An Invincible Summer by ShanaStoryteller

by CopyOthers

When Naruto was 5 he creates a ninjutsu, which he labels Oiroke no Jutsu. 3 days later, a civilian attacks and mortally wounds the boy after hearing that he was to begin his education as a ninja. When the ANBU arrive, there's so much blood that the status of the young boy is undeniable. 3 days later the body disappears. 6 months later Natsu Nami applies to enter the Academy.

2. Chapter 2

Kakashi has to get them to pass somehow. Not because of the Council and what they want (Kakashi is of the opinion that the Council can go fuck themselves), but because if Sasuke doesn't become an official genin of Konoha today, Natsu will kill him.

He sidesteps another attack from the Uchiha, and if the kid would just pause for a second and listen to Kiba then he could be given the standard Inuzuka speech of cooperation and depending on each other, yatta yatta, and then maybe they could get their shit together.

"Niichan!"

Kakashi freezes, because she wouldn't, she said she wouldn't –

Natsu lands on top of his head by her hands. "Natsu," he sighs, "this really isn't the best time."

"I know, but I have to tell you-" she cuts herself off as she gets sight of Sasuke. The kid has paused about two feet away from them with the oddest look on his face. By Natsu's sudden silence, he assumes she genuinely didn't realize that he was in the middle of their genin test.

"What's wrong?" he demands, because Natsu has been keyed up about this for weeks, so anything big enough to make her forget is cause for worry.

She doesn't answer. Instead she twists her body so she's sitting, then slides and falls so she's laying against his chest upside down with her legs hooked over his shoulders. "Hi!" she says, "You know, you're never going to beat Kakashi-niichan attacking him head on. He's too skilled for that."

"NATSU, STOP MEDDLING!" Kiba shouts, and from the sound of it he's hiding in the top of one of the trees at the eastern edge of the clearing. "BUT ALSO SHE'S RIGHT!"

"What did you have to tell me?" he repeats. He's also a little concerned about the fact that Sasuke is still just standing there staring at them.

She shakes her head, "Ah, it can wait. I'll just-" She flips off of him and lands on her feet in front of Sasuke. She pokes his forehead, and for a split second his whole face crumples before it smooths back out into a blank mask. "Good luck! I know Kiba's a bit of a goofball, but he's really smart. You should listen to him."

With that last bit of advice she shunshins away. Kakashi looks back down at his book, waiting for Sasuke's next attack.

It doesn't come. Instead Sasuke body flickers away. When less than two minutes later both Sasuke and Kiba's chakra signatures collide with Sakura's, he smiles.

Maybe Natsu's hints aren't exactly fair, but it's not cheating as long as they win.

---

Iruka's on his own in the mission assignment office, so he only has a little bit of a heart attack when Natsu appears in front of him with nothing to herald her entrance than a slight breeze from the displaced air.

"Natsu," he groans and rubs his hand over his face, "We should put bells on you."

She pushes aside some scrolls and sits on the table next to him, "That seems counterproductive."

"Not to my lifespan," he mutters. "What are you doing here? You should have left the village already."

"I'll make up the lost time," she shrugs, "Three weeks to seduce a guard and get patrol logs? That's basically a paid vacation."

Iruka snorts. Three weeks to travel to the incredibly unstable Kirigakure and get ahold of its shinobi numbers, their patrol patterns, and how frequently the guard is changed all without getting caught or killed by the notoriously paranoid and bloodthirsty ninja that Kiri produces, and then back. He knows for a fact that it's an A-rank, and it would have gone to Kurenai if she hadn't just been assigned her first genin team.

Natsu winks at him like she knows what he's thinking, and she was trained by Inoichi Yamanaka so it's not outside of the realm of impossibility. "Anyway, can you send out a notice to my customers that orders will be delayed three weeks? Or tell Kakashi to do it? I tried to give him a heads up but he was busy."

"Ah," Iruka looks at her more closely, because he knows what his boyfriend is doing right now. She seems fine, and that's a comfort, because for a ninja Natsu is actually a pretty horrible liar. "I will, but you should really get going. Come back alive."

"Sir yes sir," she grins cheekily and disappears as suddenly as she came.

---

Sasuke remembers Natsu. Not very well, because he only met her in person that one time when she'd stood on Itachi's head and smiled at him upsidedown and called him sweet. But he'd been aware that Itachi had a friend that he trained with and taught who wasn't a silent and scary adult, and from that moment on whenever Itachi alluded to the girl Sasuke had an image of a bright smile and kind eyes.

He also remembers stumbling into the aftermath of the massacre, and he'd only gotten a brief glance of his parents' bodies and his blood soaked brother before the older girl had hauled him into her arms and begged him not to look.

When Itachi had claimed to have killed their clan, she hadn't believed him. She'd tried to get Itachi to come with them, had only left when his brother had tried to attack, and when Danzo (he knows Danzo, of course he does, the old man smiles at him and watches him and makes his skin crawl) had tried to touch him she'd protected him, she'd taken him to the hospital at the hokage's request and kissed his forehead and said that everything would be okay.

He hadn't seen her since.

Sasuke's not an idiot. They occupy the same village, and Konoha's big, but it's not that big. It has to be on purpose. People had refused to talk about Natsu to him, he'd asked and asked – on one memorable occasion he's kneeled in front of the hokage and begged – but the last link to his brother, to his family, was nowhere to be found, and it was purposeful.

He'd probably be angry about that if he didn't know that it was all his fault.

He'd told the jounin who'd interviewed him everything, of course he had, he was seven and in shock and hadn't known any better. But now he does, and finding Natsu and Itachi together around the slowly cooling bodies of his clansmen hardly put Natsu in a good light, and even though she clearly hadn't known what was going on – even thought she'd saved him – he wonders how long she was interrogated for. If they hurt her trying to get a truth out of her that didn't exist, all because Sasuke didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. He's smart, if he'd been thinking a little more clearly he could have spun it so that they wouldn't have suspected her, but he didn't. He'd been seven and stupid and it had cost him his brother's only friend.

But he'd seen Natsu today. She poked his forehead just like Itachi used to and smiled at him. She was taller and older and moved with the confidence that only truly dangerous people had, but – the smile she gave him was the exact same as the one she had when he was six.

He runs his fingers over his the leaf symbol carved into his hitai-ate, and thinks that maybe seeing Natsu again is just almost good as finally becoming a genin.

---

"Where's Natsu?" is the first thing out of his boyfriend's mouth as he strolls into their apartment. The second is "Are you cooking? What did I do to deserve that?"

Iruka rolls his eyes, "We had leftover Ichiraku. I'm heating it up."

"Oh," Kakashi's arms slip around his waist from behind and he rest his chin on the Academy teacher's shoulder, "that's okay then."

"We should really learn how to cook," he sighs, turning off the stove and reaching for the bowls. "I was banking on settling down with someone who did, but instead I've got you."

Kakashi pouts, but accepts his bowl gratefully. He slides down his mask so he can eat after casting a suspicious glace around the apartment. So far Iruka, Natsu, and Gai are the only ones who've seen him without his mask, and he wants to keep it that way. "Natsu?" he repeats.

Iruka boosts himself up to sit on the counter, "Probably halfway to the Hidden Mist by now."

Kakashi chokes, "Why?"

"A-rank infiltration mission," Iruka cups his hand around the weak warmth of the bowl, "She'll be gone for the next three weeks or so."

"Why the hell was she assigned an A-rank? She's a chunin! Did they at least send her with backup?" he asks.

Iruka snorts, "Of course not. Ever since she mastered Kage Bunshin they haven't bothered."

"That's not how the technique works, and the Council knows that," Kakashi growls. "It's a giant waste of chakra that's dangerous to use and not worth the trouble – I regret teaching her that. They're going to get her killed."

"Yeah," Iruka leans his head back against the cabinet, "That's probably the point."

Kakashi's chopsticks snaps in his hands.

---

Kiba throws himself down on the floor. Hana glances up from her text on advanced medical ninjutsu and raises an eyebrow, "Rough day?"

"They're awful. So bad," he moans. Akamaru barks in agreement.

Hana coughs to hide her laugh, "They're not that bad, surely."

Kiba moves his arm to glare at her.

"You're sure you're not exaggerating even a little bit?" she wheedles.

"Maybe a little," he admits grudgingly, "Sakura's really smart, but she acts dumb for some reason. And her endurance is really bad. She probably would have been failed on that alone if she didn't have such good aim with shuriken. And Sasuke's good at like, everything, I still don't get why he didn't graduate earlier. He's just so-" Kiba rubs his hand over his face.

"So what?" Hana prompts, even though she's hears this particular complaint before.

"Sad," the genin sighs, "He's miserable all the time, and he works hard and if you yell at him for long enough he'll work with you, but - crap, I don't know. He's got this really great poker face so you think he's just a big jerk, but I can smell his emotions, the big idiot, and he's just this sad lonely kid who won't listen to anyone."

Hana hums, because if she opens her mouth she'll probably start cursing the hokage and his dumb rules and his dumb ideas, and that is not the type of thing that leads to a long life.

Kiba pulls himself up so he can rest his chin on his knees, "Is Natsu going to be back soon?"

Technically Kiba doesn't know anything about Natsu and the Sandaime's deal, but he's known Natsu almost as long as Hana has and, in spite of what his Academy test scores might claim, her little brother is far from stupid.

"I hope so," she says quietly.

Kiba shifts so he can rest his head on her knees, "Don't worry. She'll be fine."

"Of course she will," Hana smiles and ruffles her brother's hair. "Come on, let's go play. This book isn't making much sense anyway."

---

"I jinxed myself," Natsu moans as she dodges another kunai, "Just like a vacation, I said. Easy, I said."

She flips in midair to avoid a sword flung through the air, and if she'd been any slower it would have taken her head off. By her estimation she's got three chunin and two jounin on her tail, and a poisoned puncture wound through her left shoulder. She's certain she's been in worst scrapes than this; she just can't think of them.

She's also cursing her lack of water based jutsus right about now, because the mist is actually helping provide some cover, and any wind jutsu she could use would disrupt it. Natsu dips low to avoid another barrage of kunai. She doesn't know the area well enough to body flicker away, because there's no familiar chakra signatures to hang onto. She's got a few useful little seals in her back pocket, but as of right now they don't know that she's a Konoha ninja, and she wants to keep it that way. There aren't enough seal masters in the ninja world that they won't track it back to her. If she plays it right, and doesn't die, they'll just assume she's another of their numerous missing-nin.

There are trees in front of her, finally, and she leaps up to the top of one. Kiri ninja are used to going under instead of over, so it should buy her maybe a minute to try to come up with a plan.

"It looks like you could use a hand," a soft alto voice says. Natsu has a kunai drawn and at the newcomer's throat before they've finished speaking. If not for the Adam's apple at his throat, she would think the ninja a very pretty girl. Then again, it's not like Natsu has any room to talk in that department. He's got long brunette hair, and dark gentle eyes that reminder her so much of Itachi's that for a moment she can't breathe. "I believe it would be advantageous of us to work together."

She doesn't lower her hand, "Who are you? What do you want?"

He taps his hitai-ate, "It seems my fellow ninja are not so happy to see me."

There's no cut through the mist symbols, but Natsu says, "You're a missing-nin."

"I am a loyal ninja to the village of Kirigakure," he says plainly.

"But not to its mizukage," Natsu says, but that's actually not a bad thing, because as far as she's concerned someone should have paid her to sneak through to his chambers and gut him instead of getting some measly patrol information. The guy is such a dick. "Or its Daiymo," and Natsu's not touching that one with a ten foot pole, because that guys is actually way worse than the mizukage. Natsu would gladly kill him for free.

There's the sound of roughly a dozen ninja headed in their direction. The boy raises an eyebrow, "I believe we stand a better chance fighting together than apart."

Natsu sighs and removes the kunai from his neck, "Well, the enemy of my enemy and all that."

"My thoughts exactly," the boy says, and they smile at each other for a moment before they both move.

Their fighting styles are unexpectedly complimentary. He's a devastatingly effective long range fighter with his senbon, and shit but he's fast. Natsu's more effective at close combat; she's just going to have to trust that the boy's aim is good enough that he won't hit her on accident. Natsu twists out of the way of a katana just in time for it to run through one of the chunin, and she catches a brief look of the jounin's horror before she jumps onto him with enough force to snap his neck with her thighs. Natsu looks up just in time to catch another katana with her gloves, and what was it with these guys and swords?

She pushes the guy back and flips to land on his shoulders. Her hand is bleeding, because gloves can only do so much, so she quickly draws a seal on his head in her own blood. She activates it with a spike of chakra before boosting herself off and landing in a crouch about ten feet away. The seal goes off, and the ninja explodes messily outward, taking the rest of his comrades with him.

"Huh," Natsu looks at the charred and smoking remains of the enemy ninja, "I hadn't intended for there to be a fire component to that. Weird."

The boy lands gently next to her, "You are a creative and vicious opponent."

"You're not so bad yourself," she nudges his shoulder, and his face becomes blank with shock for a moment before he cracks the smallest, saddest smile. Natsu really hates that smile, she's seen it on a lot of people and long ago she used to see it when she looked in the mirror.

"We should depart," the boy says, looking towards Kirigakure, "They will send reinforcements soon."

"Good point," she agrees. She holds out her hand, "To meeting again, hopefully not as enemies."

He takes it with barely a hesitation, and they shake. "I would hate to cross blades with you," he glances to the corpses.

She laughs and releases his hand, "Stay strong, and stay safe." It's a typical ninja phrase of farewell, but he still looks shocked to have received it. Natsu winks at him before she gathers chakra to her legs and runs.

Her wounds are few but deep, and she hasn't slept for nearly thirty hours. It's going to be a rough trip back to Konoha.

---

Kakashi and his team are in the mission assignment office in the midst of returning Tora to Madam Shijimi. Sasuke's covered in cat scratches and Sakura is physically restraining Kiba from leaping forward to throttle the poor thing. Kakashi thinks that's probably a waste of effort - Madam Shijimi is doing that just fine on her own.

Iruka is glaring at him disapprovingly from his place next to the hokage, but Kakashi shrugs. Honestly, any day he can keep his brats from arguing more than training he counts it a success.

This is, of course, when Natsu appears in the middle of the office in a swirl of leaves. That's an instant tip off that something is wrong, because the girl will usually exert the extra chakra to ensure her entrance is as undetectable as possible. As the chakra leaves dissolve to nothing, Natsu stumbles, then falls on one knee.

Her standard black uniform is cut and bloodstained, and the hair in her bun is dirty and lopsided. She lifts her head, and there's a vicious bruise stretching from her cheek to the top her head that disappears under her hair. "Hokage-sama," she greets.

This breaks the silence, and Kiba runs forward, "Natsu!" Kakashi catches him around the shoulders, and the Inuzuka snarls. "She's hurt, let me go!"

"Be quiet," he orders sternly, because the Daiymo's wife is right there, and they can't afford to show such ties. They are the emotionless, cold army of mercenaries that the Fire Lord keeps at his back, and they can't show themselves to be anything else.

"Nami-san," the Sandaime leans back in his chair and looks down at her impassively, "I trust you completed your mission?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama," she forces herself to stand, and when she sways all of Kakashi's muscles tense at the effort of not moving to steady her. Natsu doesn't have any bags or holsters on her, so he's not surprised when her index finger lights green and she slices her shirt off. They need a performance, and Natsu knows it. She shrugs off the remains of top, standing straight under Madam Shijimi's speculative gaze. Her breasts are bound in bandages, and her pants are tight and low on her hips. There's a poorly healed stab wound on her shoulder, and a thin, deep slice curving up her side. First degree burns cover her entire back, but nowhere else, which doesn't even make sense.

Natsu reaches a hand underneath her bindings and pulls out a tightly folded square of paper. She walks over to the hokage, and Kakashi can see her legs shaking. He knows this is how it has to be but he's furious. She unfolds the paper, places it on the desk in front of him, and then bites her thumb. A single drop of blood falls on the paper, she releases a burst of chakra, and in the next instant a large notebook sits on the desk in its place. She bows; the wound at her waist opens and bleeds. "This contains all the requested information, Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi doesn't touch the notebook, only nods, "I expect a full report on my desk by the end of the day." Kakashi doesn't roll his eyes, but he wants to. Just for that he's sure Natsu won't hand it in for a week.

"Of course, Hokage-sama," the band holding her hair together snaps, and her long pale hair unwinds and falls in a curtain over her shoulder. If the situation wasn't so dire, he'd be tempted to laugh, because she definitely did that on purpose. Bruised and bloody, undeniably feminine with bound breasts, long hair, and fingernails painted a deep purple – yet perfectly in control and obedient; she's the perfect image of every ridiculous thought Madam Shijimi has probably ever had about female ninja.

The hokage takes out his pipe and exhales. The smoke barely brushes Natsu's face, "You're dismissed."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama." She leaves in another swirl of leaves, still bowed.

"My, my," Madam Shijimi says, vapid smile wide but her eyes narrowed, "Who was that?"

"Oh, just a chunin," the Sandaime takes the notebook and carelessly hands it to Iruka. "I apologize for the interruption."

"Quite all right," she simpers. Kakashi knows she'll report this to her husband and that it will aid Konoha in the long run, but right at this moment he doesn't care. He wants nothing more than to follow Natsu and make sure she went to the hospital, but instead he forces his eyes to remain glued to the pages of his book.

---

Kabuto, through many years of friendship, is not surprised when Natsu body flickers half naked and bleeding on top of his coffee table. "What the fuck?" he demands on reflex more than anything else, hands already glowing green to close the wound on her side. "You could have gone to the hospital, you know. It's my day off."

Natsu scoffs, "What's the point in having two medic-ninjas as teammates if I have to go to the actual hospital?"

"My peace of mind?" He reaches the wound on her shoulder, and Natsu has always healed fast (mostly because he and Hana would heal a papercut on her if she stood still long enough) but it already looks weeks old. "Did you heal this on the way?"

"I tried," she grunts as he shifts down to her ribs, and her breathing eases after the fracture is healed, "I didn't have enough chakra control, or energy, to do anything but try to get back here. I'm pissed the old man didn't let me bring my own supplies - using the Portal Seal would have been really fucking useful."

"You're the only one with chakra stores massive enough to use that thing. It would have been as good as signing your name and village in the sky," he pulls up her left pant leg to heal the stress fracture, and he demands, "Did you run here nonstop from Kiri?"

She nods, ready to fall asleep now that the sharp flares of pain have disappeared, "I was behind schedule, and I couldn't be certain I wasn't being followed."

"That's nearly a week long journey, even assuming you go at top speeds!" He sits next to her on his coffee table and hauls her up to a sitting position so he can reach her back.

She moans and rests her forehead on his shoulder, "Or a three days long journey if you're determined."

"If you're insane, maybe," he stands and pulls her up with him. She whimpers. "No, come on, you're not sleeping on my coffee table. Go shower and I'll find something for you to wear."

"I don't want a shower, I want sleep," she whines, but heads to the bathroom anyway.

Kabuto rolls his eyes, "No blood on my sheets. I get enough of that at work."

Natsu blows a raspberry at him, but once she's leaning underneath a steady stream of hot water she has to admit it feels pretty great to wash off nearly four days' worth of grime. When she steps out there's a long sleeve shirt waiting for her, and it's way too big for her and falls almost to her knees. However it's soft and warm and smells like Kabuto's detergent and nothing like the musty air of Mist.

"Why do you have this?" she yawns when she stumbles out, "You're not that much bigger than me, this can't fit you right."

"I like big clothes on rainy days," he gently pulls her toward his bed. She throws herself down, snuggles into his pillow, and lets out a long, content sigh when he pulls the blanket over her. "Good to be home?"

"The best," she murmurs.

Kabuto runs a gentle hand down the side of her face, healing the large bruise as he goes. "I'll be in the living room. Try not to drool on my sheets."

She sticks her tongue out, but doesn't offer anything besides that before finally drifting off to sleep.

---

When Natsu opens her eyes it's to the weak gray light of dawn. There's a giant glass of water on the bedside table, and a note in Kabuto's handwriting that reads: I have an early shift at the hospital. If you're reading this particular note, you've been asleep for nearly twenty four hours. You're completely healed (you're welcome).

She giggles and crawls out of Kabuto's bed, stretching and groaning as her spine cracks - her abused muscles feel like jelly. The water is gone in record time, but now that she's started she can't stop, and wanders into Kabuto's kitchen to refill and drain the glass two more times.

There's a change of clothing on the windowsill, and it's her clothes, including her favorite silk tunic and hitai-ate, so that means Kakashi must have stopped in at some point while she was asleep. He's the only one who both can get past all the booby traps she has in her apartment and knows that she's back from her mission. She changes quickly and throws Kabuto's borrowed shirt in his hamper before jumping out his window. She's starving, and all her former teammate has in his place is rice and vegetables and those gross healthy green smoothies he's always trying to push on her and Hana. Blech.

It's too early for ramen or dango, which is tragic, but the market will be open, and the market will have pastries, and sausage bread, and hot cider and chocolate, and –

She blinks, and she has never in her life known Kiba to drag himself out of bed this early, but that's definitely his chakra signature down by the river. This bears further investigating.

"Why are you awake?" she asks, dropping down in front of the three listing genin.

Kiba's face instantly lights up and both he and Akamaru tackle her to the ground in a hug, "Natsu! You're okay!"

"Of course I am!" She pats both their heads, "Nothing that some sleep couldn't fix."

"And an advanced medic-nin," Kiba glares.

"It doesn't hurt," she admits, pushing herself up so she's sitting cross legged on the ground. Kiba leans into her side and Akamaru rests his head on her knee. "Hi Sasuke! And you're Sakura, right?" she asks the pink haired girl.

"Yes," the girl says, eyes wide, "Are you sure you're okay? You looked – really hurt, when we saw you before."

"That was mostly exhaustion," she says confidently, "I'm totally fine now! But seriously, what are you all doing?"

"Kakashi-sensei told us to meet him here," Sakura says.

Natsu opens her mouth. Closes it. Coughs. "Uh, you do know that he's going to be late, right? Really late?"

Kiba nods, looking glum, "But he's not consistently late – sometimes it's three hours, sometimes it's one. So we have to be here and wait anyway."

"Ah," she says, "It's Saturday, right?" Sakura nods. "Then there's no way he's going to show up before ten. Iruka's day off is on Saturday."

Kiba groans, "That's four hours away!"

Natsu's stomach grumbles, so she says, "Do you guys want to get breakfast with me? I was just going to swing by the market."

"Better than sitting around here," Kiba says, getting to his feet. Sakura scrambles along to follow.

Natsu holds out a hand to Sasuke, who won't look at her or talk to her, and of course he has a right to be angry with her, but she doesn't want him to be. "Sasuke? Are you coming?"

He looks at her hand, then looks up at her. They stare at each other for a moment before he smiles, small but honest, and places his hand in hers, "Yes."

---

Natsu is so cool. The cold, efficient kunoichi they'd seen in the mission assignment office is clearly only a small part of who the older girl is, because she's been smiling and talking almost non-stop. She's older and a chunin and beautiful and friendly and she must be strong because they give her dangerous missions.

Basically she's everything Sakura wants to be, and so she sticks close to the older girl. Instead of being annoyed by it, Natsu pats her head and asks her about what she wants to be and what her hobbies are, and if Suzume is still a hardass about flower arranging.

Sasuke is being even more quiet than usual, which Sakura hadn't thought possible, but he's also almost-smiled seven times in the past three hours, which is roughly seven times more than she's ever seen him smile before today. She also thinks that maybe she should start being nicer to Kiba, because when he's not yelling at her or goofing off he's actually kind of funny and intelligent, and the latter is not something she ever thought to apply to the boy.

"You shouldn't leave your hair down like that if you're going to keep it long," Natsu tells her when they're back under the tree waiting for Kakashi-sensei, "It's a hazard in a fight."

"Oh," she says, and runs her hand over her hair. She doesn't think the teenager means it as a reprimand, but it feels like one, "Okay."

"Hold still," Natsu pulls her own hair free, and the platinum blond locks fall messily down, only held back by her hitai-ate. She shifts to sit behind Sakura and slides the younger girl's forehead protector off before gathering the pink hair in her hands. Natsu expertly smooths and twists her hair into a bun on top of her head, ties it off, and slides Sakura's hitai-ate back on, "See, perfect. Inoichi-sensei keeps his hair down, but the first time we fought I set it on fire. You think he'd have learned, and yet."

Sakura blinks, "You set Ino's dad's hair on fire? He was your sensei?"

Kiba is snickering, and Sasuke looks at them in interest. Natsu hums, "Yeah. I was put on a team with Kiba's sister and Kabuto, and I set his hair on fire during our genin exam."

"And dyed it purple," Kiba adds.

"And dyed it purple," she says. Sasuke makes a sound like he's choking, but after a moment Sakura realizes it's a laugh. "Actually," she says, "I've always thought that Kakashi would look particularly good with purple hair, if you're interested."

"Yes!" Kiba punches the air, "This is going to be awesome!" Sakura nods, because she is sick of being forced to wait for hours when she could be sleeping. And a little bit because Natsu suggested it, and she wants the older girl to think she's cool too.

Natsu beams and nudges Sasuke with her foot, "What about you? Are you in?"

He smiles, and it's a real smile, not even an almost one, "I'm in."

---

When Kakashi comes home that night with purple hair, Iruka does his best to smother his laughter and fails spectacularly. "Natsu is up and about I see. What did you do to piss her off?"

"Nothing," he pouts, and Iruka tugs him forward so he can pull down his mask and kiss him properly. "She got together with my brats and decided it would be an appropriate team building exercise."

"Was it?" Iruka smooths his thumb over the tan line on Kakashi's face, and he never used to be so touchy, not until Kakashi. It's not like the older man is known for being affectionate either, so he's not sure where they picked it up. Natsu, probably.

Kakashi leans his cheek into Iruka's hand, "Yes."

---

Sasuke is exhausted and sore after a day of being beaten up by his teammates. Usually he likes being this tired because it means he'll be able to fall asleep without nightmares. But he's tired, not sleepy, and there's something thrumming under his skin that he wants to claw out.

"Sasuke!" Soft hands land on his shoulders, and she has to be using chakra to cushion her impact because it doesn't hurt at all, "I've been looking for you!"

"Oh?" His heart is beating too loud in his ears, and he swallows. He hasn't seen her in over a week, and he's always afraid it's going to be the last time. Natsu flips and lands in front of him standing. She's wearing that same lavender silk tunic he'd seen her in before, and it clings to her in a way makes him blush even more.

She reaches forward and rubs a smudge of dirt off his face, "You have a fire affinity, right?"

He nods. He doesn't like people touching him normally, because when they do it – they always seem to be touching him to have touched him, the Last Uchiha, not because there's a real reason or want. Natsu doesn't do that. Her physical affection is constant and casual; it reminds him of back when he had his clan.

"Great! Do you want to help me with some experiments? I did this thing on a recent mission, and it was kind of accident, but I think it could be a cool jutsu, maybe."

Creating new jutsus is incredibly dangerous. Additionally, an application must be submitted and approved by the hokage. Such approval is rarely given to those below jounin rank, so he doubts Natsu has received it.

"Okay," he says, and her whole face lights up. Sasuke doesn't know how to go about apologizing for getting her in trouble five years ago, but she's back in his life again and he wants her to stay.

He doesn't know how to go about asking for that either.

---

"You're late," Hana says pointedly when Natsu finally collapses next to her at the bar. She's wearing her least favorite tunic; it's got burn holes and scorch marks around it, and paradoxically is also a bit damn.

The younger girl rolls her eyes, "I still beat Kabuto. I can't be that late."

"I'm right here," an amused says from right behind her, and Natsu does her best not to twitch. He slides into the seat next to her, "I was also here first, I just went to the bathroom. Why are you smoking?"

"I did this thing with an explosion seal on the Kirigakure mission, and it was really cool, but it was also a total accident. I'm trying to recreate it bigger and more controlled," she doesn't protest when Hana grabs her hands and heals her burned finger tips. "Sasuke is helping, mostly because if I asked Kakashi he would yell at me."

"He should yell at you," Hana says, but they've had this same argument so many times that it almost seems routine. "Messing about with fire and explosion seals seems like a terrible combination."

Natsu opens her mouth to argue that it's an awesome combination when Inoichi slams his palm on the counter next to Kabuto. All three of them turn to face their irate sensei, "What are you doing here? This is my spot. Is nothing sacred to you brats? Are you determined to invade every facet of my life?"

Kabuto raises an eyebrow and kicks the stool out. Inoichi, after another minute of glaring, sits. "You got your first progress report about your daughter, didn't you?" Hana asks sympathetically. It'd be more convincing if she wasn't grinning.

Inoichi leans his head down on the bar. The bartender slides his usual down to the clan head without pause. "We basically raised them together for a reason! Ino is – high maintenance, but she doesn't lack focus! And she's certainly stronger than Asuma's report would indicate. I trained her myself – I just don't," Inoichi makes a sound of inarticulate rage.

Kabuto pats the older man on the shoulder. Shikaku sits down next to him and says, "Hmm. Asuma beat my kid at Go."

"And apparently my kid is terrible at taijutsu," Chouza takes the seat next to the Jounin Commander.

Ino slowly turns his heads to face his former teammates, then shifts it to glare at his former genin. "It is a conspiracy."

Natsu leans over the bar to smile brightly at him, "I wouldn't worry about Ino. She's really strong and smart, and so are Shikamaru and Chouji. I'm sure they have a reason for misleading their sensei."

"Granted, that reason is probably because they think it's funny, but," Chouza shrugs.

The blond man lifts his head off of the bar only enough to thunk it back down again. Shikaku rolls his eyes. Hana giggles and calls out, "Another round! Put it on the Yamanaka tab!"

Inoichi whimpers.

---

She hasn't left the library in something like three days, trying to figure out why the fire explosion jutsu just won't work, damnit, when Kakashi falls into the seat beside her. "Niichan," she blinks, because for a genius with near encyclopedic knowledge he really, really hates research.

"I need a favor," he begins.

Natsu slams her book shut, "Anything."

"Don't be so quick to promise, that can get you into trouble," he scolds.

"Niichan," she says, "Anything."

Kakashi smiles, "I have to leave the village for a mission, I should be back in two days. Train my brats?"

"You're not supposed to be given solo missions!" She glares, "You're a jounin sensei, they can't do that!"

"As they've clearly established, the Council can do whatever they want," he says dryly.

She taps her fingers quickly against the table top, "Rank?"

"Just a B-rank," he flicks her forehead, "They're not pushing it that far, yet. So will you watch my brats or not?"

"Of course," she says, "When are you leaving?"

"Right now," he looks at the clock, "They've probably been waiting about an hour or so at this point."

"Niichan!" she groans, jumping to her feet. She stacks the books for someone else to put away, and smacks a kiss on his forehead before she runs out the door. "Stay strong, and stay safe!"

She body flickers into training ground nine. "Morning!"

All three members of Team Seven twitch.

"Good morning, Natsu," Sakura greets, slipping her hastily grabbed kunai back in its sheath, "What are you doing here?"

Natsu grabs Kiba and gives him a noogie, "Kakashi-niichan has to leave the village for a couple days, so he asked me to train you instead."

"Are you qualified to do that? You're only a chunin," Kiba asks, half-heartedly struggling from Natsu's hold.

She lets him go and taps a finger against her chin, "Probably not, but realistically it was either me or Gai, so."

Kiba shivers. Sasuke raises an eyebrow, "Gai?"

"He's great!" she says enthusiastically.

"He's insane," Kiba corrects, "but he's also a really strong jounin. He trains Team Nine."

Natsu pouts, but concedes, "He might be a little insane. What do you guys want to do for training?"

Sasuke says nothing, and he's not quite looking at her. It makes her chest ache, because things have been getting better between them, they have, he trains with her and smiles at her sometimes, but he still doesn't seem to trust her. Which is fair, because she betrayed him and abandoned him once already (she didn't, not really, she could never leave her Senpai's brother alone completely, but watching from the shadows and always taking the patrols around the Uchiha compound isn't the same, and she knows that) and he has no proof that she won't do it again.

"Target practice?" Kiba asks. He jerks his thumb at Sasuke and Sakura, "Those two are already pretty perfect at it, but I'm not. Sakura's endurance still sucks too, if you want to work on that."

"Hey!" Sakura glares, but he's right, so that's all the protest she can muster.

Natsu grins. Kiba takes a step back. "I know just the thing! We'll go ask Anko for help!"

"No," the Inuzuka says flatly, "Why, just – I meant normal target practice and training, not – whatever the hell you two will cook up."

Natsu pouts, "It'll be fun!"

It is, in fact, pretty fun, Sakura thinks, even though her legs and lungs are burning and she feels like she's about to die. In the span of fifteen minutes Natsu and the purple haired jounin had rigged an entire training ground with booby traps containing mostly projectile weapons, forbidden the use of jutsu, and had them go at it.

It's been almost five hours of this, and they have to be setting up more traps whenever she or someone else triggers another one, because this is insane. She's peripherally aware of Sasuke and Kiba somewhere to her back. Sometimes they'll come together for a bit, but for the most part they've been circling the training ground in a basic patrol pattern and setting off traps as they go.

Each trap, once it's set, launches a couple dozen projectiles (they seem to have limited themselves to kunai and shuriken) and then it explodes glitter. The only way to stop if from exploding is to grab one of the projectiles and toss it back at the trap at this tiny red pressure seal within fifteen seconds, which deactivates it. The kunai and shuriken are blunted, because despite appearances Natsu isn't actually trying to kill them, but the edges are still sharp. Sakura is covered in thin, deep cuts, but almost no glitter. Kiba's strength is taijutsu, so he's basically unharmed, but looks like he rolled around in sparkles because he's still only able to hit the seal about half the time, usually on the sixth or seventh try. Sakura can usually hit the seal by her third attempt.

Sasuke is fairing the best of all of them, because he's got stamina, reflexes, and aim. Sakura is less in awe of him than she is violently jealous. He's still not completely unscathed though, a light dusting of glitter over his hair and an oozing cut across his cheek and upper arm.

Sakura trips over yet another genjutsu concealed nin-wire. "No," she moans, and spins, ready to once more try to grab a kunai midair without slicing her hand off. But instead she sees roughly three dozen senbon flying at her, and those tips are not blunted. She screams, high and harsh in her throat, and throws her arms up to cover her face, because she's not willing to end her career as a ninja just because she took a senbon to the head while training.

There's a shift in the air, and she waits for the needles to sink into her flesh, but the pain never comes. She cautiously lowers her arms and opens her eyes. Sasuke and Kiba are standing in front of her, shoulder to shoulder so as to be solid barrier between her in the senbon. There's a grimace on both their faces, and Sakura feels something go cold in her stomach. "No, you idiots!" A senbon to the spine is almost always either fatal or debilitating, and they're standing facing her with their backs full of needles. Her eyes fill with tears even as she says, "Don't move! Don't – oh my god, what were you thinking, you're both so stupid-"

"I'm okay," Sasuke says, sounding surprised. He cautiously turns his head to face Kiba, and Sakura can see a thin senbon sticking out from his neck. With that jammed into his vertebrae he shouldn't even be able to stand. "Are you okay?"

Kiba frowns, "Yeah – I uh," he shakes like a dog, and most of the needles fall harmlessly out, "They're not in deep."

"Of course they're not in deep," Anko says, suddenly right next to them with Natsu sitting on her shoulders, "If you accidentally kill genin that don't belong to you there's a ton of paperwork involved." Kiba twists and jumps around, and the last of the senbon fall out.

"Not that we'd want to kill any genin ever," Natsu says. She reaches out and plucks the senbon out from the back of Sasuke's neck. A speck of red appears, but that it. The last Uchiha can't bring himself to shake like Kiba had, especially with Natsu's eyes on him, but it's not like this is exactly comfortable.

Kiba rolls his eyes, but leans over and pulls the needles from his teammate's back, "How did you stop them from going in all the way?"

Natsu runs her fingers down the needle, and about a quarter an inch from the tip her hand stops, "Chakra barrier."

"That," Sasuke blinks, "is a giant waste of chakra."

"No," Natsu denies before glaring down at it, "Really? I never noticed."

"You wouldn't," Anko flicks the bottom of Natsu's foot, "Your chakra stores make the Sandaime weep in envy."

Sakura lets out a single loud sob before she claps her hand over her mouth. Everyone goes silent and looks to her. "Sakura?" Natsu shifts herself up and leaps down from Anko's shoulders. "Are you all right?"

"Are you hurt?" Kiba pushes in close and looks her over, "None of them got you, right?" Even Sasuke's eyes are on her, dark and concerned.

She shakes her head, but she doesn't remove her hand because if she does she'll start crying again. Natsu's hands fall lightly on her shoulders, and her eyes look just like Sasuke's right now, "Hey, whatever it is, it's okay. I promise. Just tell us what's wrong."

Sakura lowers her hands and blurts, "I'm sorry!" She crying, and she knows she's not a pretty crier, her face gets swollen and splotchy and red and it clashes with her hair. "I'm so sorry, both of you!"

Sasuke is starting to look faintly panicked, but Kiba doesn't hesitate to throw his arms around her. Sakura buries her face in his shoulder, and under that faint scent of dog he smells like woodsmoke and sweat. He's solid and strong and hugging him is like hugging a mountain, which is good because she feels like she's going to shatter apart. "Don't be sorry, you're our teammate, it's our job to protect you," he says, and Kiba can be dumb about a lot of things, but he's annoyingly perceptive about feelings.

"You could have died!" she insists, and as soon as she pulls herself together she's going to beat them both up for being so stupid.

There's a hesitant hand on her shoulder, and she shifts enough to see Sasuke beside them. "He's right. It, uh, don't – you're our teammate. And you were scared, so we – I, it was just instinct, or whatever. Just. Please stop crying."

He's definitely looking panicked now, and Sakura chokes out a laugh and wiggles so she can throw an arm around Sasuke and pull him forward. Kiba shifts to include him in the group hug, and he doesn't resist them. Stuck in between them, it's easy to hear that Sasuke's a hair's breadth from hyperventilating. Sakura and Kiba's eyes meet over his shoulder, and then they're both laughing so hard they're clinging to Sasuke to stay upright, who looks both longsuffering and confused.

They eventually all calm down, and Natsu and Anko makes them help her disassemble and clean up the rest of the traps (all ninety three of them, literally how) and once they agree to meet at the bridge at nine tomorrow the boys disperse with a cheerful wave and solemn nod respectively.

Sakura doesn't though, she keeps standing in front of Natsu with her hands clasped in front of her. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Natsu looks to the jounin, "I'll meet you at the dango place in a bit, okay? My treat for all your help."

Anko grins, "You're going to regret that." She shunshins away without further comment, however, and Sakura is left alone with the chunin.

She swallows and steels herself, "I – I know that you're busy, and all. But. Can you help train me? I can't – my teammates should protect me, but they shouldn't need to carry me! I'm more of a danger to them than I am an asset right now, and that's – that's unacceptable."

Natsu sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, and nods. "Yeah, I'll – yeah. I am really busy though, so it won't be consistent. But yes. Don't sell yourself short, Sakura. You're really smart, and yeah, your weak areas are really weak – but your strengths are really strong too."

Sakura beams and bows deeply, "Thank you so much! I'll work hard, and I won't disappoint you!"

"Eh, don't worry about it," Natsu scratches her nose to hide her blush, "I had a tutor when I was first starting out too. I wouldn't be nearly as strong as I am today without him."

There's a sadness in the older girl's voice, but she's still smiling, so Sakura smiles back.

---

When the kids show up for training the next day Natsu is sitting on the ground and twisted up like pretzel. "Hey," she calls out, unwinding herself. She winces when it pulls on her back muscles, and says, "Man, I'm getting old. I should start doing old people stuff, like - bingo! Or yoga."

"You hate bingo. And yoga," Kiba points out.

"True," she sighs, "I should at least do more pole dancing. If I lose my flexibility, I'm screwed. Half my fighting style is just bending out of the way."

Sasuke chokes. Sakura's mouth falls open. Kiba, who's both an Inuzuka and grew up with Hana, rolls his eyes. "Why would you pole dance?" Sakura asks, "That's what strippers do!"

Natsu pauses. Kiba knows where this is going and buries his face in his hands. "Are you telling me Suzume didn't teach you pole dancing at the Academy?"

"Of course not!" Sakura flushes, "Why would she?"

"Okay," Natsu stands and claps her hands, "New plan for today. You three go to my apartment, Kiba knows where it is. The standard traps are in place, do your best to dismantle them without dying. There are two poles in the closet, attach them to the ports in the living room. I'll be there soon."

"Where are you going?" Kiba asks, resigned.

"To go invite the other teams. The girls need a practical demonstration, and you all need a history lesson. Now go," she says mock sternly before winking and body flickering away.

Team Ten is easy to find, a clump of three chakra signatures that she knows almost as well as her own. They're in the middle of training ground twelve, and she snorts loudly when she sees them. Asuma is attempting to guide Chouji through katas that Natsu knows for a fact he mastered when he was eight while Ino reads a magazine and Shikamaru cloud watches.

She body flickers to right behind Ino and whispers a soft, "Kai." The genjutsu shatters, and Ino's fashion magazine reveals itself to be a book on advanced interrogation tactics. "Nice."

"Natsu!" Ino casually recasts the genjutsu, "What's up?"

"Remedial kunoichi training and history at my place," she says, "You already know it, but you'll get to put on a show. The boys are welcome too, of course," she looks down at Shikamaru and winks. The boy winks back.

"Awesome," Chouji says, abandoning a furious Asuma to walk over to them. "Will you make curry after?"

"Sure," she says, thinking about what's actually in her kitchen right now. "Can you stop by the market and grab chicken? And saffron, I'm pretty sure I'm out of saffron."

"Of course!" Ino hauls Shikamaru up to his feet.

Asuma growls, "Now hold on, none of you-"

His three genin body flicker away before he can finish, silent and smooth, and his face blanks out in shock because the only shunshin they'd shown him before had been slow and clumsy.

Natsu laughs and leaves before the jounin can direct his anger at her.

The last team is harder to find because she doesn't really know them, but she knows Hinata passed, and her chakra signature is enough like Hiashi's that she only spends about ten minutes searching her out before she finds them.

"Hi!" she waves, and Kurenai turns a blank stare in her direction. The jounin used to be friendly enough when she was a kid, but that changed at some point in the past five years. She's not rude or anything so obvious, but it's clear the woman doesn't like her. "Remedial kunoichi lessons at my place, if you want."

She's looking at Hinata, but speaking to all of them. The Aburame boy is cold and blank, but Hinata says, "H-hello, Nami-san."

"Your orders are late. Father is displeased."

Natsu blinks and looks down. "Hey Hanabi! What are you doing here, shouldn't you be in class?" She looks to Hinata, then back down, "Are you visiting your sister? That's so cute!"

"Ah," Hinata pushes her fingers together, "Hanabi and I are on the s-same team, Nami-san. She g-graduated early."

"Cool!" Natsu says, and at the earliest opportunity she's going to track down the hokage and ask if he's an idiot. Or maybe he's just solving that little succession problem by letting Hanabi get into a situation where she can kill her sister and claim it was an accident. "Are you guys coming, or not?"

Hanabi takes a step closer, "You were supposed to deliver the custom explosion tags a week ago. You should be working on that now."

She's had them done for about two weeks, but making Hiashi wait exorbitant amounts of time for something that only takes her a couple hours to do is one of her greatest pleasures. "Eh, the old man can wait, he's too stuffy anyway. It's good for him."

Hanabi's face contorts with rage. Natsu only has a second's notice before the little girl is darting forward. "How dare you speak of my father with such disrespect!"

"Temper, little girl," Natsu chastises, flipping out of the way. Hanabi's face twists. "You don't want to do this." Hanabi snarls and strikes, and Natsu frowns. She's not a good match against a Hyuuga, but genius or not Hanabi's a brat. "Fine, but I wouldn't recommend activating your Byakagan." Hiashi had learned that one the hard way – looking at her was apparently the equivalent to staring into the sun, and not only was he unable to read her chakra system but he'd had a headache for the rest of the day. It was awesome.

Kurenai doesn't interfere, and Natsu doesn't know what the older woman is trying to achieve here. A hit from a Hyuuga won't put down, her chakra system is too immense for that, but it's still far from pleasant. However, it takes Natsu all of ten seconds to realize that while her Byakagan and taijutsu may be genius level, her speed isn't.

Natsu is, occasionally, an asshole. So she grins and twist and turns, and doesn't allow Hanabi to land a single hit. Without her Byakagan to help her, Natsu has no problem landing on the little girl's head or shoulder before jumping off. She could end this fight with a couple well placed strikes, but just beating the girl isn't good enough. So even though she really doesn't want to deal with a chakra strike to any of her pressure points, she keeps dancing just out of Hanabi's reach until the girl outright howls with frustration, and at this point she's just getting sloppy.

"You're never going to win like that," Natsu chastises, "Being able to see everything is pointless if you can't hit anything. You need to focus more on your basics."

"Fuck you," the girl snarls.

Hinata gasps, Kurenai's eyes widen, and Natsu instantly cracks up laughing. She coats her hands in chakra and grabs Hanabi's arms. The girl tries to kick her, but her limbs are too short to reach. "You," Natsu says, and she probably shouldn't sound so fond, "are such a brat. I love it."

Hanabi pauses, "What?"

"Clearly Hiashi hasn't managed to beat your temper out of you yet," Natsu continues cheerfully, "Good. Don't let him. The Hyuuga could use more of," she nods to encompass the entirety of Hanabi's pint sized fury.

Her face scrunches up again, "Don't talk about my father that way!"

"Whatever," she grins, "Kunoichi lessons. Are you in? You're probably a little young, but if you're old enough to kill you're old enough to," she shimmies her upper body in a way that's just this side of obscene. The Aburame turns bright red.

"I'm not a kid!" Hanabi glares, "I'm coming!"

"Cool," she drops the Hyuuga's arms, and when she crosses them instead of trying to attack Natsu counts it a win. "Try to follow my chakra, no Byakagan. You need the practice."

"Wait," Kurenai says, "I'm not sure that this is approp-" Natsu body flickers away, because the woman's not her instructor, she doesn't have to listen to her lecture. She only goes about twenty feet away, and waits until she can sense Team Eight's chakra heading in her direction. She then shunshins another twenty feet closer to her apartment, making sure to leave a clear chakra trail for Hanabi to follow.

When she peeks into her apartment (all the traps successfully dismantled; Kiba's more familiar with them but she still bets that it's mostly Sakura's doing) Chouji, Shikamaru, and Kiba are sacked out chatting on her living room floor while Ino and Sakura armwrestle on her coffee table. Sasuke is sitting alone on her couch pretending to look bored, so she body flickers next to him. He twitches, but doesn't show his surprise besides that.

"Miss me?" she grins and pokes his forehead.

His face scrunches up, and for a second Natsu is terrified she's made him cry, but it smooths out again and he asks, "What took you so long?"

Team Eight chooses that moment to body flicker in. The Aburame looks like he's not certain he actually wants to be here, Hinata is, of course, the usual bundle of blushing nerves, but Natsu's eyes are on Hanabi. The girl is upset, but seemingly not at anyone but herself. "That's really hard without the Byakagan," she admits.

Natsu smirks, "You'll get better with a little practice. You are a genius after all." The girl appears mollified with this reminder, but Ino shoots her a contemplative look. "All right, history lesson and then practical lesson. Gather round, gather round."

The genin sit down over her living room and turn to face her.

"So I kind of get why this wasn't taught at the Academy," she begins, "since about half the students wash out of the Academy completely, and civilians can be delicate little flowers, especially civilian parents." She shoots an apologetic grin at Sakura's direction. She's not only the only graduate this year who isn't from a prestigious clan, but also isn't from a shinobi family at all, "But it is a very important lesson, and one that too often gets shoved aside because some of our more cultured ninjas find it unsavory." They all seem to be paying attention, even Ino and Kiba who have heard this lecture before. "Who was the first ninja?"

"The first in the village?" The Aburame boy asks.

She shakes her head, "No, sorry. A better question is what was the first ninja? How did the profession of sneaking and lying and killing in the dead of night come about?"

Blank faces, except for Ino and Kiba who won't spoil it.

She sighs, and makes sure to meet their eyes when she says, "The first ninja was a whore."

"Nami-san!" Hinata exclaims, face red.

"That's not a metaphor," she explains, "The first ninjas were prostitutes. Our craft, when traced back a few thousand years, leads us to a brothel. Why?"

There's a long silence. Natsu crosses her arms.

"Prostitutes know everything," Shikamaru pipes up, brow furrowed. "Maybe a specific brothel caters to certain clientele, but assuming they talk to each other – and why wouldn't they – they'd have access to a lot of information. Merchants, street rats, drug addicts, lords, nobles, even samurai – they all visit whore houses."

"And men talk in in bed," Natsu nods, "Maybe to impress the girl, maybe to brag, maybe just because they want someone to listen – but they all talk. And with the right information, you can start a war, or turn the tides of one."

Sakura raises her hand, "Are brothels still used to gather information?"

"Jiraiya of the Saanin is known to frequent brothels and women's baths," she says dryly, "Some of that is likely because he's legitimately a pervert, but he's also Konoha's spymaster. That's not a coincidence." Technically that's a jounin-ranked secret, but it's also the worst kept secret ever, so.

"Men also sleep after sex," Shikamaru continues, and now that he's started thinking about it he's going to unravel the whole thing, "It'd be incredibly easy to kill someone in that situation. You wouldn't need to be a skilled assassin."

"Or even during, when they're the most distracted," Natsu adds. The genin all flush at the image, and she resists the urge to tease them. Such innocence! "A word of advice: never try to cheat a whore, anywhere, but especially not in a ninja village. Whores sell their bodies, but if their client doesn't pay up it's only fair that they take their bodies in return. Most of the dead men found in alleyways are johns who tried to get out of paying a prostitute her due."

"Poison is a woman's weapon," Sakura says suddenly, contemplative. The other eight genin give her strange looks, because poison is anyone's weapon, and a great one. She explains, "To a civilian, that's true. Because women have access to the food, and control the food, so if the food is poisoned then it's a woman who did it."

It's veering a little off topic, but still within the theme so Natsu grins. "Most assassination missions are not sneaking past guards and slitting someone's throat in the middle of the night. They're putting on an apron and slipping some belladonna into the roast. Nice thinking, Sakura." The younger girl blushes. "Whore houses don't just offer sex. They provide massages, and acupuncture-"

"Senbon," the Aburame breathes.

Natsu cheers, "That's right! Acupuncture was developed in its most basic form by prostitutes. This later led to the use of senbon as a method of disrupting both the body and chakra coils." She looks to the two Hyuuga, "The first chakra system that was mapped was done so through these means."

Hinata's blushing a red so bright Natsu's kind of impressed she hasn't passed out. Hanabi's frowning, not deeply enough to be scowl but just enough that she must be thinking serious thoughts. Natsu hopes those thoughts aren't her murder.

She claps, "So prostitutes trade in the secrets of both the upper and lower class, have an intrinsic understanding of the human body, are implicitly trusted by their targets, and work mostly at night." When she grins it's just a touch feral, "The first ninjas were whores who figured out they could make more money by killing for hire than fucking for hire."

There's a beat of silence as the new genin absorb this.

"How do you know all this? It's not in any of the Academy texts!" Sakura's eyebrows are pushed together, and she sounds frustrated. Natsu would put money on her researching this to death within the week.

"Natsu is from the Flower District," Ino says, and her glare dares anyone to make a smart comment, "She was raised in a brothel."

"And we don't forget." The genin's eyes are wide, especially the girls', and she meets each of them evenly, "Now! Practical time. Pole dancing is super useful, not just because it increases your strength and flexibility, but also because literally every kunoichi gets sent on an infiltration mission as a stripper at some point. Strip clubs are the exact type of places people who get assassinated hang out in, and it's so much easier when your target willingly goes into a dark room alone with you."

"I'm out," Kiba says, because he's been subjected to enough pole dancing lessons to last him the rest of his life. He's crap at it, although he's surprisingly good at ballet. "We're doing curry for dinner, right? You're out of saffron, I'll just-" He body flickers out.

"We'll help!" Chouji adds. He grabs the Aburame by the collar and Shikamaru tugs at Sasuke as they all vanish in a swirl of leaves. Natsu coughs to hide a laugh, because there was some definite 'no man left behind' mentality to that.

"Cowards," she says. She grabs onto one of the poles Team Seven had set up, and it seems sturdy enough. She pulls herself up and swings around, coming to a stop midway up the pole, holding her place by her thighs. "Now, most kunoichi are crap at pole dancing. They get the physical motions down, but not the sensuality of it. The really bad ones use chakra, which is a huge no-no. The point is to get in and out without being caught, after all." She nods at Ino, and the younger girl stands. "I've been teaching Ino how to do this for years, so she's going to help teach you now."

Ino clambers up the pole the same way Natsu had, and they grin at each other. "The first thing you have to remember," the younger girl says, "is not to go fast. Slow and sensual don't mean the same thing, but it's hard to be fast and sensual. Always keep moving, but make sure you're going slow enough that people can get a good look at you."

Ino's twisting through a basic routine as she speaks, and Natsu copies her. Sakura and the Hyuuga sisters are looking at them in fierce concentration, and Natsu flips around the pole to hide a smile.

---

Sarutobi looks from an irate Kurenai to his even more irate son. "I really don't see how your inability to control your genin teams is my concern, unless you're here to admit you're not qualified."

Kurenai pales, but Asuma snaps, "Dad! She can't just waltz in and snatch our genin away whenever she feels like it."

"By your report, it's less that she snatched them away and more that they ran away," he says mildly, "Now if you're quite done wasting my time-"

Asuma takes a step forward, but Kurenai puts a hand on his shoulder. "Come on," she pulls him towards the door, "Let's go. Have a good day, Hokage-sama."

He waits until the door has closed behind them before slumping in his seat and holding his head in his hands. No wonder Inoichi drinks so much.

---

Hanabi glances at her sister out of the corner of her eye as they're walking home. She doesn't want to do this, but her father is depending on her - her clan is depending on her, whether they know it or not. "You could follow Natsu's chakra without the Byakagan."

"Ah," Hinata looks down, "Y-yes."

She frowns, "Your general shinobi skills are fairly strong. Why?"

"I, uh," she glances up, but almost immediately looks away again.

"Hinata!" she snaps, exasperated, "You are the daughter of Hiashi, a kunoichi of Konoha, and the heir to the great Hyuuga clan! Look at people when you speak to them!"

The older girl's eyes dart up to meet her sister's. "S-sorry," she swallows, "I am, uh, n-not very good at the Gentle Fist s-style. So I became good at oth-other things."

"Hmm," Hanabi frowns, "All right. I'll make a deal with you."

"H-Hanabi?" Hinata blinks.

"I will train you in Gentle Fist," she declares, "and you will improve. You're a disgrace as is. In return, you must train me in the basics. Nami's a flighty idiot, but she's also right. I'm not nearly as good as I should be."

"I'm h-happy to t-teach you," Hinata smiles.

Hanabi snorts and looks away, but she walks a half step closer to her sister the rest of the way home.

The next morning she slips out of the Hyuuga compound barely after dawn even though her team won't be meeting for hours yet. This is going to be a much harder conversation, but it is necessary, so when she interrupts Team Nine's training she meets her cousin's angry gaze and doesn't flinch.

"Hanabi-san!" Gai greets, "To what do we owe the pleasure of your youthful fire?"

"I need to speak to my cousin," she says flatly, "Alone."

"Ah," Gai says. Underneath his idiocy there are quicksilver flashes of intelligence, and Hanabi just doesn't understand this man. "Of course! Come my cute students, we shall run around the perimeter of Konoha ten times to fan the flames of youthfulness!"

"Sensei, maybe we – I don't think," Lee says, conflicted, and when the older boy looks at her there's not so much anger as there is a deep mistrust.

Gai grabs Lee and Tenten by the back of their shirts and drags them behind him at a sprint. "QUITE RIGHT! THIS IS NOT A TIME FOR THINKING, IT IS A TIME FOR RUNNING!"

Once they're alone Neji bends neatly at the waist, just as low as their stations require and not an inch more, "Hanabi-hime." It's technically the correct title, but it's always sounded sour in his mouth.

"Neji," she says in return, and if her father knew what she was about to do he would smack her. "You are the best Gentle Fist fighter the Hyuuga has seen in generations. In a few years you will be able to defeat even my father."

The older boy jerks in surprise, and he half slides into a defensive stance, "Excuse me?"

"They call me the genius of our generation," she continues, and she knew this would be hard but she did not expect it to hurt. "That is a lie. You're better than I am. You are the genius of the Hyuuga."

Neji's eyes are wide even as he snaps, "Hanabi-hime, I do not appreciate being mocked."

"I'm not mocking you," she says, "I am being honest with you. You know the truth, and it has simmered and bubbled inside of you for years, because I occupy a place that is yours by right of your talent and your strength." She has to swallow to continue, "I understand, because I feel the same way about my sister. But I stand before you, fully acknowledging this truth. I also stand before you asking for your help. Train me in the Gentle Fist style, so that I may one day match you."

Neji snarls, "Why should I?" There's an uncertainty about him though, because many of their clan have attempted to show him kindness, but none have dared offer honesty.

"Because if you do, I will teach you the Main Branch styles," if her father ever finds out about this he will kill her for treason and he will be justified. Neji's mouth drops open, but she knows that his greed is not enough for him to betray his honor, so she continues, "And when you have children of your own, no Curse Mark will be placed upon them."

"You can't promise that," he says immediately, hands clenched.

"I can, and I am," she says, "I swear by my blood, my name, and my village that if you teach me, no children you sire will ever bear the Curse Mark. Nor shall their children, or their children's children. Your line will continue unburdened."

He stares at her, desperate and searching, and she lets him. If he does not agree, if he tells her father that she even offered, her punishment will be severe. But he bows lower than she's ever seen him bow before and says, "My strength and my knowledge are yours, Hanabi-hime," and for the first time her honorific doesn't sound like its cuts him. "I will train you to the best of my abilities."

He doesn't offer her his loyalty yet, but Hanabi is satisfied. If she is to truly make a bid for clan head, it is not enough for her to be just a good Hyuuga or even just a better fighter than her sister. She must be an excellent shinobi and a near perfect Gentle Fist master. She doubts she will ever be more skilled than Neji, but she might be able to become stronger than him.

That will have to be enough.

---

Natsu would love to do nothing more than hang out with Team Seven and Team Ten (she especially loves hanging out with Team Ten, because those three have grown up working and training together, of course they know what they're doing, and she isn't sure why they're trying to convince Asuma they're incompetent, whiny children, but it's hilarious). But she has missions and sealing progress reports to make, because if the hokage is going to give her A-rank pay to study sealing until her eyes bleed, then she better produce A-rank results.

Even through that, she still finds time to hang around them all, and she helps Sakura with her taijutsu because she remembers being a little girl who could twist herself into a pretzel but wouldn't know a proper kata if it smacked her in the face, and Kiba is a sarcastic little ball of sunshine, and Sasuke.

She tries hardest with him most of all, desperate to make up for all their lost time. She trains with him after everyone goes their separate ways for the day (they still can't get the fire seal to work righ), bullies him into cooking dinner with her a few times, and neither of them have brought up Itachi. Maybe that's for the best.

That stalemate passes when they're in Natsu's apartment and they're doing their best to bake cookies that will actually be edible. Natsu's a fairly good cook, but she's a horrible baker. Baking is all precise measurements, and she can't really substitute ingredients without something going horrible wrong, and the entirety of her cooking style is throwing a bunch of different foods together in some concoction with butter and spice to taste.

"No, don't!" Sasuke grabs her wrist.

She glares, "It says to add a cup of sugar!"

"Yes," he says patiently, "but that's salt."

Natsu blinks, then looks down at the measuring cup in her hand, "Really?"

He sighs, "Really."

She licks her finger, dips it in the crystals, then licks it again. Her nose scrunches up, "Ah."

He shakes his head and gently takes the cup from her hands, "You act all cool, and then you mess up something as simple baking. I don't get it."

"Baking is hard!" she protests, before saying, "Wait, you think I'm cool?"

He flushes, and turns away from her to measure out the correct amount of sugar, "A little bit, sometimes."

"Aw, thanks Sasuke!" She pokes his forehead before taking the sugar from him and dumping it into the bowl, "You're pretty cool too." When she looks back up his face is scarily blank, and her own smile falters. "Sasuke?"

"Itachi used to do that," he says, and Natsu breathes in sharply.

"Do you want me to stop?" she asks softly.

Sasuke swallows, but meets her eyes. "Natsu, you – I, uh." Natsu steels herself, because this is the anger she's been expecting since day one, the accusations of abandonment and lies that she fully deserves. "I'm sorry."

Natsu blinks, "What?"

"I'm sorry," Sasuke repeats, "I am. About, about getting you in trouble after – after the Massacre. I understand why you didn't want to see me afterwards, and I don't know why you changed your mind, but – I'm grateful. I – you," he growls, because he barely understands his conflicting feelings about his brother, and certainly not enough to articulate them. But having Natsu back is like regaining a small piece of Itachi, one of his best pieces, and it's not enough but it's more than he's had, and he won't lose it again. He won't lose her again.

"Sasuke, no," she breathes, and grabs his hands, "I never – you didn't get me in trouble!"

"I did," he says firmly, "I know what people said about you afterwards, that they thought you had something to do with it. I don't know what they did to you in Interrogation, but it's my fault. If I had been thinking more clearly, I could have made them understand."

"My sensei is the head of Torture and Interrogation," Natsu says urgently, "They didn't do anything besides ask some questions, Inoichi wouldn't let them hurt me. The hokage ordered me to stay away from you until you were a genin so that the villager's wouldn't be suspicious of you, that's why I wasn't there after. I tried Sasuke, I promise I did. For days I was in the hokage's office, begging him to let me see you. I'm sorry I left you alone, I swear I didn't want to."

She thinks she's going to start crying if Sasuke doesn't move or say something soon. He's just staring at her with wide dark eyes, but he hasn't pushed her away yet, so that's something. He finally clears his throat, "So you don't hate me?"

"No!" She lets go of his hands only so she can clutch his shoulders, "Never, not for a single second! How could I? You're my Senpai's outoto, and you're my friend!" She falters, "I mean, you are, aren't you? We didn't really know each other back then, but now – I mean, I understand if you don't want that. That's okay." It's so far from okay, and if he doesn't want anything to do with her after this then that's his right, but she will grab Kabuto and Hana and drink until she can't walk.

He smiles, soft and sweet and like she hasn't seen him smile since he was six years old, "I never hated you either. We are friends."

Natsu pulls him into her arms and squeezes. He returns her hug with only a second's hesitation. "Natsu," he mumbles into her shoulder, "That night, you – you said that you didn't believe Itachi had killed everyone. Do you still believe that?"

She sighs and admits, "Itachi without a doubt killed the Uchihas," Sasuke tenses, and she continues, "But I call bullshit on everything else. Itachi was a loyal shinobi and a good person, and I'm pretty sure there's something about that night that someone is trying to hide." She pulls back and runs her hand through Sasuke's hair, "Talk to Kakashi-niichan, okay? He and Senpai were in Anbu together. I'm just a crazy conspiracy theorist."

"I still love him," Sasuke blurts out, because he could never admit this to anyone else, not about the traitorous missing-nin who killed a couple hundred people in a single night. "He's my brother, and I love him, even though he did – what he did." This part of his feelings he does understand, even if sometimes he wishes he didn't

Natsu doesn't recoil, doesn't scream or rage. She just smiles and says, "Yeah. Me too."

---

Kabuto looks from Hana to Natsu, "I don't want to."

"That's cute that you think we care," Hana says from where she's going through his closet.

"Get out of my house," he tries.

Natsu snorts, then throws her hands up in despair, "Do you own anything but uniforms and scrubs?"

"No," he says honestly, "Why would I?"

Hana bangs her head against the wall, "You make going out very difficult."

"I don't want to go out," he protests. "I'm twenty one, I can't go out partying with two teenagers, that's just sad."

"Your wardrobe is sad," Natsu says, "Your fridge is very sad. Your life in general can even be categorized as sad. Hanging out with us is awesome."

"Hanging out with you two dressed like that," he gestures to their clothes, which a generous person might call a dress, "makes people think I'm a pervert."

"Anko is going to be there," Hana tries. Because Anko is in her late twenties and hot.

Kabuto isn't convinced, "That's not a positive! She's scary! Why are all your friends scary?"

"Not all of my friends are scary," Natsu says, but she's kind of lying. Going by Kabuto's glare and Hana's smirk they can totally tell.

Kabuto opens his mouth to say so, but he's interrupted by a quick tapping at the window. A desert hawk is hovering outside, and Natsu doesn't hesitate to run over and open the window. "This isn't good," Hana mutters. He grunts. Gaara and Natsu write each other every two weeks like clockwork, and his last letter arrived a little over a week ago.

The hawk settles on Natsu's shoulder as she breaks the letter open with a burst of chakra. Her face darkens as she scans the page. "Damn," she crumples the letter in her fist and turns her head to meet the hawk's beady gaze, "You can tell her I'm coming. Stop looking at me like that." The hawk lets out a piercing cry before leaping off her shoulder and gliding out the window.

"Her?" Hana asks, not willing to address Natsu's treatment of the hawk. She's convinced they're smarter than they look. They're not like her ninken as far as Hana can tell, but any time she tries to bring it up Natsu won't hear it.

She nods, "Temari. Looks like you'll be going without me," she punches Kabuto in the shoulder as she walks by, "Have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Where are you going?" he demands, and he knows the answer, of course, but can hope he's wrong.

She flashes them a smile, "Suna," then swings out of his window and onto the roof. They track her chakra until she's about three buildings away, heading in the direction of the Hokage Tower.

"Any chance that Temari contacting her instead of Gaara is a coincidence, and we're just paranoid?" Hana asks.

"We are paranoid," Kabuto allows, "but I wouldn't bet anything on it being just a coincidence."

"Damn," she sighs. She then tosses the tank top in her hands at his face, "Here put this on, and leave your hair down. It'll have to do."

"Natsu's gone, I could take you," he challenges.

She smiles at him, and it's the scariest she's been all evening, "You can try."

Kabuto slinks into his bathroom to change.

---

On one hand, C-ranks are a pleasant change from training and D-ranks, and Gai-sensei only lets them take one every other month or so. On the other hand, Tenten is sure that getting pulled out of bed at just after three in the morning is the worst thing that's ever happened to her. Even Neji looks grumpy.

"Can we know our mission yet?" she yawns, and they've been out of the village for almost twenty minutes.

Gai hums, "Ah, yes, just one moment more, I believe."

She trades an incredulous look with Neji, and even Lee looks confused, "Uh, Sensei?"

He holds up a finger. A second later a ninja drops down from above, and they've already gotten ready to attack when they see the Konoha hitai-ate. "Hi Gai," a pretty blond in a purple tunic (not unlike her own) says from where she's doing a handstand on her sensei's head. "Hi Team Nine!"

She's seen the girl around Gai before, usually with Kakashi, but they've never been introduced. "Hello," she says.

To her surprise, Neji offers the girl a slight bow, "Hello Nami-san." He turns to her and Lee and says, "Lee, Tenten, this is Natsu Nami. She's a chunin and an accomplished seal master."

"Oh you," she flutters her eyelashes at Neji, which is the oddest thing she's seen in at least a week.

Odder yet is that Neji just looks amused, "Hanabi-hime has taken to cursing your name during her training sessions with Hinata-hime."

"That's awesome!" She bounces on the balls of her feet, "Maybe I'll even deliver their next order on time."

"Wait a minute," Tenten says, eyes wide, "You're the same Natsu Nami who makes the explosion tags and storage seals that they sell in the weapon shop?"

She nods, "Uh, yeah, sometimes. It's a good way to make some spare cash if I have the time."

Tenten leaps forward and grabs the older girl's hands, eyes sparkling. She knows that's she's probably resembling her sensei more than is healthy, but she can't help it. "That's you? You're such an amazing seal master, Nami-san! Your rapid release security scrolls are so elegant! Which base design matrix do you use? I tried to reverse design it, but I couldn't figure out it out."

"Oh," Natsu flushes and scratches the bridge of her nose to hide it, "I made it myself, lots of designs are – well, I got tired of my seals exploding when I worked off the standard ones."

Tenten's mouth drops open. Base design matrixes are simple, but precisely created down to a single angle's millimeter. There's some room for error in the rest of sealing, but the base matrixes always have to be exact. There are only twenty seven of them, and the last time a new one had been created it was by Jiraiya of the Sannin nearly thirty years ago. "Nami-san," she says seriously, "that's incredible."

"It's pretty cool," she agrees, "and you'll get to see it in action! So that's cool too."

"Ah," Gai says, "so we're heading to Sunagakure then?"

Natsu becomes serious, "Yes. I would have preferred to go alone, but the hokage insisted on back up. I requested your team to accompany me for two reasons – I trust you, and your team is one of the few who can keep up with me. We need to be there in six days."

Suna is a week and a half away by any sane shinobi's standards. Gai has never claimed to be such a thing. Somehow his sparkling teeth manage to look menacing, "Oh, my young Konoha blossom, that sounds like a most youthful endeavor."

Tenten and Neji glance at each other, unnerved. Natsu folds her arms neatly behind her and smirks, "I thought you might say that."

---

Sasuke walks a mile in the right direction, hesitates, turns around and gets halfway home before growling and turning around again. Natsu is nowhere in the village, Sakura is stuck helping her mom bake, and Kiba is training with his sister. Kakashi should still be around, however, and he does want to take Natsu's advice and talk to Kakashi, but he also would also rather set himself on fire at the same time.

He does eventually make it to Kakashi's front door, but he ends up staring at if for ten minutes. He's just about convinced himself that he really shouldn't bother Kakashi on his day off when the door opens to reveal his Academy teacher.

"Iruka-sensei?" He checks the number on the door, and he could have sworn this was Kakashi's address, "Excuse me, I was just-"

"Standing outside my door like a cute little stalker?" Kakashi's head pops up behind Iruka's shoulder. "We got tired of waiting for you to knock."

Iruka elbows Kakashi in the stomach, "What he means is that we were concerned. Would you like to come in Sasuke?"

"Yes, thank you," he says automatically, stepping inside. Natsu definitely knows about this, but he's willing to bet that Sakura and Kiba don't. He's telling them immediately. He can't believe Iruka is with their lazy pervert of a jounin sensei.

Once he's in their living room, looking at them, he doesn't know what to say. That conversation with Natsu is the first time he's spoken of his brother in years, and he doesn't know to start a second one. "Ah," Iruka says, "I'll just excuse myself for a moment. You like tea, don't you Sasuke?" He nods. "Well then, I'll go make some. Why don't you both sit down?"

He and Kakashi obey instantly, because Iruka is the master of suggestions that are most definitely orders. Sasuke doesn't fidget, he's not a fidgeter, but he almost wishes he was if only for something to do in the heavy silence.

"Did you kill someone you weren't supposed to?" Kakashi asks finally when it's clear Sasuke isn't going to say anything, "Peek in the women's bath? Blow up a training ground? If you're here to ask my permission to court Natsu, officially I'm not her actual brother and she can make her own decisions, but I applaud your self-preservation instincts."

"Sensei!" He glares, "Shut up. No – I," he coughs and glances away, "Natsu said you knew my brother, that you were in Anbu together."

"My history in Anbu is supposed to be a secret," he complains before sobering. "I did know Itachi, yes. We ran more than a few missions together."

Sasuke swallows, "You know what Natsu thinks about the Massacre, right?"

"Everyone knows what Natsu thinks about the Massacre," he says dryly. He leans his elbows on his knees and rests his chin on his clasped hands, "Why?"

He licks his lips and forces himself to look into Kakashi's eye, "What do you think?"

His sensei sighs. "Itachi claimed to kill your clan as a test of strength, to prove his skill," he says, like Sasuke doesn't have those very words said by his brother in his nightmares, "but there's just one problem with that."

Sasuke jerks, and feels something incredibly dangerous bloom in his chest. He thinks it might be hope.

"No one was surprised when Itachi was able to kill all the Uchihas in a single night," Kakashi says seriously, "Nobody expected he would, but none were surprised he could. He'd surpassed Fugaku in terms of strength and skill when he was ten. He was the strongest ninja in all of Konoha with only two possible exceptions – the Sandaime, and me." He scrubs a hand over his face, and there's a weariness about him that Sasuke's never seen before. "Itachi never once attacked me outside of training. I don't believe he ever fought against the hokage at all. If he'd truly wanted to test his strength, it wouldn't have been against his own clan, but against us. That night he didn't approach either the Sandaime or myself."

Sasuke swallows, "So – there might – I mean. Maybe –"

"I never would have thought Itachi capable of betraying Konha," Kakashi says plainly, "But Sasuke, I'm not a good judge of character. I have been wrong before, about human nature, about the terrible things people are capable of doing." There's well of agony in Kakashi's voice, and Sasuke can't imagine what it was that put it there.

"Natsu is," he says, throat dry. "She is a good judge of character. She gets people. She understands them and they trust her and, and she believes in them," the second half of his sentence is bewildered, because he doesn't get how someone can both understand people and believe in them. People are terrible.

"She is," Kakashi agrees, and that agony has softened, "and she has never believed Itachi to be a traitor."

Sasuke squeezes his hands over his knees and bites his bottom lip. He hasn't cried since he was a kid, and he's not going to do it now, not over something like this, something as stupid as a just a chance, just a little bit of hope.

"Aw, crap," Kakashi breathes. Sasuke stands, planning to run in an attempt to save what's left of his dignity. His sensei reaches out to grab his elbow and jerks Sasuke against his chest. He's stiff, clearly uncomfortable, but his arm is both gentle and firm where it's wrapped around Sasuke's shoulders.

They don't say anything, and Sasuke has had three hugs in the past five years and they've all happened in the past few weeks. He's not sure if that an improvement or not, but he thinks it is.

---

Gai has trained Natsu in taijutsu a time or two, of course, and she's not great. He's even hesitant to call her good, but that's just because he's in insane taijutsu perfectionist and she abandons anything close to an accepted style and just does back flips around her opponent, and no that's not a style, that's not even really taijutsu, stop breaking form damnit!

Hey, at least he's self-aware.

She knows the correct moves, and she can even do them when she takes a second to think. Gai has seen her training Kakashi's pink haired student, and Natsu teaches better than she learns. He despairs that he's not better versed in the Sunagakure taijutsu forms; some of their wind based martial arts seemed like they'd suit Natsu's flighty fighting style well.

That being said, her endurance is incredible. She can't quite keep up with him on speed, although in few years that probably won't be true, but the girl just keeps going, far past the point that even Gai can. She ran from Kiri to Konoha in three days.

His adorable little students aren't quite up to that level, and thankfully Natsu doesn't demand they try to be. If she was making this trip on her own, or even just with him, she would push them to be there in four days. The extra two are so they don't kill the genin. So he's not too surprised when about four hours outside of Suna she signals them to stop. They're around the cave dunes that dabble Suna's countryside, and Natsu jerks her head towards them, "Lee, go scout the caves. Find one that's not going to collapse on our heads and that isn't filled with vicious animals. Neji, survey the area for chakra traps, say a two mile radius. If there are any, do not engage, just remember their position to report. Tenten, go with Neji. If you guys do set anything off, I don't want you trying to handle it alone."

Lee immediately runs to the caves. Tenten crosses her arms, "It's barely past midday. We can keep going." She's dirty and exhausted from five days of the most running she's ever done in her life, but there's a stubborn tilt to her head that makes Gai want to ruffle her hair.

Natsu raises an eyebrow, "For the record, that was an order, not a suggestion." Tenten flinches, and the older girl's voice gentles, "I'm not babying you. Your job on this mission is to have my back in case anything goes wrong. We're stopping now so you have half a day to rest and relax, because I want you in top form tomorrow."

Tenten nods sharply before she turns on her heel and runs. Neji rolls his eyes, but follows his teammate without further comment.

He's alone with Natsu for the first time this entire mission. "If something does go wrong, there's very little my genin can do against an enraged and out of control jinchuuriki."

"I don't know what you're talking about it," Natsu says, "Officially, I'm meeting with Temari to provide a sealing consult, and you're here to make a show of strength to our ally. This is strictly a diplomatic mission."

"Natsu," Gai sighs.

She flashes him a grin, "I know. I tried to tell the hokage that, but he wasn't having it. I suppose you can always bring back the reports of my failure if you manage to run away fast enough."

"Natsu!" He folds his arms over his chest, and she giggles. She uses a boost of chakra to push herself up, and lands on Gai's head.

She pushes herself up on a single finger, "I need to work on my balance, I'm getting rusty. Want to see how long I can stay up here while you run through katas?"

He snorts at the blatant lie, but obligingly bends his body into an opening stance.

---

They arrive at the meeting place the next morning, a spot in the vast desert about ten miles from the official border of Suna. She catches Temari in a solid hug first, squeezing the girl tightly before pulling back and beaming, "Temari! You look great! This is new," she runs her hands over the fan strapped to her back, "It's nice. Must be a bitch to wait for the chakra build up, though."

"Was that you offering to ink some chakra storage and rabid release seals on? I think it was!" She beams.

Natsu groans, "Those are such a pain! They take forever, and you're going to need them customized to your chakra system if you don't want every opponent hijacking the ports. That'll take hours."

"You've got a Hyuuga," Temari waves at Neji, who inclines his head politely in response, "Have him do the mapping. We need an excuse to be meeting like this anyway."

Natsu's eyes narrow, "You planned this."

"Me?" She puts a hand to her chest, "I would never."

Kankuro snorts. Natsu tugs down his hood and puts him in a headlock so she can give him a noogie, "What was that? Did you say something?"

"Natsu!" He hits on her arms, but not hard enough to actually do anything but make her laugh, "Get off, come on! You're going to mess up my face paint!"

"Sensei," Tenten says faintly, "Aren't those the kazekage's children?"

Gai nods, "Yes, my cute student, they are."

"Oh," she breathes.

Natsu finally lets go of Kankuro and turns to face their jounin sensei, "Baki, how nice to see you."

"Nami-san," he returns evenly.

She pokes his chest, "Still don't like me I see. That's fine, as long as you keep your mouth shut. You will be keeping your mouth shut, won't you?"

Baki snarls, but a short redhead steps out from behind him, "He will. Stop threatening my sensei."

"Oh, Gaara," Natsu reaches forward to cup his face. There are deep, painful looking bruises under his eyes, so dark they're nearly black. "What happened?" She looks to Temari, "Your letter wasn't very specific."

"Dad had a 'specialist' come in and looks at the seal," she says, furious, "He messed it up. Gaara's been keeping it together, but he hasn't been able to sleep all week."

"I am tired," Gaara admits, and his head feels heavy in her hands, like he can't bear to hold it up himself, "and Shukaku is loud."

"I'll fix it," Natsu promises, running a careful thumb under his eye, "I really would have preferred to do this in Konoha. Less material for Shukaku to try to kill us with."

"You and me both," Temari admits, "But it was hard enough pulling this off. Dad's going to be furious when he figures it out."

Natsu hums, but doesn't comment further. Baki is an uneasy ally at best, and while he cares for the sand siblings, he is not loyal to them. She tugs at Gaara's robe, and he pulls it off with a sigh. She reaches into her pack, unseals a storage scroll, and takes out her darkest ink and thinnest brush, because this is going to be delicate work at best and a horrendous patch job at worst. "Defensive positions," Natsu commands, "Fifty feet, at minimum. Keep your eyes on us," she clarifies when Team Nine faces the other way, like the biggest threat isn't currently standing in front of her. Gai and Baki are standing opposite to each other, and Team Nine and the sand siblings fill in the spaces in a circle between them. She wants them to leave, because she's not in any real danger, they are. She's got the Nine Tails inside of her, and Shukaku may be blood thirsty but he's not stupid.

"Ready?" she asks Gaara.

"No," he answers, but doesn't resist when she twists him around to inspect the seal inked on his back.

She traces it carefully, "This is some shitty work. Your dad must be getting desperate."

"What good is a sword that doesn't cut?" Gaara asks rhetorically. He hasn't killed a single person since he was seven.

"Hm," she looks at the rest, "I can't add a quick fix, whoever did this really messed up the five point seal. Do you know who it was?"

"He can't live like this!" Temari glares.

"Of course not! But this just got a lot less fun. Do you know who messed with the seal? People have styles, if I know who it is I might be able to reverse it that way."

"He had white skin, and yellow eyes," Kankuro offers when his sister shakes her head. "He was really strong too – his chakra reserves were bigger than our dad's."

"Doesn't ring a bell," she murmurs, and if she hadn't been so intent on the seal she might have noticed how pale Gai had become at the description, "I guess we're doing this the hard way. Damn."

"The hard way?" Baki repeats cautiously.

"Yeah," Natsu shoves her brush between her teeth so her next words come out muffled, "I'm going to have to remove the seal entirely, then rebuild it."

Someone probably would have protested that if they hadn't been shocked into silence.

"Ah," Gaara shifts, craning his head to look behind him at his friend, "Not that I don't trust you implicitly, Natsu, but maybe that's not the best idea."

She shrugs, because it's a pretty fucking terrible idea, but it's the only one she has. Once she read Temari's letter she figured that this was how it was going to end up, because she can only do so many alterations and patchwork fixes on the thing before it starts degrading in on itself, and that's literally the last thing she wants.

Her hands coat with chakra, and she slams her palms against Gaara's back. When she pulls them away, the chakra seal – the real seal – swirls into existence. There's the dull blue of the original seal, and then interlocking layers of her sapphire chakra with every seal practitioner that the kazekage has had trying to undue her work. She takes a deep breath, because she can't do this on her own, not this part, and doing this without outing herself is actually going to be the hardest thing. Natsu reaches for Kurama's chakra, just a thread, just enough to burn. The fox gives it up easily enough, and she's not sure why her demon who used to be so full of hate regards her with tolerant amusement but she's grateful for it. She winds that thread through Gaara's mess of a seal, and prays that no one notices the flashes of orange in the sea of blue.

Natsu pushes and her chakra reacts, eats away at the seal stamped on Gaara's soul. His eyes go black, and Shukaku uses her friend's mouth to snarl, "Stupid cunt, you're going to regret this." She doesn't waste her breath responding, just snaps her chakra around them, corralling and containing Shukaku. She runs forward, slamming into Gaara's body and forcing him face down into the sand. She's done enough work on Gaara that she could probably trace his chakra system with her eyes closed, and her hands flash out at two points on his spine. His body goes limp, and Shukaku snarls, "I'm going to kill you first, going to tear you to pieces, make this stupid child watch while I crush your pretty face-"

"You talk too much," she says, and she has maybe ten seconds in between the seal's release and Shukaku getting out, ten seconds to apply a seal she's drawn a hundred times but never actually activated. The last of the ink fades from Gaara's skin, and she digs her knees into his shoulder blades and shoves his face down. She grabs the brush from her teeth and lightning quick inks the seal into the back of Gaara's neck, and it's not the five point, the five point is not faulty so much as susceptible to interference, and this one can't be. Her hands are steady while she adds the base design matrix, the containment lock, the chakra integration, the mental barriers, and if she were better this would be a simpler seal, would take less time, but she can't afford to take shortcuts with her friend's life.

Her time is up, and she slaps her hand against the back of Gaara's neck, takes control of the rolling chakra around them and condenses it. She digs her chakra into the seal, and it shines bright enough that she has to close her eyes against it - she wouldn't be surprised if someone could sense her chakra all the way in Konoha. Shukaku's scream bleeds into Gaara's as the black leaves his eyes, because seals applied to the soul fucking hurt, like a thousand hair-thin needles shoved all the way through the body.

It's working though; Shukaku's chakra folds back into Gaara's until it's gone. Gaara's panting underneath her, and Natsu cautiously gets off his back. "Ow," he says finally, and pushes himself to his knees. His light green eyes find hers as he rolls his shoulders back, "This is … different."

"Good different?" Natsu asks nervously, hauling him to his feet along with her.

He nods, "I cannot hear Shukaku. At all." A slow smile spreads across his face, "I have never been alone inside my own head before. Thank you."

Natsu squeals and does a backflip before she grabs Gaara in a hug, "Yay! I'm so happy you're okay!"

Temari and Kankuro dart forward, "Hey, make room!"

Natsu steps aside and rubs at her neck; it itches like a day old sunburn but last she checked she hadn't gotten one. Temari cups her brother's face, "Everything's okay? You're good now?"

"I am fine," Gaara smiles.

Kankuro ruffles his hair, "Good. When we get home you're going to take a huge nap."

"That sounds nice," the youngest sibling agrees wistfully.

Baki is staring at Natsu in horror. He looks to Gai who smiles wide, "She's quite an accomplished seal master, isn't she? Truly the fires of youth burn brightly within her."

Team Nine looks at their sensei incredulously before their eyes skitter back to Natsu, who is currently standing on Temari's shoulders to look over her fan.

"She – she's a," Baki closes his mouth, and darts his gaze between Natsu and Gaara. Gai blinks, and then slowly does the same.

"Ah," he says, "No, you're mistaken, Baki-san. She truly is just a very accomplished seal master."

Baki scowls, "I am not." Gai's eyes narrow.

The itch at he back of her neck increases to a general awareness, and Natsu freezes. She closes her eyes to concentrate, because it's been years since she felt this chakra. Maybe she's wrong, she hopes she's wrong, as desperately as she's missed him this would be the absolute worst time for a reunion. "Shit."

Gai slips into a defensive stance. "What is it?"

"Senpai," she answers. Gai pales. "He must have been nearby and felt our chakra. He's maybe thirty miles out, and approaching fast. He's not alone."

"Senpai?" Temari questions.

"Itachi Uchiha," she clarifies. She runs a considering eye over the gathered ninja, and they're strong, but Itachi singlehandedly killed every Uchiha when he was thirteen. They don't stand a chance.

Gai's obviously come to the same conclusion, "Retreat?"

"And lead him on a chase across open ground or back to Suna's civilian population?" She can maybe hold her own against Itachi for a couple of minutes, but only if she's alone. "Gai, Team Nine, return to Konoha at full speed. Cloak your chakra, give him nothing to follow."

"What about you?" Tenten blurts.

Natsu shakes her head, "I'll hold him off. You up to some dancing?" She waggles her eyebrows at Gaara.

He's exhausted, but takes a deep breath and straightens to his full height, "Of course, Natsu. Fighting alongside you is my pleasure."

"Liar," she says fondly.

"No," Gai says, and this is the most serious she's ever seen Kakashi's best friend. "I will not leave you behind. I refuse."

"Cool," she answers, grin sharp, "But that's an order." She's only a chunin, but she's the leader on this mission. His stony stare doesn't abate, and she sighs. "You have a genin team. Will you send them off on their own with no protection, possibly to be pursued by S-ranked missin-nin? Or will you have them stand with you so that they can die by your side? Maybe there'll be some pieces big enough to bring home to their families."

Gai flinches.

"Sensei," Lee says quietly, "Please come with us. Nami-san is a ninja of Konoha. Trust in her strength."

The jounin closes his eyes, but nods. "Stay strong, and stay safe," he says before leaving in the direction of Konoha, Team Nine a step behind him.

Natsu turns to Baki and the sand siblings. "No," Temari glares. "I won't leave you and my brother behind to die."

"I have a plan," Natsu placates, "No one is going to die today."

"Then I will stay and fight with you," she rests her hand on her fan.

Natsu shakes her head, "Temari, no. It's dangerous. We can't afford your death, not now. We're so close, you're so close."

"Close to what?" Baki snaps, looking in between the two teenage girls.

Natsu pauses, and they've got some time until Itachi arrives. He's not moving at his top speed, for some reason. "What are you loyal to, Baki?"

"I am a loyal ninja of Sunagakure!" His hands clench, and he looks to his students, "You're all hiding something from me, you've always been hiding something from me. What is it?"

Temari licks her lips, but says, "Are you loyal to the kazekage?"

"Of course! I just said that!"

"No," Kankuro shakes his head, "You said you were loyal to Suna."

"It's the same thing!" Baki insists.

"It should be," Temari says, "but it isn't. Our father seeks power, and he will go to any means necessary in order to have it. Including endangering the people of Suna. He uses his position as a means to an end, and Suna will crumble under him if he is not stopped."

"No!" Baki hisses, "You speak of treason! Against your own father! The kazekage would never!"

"Wouldn't he?" Gaara raises an eyebrow. "Clearly you know differently. You have not told Father of the times I have met with Natsu to keep Shukaku at bay."

Baki crosses his arms and looks away. Temari lays a gentle hand on his elbow, "Sensei, I believe you to be a good man and a loyal ninja of Sunagakure. Am I wrong?"

He meets his eldest student's hard eyes. "We'll discuss this later."

"Much later," Natsu agrees, "because you all should really get going now."

She switches her gaze to the other girl, "Natsu! This is dangerous. And stupid."

"Must be Wednesday," she shrugs. "Trust me, okay? Just – trust me."

Temari snarls, but tugs at her sensei's elbow, "Let's go." She undoes her fan and performs a quick wind jutsu to propel her forward. Kankuro and Baki follow her, the latter only hesitating a second.

Natsu swallows and meet's her friend's eyes. This is going to be hard enough to admit just to him, and she despairs that she doesn't have the strength or skill to pull this off on her own. "Gaara, there's something I have to tell you. And I probably should have told you before, and not left circumstances to force my hand like they are now. I understand if you're upset, but I just ask that you wait to see if we survive this before-"

"You are a jinchuuriki," he interrupts calmly.

Her mouth drops open. She coughs, "W-what?"

"You have a demon sealed inside of you, just as I do," he continues, a spark of amusement in his eyes. "Natsu, you are one of the best seal masters the world has ever seen. But not even you could performed a five point sealing at the age of ten without having intimate and personal experience with its design and function."

"Well, I was born a boy by the name of Naruto Uzumaki, and I've been using a ninjutsu to be a girl for the past eight years," she crosses her arms over her chest, "I bet you didn't know that."

His eyes widen, "Ah. No – no. I did not." He looks her over critically, "You don't look like a boy."

"I'm not," she says before frowning, "Well, I'm not one right now. I'll be one in a few minutes though, probably."

"Doesn't that get confusing?" he asks, bending down to pick up his robe and shake the sand out.

She squints before saying, "Not really. I'm still me whether I'm a boy or a girl or Natsu or Naruto."

"Okay," he nods. Pauses. "Is there a reason you are pretending to be a girl by the name of Natsu Nami?"

"I'm not pretending," she insists, "I am a girl! Natsu Nami is real, I even have an identification number."

He pull his robe on and then raises an eyebrow, waiting.

She sighs, then quirks her lips in a not quite a smile, "My village didn't treat me as well as yours does. A man assaulted and gutted me when I was five. Being Natsu is … easier."

The sand whips around them, precise and violent, and then just as quickly dies down. "Ah," he says, taking a deep breath. "Are you sure you do not want to defect to Suna?"

"Gaara!" She bops his nose, "Don't be silly. Konoha is my village and my home." He huffs and she smiles at him, softer and smaller than normal but just as genuine. "Thanks for being cool with – everything. I'm really happy you're not mad at me for not being honest with you."

"You are my friend," Gaara says warmly, "and you have always been honest about that."

---

Itachi wants to pull out his hair in frustration when he and Kisame arrive and the one tails container and Natsu are still there. He was going slow on purpose! She could have run – hell, with her Portal Seal she could have been all the way to Konoha.

"Senpai," she greets him, like nothing has changed at all, like the last time they saw each other he hadn't attacked her while dripping in his family's blood. "It's good to see you! I've been trying to follow the rumors, but they're all 'Itachi Uchiha slaughtered an army' and 'Itachi Uchiha is running around after demon containers!' Nothing to tell me if you're getting enough sleep or eating properly," she complains.

Kisame looks in between him and Natsu. "What the fuck?"

"We are here to capture the one tails and the nine tails," he says coldly. "You may surrender, or fight."

She falters, "Uh, nine tails?"

"I know who you are, Naruto Uzumaki," he says, and hadn't that been a shock when Akatski's tracking of the demons chakra had led them to Natsu. He doesn't want to capture her and he doesn't want to hurt her; he has been forced to kill enough loved ones.

"Oh," she taps her chin, "Then I guess there's no point in wasting the chakra, huh?"

She shifts, and her hair stays the same except it turns a bright sunshine yellow. Her eyes become the brightest blue that makes him think of the sun on the ocean, and whisker marks curve around an unfamiliar face. Naruto's jaw is broader, and his body wider, but he still manages to wear Natsu's clothes well, shoulders taking up the extra space in the chest.

Itachi's eyes widen, and Kisame takes a step back. Naruto's chakra, always so immense, has nearly doubled.

See, here's the thing: Oiroke no Jutsu requires a constant supply of chakra to maintain itself. As a complete physical change, it's the equivalent to an A-rank jutsu. Naruto had, since the age of five with his still developing chakra coils, been performing this jutsu. His chakra coils had adapted accordingly. Seven years of near constant use, and near constant drain, coupled with the slight mixing of Kurama's chakra had given him the available chakra roughly twice that of a kage.

Oiroke is the chakra equivalent of the Chidori. Imagine having the chakra to perform that technique again and again almost nonstop for years. Then imagine that constant waterfall of chakra normally directed to this task suddenly – isn't.

The Oiroke takes about thirty to fifty percent of Naruto's chakra to maintain. So when he drops it, he has the chakra capacity of nearly four kages.

Kisame turns to Itachi and repeats, "What the fuck?"

"I wasn't expecting that," he admits.

"I will handle the blue one," the one tails container says, "You deal with the Uchiha."

"Okay!" Naruto bounces on his heels, and then as one the jinchuuriki move. Kisame is put almost immediately on the defensive by the red head, the swordsman at a disadvantage while they're surrounded by all this sand.

Naruto stops about six feet from him. He has grown, and obviously he is different than the little girl Itachi remembers, but the smile is exactly the same. "I miss you," the boy says, "You don't look like you're sleeping enough."

"Will you surrender?" Itachi asks, and he doesn't want to fight his friend, but he also doesn't think he'll be able to stand by and watch as Akatsuki does – whatever they plan to do with him.

"Sorry," he shrugs, "I can't go with you. You could come home with me to Konoha though. Sasuke misses you too."

The mention of his little brother is just as good as a kunai to the chest. He glares and says, "Why would I ever go with you? I will only return to Konoha to burn it to the ground, and you have been lying to me since the day we met."

As if he gives a flying fuck about his friend's name or gender. But he'll do anything to make Naruto stop smiling at him, to stop him from talking like he still cares. Itachi's a murderer and for all the other boy knows a traitor, and he deserves nothing but death for what he's done to his clan, to his brother, to the boy standing across from him now.

Naruto's smile falters, "Ah, I – I guess that was fair. I deserved that."

Itachi can't take this anymore. "If you won't come willingly, I will make you." He runs forward, kunai aimed at his throat. Naruto twists out of the way so quickly that Itachi has to jerk to a stop. Naruto has gotten fast in the past half-decade, and with a chakra powered flip he lands on Itachi's head by his hands. The nostalgia hits him so powerfully that for a moment he's dizzy with it.

"I don't suppose you'll just let us go our separate ways? I don't want to fight you." Itachi would give almost anything not to hurt Naruto, but he has a cover to maintain. He slides the kunai up, and Naruto pushes off and out of the way, landing on his feet. "Kakashi-niichan is Sasuke's jounin sensei. They finally let him graduate this year."

Oh, thank god. Kakashi can handle his brother and train him, and maybe one day when this is all over Sasuke will be able to kill him. He doesn't care what Naruto says – Sasuke has to hate him, he killed their parents and abandoned him, left him the last of a once powerful clan. Itachi drives forward, and there's only so long he can go without using any jutsu before Kisame gets suspicious. "I do not care about my weak failure of a brother," he spits, "Nor do I care for you."

Naruto tries to dodge, but Itachi's kunai sinks into his chest below his collar bone. His eyes widen, because Naruto should have been able to dodge that, he was supposed to dodge that. Naruto wraps his hand around Itachi's over the kunai's hilt, Itachi's eyes jerk down. Naruto still wears the dark purple nin-polish that he got him for Natsu's tenth birthday. It's the same nin-polish Itachi wears, even though he does his very best not to think of why he bothers with such a small thing. Their hands are different, Itachi's pale and long while Naruto's are tan and still more the hands of a child than an adult, but their nails are the same color. "Liar," Naruto says softly. He pushes forward, pressing the kunai deeper into his chest, and Itachi's eyes widen. Blood drips from Naruto's mouth, "I forgive you."

Itachi produces a sound caught between a cry and a snarl, because his best friend is going to die on his kunai, and maybe that's what he deserves, but it's not what Naruto deserves.

"Ready!" The one tails container calls out, and Itachi glances over to see the boy panting and dancing out of the way of Kisame's sword.

Naruto pulls away, and if he'd weren't a jinchuuriki he'd bleed out in a few minutes with a wound like that. "See you later, Senpai. Stay strong, and stay safe."

Naruto's vast chakra swells and then narrows like a whip. Naruto and the redhead jump away, and then the sand around them swirls and hardens into a familiar pattern. Before he can call out a warning to Kisame, Naruto's chakra is activating the seal, nearly all of it being fed into the lines, and it's almost like the Portal Seal, but not quite. He feels the pressure building, and the seal is holding him where he is, he can't move his feet. The last thing he sees is Naruto swaying and falling to his knees, chest and mouth bloody.

When he opens his eyes next the sun has set, and it looks like he and Kisame have been deposited on the beaches of – he tilts his head, breathes deeply – of Kiri. He checks that Kisame is alive, but passed out, and then he throws his arm over his face and laughs.

---

When Gai feels Natsu's chakra double, he nearly trips. When he feels it surge forward, flicker, then fade to nothing he doesn't twitch, but ice pools in his stomach. He waits, not with bated breath because that's not an efficient use of oxygen, but when the minutes tick by to an hour and still nothing – and Natsu has enough chakra that even this far away he'd be able to sense it – he closes his eyes, just for a moment, and he mourns.

"Sensei?" Lee questions softly. Gai looks to Neji and Tenten bounding forward ahead of them, then back at Lee. He shakes his head, just once, and the boy's face fills with a sad understanding. "Oh."

---

"You're an idiot."

Naruto whimpers, then tentatively opens his eyes, "Why are you yelling?"

"I'm not yelling," Temari crosses her arms, "You deserve to be yelled at though. A kunai through the chest? Really? And what the hell seal was that?"

"Portal Seal variant," he says, feeling over his chest. It's whole, the skin there smooth and tender but unbroken. Sometimes being a jinchuuriki is awesome. He pushes himself up, and black spots dot his vision, but Temari puts an arm around his back and allows him to slump into her. "I kind of – altered it on the fly. It uh – I need to add some circulatory chakra redistribution next time, but I didn't really have the time to get fancy – especially cause I had Gaara draw it, and I love him, I do, but a seal master he is not."

"Right," Temari says. Pauses, "So you're a boy, huh?"

"Uh," he looks down at his chest, "Currently, yes. Sorry I didn't – I mean, it's not like I don't trust you. I do!"

"Shut up," she sighs, "I forgive you, I guess." She runs her hand through Naruto's hair, loose and nearly to his hips, the exact same as Natsu's except for the brilliant shade of yellow. "Are you hungry? You should be hungry, you've been out for five days."

His eyes widen and he twists to grab Temari's shoulders, "FIVE DAYS?"

She nods.

"I need a hawk right now," he moans, "Niichan is going to kill me!"

---

Gai sends his students off, and Lee looks at him for a long moment, half-sadness and half-disapproval. He'll tell the other two, he will, just – not today. He has to report to the hokage still, and – god, Kakashi, he has to tell Kakashi.

He ruffles Lee's hair and gives him a smile that's half grimace, and heads to the Hokage Tower. He's had to give this news before, and as much as it's weighing him down, it's not the most important news he has to give.

The kazekage is working with Orochimaru, their supposed ally with their most conspicuous missing-nin. Gai would give anything not to fight another war, but he doesn't think that anyone cares for his opinion on the matter.

Sarutobi isn't in, and he feels guilty at the relief that sweeps through his chest. He leaves his field report, written by firelight long after his genin had already fallen asleep, and follows the familiar pull of his best friend's chakra. When he comes upon Kakashi training his genin he almost hesitates, but maybe it's better this way. By telling them all at once he can spare Kakashi the pain of having to tell his students himself.

"Kakashi," he greets.

The man looks up from his book, and blinks. His genin have stopped trying to attack one another and are staring at him as well. "You're back early," he says.

Gai licks his lips. Kakashi snaps his books shut. "There was a … complication. We had to retreat."

"Your genin?" he asks, and Gai shakes head. Kakashi goes very still.

"Where's Natsu?" Sasuke demands, "Hinata said she went on a mission with your team." Kiba and Sakura settle at the Uchiha's shoulders, adding their fierce stares to their teammate's.

"There was a complication," he repeats, because like hell he's going to tell the kid that his older brother killed her. Nothing less than a direct order from the hokage himself could make him spit out that truth.

Kakashi's holding his book so tightly that he's begun to tear the cover. "What happened to Natsu?"

"She," he pauses because he doesn't know how to explain this without letting out classified information or destroying the young Uchiha permanently. A hawk's shrill cry cuts through his thought process, and all four ninja look up. A desert hawk circles above before landing on Gai's shoulder. It sticks out his leg, and Gai takes the small attached scroll, mystified. "It's blank."

"Add your blood and chakra," Sasuke says, and there's a heady relief in those dark eyes.

Gai stares at the scroll in disbelief, because there's no way, he felt Natsu's chakra sputter and fade to nothing, felt her die. With a sharp bite to his thumb and a surge of chakra the scroll unfurls. Written in Natsu's confident brushstrokes are the symbols for 'mission complete' and 'return to base in progresses. "She's alive," he says dumbly, "and on her way to Konoha."

Sakura cheers and throws her arms around Kiba. Kakashi smooths out the tattered remains of his book cover. "Gai?"

"Yes, my most youthful rival?" he says almost absentmindedly, greedily running his eyes over the smooth lines in Natsu's handwriting.

"Run."

Gai drops the letter and flees, Kakashi hot on his heels.

---

It's probably a good thing that she hadn't had enough chakra to take a Portal Seal back, because Natsu is maybe two hours from Konoha's gate when she finds a boy of about fourteen bleeding face down in the dirt.

She drops down from the trees, head tilted to the side. He's got dark hair, pale skin under all the other blood, and a midriff baring shirt. There's a hole through his abdomen that should have killed him, and yet. She tentatively pokes him with her foot. He doesn't respond, so she crouches down, and he's not wearing any village emblems, just like Natsu hadn't on her mission to Kiri. He's breathing, just barely, but it's rattling wet in his chest which she knows isn't good. "Damnit," she sighs, and her hands flare with green chakra. She slides it over the boy's sides and up around his head, basic battle triage jutsu to repair just enough so she can move him. Anything involving internal organs is way past her abilities. She flips him over, and her eyes widen, because there's no mistaking that coloring and bone structure.

Natsu doesn't know how the fuck there's another Uchiha that no one felt the need to tell her about, but whether he's a Konoha ninja or not there's no way in hell she's letting an Uchiha bleed out alone in the forest. She lifts the boy up in a bridal hold, and he's taller than she is, so it's super awkward, but considering the gently bleeding hole through his torso she can't risk throwing him over her shoulder.

His eyes snap open, and even though he's more dead than alive he manages to twist out of her hold and sweep her feet out from under her. "Hey! I'm trying to help you!" He's on her with a kunai to her neck, mostly out of her reluctance to hurt him more. He's lying on top of her, and the burst of adrenaline must already be fading it because it's clear he's on her because he can't support his own body weight.

"Who? What?" His words are slurred, and Natsu gently pulls the kunai away from them both.

"I am Natsu Nami," she says clearly, "I am a chunin of Konoha, Uchiha-san. I'm not your enemy."

"Uchiha?" His eyes sharpen and catch hers, "I'm not Uchiha."

She stares, "Right. Look, you're really hurt, so I'm going to take you to the hospital-"

"No hospitals!" He grabs clumsily at her face, "Don't! Just leave – leave me here! I'll die, die with – with," his eyes fog over and he slumps, his chin hitting her shoulder hard enough to make her wince.

On one hand, there's no way in hell she's leaving him to die. On the other hand, considering the nondescript uniform, there may be a very real mission-related reason not to bring him to the hospital.

She sighs, and creates two kage bunshin, "Go get Hana and Kabuto and take them to my place. And for the love of god be subtle about it."

"Sure thing," the one on the left says, "But, uh, do you want some help with that?" She gestures to the unconscious teenager.

"No," Natsu carefully pulls both herself and the boy up, and this time when she's got him back in her arms he doesn't jerk away, "Now go."

She follows her clones at a slower pace, careful of the wounded shinobi who's blood is slowly seeping into her own clothes.

---

"I hate you," Hana says vehemently, sweat dripping down her brow.

Kabuto nods, and he's always been the better medic-nin so he's doing the extremely delicate process of regenerating sections of the kid's small intestine while she's clearing out his lungs.

"Hey," Natsu pouts, "At least it's not me this time!" She's at the head of her own bed with one hand rhythmically moving through the boy's hair.

"That's only because you were in Suna!" She doesn't risk looking away to glare at Natsu, "Kiba told me that Gai thought you were dead. Care to tell us why?"

"Not really," she says, then shifts in her seat. "I saw Itachi-senpai. He doesn't look like he's sleeping enough."

They both pause, and Hana can't look away right now, this is fucking precise work, but she wants to scream. "Did Itachi try to kill you?"

"Am I still alive or not?" she retorts, "If Senpai wanted me dead I would be."

"Well Gai was convinced you were, so," she finally finishes and wipes the sweat from her face.

Natsu scoffs, "Itachi put on a very good show of trying to kill me, but it was just a show."

The boy's stomach finally closes over, the skin pink and new. Kabuto, no longer focused on the precise sort of medical jutsu more appropriate for someone of Tsunade's level, whips his head up and glares, "You sound very certain for someone who nearly died for the sake of said show."

"He didn't use any jutsu. He didn't even use the Sharingan. If Senpai wanted me dead I would be," she repeats firmly.

"Well," Kabuto raises his arms over his head cracks his spine, "Clearly Itachi can make mistakes. How else could you have dragged us away from our dinner to save some Uchiha kid?"

All their eyes skitter back to the sleeping boy.

---

After thanking Kabuto and Hana profusely and promising to buy them so much alcohol, Natsu finds herself alone with the pale boy. She'd noticed the thick clump of chakra at the top of his throat before, but with him bleeding out in her arms it hadn't exactly been a priority. Now she swallows and then very carefully tips his head back and pushes his mouth open. The seal on his tongue is simple, but grotesque. Her chakra still hasn't fully recovered, it's a little more than half of what it should be, but she can't let this lie, so she reaches out and lights up the seal matrix under the ink. That swirl connects the voice box to the heart, this dash makes the heart explode, these conjoining lines aren't necessary, really, and they're actually in the way of the mark that pulls the chakra from the person's own coils, so they must be hiding something –

"Huh," she says softly, "I wasn't expecting that."

She closes his mouth and sets his head back down. She should let him rest, she should really let him rest, he'd nearly died, and she knows from personal experience that's not pleasant.

"Sorry," she says. She lays a hand against his chest and spikes his chakra with her own. His eyes fly open and he shoots up, coughing. "Easy, easy! You're okay!"

She holds him up by his shoulders until he stops hacking, and she'd forgotten how unpleasant newly healed lungs felt. When his breaths ease she guides him back so he's lying down. "What?" He looks around, quickly and efficiently before his eyes land on her. "You were supposed to let me die!"

"What's your name?" Natsu asks, and she keeps a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Give me a kunai and I'll do it myself!" he insists.

She rolls her eyes, "Look, I just dragged my friends from dinner to heal you, and it look literal hours, so they'll be pissed if you die."

"Healed?" He presses his hand against his stomach, and his eyes widen, "Talented friends."

"I'll tell them you said so," she agrees, "Now: name."

"Where am I?"

Natsu would shake him if he didn't look so honestly confused. "You're in my apartment. You said not to take you to a hospital, so I didn't."

"I also said to let me die," he points out.

She shrugs, "You win some you lose some." He looks at her like she's insane, but she gets that looks a lot. "Name. Then I'll let you get some sleep."

His hand is still pressed to where the hole in his abdomen used to be, and he looks oddly fragile, "Is this is a test?"

"Yes," she snarls, "One question long. Name?"

He's staring at her, and with those eyes she doesn't know how he thinks he's anything but Uchiha. "Sai. They call me Sai."

"Thank you," she says, and her chakra flares green. Sai's eyes roll back in his head and he goes limp.

Technically that jutsu is supposed to be used to knock out trauma patients so they can be transported safely, but hey – whatever works.

---

"You're not as sneaky as you think you are."

Natsu startles, then freezes as two feet land softly on her shoulders. She looks up, and Sasuke stares down at her, one eyebrow raised. "Well," she says, "this is a change of pace." She looks around, and she's been keeping to the lower level roofs, the shadows should have cloaked her. "How did you know I was here?"

Sasuke jumps off of her, but without the backflip Natsu would have added, personally. "I was over the eleventh training ground, and I sensed your chakra. It's not like it's subtle."

"What are you doing at a training ground? It's nearly two in the morning!"

"What are you doing trying to sneak about Konoha?" he asks, "It's nearly two in the morning." His smirk slides into a smile, just for a moment, "It's good to have you back in the village." Sasuke doesn't say he missed her, but it's implied.

She giggles and pokes his forehead, and he doesn't even look crushed this time. "The middle of the night is the perfect time for sneaking!"

"Natsu," he says patiently.

She twists her lips, "I don't want to get you in trouble." But it has to do with him, it all has to do with him, and she's going to have to tell him that she saw Itachi.

"I'm a shinobi, and I can make my own decisions," he says, "Let me help."

Well, if he's going to be logical about it. "Councilman Danzo is an amoral, criminal asshole."

He blinks, "You didn't have to answer my obvious statement with an equally obvious one."

"What I mean is, I'm breaking into his office to paw through his files," she crosses her arms, "Are you still in?"

Sasuke sighs and rubs his hand over his face, "You're insane. We could be court martialed and killed."

"Only if we get caught," she says reasonably, "You don't have to come. You probably shouldn't come."

"Well, if we get caught we're not very good ninja anyway." He jumps over to the next roof.

Natsu grins so wide it feels like it's going to break her face before hurrying after him.

She's well aware that Danzo's airy office on the eighth floor of the Hokage Tower is perfectly useless, and the one in his home probably isn't much better. The one in the basement of the Hokage Tower, however, is promising.

"How do you even know this is here?" Sasuke murmurs.

Explaining that it had been hidden in the complex system of key words and phrases disguised under a cross-linked mental seal (a Yamanaka had to have helped develop it) as a trigger to a murder jutsu sounded exhausting even in her head. "Later," she promises instead.

There aren't any guards, which makes them both uncomfortably suspicious until they come upon the door.

"Ah," Sasuke says.

"Fancies himself a seal master, doesn't he?" Natsu runs a careful hand over the intricate design of explosion tags. "I could maybe reverse engineer these," she says, because they're effective if not very elegant.

"You could," Sasuke agrees, "You could also just short them out with your chakra. They'll reactivate in a couple minutes, but considering it would probably take you a couple months to reverse engineer them successfully…"

"Do you know how much chakra that would take?" she demands, because Sasuke is supposed to be the smart one.

He shrugs, "Less than you have."

She blinks, takes stock of her current chakra levels, and while they're certainly still recovering, she could probably do it and not be too badly off. "Whatever," she scowls and knocks her shoulders into Sasuke's. She breathes out slowly, then gathers and condenses her chakra, and whips it against the seals like she's performing kai. The seals light up, spark, then fade.

She sways; that was still more chakra than she's used at her current levels, and for a second she's afraid her Oiroke is going to fail and that's not a conversation she wants to have in the middle of Root headquarters.

Sasuke wraps an arm around her waist and tugs her forward, "Come on," he turns the doorknob, and the door creaks open, "Arrogant asshole didn't even lock it."

The office is neat to the point of being sterile. Sasuke lets go of her and starts opening the drawers of Danzo's desk, "What are we looking for?"

"Anything to do with Root missions in the past five years," she says absently, because she's actually looking for something specific, but she'd have to explain Sai in general before even getting into looking for his birth records. Besides, it's not like that won't be useful anyway. "It's an illegal branch of Anbu that's he's been operating."

"Right," he mutters, and he starts sifting through files in the first cabinet. They're labeled alphabetically, not chronologically, which means Sasuke is properly distracted while she reaches for the 'U' drawer.

It's probably too much to hope for that there's a helpful little file tagged 'Uchiha, Sai' but a girl can try. She never gets that far, however, because her fingers stutter over a thick folder labeled 'Uchiha, Extermination.'

She glances over at Sasuke, who already has a few files tucked under his arms, then swallows. She pulls the folder out and flips it open randomly. Itachi-senpai's small, neat writing fills the page, and she snaps it shut.

"Natsu?" She turns, and Sasuke is definitely looking at her now, "What's wrong?"

She opens her mouth, and then she's not sure if it's a blessing or a curse when she senses four powerful chakra signatures coming toward them, "We need to go. They know we're here."

"How?" Sasuke slams the drawer shut and stuffs his files down the back of his pants. Natsu pulls up her shirt, and unwraps just enough of her breast bindings to tie the folder to her stomach. Sasuke growls, and points to the ground. Natsu follows his finger, and there's a security seal there that they must have activated by stepping on it. "Not so arrogant after all."

"Come on," she says, breathless. She grabs a pen off of Danzo's desk, and this is going to be the sloppiest work of her life, but she doesn't care. She inks half the seal on her own hand, then grabs Sasuke's to do the other half on his. "This is going to use about the last of my chakra," unless she wants to drop the Oiroke, which she doesn't, this is so far from the time for that, "Don't panic about the guy in my bed, and promise me you won't read the file under my shirt without me, okay?"

"Guy in your bed?" he repeats.

"Promise me!" Natsu stamps her foot, and this is a small Portal Seal, if they were a few miles closer and she didn't have to worry about them following their chakra she might be able to body flicker instead, but it will still take the last of the chakra she has.

Sasuke frowns, "Okay, okay! I promise I won't look at the files without you."

She grabs Sasuke's hand so the seals match up, "Hold on." She squeezes once, then activates the Portal Seal.

When the Root Anbu arrive in the office seconds later, the only mark of their presence is the pen missing from Danzo's desk.