke-nearly-DIED-and-then-the-net-and-I-had-to-swim-and-"his words trailed off into a fresh burst of tears. Haruna mmhed and ahhed at Naruto's incoherent babble as she assessed the girl's condition and Sasuke's injury. Mild hypothermia and shock, a gash on his calf near the soleus muscle. None too severe, but they needed immediate treatment.
Naruto's outburst gave way to soft whimpers as Haruna leaned forward and stroked his wet locks, before gently prying his vice-like grip off the girl.
"You've done well my little lifeguards. Let's get her home now."
.
.
.
An hour later, the boys were warm and toasty by the fire, their clothes drying beside them. Naruto had half the riverbank on his shirt, so Haruna had sent them home to a hot bath and a long laundry session while she escorted the girl safely home. Her parents offered monetary rewards, which Haruna strongly refused. She'd always taught her students to never seek payment as an incentive to help others, their gratitude was more than enough. And besides, she'd served them congratulatory cupcakes for their dinner.
"Well isn't this surprising?" Haruna said, as she lifted a log into the fire and watched the sparks rise. The two boys sat touching shoulders in their pyjamas, listening with drooping eyes as they bit into a swirl of lemon icing. "I didn't think this two years ago, but I see what could be a pretty awesome ninja team right now…"
From the corner of her eyes she watched the flames reflected in Itachi's little brother's dark eyes and wondered whether he had begun to let go of the past. Naruto and Sasuke were nine years old now, and beginning to grow.
In the beginning, cohesion between the two boys is minimal. Sasuke is determined not to speak more than 100 words a day and Naruto's sense of pride is wounded when his attempts to be nice are completely ignored or met with a dark stare.
But they are each other's opposites – and opposites attract.
It begins at meal times. Haruna cooks simple fare for them, dishes unfamiliar to their palates since Sasuke had gourmet meals every single day as a child of such a prestigious clan - and Naruto had whatever was on sale in the packaged food item section of the supermarket. Naruto secretly pushes Sasuke his bowl of steamed vegetables when Haruna isn't looking, wholeheartedly sure that he is unable to stomach the thickly chopped carrots and parsnips or the mibune leaves lightly sprinkled with oil.
Haruna does notice the exchange but when Sasuke accepts Naruto's offering with a nod, she lets it pass. Then Sasuke passes Naruto his toffee the next day, and Naruto shares his apple, and it isn't long until the practice becomes habitual.
Mealtimes go like this: Haruna dishes up the same plates and there is flurry of quick exchanges before the two boys' culinary preferences are satisfied. Their teacher rolls her eyes heavenward, asking Kami to make sure they don't die from diabetes or low-blood sugar someday, but lets it slide. They seem like brothers this way, and at least the dinner plates are emptied.
.
.
Naruto knows that Sasuke has trouble sleeping. Some nights he hears the boy gasp, then claw, panicked, at his bed sheets until he wakes up trembling. He refuses to mention it the morning after.
Sasuke is staring fixedly at the traces of moonlight on the wall one night, too scared to go back to his nightmares, when he hears Naruto's small feet cross the floor over to him. He feigns sleep but Naruto says nothing, only placing something soft beside his hand - curled into a fist, he realises - before going back to his bed roll. He sees enough in the dim light to know that the gift is Naruto's teddy bear from their first night.
By the time Sasuke makes up his mind not to ignore the gift but say thank you, Naruto is already snoring quietly away.
No word concerning the matter is ever mentioned the next morning or any day after. The teddy bear is never returned, and Naruto only grins at Sasuke when he sees it sitting next to his raven-haired companion's own teddy bear beside his pillow.
.
.
The third house they stayed in was a house in the suburbs of Hachō Village, with a vegetable garden left by the previous owners that is slowly reverting back to wild weeds and ryegrass. Learning how to grow your own food was one of the basic skills of any person, be they civilian or shinobi, so the garden becomes a classroom for plant knowledge and discussions on food in the afternoons.
For some strange reason - Haruna secretly surmises it to the Kyuubi's chakra but only says that it was because her youngest student was born with green thumbs - Sasuke's side of the garden never flourishes as much as Naruto's. In less than a week the radish heads were halfway up the jinchuuriki's small shins and there are strawberries every morning from the strawberry mounds that he keeps an eye on.
"Dobe, you're using my compost mix aren't you?"
"As if! You probably just suck at growing stuff."
In the end Naruto helps Sasuke on his side of the garden, and Sasuke appreciates it by listening and joining in to the loudmouth's incessant chatter as they both aired the soil and uprooted weeds.
They're a lot noisier at the dinner table that night. It becomes a habit very quickly.
Her eyes were growing heavy, the pages of the book beginning to disappear into blackness and dreamscape when she heard it. The thin tinkle of a bell; an unwelcome sound. One of the many chakra wire traps rigged and in position around the house had been triggered. An intruder. There was a low growl from her wolf outside the door, which made her eyelids fly open, like someone had yanked blinds. If her wolves sensed a threat, the intruder was not a mere civilian thief but someone with hostile intent. Their location had been discovered.
She groaned inwardly, then rolled from the cushion and onto her feet. Please not now. Not when they'd just gotten settled. The candle flame flickered as she ran on silent feet to the corridor. She stopped outside the bedroom door, her hand halting inches away from the sliding door handle. Not when her boys had just fallen asleep.
The first week at a new house was always spent rigging up lacing and re-lacing traps around the premises, a job that the ex-ANBU particularly enjoyed because she was particularly adept at it. With that, and with the two wolves Haruna summoned every night as guard dogs, they had at least five minutes to escape. By the time the intruders had broken in (assuming they were still alive) the only thing they would have seen were deserted rooms and sleeping gas potent enough to knock someone out for days.
But just because someone was good at it, it didn't mean they enjoyed it. Haruna loathed being on the run and hated it even more when she saw the toll it had on her charges.
The bells were beginning to chime. There was no point in wasting time. If they did not leave now, then combative measures would inevitably take place. Shifting bases was a better option. She rubbed a hand down her face, steeling herself, and slid the door open.
Naruto and Sasuke's mattresses lay side by side. Naruto snored gently into his pillow, arms and legs wrapped comically around his blanket. Sasuke was lying face to the ceiling with a peaceful expression as he clutched a teddy bear in each hand. Reluctantly, their teacher shook them both awake and then opened the window.
As they had practiced, the two boys rolled up their bed rolls and jumped single-file out of the window and onto the dewy grass. Sasuke muffled Naruto's sleepy sighs with his hand as they both staggered behind their bag-laden teacher. Haruna gave her yawning students an apologetic, well-look-de-doo-time-to-move smile.
They would reach the new house by dawn.
.
.
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-END OF CHAPTER 12-
AUTHORS NOTE
So I know Naruto's ended and all, and I'm still a bit torn about how I feel about it, but I guess that we fanfiction writers can all be glad about the holes left in the story since it's up to us to fill them in. This chapter's very... happy. Or at least, the adventure aspect of it is on holiday. In saying that, this story can go down so many different tangents, I'm going to just take my time to sort through the ideas in my head before I write anything else. Writing is hard. I wish someone had told me that before.
I haven't orphaned this fanfic yet and I swear that I will see it to the end. Please keep reading, please review (please give me ideas since I hardly ever have any) and please keep reading.
Fingers crossed I get another chapter done in the holidays.
Alatariele C.
-in collab. with NoeticSky