Obito-Sensei Chapter 3.5
Family
"I'm home!"
Naruto, as he did with every entrance, burst through the door, stomping wet grass into the entryway carpet.
"Already?" a woman called from deeper within the house. Naruto strode forward, rubbing a stray bit of soot off his shoulder. All the waste he deposited on the ground vanished an instant after it hit the carpet, along with whatever associated stains it left behind.
His mother had gotten tired of cleaning up after him when he'd been younger, and shanghaied his father into helping her with what he had called "Project Keep the Floor Clean with Space and/or Time."
Naruto had thought the name was dumb when he was younger, and that hadn't changed. But he would always admit with a smile on his face that not having to worry about leaving a mess was probably the best thing his parents had done for him.
He didn't have much of a perspective about it, but that was unavoidable.
The blond strode into the main living room, almost tripping over the low table that just barely jutted out from behind the doorframe for what must have been the thousandth time. His mom had never been able to convince his dad to move it: everything in the room, he insisted, was right where it should be, and moving that table would mess it all up.
His mother was sitting on a short couch in the middle of the room, a huge scroll stretched out on a table in front of her, covered in esoteric swirls and unrecognizable kanji. She was glaring at the thing, her light grey eyes furrowed and her lower lip pouting, but as soon as he half-hopped over the stupid foot-high table, she shot her gaze up to him, a wide smile spreading on her face.
There was an ink-brush in her hair, still wet, streaking parts of the vibrant red with a dull black, but she didn't seem to notice.
"That was quick!" Kushina Uzumaki said, beaming at her son, who beamed back with an identical grin, uncaring of the multitude of scuffs, small burns, and bruises covering his body. She narrowed her eyes. "Obito didn't go easy on you, did he?" she accused, trying to sound serious and failing.
Somehow, Naruto's grin intensified. "Nope!" he chirped. "He kicked the shit out of me!"
His mother rolled her eyes. "Language."
"Hey! That's what happened, though!" Naruto protested, plopping down on the couch next to her. "What am I supposed to call it?"
"He beat you to a pulp?" Kushina suggested cheerfully. "Curbstomped you? Gave you a panda makeover? Made you squeal like a-" She paused. "Wait. Scratch that last one." She shrugged, her hair bouncing with the motion, the brush streaking more of it. "Doesn't matter. Did you pass?"
"'Course I passed!" Naruto said indignantly. "Who do you think I am?" He didn't wait for an answer. "I'm Naruto Namikaze!"
Kushina reached out and flicked him in the forehead. Naruto leaned back, but he was never fast enough. "'Course you are," she said. "How'd you do it?"
Naruto explained, with several grand hand motions, some shouting, and the occasional pantomime, how the battle against Obito had gone. Kushina watched the whole thing with a smile that had shifted from sunny to gentle.
"And then he dumped me on the ground, and told us that we'd passed," he concluded.
Kushina looked unimpressed. "You tried to blow him up?" she asked archly.
"I knew he'd dodge it!" Naruto said indignantly. "He's Obito!"
His mom just sighed. "Fair enough, I guess." She perked up. "So, that new seal worked?"
"Perfectly!" Naruto said. "You got anything you don't need? Wait, it's fine. I think…" He rummaged around in one of his many pockets, while Kushina leaned over curiously.
"Aha!" He triumphantly withdrew an empty cup of ramen.
"You were keeping that in your jacket?" Kushina asked, grinning and exposing some of her elongated canines.
Naruto just grinned back, his more ordinary looking teeth shining. "It's coming in handy now, right?" he said, before jumping up off the couch. "I'm gonna do it in here, 'kay?"
Kushina just nodded, looking eager.
"Awesome." Naruto looked away from her, refocusing on the empty cup. He stared at it, took a deep breath, and then squeezed.
Ink spiraled out over the cup, forming over the paper and plastic, and Naruto tossed it straight up.
It exploded before it got three feet, blowing Naruto's hair back and depositing more soot on his shoulders. The sound echoed throughout the room as Naruto sat back down, smiling at his mom.
Her eyes were fairly sparkling. "That is so cool," she murmured, and for a moment both Naruto and Kushina were united by something even deeper than the bond between mother and son: a love of things that went boom.
"So!" Naruto said. "What're you working on?"
Kushina shook her head. "Oh, this?" she said, gesturing to the scroll lain out in front of her. "It's nothing. Just some work for the barrier squad."
"The weird-hat guys?" Naruto asked. Kushina suppressed a giggle and nodded. "What do they want?"
"Pfft." Kushina waved her hand. "Just the impossible. Your dad wants to upgrade the barrier so that we'll know if people are coming into the village intending to hurt it."
"That's awesome!" Naruto said. before frowning. "What's so tough about it, though? You could just dial it to killing intent, or-"
"Yeah, but then anyone coming into the village in a bad mood would get swarmed by the ANBU," Kushina said patiently. "Intent is too broad. And see this here?" She pointed to a set of three swirling lines set in a box in the center of the scroll, and Naruto obligingly leaned in.
"That's the part that determines if they're wearing a headband," his mom explained. "Unless I redo the whole thing from scratch, I gotta make sure that I don't mess that up, or we'll get nothing but false alarms."
Naruto sat back. "Huh," he said. "How'd dad get you to agree to this? That's crazy."
Kushina rolled her eyes. "Oh, you know." She smiled. "He did that thing. You know, where he's like-"
"'Kushina, who else could do it?'" the Fourth Hokage said, as his hands came down on his wife and son's shoulders.
Naruto jumped, but Kushina just turned to her husband, smiling widely. "Remind me why that worked for the millionth time?"
He just swooped down and kissed her appreciatively. Naruto stuck out his tongue, making a gagging sound, and both his parents rolled their eyes simultaneously.
Minato pulled back, and Kushina made a soft sound. "Right. That's why."
Her husband just grinned, before turning to his son.
"You passed?" he said.
"'Course I did!"
Minato appraised him. "Obito did a number on you, huh?"
"Heh…" Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I did try to blow him up."
Minato grinned his distinctive grin, the one that made his eyes shine but only moved his mouth a little, and nodded. "Good. Gotta keep him on his toes," he said cheerfully. Then, his face tightened up slightly. Naruto barely noticed it.
"How was your team?" he asked. Kushina unconsciously straightened up.
"Eh…" Naruto waffled. "Sasuke's on it. You know how that goes," he said, flashing his teeth. "We basically just did what we always do."
"Mess around?" Kushina suggested.
"Ruin village property?" Minato said at the same time.
Naruto just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure. We almost got Obito though! If he didn't have those cheap Sharingan…"
"How about your other teammate?" Kushina asked.
"What, Sakura?" Naruto said. His mom nodded.
He grinned. "She won us the test!" he said proudly.
Minato raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yeah! Obito took me and Sasuke out, and left our bells to her. And then she kept him from getting them! For like, five minutes!" Naruto nodded firmly. "I didn't see it, but it must have been awesome."
"Wow," Kushina said. "She sounds impressive."
"Err, not really," Naruto said. "She doesn't have any jutsu or anything. I mean…" His eyes lit up, and he turned to his dad. "Hey! Didn't you say you were gonna show me something when I passed?"
Minato and Kushina traded glances, and a single sentence.
'We'll talk more about this later.'
Then Minato grinned and held up a finger. "One sec," he said, and then he vanished.
Kushina snorted. "So lazy." She turned and looked behind the couch. "It's only like a couple rooms away, you know!" she shouted at the house.
"Ah!" Minato shouted back, and then popped into existence beside Naruto again, on his other side. "But getting there would take me at least a minute."
Kushina just snorted again, at a loss for words. Naruto turned to his dad, just in time to almost fumble what he'd thrown at him.
"What?" He looked down at what he'd caught. It was a water balloon. "Hey! It's my job to throw these things!" He looked up, pretending to be angry. "Stop cutting in on my business!"
Minato just sighed. "It's for you," he said exasperatedly.
"Huh?" Naruto looked down at the balloon. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"It's for the jutsu I'm going to teach you," Minato said.
Naruto looked at his father suspiciously. "It's not a water jutsu, right? 'Cause I suck at those."
Minato just chuckled. "Trust me," he said. "This is no water jutsu."
Then he reached out and grabbed Naruto's shoulder, looking at Kushina over it. "We'll be back around six," he said. Kushina waved, and then both her husband and her son vanished.
Her smile not fading, she bent back over the table and began glaring at the seal again.
###
"You did what?" Mebuki Haruno said, blinking.
"I swallowed the bells," Sakura said, staring down at her feet.
Her mother burst out laughing, and she looked up, confused.
"Your father will love that!" the woman said, grinning wildly. She looked over her daughter for a moment. "Don't look so ashamed! You did great!"
"Really?" Sakura asked.
"Of course!" Mebuki affirmed. "You survived Mangekyo no Obito's challenge! And you did it almost by yourself!" She clapped her hand down on Sakura's shoulder. "How many others can say that? It doesn't matter if you did it with something weird: you must have impressed him, or he wouldn't have passed you in the first place."
She took her hand back, her grin intensifying. "And now, you're on a team with the Hokage's son, and an Uchiha prodigy! So keep your head up!"
Sakura felt herself blush. "I barely did anything. They're the ones who kept him busy…"
"There you go again!" her mother scolded. "Downplaying yourself! They'd both be out of luck if it weren't for you!" She brought her hand up to her chin, pondering for a moment. "You should totally hold that over them."
"What?" Sakura said, aghast. "No!"
"Why not?" her mother shot back. "They totally owe you a debt now!" Her eyes sparkled. "Maybe you could worm a date out of that Uchiha?"
Sakura's eyes went wide, and she turned around without a word, stomping up the stairs and towards her room.
"Oh c'mon!" her mom called after her. "What's the holdup? I could use some Sharingan grandkids! And that clan needs all the help it can get!"
"You know I don't like when you say things like that!" Sakura called back, embarrassment turning her words angry.
She practically heard her mother's shrug. "Yeah. Doesn't make it any less fun."
Sakura just let out a frustrated moan, moderating her stomping and heading for her room. She passed the bathroom door on the way.
Her mother's voice stopped her one last time.
"Hey! Make sure you get those bells out now!" she laughed. "I doubt that sensei of yours will want them back otherwise, and dinner is soon! Don't want you throwing that up too!"
Sakura froze, slowly turning her head towards the bathroom as her mother's cackles retreated.
The sink gleamed at her, and she sighed, altering her stalking.
The bathroom door swung closed behind her.
###
"She sounds impressive."
Sasuke's gaze didn't change much, though he did shift his legs under him. His eyes just sharpened a little. "Really?
"Of course. She faced down Obito by herself. That alone says she's got something most of your classmates don't."
Sasuke considered the notion. It was true that Sakura was definitely on a higher level than most of the other academy students: she'd been the top scoring kunoichi, barely beating out the Yamanaka heir. But he'd never thought she'd been more than that. She had lacked something that he and Naruto didn't have.
Pedigree, maybe? Both her parents were just ordinary chūnin. She had no bloodline.
But it couldn't be that simple. The Yondaime hadn't had parents at all, shinobi or otherwise, and hadn't a bloodline to his name either. And he was the Yondaime.
Sasuke resolved to figure it out later. He'd have to spend some more time with Sakura before he could be sure.
"Sasuke?"
He shook his head, glancing up from the table. Mikoto Uchiha watched him, a small smile on her face. It made the burn scars covering the left side of it crinkle.
"You drifted off for a second there," she said playfully. "Thinking about her?"
"Hmm."
Her smile didn't change. "All right. If you want to be like that." She stood up from the mat, stretching her back out, and Sasuke followed her. "Do you need anything? I know you already got dinner-"
He smiled at her, his lips barely twitching. "I'm fine," he said. "I'll get myself something if I get hungry."
His mother pressed her lips together. "All right. Just stay away from the tomatoes, alright? Kushina is coming over for those later."
Sasuke blinked. "What for?"
His mother grinned and made a shushing motion. "Don't ask. That way, we can't be implicated."
The younger Uchiha snorted, before nodding and wandering away, opening the sliding door leading out of the room and stepping into the compound proper.
Mikoto watched him go.
He wasn't wandering, of course, and both she and Sasuke knew it. But she wasn't going to stop him.
If Sasuke wanted to talk to his father, that was up to him.
Sasuke moved through the streets of the compound, his sandals scraping mutely on the concrete. The one-and-two story houses and walls around him, concrete and paper and wood, slid by, barely making an impression on him. Only the occasional Uchiha crest caught his attention, the splash of red and black springing an image of a pinwheel eye into his mind.
He passed a couple clansmen as he 'wandered': most of them nodded to him, and Sasuke nodded back. Two or three grinned and mentioned his new headband, still shiny and un-scuffed, and Sasuke gave them vague agreements and thanks.
Some of them realised that he wasn't entirely there with them, and allowed him to pass with little comment.
Eventually, he reached his destination: a squat, windowless house with a single door of black lacquered wood.
He pushed it open without ceremony, the greased hinges swinging open without a hint of protest.
Silence greeted him, like it always did.
He took a step forward. The floor was kept immaculately clean, but Sasuke nonetheless half-expected his feet to kick up a cloud of choking dust.
The silence was doing a fine enough job of choking him, anyway. It wouldn't have needed the help.
So, Sasuke spoke. It was the only way to dispel the nothing that was strangling him.
"I passed," he said simply. The silence, momentarily taken aback, rushed back into the gap left after his sentence, and answered him in its own way.
Sasuke's fist tightened. "I'm a genin, now." He put a thumb to his hitai-ate: its shine had been dulled by the emptiness of the building. "A shinobi of the Leaf."
Nothing happened. The proclamation didn't light up the room, or shift the stone floor. It just sunk into the silence, and became part of it.
Sasuke took another step forward, and then another. "I'm closer," he said. "Closer to finding out why…"
His Sharingan spiraled out, and the dimness of the room slid away. Fugaku Uchiha's face was revealed; his customary frown unchanged from the last time Sasuke had seen it.
Of course it was the same. Pictures didn't change.
The mantle it sat on, the lone feature of the dim room, was also host to twenty and some other pictures, all the same size as Fugaku's, all with Uchiha immortally preserved on them. Some were frowning more severely than Fugaku, others were smiling: one was sticking his tongue out playfully.
There was a candle set in the mantle before each of the pictures. Only a few were burning; Fugaku's wasn't one of them.
Sasuke took another step forward, bringing one hand up slowly.
"I'm not going to let him get away with it, father," he said. A flame sparked into existence in the palm of his hand, and he gently brought it to the unlit candle in front of his father's picture. The wick lit without a sound, and the dancing light of the flame in Sasuke's hand vanished, replaced by the gentle play of the candles comparatively dull light.
Sasuke Sharingan, still active, gleamed in the candle's light. He stared intently at his father's picture, as if the man would come alive within it and give him some sort of affirmation of what he was saying.
He didn't, of course. Fugaku Uchiha was dead, and dead men could do no such thing.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed.
"I swear it," he said, his voice trembling, his nails digging into his palm.
"Itachi will pay."