Masked Koi: Chapter 11. "Repeat"

The fourth year of Academy rolled around. Many children were worn out by the seemingly endless days of homework, tests, and training they had to do if they wanted to have any chance of graduating. Little did they know that they could still have to do it all over again, or simply a year, depending on how badly they failed either the test or three ninjutsu techniques to pass or the Genin test.

Jounin were seen as cold and professional, incapable of laughter or any type of joy. To see the priceless look of students who'd 'worked so hard' and then failed as Genin and were given a death sentence: go back to the Academy was gold to Jounin. They were cold most of the time and joy was something they either had to be around to be desensitized from after their first scarring A-Rank missions or be felt in a chilling and gratifying way.

It was sadistic, but for those Elite Jounin who were the sad and regretful drunks (on occasion; they were Jounin), sadism was a cheap way to feel a bit more human. After all, they made money by killing people.

It came with all sorts of perks: free, fast, hilarious, and no one died. Not a drop of blood was spilled and it was as refreshing as cold bath in the heat of summer.

As an Academy student, Naruto was blissfully unaware of this cold fact, the fact that his version of 'fruition', 'hard work paying off', and 'graduation' were completely wrong. Many Jounin wished to have the boy in their team, not to crush him (yes, of course to crush him), but to have an exciting student. There weren't a lot of opportunities to get a motivated genius on their team and bragging rights were very tempting.

Ironically, no Jounin wanted to lend the boy any help. They found the prospect of seeing the priceless face of the son of the Hokage too great. They knew he'd pass anyway.

Hopefully.

Some Jounin weren't sadistic and all Jounin agreed that the new class about ethics and the 'right thing to do' at the Academy could do only good for the children who were hearing garbled, watered-down, slightly false versions of what happened to the Uchiha.

A new teacher had been brought in to teach while Iruka and Mizuki taught later in the day. This teacher was a bright civilian woman. She smiled a lot and would not last a moment as a shinobi. Her name was Chiyako.

"So what really happened?" Haru asked.

Chiyako gave her a funny look. "Haru-san, didn't you hear about it from your parents?" The woman's hands twitched slightly.

Haru didn't reply immediately. Naruto didn't look at her. Instead, he focused on the teacher who was in a room full of aspiring killers. He rested his head on a palm and the other hand was spinning a pencil on his fingertip. A chakra trick.

"I don't have any parents," Haru said. Her voice was steely and dared Chiyako to poke a hole into it and watch the balloon fly away.

The fly's mouth opened and closed and opened again. "I'm sorry to hear that. Well, when Konoha was attacked, the children were taken and we haven't heard anything since. Since they are a clan and care for one another because they are kin, the older Uchiha who survived the attack went out to find them. They left about a year ago. We should all pray for their safe return and for Konoha's safety."

It was then that Haru realized that no matter how much a fly buzzed around, no matter how many circles it made around her head, it would never be heard. It spoke a different language than she did, or any of her classmates did. It could never bite or sting and in the world of pointy things and red liquid of life and fly swatters it would never survive.

But that's why trees existed. A haven. A safe place. A safe place for flies to roam about speaking their harmless language of living and living and turning a blind eye to fly swatters yielded by the red liquid of life.

Haru sighed. Naruto was growing restless and bored with the class that he knew would he of no use to him or anyone else who had what it took to be a Genin. He'd moved on to sticking paper to his hands and then letting go and then sticking paper to his hand and then letting go.

The fly buzzed excitedly about peace and other ideals and how attacking Konoha was a bad thing because of caused the economy and saving face and other Lands and Naruto had stuck all his pencils and pens though his salmon colored paper and took it out and tore the paper up and made confetti and when the fly wasn't looking, put it into her cup of salted cherry blossom tea and everyone watched with wide eyes as she sipped it and then tilted her head with a peace-coddled smile and nodded. "Yes, children. I'm so glad you're all listening. I think that if all villages had this class from the time of the Shodaime Hokage up until now, there would've been no wars and the economy would be much healthier and everything would be safer."

A few days of monotone passed, sprinkled with Chiyako-sensei's cheerful ideas about how the shinobi world should've been and why things that caused destruction were bad and how to fix them.

One of the other ethics class's teachers, another dime-a-dozen woman whose name was Kara came running in with tears running down her face. Such a thing had happened about thirty times, all of them different ethics teachers with flimsy dresses and diamond encrusted hairpins that threatened to fall out when they ran frantically to the queen bee: Chiyako.

Chiyako never had any problems with her fourth-year class. The other teachers did, explaining between sobs that their class had said something horrible and they weren't listening and how do you manage to not have any—sniff—problems?

Chiyako explained with sickeningly soothing and sappy words that were tailored perfectly to fit into their peace-coddled mouths that the children simply listened, nodded, took notes (most of them) and went home. She had no secrets to offer.

It was peaceful.

Just splendid.

"So class, what if someone very close to you was killed while you were on a mission?" Chiyako asked. Her smile had grown a bit strange and her hands didn't twitch as much. Pride.

The questions of 'what if' required answers to soothe the hearts of flies and make sure that none of the angels sitting in the class who put paper in tea and watched with glee as she drank it all. Answers like 'I would save them' and so on were required.

But fuck that.

The woman was annoying as hell and she needed to understand that the children before her are being taught how to use kunai and kill and that she, a woman having never gone to the Academy and only stayed long enough to teach what she taught and never saw the lessons on how to fight and use kunai to kill, needed to understand that her words had no impact on them whatsoever.

Some civilian children halfway believed her, but even they made an effort to think like Naruto and Shikamaru, like shinobi. They wanted to be shinobi. Chiyako did not.

Chiyako was looking at Haru. Haru looked straight back at her, unrelenting, unafraid, willing to stare at her with a murderous glare. "I would complete the mission."

"W-what?" Chiyako felt the flowers begin to wilt around her and her tea tasted bitter and chalky and bad. The color was receding! The tide of the red liquid of life was beginning to flood the room and the children were looking at her like an insect under a microscope and then move onto a different sample. "Why? They're important to you, aren't they?"

Haru gave no answer to that. "Completing the mission takes priority over everything else. The friend got killed because he got in the way."

Every cell in the woman was screaming in terror. She hid it behind a cringe and a twitch of her fingers one by one. The petals fell down into the world whose one color was 'shinobi'.

"What about you, Chouji-kun?" Chiyako asked. Fat boys and fat girls are supposed to be gentle at heart. Like gentle giants. Like big, fluffy, white dogs that let small children sleep against their warm fur and smile and slobber everywhere and make people laugh and always be happy and the fluffy white tail swings back and forth.

"What if someone asked you to go on a mission that was suicide?" Chiyako asked.

Naruto had a clone doing errands for the moment.

"I wouldn't refuse. Even if the mission were suicide, I wouldn't refuse. Every mission is important and bigger than any one person. It's selfish to refuse," Ino said.

Chiyako was beginning to feel as if all the hard work and progress she'd made to create a class of beautiful angelic children that wouldn't kill and be happy little mindless civilians that would be the first to die in war. She could feel herself scream on the inside.

"Naruto-kun," Chiyako said. He's the Hokage's son. He's got ethics, brains, and a cute head of red hair. No way he'd answer like the rest of the children who were shinobi-in-training.

"Yes?" Naruto asked in a bored way. He looked at her with those eyes that seemed to mock her. They smiled, as if laughing at her and thought of her as childish and funny, like a pet hamster that squeaked and did nothing else. Then the hamster got boring and then instead of brown wood chips on the bottom of the cage, it would be red chips and then the hamster simply looked at you.

Chiyako tried to stand her ground. The boy…was disturbing. No, he wasn't! He was a good boy, a smart boy, a quiet boy who always gave her tea that didn't taste good, but he was a nice boy and she was polite and was a role model adult like the Hokage to him and taught him to be nice and courteous and always drank all the tea.

Delicious, she'd say. Thank you, she'd say.

"What if someone close to you was killed? What would you do then?" Chiyako asked.

"Assuming this doesn't involve any sort of mission, right?" Naruto asked. Chiyako nodded.

Naruto paused. A small smile played on his lips. Where was the fly swatter? Oh, yes, right here. Easy to find. Then the smile died. "I would swear vengeance on them and kill them and their whole clan and torture the killer with a slow and painful death, something that was a thousand times more painful than how they killed my close person. And I will, no matter what, no matter how many people I have to go through. No one involved is allowed to live. And if you killed the person I was close to, I wouldn't hesitate to kill you."

Chiyako dismissed them with her head on her desk and a weary, twitchy hand waving them away. Iruka patted her back gently. He explained that him and Kakashi were very similar because they were both good at being ninjas and had potential to be ones and skill and passion and a scary look that mocked you and made you cry at the end of the day.

Chiyako cried. Even the kind looking Hyuuga girl was the same! Why are children, ninja children, so scary and disturbing?!

"Sometimes, 'why' can't be answered. Sometimes it isn't a good question to ask. Chiyako-sensei, you should go home. Have some tea."

Shisui sipped some tea at some teashop he'd stopped at because he simply didn't want to take a mission. People watching could only soothe his raw nerves for so long. He never quite healed right after losing so many people. He supposed the war did that to everyone.

Itachi.

Shisui ordered some kind of jelly. It was too sweet and it made his teeth hurt and his throat hurt but he didn't care. Repent, is what he called it. Repent for everything. Every Jounin had his quirk. Or was supposed to. He knew the Sandaime's son liked to smoke and his girlfriend liked to paint her nails in some kind of poison-laced polish and Kakashi liked to read erotic novels. That hobby made Jounin try to forget.

You were either crazy or simply a liar if you asked 'forget what?'

Shisui didn't forget. His teeth hurt too much. He ordered another jelly, this time a peach flavor. He could almost see the sugar crystals. He suppressed the urge to vomit. Sugar had never been his forte.

He didn't quite have a home. He still had a bed in the attic of the Hokage's home, but Koi had slept there too. He had a whole compound he could sleep at. But Itachi had slept there and trained there and laughed with him there.

He had declined every C-Rank mission. He stuck to D-Rank, the ones Genin were exclusive to. He pinned it up to more repentance. It wasn't hard, just labor-intensive. Sometimes he'd catch a cat and sometimes he'd do grocery shopping for old ladies and sometimes he'd help out at the Academy.

The next day, he helped out at the Academy.

He filled in for a woman who sat outside the classroom, refusing to enter unless the boy called Naruto apologized. Shisui forced his sensei's son to do no such thing. The woman was forgettable and would forget him too. Maybe if she saw his sharingan...

Shisui brushed the thought off, sitting in his chair, staring at the children. They stared back bored. They can't just be doing nothing…

"Alright, let's do some history. If anyone objects, they can just sit outside with Chiyako-sensei and I will eat their lunch. If anyone throws more paper at Naruto or anyone else, I will burn all of your belongings. Now, open your books to page…120," Shisui said.

The children were carefully silent. If their chair squeaked against the floor, they bowed on the ground and profusely apologized. They were terrified of the Uchiha man.

Well, most were. Shisui did nothing to the sleeping Nara or the munching Akimichi or the sewing orphan girl or the boy with red hair who spun pencils on his fingertips.

Shisui read over the chapter. It was titled 'Hatake Family and Their Impact on Konoha's History'. Shisui had luckily brought jelly and ate it all during the chapter. His teeth hurt.

"Shisui-sensei, three years ago I asked Hatake-san about any taijutsu masters or anyone who specialized in taijutsu. Were there?" Hinata raised her hand. The girls in the class looked at her, incredulous and wondering if she was trying to kill herself. Shisui wasn't scary to Hinata. Chiyako's insistent sappy words were.

Shisui ate another container of jelly. It was mint flavor. He looked at her. She looked back.

"You ask funny questions, Hyuuga," Shisui said seriously. "What's it to you, anyway? A dead person can't teach you anything. They can only make you sadder and sadder until you stop taking anything above a D-Rank mission and watch children squirm while you eat something you absolutely hate. If you want someone who has a tenth of that talent, there's a Jounin called 'Maito Gai'."

The dismissal bell rang. Shisui waved them off with his spoon.

Outside, Neji and Hinata waited for Naruto. Following Naruto was Haru.

"Naruto, when I asked you what had happened to Nishiki-sensei, you never answered me. I tried to ask Hokage-sama, but he simply said she was on a mission. I don't think someone could be on a mission for three years. Please, Naruto. Nishiki-sensei was important to Neji-niisan and I," Hinata said.

Naruto looked at her with an emotionless expression. He walked past her and right before Neji's hand wrapped around his wrist to stop him, he flickered away. Haru was left by the two Hyuuga and looked at Hinata with a confused face.

"Who were you talking about?" Haru asked.

Hinata gestured for the girl to follow and she fell into step with the two Hyuuga. Hinata bit her lip before responding. "Since he was four, Naruto had been trained by an ANBU called Nishiki. She'd trained him every day up until the day that Konoha was attacked. She disappeared. I don't want to say this, but I fear she might be dead."

"This lady…Naruto really looked up to her, huh?" Haru said. "Ne, was Naruto always so arrogant and condescending?"

"No," Hinata said quietly. "At her funeral, he seemed changed. I think he knows something, but he isn't willing to tell us," Hinata suddenly turned to Haru. "Haru-san, could you try to get him to tell you? Please?"

Haru felt uneasy. I think she's talking about the lady in the photo I saw. Oh Kami, how the hell am I supposed to get him to open up again if he already doesn't want to talk about her? "I can't promise anything. The guy's like a clam; he's hard to get to open up and if you're not careful, he'll snap shut and never open up again. But…I'll try."

Shisui walked down to the store and bought a variety of things. He bought two three-pound bags of sugar, artificial flavorings in a rainbow of colors and flavors, twenty metal square containers, and gelatin. He couldn't decide between gelatin, agar agar and kanten. He ended up buying all of them.

With a hefty bag in his arms, he walked into his apartment he'd bought yesterday simply out of necessity.

He had a place, a futon, in the attic of the Hokage's home, but Koi had slept here.

He had a place, a home, a compound all to himself, but Itachi had trained and laughed and lived there.

He didn't know how to make jelly on his own, but he decided to wing it. He had nothing better to do. He grabbed a pot, put water and the mint flavoring in, and allowed it to come to a boil. He ripped open a package of the powdery kanten and it dropped into the water. He stirred and let it boil and then put it in a container and put it in the fridge.

He washed the pot.

He boiled the water. He added the milk and gelatin. He boiled. He stirred. He poured. He refrigerated. He waited.

Morning came and his apartment was decorated with traps, books, scrolls, three photos, a table, two chairs, a kotatsu pushed into the corner, and empty bottles of flavorings.

A knock and the door creaked open.

"Hey, Shisui. The Hokage wants to talk to…" Obito's eye widened. He found Shisui passed out with a container of jelly next to him and a spoon in his hand. There was a pot with boiling water in it, still boiling. Obito cursed and turned off the burner and grabbed Shisui. He hauled him to the bathroom, took the showerhead, and pointed it at the man's face.

Shisui sputtered a little before rubbing his face and Obito turned off the water and glared at him.
"You and Kakashi are pathetic! Both of you pass out eating or drinking something! You're eating jelly with sugar and water and kanten powder all over the floor and Kakashi has coffee all over his shirt and floor! And you know, his hair is silver and coffee stains!" Obito huffed, finishing his angry fit.
"You done?" Shisui asked before brushing his teeth and watching the only other Uchiha in the village twitch in anger. Shisui wiped his mouth off and walked into his bedroom. Obito followed him, anger slowly building up. Shisui took off his shirt and pants and changed into clean ones and ran a brush through his hair and grabbed a few kunai and put them in his holster and placed a hand on his hip with an expression that read: what's your problem?

"After you and Kakashi came back after the village got attacked, you two got something sucked out of you. Like broken souls. Just what the fuck happened?" Obito sighed and sat on a chair, looking at Shisui, who sat on the floor.

"I'll tell you what I told Rin and that shrink: It's. Not. Important. Now, the Hokage wanted to see me? Don't tell me he's finally getting around to denying my resignation as an ANBU," Shisui groaned and walked out of the door. Obito followed.

Shisui was five steps out of the door before Obito rang out his name. "Shisui!"

Shisui turned his head imperceptibly and his shoes hit him square in the face. Almost. Shisui caught them and looked at Obito with a blank look before he put on his shoes and teleported to the Hokage's office, seemingly done with Obito doting on him for his every action.

Shisui walked through the door and almost felt bad. Instead, some forgotten well of anger bubbled up and his hands itched for a kunai. Neither of the two before him noticed his appearance.

"But…" the woman started. Shisui had had his predictions about the Hokage for a while now…but this…Shisui felt bloodlust. He blinked lazily.

"Don't worry; the divorce papers have already been taken care of, Namikaze Yori," Minato grinned. Shisui would have a word with him…later.

"Hokage-sama. You wanted me?" Shisui asked after the woman had scampered out. He closed the door. Minato nodded and gave him a piece of paper. Shisui took it and read it.

"Minato," Shisui started. He was angry. He didn't bother with any respect. "I've told you that I am going to take D-Rank missions only. I am not going to take an S-Ranked mission."

"Is it because of Koi?" Minato asked. His words were sharp and scathing and Shisui still hadn't gotten over Itachi and his absence along with the rest of the clan. Itachi was like a little brother, but at the time, he was too grief-stricken over Koi to really have enough focus to stop him. But Itachi would've gone regardless. Right?

Shisui didn't know, but he felt damn guilty. The kid was dead because of him!

"I refuse this mission," Shisui said.

At first, Haru had easily been beaten by Naruto in taijutsu. She only thought of blocking and countering had never been something she was particularly confident in.

After demonstrating with his clones at a much slower pace, she managed to crudely copy him. Haru was instructed to stay still for a moment as Naruto adjusted her stance. Then, she could spring towards his clone while the original worked on something else.

"You have to counter by kick by either catching it or matching it with the same amount of counter-force," clone Naruto instructed. "I've said this more than enough times."

"I'm trying!" Haru cried out, frustrated.

"Clearly not hard enough," he said simply. "Again."

Haru growled and went on the offensive, throwing punches and kicks at him. With anger clouding her mind, her moves grew sloppy and Naruto had to only sidestep and duck a few times. He grew tired of it, grabbed her ankle, and threw her on the ground. She turned over, shaking with pain, and wheezed. Naruto crossed his arms and glared down at her.

"You suck more than I did when I learned this," Naruto sneered.

Suddenly, Haru threw herself at him and tried to land a solid kick on his stomach. He figured she'd act out violently towards his remark and landed a stronger kick on her unguarded stomach. She flew back into a tree and could barely move.

"Then…teach me," Haru glared.

"I am. You're just not getting it," Naruto said, exasperated. He looked at the setting sun. "Come on, let's go," he flickered to her place and slung the girl over his shoulder.

Haru was so exhausted that she fell asleep just like that. Naruto frowned at the growing weight on his shoulder, but simply summoned more chakra to his shoulder to compensate. He had another clone grab the keys to her apartment and he started up the stairs.

He looked at the key and it had her apartment number engraved, along with the building address. He went up another flight of stairs and down a long corridor and ended up in front of a door with a view towards the red light district. Apparently there weren't any nice apartments for orphans…

He unlocked the door and dumped the girl on her couch and Naruto began to make the only thing he knew how: ramen.

Haru was still asleep when Naruto finished his ramen. Hers was growing cold on the table. He sighed, squatted in front of her, and poked her face until she awoke.

"N-naruto…wha…"

"You're in your apartment. I made ramen. Eat it," Naruto said. "Or I'll eat it."

"Don't eat it," Haru said before getting up and just barely visibly limping towards the table. She sat down hard and ate hungrily.

"Do you want tea?" Naruto asked, smirking.

"I don't want any," Haru glared. "I admit Chiyako-sensei is annoying, but why did you have to put paper in her tea?"

"What good is confetti if you 1) don't have a party and 2) can't use it on people?" Naruto shrugged. "Anyway, if it makes you feel better, that paper is most likely not from the trash. Probably."

"Naruto!" Haru yelled. "I know you like to make everyone else's lives terrible and miserable, but you could kill her!"

Naruto looked at her as if she had three heads. "Haru, she is nothing. I will say that I should've used regular paper that I'd drawn on or something, but do you honestly think she has any impact on any of us? Her job is simply to let us know we have an option—to kill or not to—but she's going against the scope of her job when she tries to say that our opinions as shinobi, people who kill for a living, are wrong when we say that we will kill. She doesn't want any killing and tries to preach that ridiculous notion to kids who want to be shinobi, to kids who want, in essence, to kill."

Haru looked at him hard. "Do you want to kill?"

Naruto gave her a funny look. "I'm busy tomorrow. Let's train in a week, okay?" Without waiting for her confirmation, the boy left.